Cain’s Version: A Novel (Turner Publishing) will be available Oct. 15, 2008
This sweeping first novel by Frank Durham skillfully interweaves the story of the Bible’s first family with the lives of a community today. The beautiful prose will be especially prized by readers with a sophisticated appreciation of a literary style.
Unlike the recently popular subgenre of literature that considers little known females’ lives’ in the Bible, such as The Red Tent and Sarah: A Novel, this piece of literature delves into the lives of very well-known and documented Old Testament figures including Eve, Cain and Abel. The novel explores Cain’s perspective through all of history. The narrative incorporates the stories of a modern woman, Lindy Caton, middle-aged, attractive and recently divorced who is a not-for-profit executive, three strange poor old women, and an unusual little boy with a single mother – all whom become entangled with Cain. The unlikely relationships that develop have cataclysmic repercussions for all.
To say that Durham’s first work of fiction is ambitious is an understatement. This is a book to recommend for the difficult to satisfy intellectual customer.
In a previous blog I mentioned that Craig of Craigslist would be a guest on On The HomeStretch with Debbie Alan.
Here is a link to hear the interview. Enjoy!
Chris Elden and her merry band of “Roasters” (Q&A hosts for authors) have a quick, witty style that makes me hungry for their next feast of authors (puns intended). At the end of each month this blog hosts authors that are game to banter with fans of their books and fans of the site throughout a whole day.
The Book Roast blog is live for 5-days a month, but the archive is plenty fun to peruse any time.
Susan McBride, author of The Debs, was a guest last week, click this icon to read more of how she did her best to “help” her host with his quest to become a debutante,
Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. is “marinating” right now to be a guest at the end of September. Here’s the upcoming schedule:
Marinating for September
Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page
Bill Cameron
Danette Haworth
Donna Storey
Jason Pinter
Ray Wong
Sara Thacker
Susan Gilmore
Our Contests Use Only the Finest Ingredients
We slice and serve one author a day for fun and prizes and a good, old fashioned roasting. First, we whet your appetite with a short excerpt from the author’s book, followed by three questions loosely related to the passage. Some questions are silly, others are straightforward and the rest are plain crunchy. For dessert, the author picks the winner who answers the most questions correctly – or the most creatively. We like spice, but some authors prefer things sweet, which makes Book Roast deliciously unpredictable.
The prize: a free copy of the author’s book (and an occasional surprise!)
Best of all, authors will pop into the blog throughout the day to answer questions, share a laugh and toss out some insider tidbits.
Thursday night was beautiful in Centennial Park. The park was filled with people on their cell phones and parking lots were filled with cars of people holding laptops — huh?
Word was out that at 6:15 p.m. the 3rd and final clue for the Nashville Treasure hunt would be posted on the Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers website. People on cell phones had family and friends at home watching the website, people in cars were refreshing their laptop screens to see the clue as soon as it was posted. At exactly the appointed time we watched waves of people start running through the park to the area with the quaint stone bridge in the flower garden at the park.
A handful of people were craning their necks under the bridge.
By 6:18 someone yelled “I found it” and took off running.
Bip and Mandy became gold medal winners after days of searching the park for the faux-gold coin that they will trade to Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers for a gold coin that they can keep or sell back to the company for $500.
Plenty of treasure hunters came up and congratulated the winners and were enthusiastic to learn that another treasure would be hidden in Nashville in the near future.
Among the neatest thing to come from this treasure hunt were the terrific emails we got from hunters. A mother and daughter who spent quality time together hunting for the coin in earnest, a young mother who enjoyed the thrill of the seek while getting her babies out in strollers to enjoy the fresh air, and people who just wrote to say thank you for creating a fun distraction from the routine of every day living in a down economy.
Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist, will be the featured guest of Debbie Alan on On The HomeStretch internet radio program on Friday, Aug. 22 — 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time, 10:30 a.m. Central Time! I’ve been on the show talking about this terrific website, which I believe every single person can benefit from in one way or another at some point.
Don’t miss it!
Want more Craig? Visit his blog.
