efoodie

Marley's 4 Book Deal!!!!!!

        I have to interrupt my regular programming here to announce that my very good friend Marley Gibson, SOLD FOUR BOOKS!!!!!!

        Marley and I joined our local RWA writer's chapter a few years ago at the same time.  While I've been dabbling, and dreaming about writing and talking about it, and starting and stopping several manuscripts, Marley has been 'just doing it'.  She has written and completed multiple manuscripts, in the chick lit, women's fiction and YA genres.  She's had a few really close calls, and rotten luck/timing with lines closing or changing focus.  But, she also has an amazing agent, Deidre Knight, of the Knight Agency, who loves Marley's writing voice, believes in her and has championed her work in the way one can only dream that an agent will do.

All of her hard work and persistence paid off this week when her YA proposal and sample chapters wowed the editors at Penguin's Puffin imprint, and they offered her a 4 book deal. Here's the official announcement from Publisher's Marketplace,

CHILDREN'S: YOUNG ADULT
Debut author Marley Gibson's four untitled books in a series about a group of collegiate sorority sisters, to Angelle Pilkington and Karen Chaplin at Puffin, in a nice deal, by Deidre Knight at The Knight Agency (world.)

I read these sample chapters, and the story is wonderful!  She is going to be busy writing for the rest of this year, as these books will be coming out close together, which should help launch the series and a fantastic writing career!

Yay Marley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:) Pam, who is just giddy with excitement, and looking forward to celebrating tomorrow!

Powerful Pancakes....

  So, I had this thought the other day, after making breakfast at my sister's, that it would be really cool and oh so impressive to memorize the recipe for pancakes, and then casually whip up a batch sometime. But as thoughts often do, this one flitted away, until this morning, when it popped up again. I spent the weekend at a writer's retreat, at a friend's house in Chatham, on Cape Cod. One of the girls, who is hobbling around on a broken foot, mentioned rather wistfully that she'd just love some pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Well, since our hostess was a vegetarian, I knew the bacon was out of the question, but I rather cockily announced that I knew how to make pancakes from scratch. I rattled off the ingredients and then my friend scrunched up her eyebrows, and said, "and a cup of oil, right?"

"A cup of oil!" God, no. I don't think so. Is there oil? Is there that much oil? Shit. I couldn't remember for the life of me if the damn pancakes needed oil.

It turned out that someone  had brought coffee cake, so we were happy and got our sweet fix.

But it got me thinking again about the pancake recipe as I drove home. It was just last weekend that I visited my sister and nieces, and was quite impressed when sister who is not known for cooking, wowed me with the simplest, easiest recipe for pancakes. She makes them all the time, and after watching and learning, I can see why. They're excellent, and couldn't be easier. At any given time you probably have all the ingredients on hand, except blueberries, if you want to add those, and I always do. Nothing like a fresh blueberry pancake where the plump berries explode in the batter and turn the pancakes blue. Just delicious. 

This is ridiculously easy, and it doesn't have any oil.

Just think, next time you visit someone, you can get up early and casually wow them with this simple recipe.

No. 1 Pancakes (everything is measured by 1, super easy to remember) 2-3 servings

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar (we don't like them too sweet, since we're adding syrup & berries)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 cup blueberries (or raspberries, bananas, strawberries, etc.)

Mix everything until well blended in large bowl. Drop by half cup fulls onto buttered skillet over medium heat. Cook a few minutes on each side, until well browned. Serve with additional butter, and maple syrup.

:) Pam