Audiobook Giveaway Announcement

I have 3 full sets of the Coming Apart, Coming Closer, and Coming Together audiobooks to give away. I've been meaning to do this since I got my full series author codes, the time just keeps getting away from me. 

Tantor Media, my production partner for the series, did a really excellent job. I have a hard time listening to them, because the voices of my characters are so strong in my head, but several trusted friends - who've read the books - have told me that they're good and I believe them. (I did listen to the samples, and yes, they are, but that's as far as I could go.)

This is an international giveaway because it's a digital download through Spotify (you only need a free account to access). Winners will be announced in my June 30 newsletter and on July 1 here.

Entry is only for those who've read and reviewed at least one of my books. Send me a screenshot of a review that you've left to be entered. (It can be recent, and because of the contest. No judgement!)

I know that leaving reviews can be a pain, but they are the social proof that lets new readers know that my books are worth picking up. Because time is precious, and life is too short to read the wrong books.

If you have a review to submit, please email it to me at karen @ karenheenan . com (without spaces). Thank you, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Mom, Cover Model

I mentioned last week that I wanted ot use those old photos of my mom somehow on the cover for Bright Spark. It finally occurred to me how to do it.

My original plan had been to have a two-person photo on the cover, because the main characters are Grace and her cousin, Teddy. I couldn't find a family photo that worked. I couldn't find a stock photo that worked and looked vintage enough. And vintage stock photos? Forget it.

Not sure what your feelings are on AI. I'm in the middle of the road. I've used it to make my life easier - it's a good jumping off point for research and it helps me with advertising copy and book blurbs - but I'd never use it to help me write, because even when it's hard, writing is the FUN PART. When it stops being fun, I'll stop writing. I don't want it to feel like a job.

So I asked Google Gemini to make a photo for me. Black-and-white, early 1950s clothing. Young man and woman, fully described, sitting back to back, with the feel of old movies like His Girl Friday. Snarky workplace comedy, lots of banter, etc. It did a pretty good job, but the faces were a bit generic.

That's where Mom comes in. After I posted her photos last week, I decided to ask Gemini to overlay her face on the existing girl. Keep the girl's hair, because Mom was just a little too fluffy. Having a vivid expression on "Grace" makes the more generic face of "Teddy" work just fine. He's not as vivacious as she is, and he does look a bit like a catalog model.

So that's the photo that will be used as the main cover element. Part AI creation, part famiy photo, all my ideas behind it. I don't have as much issue with creating photographs with AI as I would art - art is going to be based on all the existing art it has digested, same as writing. There would be elements of someone else in it. But a photo doesn't feel quite the same. Or maybe that's me justifying, but either way, I'm happy with the result.

What are your thoughts? Is this a reasonable use of AI? Are you completely anti? Cautiously pro? I'd like to know. It's not a conversation that can be easily had in author spaces.

Mother's Day, a bit late

I posted this on Facebook five years ago. It still says what I want to say:

Genevieve (Gene) Madeline Burt Heenan Spain, 1932-2006.

Larger than life, not close to normal, loveable but not always likeable, inspiration for stories I will dine out on for the rest of my life. Never wanted kids but more or less figured out mothering by the time I was grown.

It's your day, Ma. Whether you're up, down, or somewhere in between, I hope you find someone to torment.

She's been on my mind lately because - well, because mothers - but also because her turn is finally coming as a "face" on one of my book covers. I'll share the final result here when I have it, but this is the photo I'm working from. She was about 21 at that point, the same age as my main character, and she was just as "too much" as you would think by looking at that photo.

I'm always reminded of Judy Garland's character in Meet Me in St. Louis, who, when told by her sister that kissing boys would rob her of her bloom, said, "Personally, I think I have too much bloom."

Garden season

It's been hard to decide when to start because our weather has been all the seasons all the time. When we got home from vacation in early April, it was in the 80s for 2-3 days. It hasn't approached that since, but instead has dipped down well into the 40s quite a few nights.

Which frustrates my desire to get plants into the ground. I did plant a tomato about 2 weeks ago and I've been babying it like a ... well, like a baby, if you put a bucket over a baby at night to keep it warm.