The final clue will take hunters directly to the location of the treasure within minutes. The Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers’ Nashville Treasure Hunt for the gold coin clue will be posted on Thursday, August 21 at 6:15 p.m. on their website www.cashvillegold.com
There have been more than 30,000 hits to the Cashville website since the Treasure Hunt was announced 11 days ago. There have been heart warming stories of families of all ages hunting together, folks learning more about the history of Nashville…. lots of other terrific things have come of this. More stories will be told after the gold is found.
If you have a blackberry of cell phone with internet service, on Thursday head to where the clues have led you so far (pretty much everybody has figured out in general where the coin is!). My guess is that the hunt will be over by 6:20 p.m. that evening.
Want to see the original article announcing the hunt? Click here.
It’s been fun to launch this first Treasure Hunt and we’ll be doing a second one!
The Treasure Hunt for the gold coin in Nashville is taking on a life of it’s own!
The SECOND CLUE has been posted and you can see it if you go to the Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers‘ website.
Evidently there are more than 20,000 treasure seekers hunting morning, noon and night out in public for the gold coin.
We’ve had reports of folks with flashlights refusing to give up when the sun goes down!
I’ve received all kinds of incentives and offers to help people locate the Cashville treasure (since this is my client)…l can’t do that obviously (makes me wonder since they asked if they even thought I might really entertain the idea?!) BUT I can give you another suggestion to probably get at least $500 out of Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers — head to 2528 Franklin Rd. in the Berry Hill/Melrose areas with as much old, unused gold and silver as you have and you’ll get money on the spot! Or you can call and make an appointment at 615.297.1600.
Happy Hunting!
Bookscreening, a website, combines two of my favorite things — book and movies…OK, booktrailers aren’t exactly movies, but they’re a really fun way to get a sense of whether you want to read a new book or not.
Many of the authors for whom I do publicity have booktrailers (or are pecked to death by me if they don’t — we work together on them). Booktrailers help promote books in all kinds of cool ways — it’s almost the best new calling card these days introducing yourself to a festival panel and bookstore owners and sellers as well being available on the web for general consumption.
Bookscreening is bookmarked on my computer — you may get hooked too if you check it out.
Virginia Boyd had an book and media tour through Tennessee this week and charmed all of her fans.
So many who had read One Fell Swoop in the audience at Davis-Kidd in Nashville on Tuesday evening said that they had loved the book when they read it, but that Virginia’s wonderful accent made it irresistable. Here’s hoping that it will be released eventually on CD as well as soft cover.
There was a great crowd in Nashville and Bev Peery and Ginger Nalley were on hand to greet everybody! Terrific authors such as Gary Slaughter, Michael Lee West and Darnell Arnoult, who has been in a writing group with Virginia for years, as well as other guests joined us afterward for a party al fresco afterward hosted by Susan Gregg Gilmore and me.
Debbie Alan and Virginia had a delightful chat about the book and Virginia’s odysee as an author on On The HomeStretch - check it out.
Book Talk on WYPL radio in Memphis will air a fun interview with Virginia scheduled for the week of Sept. 8. She talks a little about the hilarious journey of exploration for two adult sisters who drive across country with their dead mother in the front seat in order to bury her in the shadow of Elvis’ home in Gone To Graceland which is her upcoming book. The sisters have taken two very different paths in lives and this book delves into the choices women have as well as tapping in to the fascinating world of the proactive fans of Elvis.
It was fun to be in Memphis during the Elvis 2008 week which commemorates the death of the King of Rock and Roll and draws fans to Graceland from all over the world — people watching was fascinating, complete with several Elvis impersonators.
Gold fever seems to be taking over Nashville. Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers, my client, is giving the winning sleuth a 1/2 oz. genuine gold coin (you’re not likely to run across one on your own!) to either keep and save or sell back to the company on the spot. With gold flirting with $1,000 per ounce, there are some folks, normally unlikely to sneak around the city in search of treasure, who have told me they are obsessed with finding the coin. Disclaimer: I can’t lead you to the gold, so don’t even try…
If all goes as planned, this will just be the first of several Treasure Hunts sponsored by Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers. Of course, anyone can go on their own lucrative treasure hunt by going through their own homes and cleaning out their drawers of old gold and silver (it can be broken, twisted, it doesn’t matter because it’s sold to be melted down) and bringing it to the Cashville offices, 2528 Franklin Road, to exchange for money right then.
