Official Maria V. Snyder Blog

In keeping with the scary theme this month, I wanted to let everyone know I'm in another short story anthology called Spirited that has 13 haunted tales of ghosts and other scariness (mine is called NEW GIRL and isn't very scary I must say - it's more funny - and I picked the title BEFORE that TV show came out ;).  The e-book is OUT NOW ( http://www.amazon.com/Spirited-ebook/dp/B005ZGH4ZI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319579825&sr=1-1 ), and the print book is coming out in March 2012. The best part of this project - ALL PROCEEDS from the anthology (both print and e-book) will be donated to National 826, a literacy-based charity!  Yep - all the money is going to support literacy.  YAY!  I'm really glad I'm involvled in this and I also had the benefit of working with a friend of mine - the editor Kat O'Shea was editing me when we both were aspiring writers/editors - we were in a critque group together.  Funny how things come full circle!

I don't know what has gotten into me lately.  Perhaps it's a mid-life crisis or just the desire to do something...scary.  I'm not sure of the reason, but the results have been quite...revealing. I've been wanting to get back into riding motorcycles.  I use to ride a 3 wheeled ATV (a trike) in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey with a bunch of dirt biker friends, but I was in my late teens, early 20s.  Recently my friend Kathy suggested we take the Motorcycle Safety Course together.  They provide the bikes, helmets and instruction over a long weekend.  So I took my learner's permit exam the same day my son took his driver's permit test (no - he didn't think it was cool - lots of eye rolling that day). We both passed :) Over the long Columbus Day weekend, I sat in a classroom for 5 hours of instruction on motorcycle safety. The instructor Harry was quite the character - he'd threaten to throw things at us if we didn't listen to him when we were out on