But on Saturday, we drove out to a new plant popup shop a few miles away, and I went a little overboard. Except not? All their veggies and herbs were priced at $2.99, buy 4 get 1 free. So I spent $44 and filled every raised bed in the yard but one that I'm saving for a specific tomato that no one has yet.

I've also expanded operations into the yard next door. They're letting me plant the strip beds along the garage and the fenceline in exchange for my husband cutting the grass. They don't live there full time, so he usually does it; this way I'm getting dirt out of the deal.

I just don't think I'll be planting along the fenceline. When I went to the back of the yard Saturday, I noticed the fence was tilting into my rear neighbor's yard. The fence between us and the absentee neighbor was already in bad shape. The problem in the back, apparently, was the neighbor's sons have extremely good aim for their age and had sent multiple rubber balls onto our garage roof, where they washed down the spout and clogged the rain barrel opening. Thatt caused it to overflow and turn that corner into a marsh, which in turn destabilized the base of the barrel and caused it to lean agianst the fence. Which, being 40ish years old, didn't appreciate said leaning.

The work will be divided appropriately, but I'm on the hook for contractor wrangling, being on-site and not having kids to deal with. Currently browsing Facebook groups and pestering neighbors about fencing contractors. Affordable and respectful of garden spaces.

Bruges: bits and pieces

Some of the best parts of traveling are the odd, unexpected things that you stumble upon while walking.

We did a lot of that.

Because Bruges used to be a walled city, it is still surrounded by a "ring road" with a surrounding canal. The area around it is filled with either green space, medieval city gates, or windmills. There are occasional modern roads - although the city itself doesn't have a lot of traffic - and on the other side of the ring, you can see the unfortunate architecture that Bruges' building code does not allow.

The vehicles pictured here tickled me. The beer delivery bike, the other delivery vehicle with the (very real) dog inspecting it from inside, the former bike-now-serving-area. 

And the trees. The bizarre, pollarded trees. I know that once the leaves come in, they'll look fine, if a bit geometric, and that it's a pruning style that controls growtht, but all I want to say whenever I see one of them is, "Who hurt you?"

Nothing you'd see back home, which is what I want to see when I'm away.

On the streets of Bruges

Because the forecast was cold and rainy, I had to pack more sweaters than I normally would have. Last year in Paris at thsi same time, I was wandering around withoutt a jacket. This year, sweaters and my winter coat.

So I couldn't bring as many goodies home as I would normally have done, but that's oaky. Photos are my favorite souvenirs anyway.

Not that I let it stop me from window shopping. Bruges has lovely shops, and because they have a lot of gray and rainy weather before the spring breaks through, they have a whimsical way of decorating the exteriors of businesses with fake flowers. It's totally ridiculous and charming and made me smile.

Also quite a few of the shop windows did the same. Being in a chocolate town right before Easter meant that the chocolatier's windows were top-tier. I tried to get as many of them as I could.

Bruges: the city

Considering how nearby towns such as Ypres were completely flattened during WWI (the Flanders battlefields are also close by, though we decided not to repeat the 1914 experience of visiting trenches in mud season), Bruges is one of the few medieval cities left in Europe that remains almost entirely intact.

This feat is attributed to a combination of economic bad luck in the 16th century, which kept the town from being razed and rebuilt in more modern forms. The harbor silted up, and without a direct route from the sea, the commerce that kept Bruges afloat for centuries disappeared - along with the money. No one was going to demolish medieval houses with fairytale, stairstep rooflines and build grand boulevards in a town with no commercial value.

Yay for that.

Then, the wars. Bruges was occupied by Germany in 1914, not long after the beginning of WWI. They obviously weren't going to demolish their own base. The Allies did a lot of damage to nearby ports, where German submarines were kept, but by then, the value of the undamaged medieval architecture had begun to be acknowledged, and the Allies declined to be the ones to damage the town.

During 1944, Bruges was almost caught in the German retreat. As they fell back, thtey desttroyed roads and bridges to slow the approaching Allied armies. When they left Bruges, however, the Canadian Army was so hot on their heels that they just... let it go.

So Bruges exists as it does - as it did - because of a confluence of events no one could have predicted.

In the 1970s, the town really buckled down to what it was, and instituted a rigid building code that any new construction had to fit in with the existing aestthetic. They were successful. Bruges is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and well worth the visit.