Here’s the article that Nicole Young, reporter for The Tennessean, published on Friday about the treasure hunt:
Berry Hill business launches treasure hunt
Gold coin worth $500 to finder is hidden in citywide contest
Somewhere in Nashville, a “gold” coin worth $500 awaits discovery, hidden in a very public place that’s somehow relevant to the city’s history.
The person who finds it has a choice to make: keep this coin or trade it in for the $500.
pirates-and-buried-treasure-hunt movie or book, it’s because it is exactly that.
Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers, 2528 Franklin Road in Berry Hill, is launching a citywide treasure hunt on Aug. 8. The reason, according to planners Josh Levine, Cashville’s president, and Julie Schoerke, owner of the JKS Communications public relations firm, is mostly because of the economy.
“Lots of contests have started in giving away $50 gas cards, but we thought it was much more fun to have a $500 real gold coin to give away,” Schoerke said. “With the economy suffering, what could be better than to win a prize that could pay some significant bills, and the winner gets to decide just how to use it, and they aren’t just stuck with a gas card if they’d rather spend it on utility bills or something fun that they’ve always wanted.”
Cashville builds on ‘gold fever’
Levine said that he came up with the initial idea by observing customers at Cashville, stating that many customers often come in to sell, then develop “gold fever.”
“I thought a hunt would be a great way to expand on that gold fever, and, at the same time, it would also be a way to get people to realize that they could also go on a treasure hunt in their own homes,” Levine said. “Sometimes, they have gold or silver that they don’t even wear anymore, and it could be worth as much, if not more, than this gold coin we’re hiding.”
At Cashville, it doesn’t matter what kind of shape gold or silver is in, Levine said. The metal is purchased based on market value. Currently, gold is worth about $1,000 per ounce.
For the treasure hunt, Levine decided to use a half-ounce gold U.S.A. Eagle coin, but that’s not what people will find if they discover the location of the treasure.
“We’re using a replica,” Levine said. “It will be an obviously fake coin. We want people to purposely find it and bring it back here instead of accidentally finding and keeping a $500 gold coin out there.”
Hunt will be first of several
If the first hunt is a success, Levine and Schoerke plan to do subsequent hunts and keep doing them as long as they’re popular, they said.
That’s music to the ears of Ted Clayton, a West End resident who recently found out about the contest through a friend.
Although he is not a customer of Cashville, Clayton said he’d “love to find the coin so (he) could become one.”
“All we read about in the newspaper today is doom and gloom,” Clayton said. “This is new and different, and it’s just positive and fun. Besides, who doesn’t love a scavenger hunt?”
Clayton, who owns Ted Clayton Interiors in Green Hills, says he’s planning to go out and search the minute the first clue is announced.
“I’ve already thought of 50-some odd places where it could be hidden,” he said. “This is such a breath of fresh air in these economic times. It brings new meaning to ‘there’s gold hidden in them there hills.’ ”
And the first clue is . . .
Come out from the air conditioned cold.
Brave the heat to find a token of gold.
For over 100 years this is where Nashvillians go when the days are sunny.
Go there to find your money.
Bring the token to Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers on Franklin Road
and there redeem the token for gold.
RULES FOR THE TREASURE HUNT:
• Winner must be 18 years or older.
• No purchase is necessary to win.
• Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers employees and their families are not eligible to win
• To win, one must find the replica of the gold coin using the clues on the Cashville Gold & Silver Web site, www.cashvillegold.com. (Clues will be added every few days until the prize is uncovered).
• The treasure (gold coin replica) will be hidden in a public area that does not require any sort of trespassing on private property, and does not require tampering with or damaging nature or property.
• The coin will be hidden not higher than 4 feet off the ground and will not be buried.
• The winner must take a photo of himself or herself at the location holding the coin where he or she found it.
• The winner must come to Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers, 2528 Franklin Road, during business hours, which are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, to receive the real gold coin valued at $500.
•The winner can choose to keep it or to sell it back on the spot and receive $500 cash.
• If there is a dispute, Cashville Gold & Silver Buyers will have sole discretion over naming the winner.
• Winner will be announced at the conclusion of the contest.
