Triple Threat Blog Tour: Kate Ellison, Notes From Ghost Town and a Giveaway

 

Welcome to Stop #15 on the Triple Threat Blog Tour featuring Myra McEntire, Kate Ellison and Jennifer Lynn Barnes! Today I'm pleased to welcome Kate Ellison, author of Notes from Ghost Town and The Butterfly Clues. Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of this post for a fantastic giveaway as well as the details on the Triple Threat Blog Tour grand prize giveaway!

ART AS A FORM OF EXPRESSION

I like to think the impulse to create most art comes from needing to better interpret or understand the world around you. This is what we do when we write, and when we read; this is what we do when we make art, or see it, or watch plays, or act in them. If the things we are creating are unrecognizable, aren’t in some way connected to what we see and experience as living, breathing, eating, loving, dying human beings—even if this connection or representation is one of absurdity or surrealism or whatever else best expresses your view of the world—I don’t see the point in making it in the first place.

That’s sort of a broad sweep of the whole thing, but, in terms of my own processes and my own impulses when writing and when drawing or painting: they, in many ways, come from the same place. I observe myself, and the people around me, interacting with the world. I take in the various clots of relationship and nature, their interstices and their dissections, and can’t help but be confused and amazed and stunned by the whole plot of living. And when I sit down to write, or to draw, I’m not necessarily sure how my desire to work through it all will manifest, or what exactly I am trying to manifest, I usually just know I need to make something. Both art forms give you amazing opportunity to interpret everything you see and experience and touch and visit and dream, however you like, however it comes out.

Sometimes I’ll go through periods when all I’m doing is writing, and my hands will just start to feel itchy for some fine-motor, and when I let them—when I sit down and make a drawing or a painting or a piece of jewelry—it’s somewhat like a drug. Not all the time— sometimes it’s just sort of a drudge that I’m forcing myself to do to keep up the skill—but sometimes it’s like not having had anything sweet for a very long time and then eating a really incredible slice of cake. That’s almost what it feels like in your hands, speaking synesthetically.

Writing can do this too, to me. Sometimes, similar to drawing, I’ve got to force myself to sit down and hammer out a bunch of words in case something decent comes, but other times its like a full-body high; it’s like being spoken through, like your body is buzzing at a higher vibration. That’s much more rare, but it’s a reason to keep doing it, through all the times when it feels like your head is just made of dough.

And, most of the time, for both mediums, you’ve got to bring yourself to wherever it is you’re doing the work and just do the work, trusting that you can go into it without necessarily knowing what will come out of your fingertips. Sometimes, I think you’ve got to be okay with the fact that it is that something is coming out at all that counts, the feeling of that. Creating for the sake of creating, because it feels good, because it’s important, and because you’d be more than half-dead without it.

KATE AND HER WORK

Thanks so much for stopping by Kate! More information on Kate and her books can be found here:

Website
Facebook
Goodreads
Kate's Art
Notes from Ghost Town on Amazon
The Butterfly Clues on Amazon

Don't miss out on your chance to chat LIVE with Myra McEntire, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and Kate Ellison tomorrow at 8pm on Mundie Moms!

THE TRIPLE THREAT BLOG TOUR CONTINUES

Though this is the second-to-last day of this amazing tour, you can still check out all the fabulous stops that came before it, each with a different giveaway as well as one of the puzzle pieces for the Infinityglass cover reveal which is something you'll need to enter to win the grand prize giveaway. Full giveaway details are below!

• Tuesday, January 22nd – Read for Your Future

• Wednesday, January 23rd – I Am a Reader, Not a Writer

• Thursday, January 24th – Pageturners

• Friday, January 25th – Read, Breathe Relax

• Monday, January 28th – Evie Bookish

• Tuesday, January 29th – Reading Teen

• Wednesday, January 30th – Cari’s Book Blog

• Thursday, January 31st – YA Books Central

• Friday, February 1st – Once Upon a Twilight

• Monday, February 4th – Bookhounds

• Tuesday, February 5th – Luxury Reading

• Wednesday, February 6th – Good Choice Reading

• Thursday, February 7th – I Read Banned Books

• Friday, February 8th – All Things Urban Fantasy

• Monday, February 11th  - Supernatural Snark

• Tuesday, February 12th – 8-10 pm ET LIVE book chat on Mundie Moms 

GIVEAWAYS

 
Notes From Ghost Town/The Butterfly Clues

 

One lucky winner will receive a finished hardcover copy of Notes From Ghost Town (I absolutely adored this book, my review will be up tomorrow) as well as a paperback copy of The Butterfly Clues. To enter, please just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway is open to US/Canada only. Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Infinityglass Cover Reveal Grand Prize Giveaway

•     There are a total of 15 pieces to the puzzle - one for each stop on the tour.  

•     Collect all 15 pieces to reveal the cover of Infinityglass by Myra McEntire (pubbing in July)

•     Submit the assembled cover via the following this link by no later than 2/12 at 10pm ET.  You will be entered to win the 6 book Grand Prize Giveaway of:  Jennifer Lynn Barnes' Nobody and Every Other Day, Kate Ellison's Butterfly Clues and Notes from Ghost Town and Myra McEntire's Hourglass and Timepiece. 

•     The puzzle can either be assembled electronically or a picture of the assembled printed pieces is also acceptable.

•     The winner and completed cover will be posted on Myra McEntire's blog www.myramcentire.com on 2/13. 

Puzzle Piece #15