You. I. Us. Blog Tour

Hey everyone! I'm back again! Lots of news coming up this month, since I've decided to totally over-haul the way I'm going about my social media. But more on that later.

First things first, I'm welcoming Annalisa Crawford to The Five Year Project as part of the blog tour for her new book You. I. Us. Take it away, Annalisa!

Do you like listening to music while working on your stories?

Hi Misha, thanks for inviting me onto your blog today!

I go through phases, when it comes to music. During my first drafts, I watch a lot of TV—repeats of Castle and Murdoch Mysteries mostly—I’ve seen every season of each of those programmes multiple times! It’s nice to have a distraction in those moments when the next scene just isn’t quite right, and on occasion, they’ve provided a little inspiration too.

Music comes later, either an old-favourite CD that I play on a loop, or a fantastic 80s radio station that has a no-repeat guarantee. Recently, I discovered a YouTube playlist of all the songs from How I Met Your Mother (another series I’ve watched repeatedly), which is brilliant, because some of those songs evoke immense emotion.

For my current WIP, I’m listening to Try Whistling This by Neil Finn (from Crowded House, and fantastic as a solo artist!) This track is Last One Standing https://youtu.be/1BZFrYcgeGs If my WIP ever got made into a film, this would be the title track.

What music do you like listening to? 

You. I. Us.

Publication date: June 10, 2016
Genre: Short Stories (Single Author)

Amazon // Barnes & Noble // Book Depository // Kobo // iBooks // Nook

In You. I. Us., Annalisa Crawford captures everyday people during  poignant defining moments in their lives: An artist puts his heart into his latest sketch, an elderly couple endures scrutiny by a fellow diner, an ex-student attempts to make amends with a girl she bullied at school, a teenager holds vigil at his friend’s hospital bedside, long distance lovers promise complete devotion, a broken-hearted widow stares into the sea from the edge of a cliff where her husband died, a grieving son contacts the only person he can rely on in a moment of crisis, a group of middle-aged friends inspire each other to live remarkable lives.

Day after day, we make the same choices. But after reading You. I. Us., you’ll ask yourself, “What if we didn’t?”

 

About the author

Annalisa Crawford lives in Cornwall UK, with a good supply of moorland and beaches to keep her inspired. She lives with her husband, two sons, a dog and a cat. Annalisa writes dark contemporary, character-driven stories. She has been winning competitions and publishing short stories in small press journals for many years, and is the author of Cat & The Dreamer and Our Beautiful Child.

www.annalisacrawford.com

Annalisa Crawford: Why I'm Publishing Older Stories

My first collection of short stories, That Sadie Thing and other stories, will be published next week. They are a greatest hits of stories that have been published since I started writing seriously (which for me was about fifteen.)

So, the question is: what the heck am I doing, releasing a collection of stories some of which are older than my marriage?

Well, to answer this properly, I'll need bullet points!

• Some of these stories were published in very small press magazines, pre-internet. I'm sure the circulation was smaller than the customers in my local shop on a wet Tuesday morning. Therefore, the hours and hours I put into them have been wasted all these years, because only a handful of people have ever read them.
• Some of the stories were runners-up in competitions - so even fewer people read them, one or two judges at the most.
• Although I've always thought my short fiction was quite random, it turns out I have a theme - loneliness and despair runs through these stories, but hopefully in an entertaining way.
• I've actually been thinking about publishing them in this way for six months or so. When I was reading them to check the viability, I had an overwhelming urge to rewrite them. After spending time working on them again, it seemed really silly not to do something with them.
• I wanted to share some of my weirdness with you!

Some random facts:

• The five magazines that accepted my stories from unsolicited submissions all folded within three issues.
• One of my published stories is so bad that I've disowned it, and it is not in this collection.
• Two stories had to be rewritten to include the universal use of mobile phones - previously the characters were queuing up at phone boxes!
• I wrote Omelette at a time when I was eating lots of omelettes.

The Blurb:

A couple break up on a rainy night; a runaway longs to go home; a woman finds comfort from eating lunch as her best friend lies in hospital; a teenager feels oppressed by her father. All of the characters in these stories are trying to find their place in the world, attempting to find connections that matter with the people around them.

This collection brings together prize-winning and published stories from the past twenty years: the ‘greatest hits’.

That Sadie Thing and other stories will be available on Monday 25th February 2013.

Annalisa Crawford lives and writes in Cornwall with a good supply of beaches and moorland to keep her inspired. She finds endless possibilities in the relationships between people. As this collection testifies, she has been writing for twenty years - but doesn't feel a day over twenty-one.

Find her on her blog and on Goodreads.