SquawkRadio

On Tuesday, March 20 and Wednesday, March 21, be here to welcome J. R. Ward, the author of the hugely popular Black Dagger Brotherhood series of vampire books. Watch the Battle of the Titans as she faces off with Kitty Kuttlestone in one of Kitty’s infamous interviews. Get a front row seat as J. R. blogs and chats with her most dedicated fans. (That would be me.)

Following a career in hospital administration, J. R. now lives in the South with her incredibly supportive husband and her beloved golden retriever.  Writing has always been her passion and her idea of heaven is a whole day of nothing but her computer, her dog and her coffee pot. Her current release, LOVER REVEALED, follows her other three Black Dagger Brotherhood novels into bestsellerdom and is #5 on the New York Times.

Tell your friends and settle in for a lot of fun.

I bet when you saw that pic you thought this was going to be another one of my legendary “Hot Guy” blogs, didn’t you?  But if we’re going to be honest with each other around Squawk Radio, I thought it was time to introduce you to the guy who REALLY makes my heart pound faster.  That’s right--Richard Simmons! Richard first saved my life several years ago when I suffered a severe back injury after being body-slammed across the footboard of a hospital bed by a psychotic patient in a mental hospital.  (Hush, Liz.  I was a nurse, not a patient.) I was too afraid to move to go back to the free dancing that I had always loved and it was Richard’s original SWEATIN’ TO THE OLDIES that got me moving again and rebuilt my confidence.

I now own close to a dozen of his workout tapes and DVD’s and have been fairly consistent over the years in doing them at least 3 times a week.  (Hush, Xtina.  I am NOT exaggerating.) You should know that I’m not a big believer in doing anything I don’t enjoy.  (Eloisa will tell you that I love to race walk but I won’t run unless a bear is chasing me.) I was overjoyed when I read a recent study that said people who only do what they love tend to be more fulfilled and successful.  I hate treadmills. I hate ellipticals. I hate indoor bikes. But I love to dance! And Richard’s workouts are essentially dancing to some really cool music.  Plus he uses real people in the videos instead of buffed-out size zero scary women in thong leotards so you can’t help but feel like, “Hey, if that 300-pound man can do the twist, then so can I!” I adore his new 80’s music DVD: SUPER SWEATIN: PARTY OFF THE POUNDS because doing aerobics to Toni Basil’s MICKEY is every bit as much fun as you always dreamed it would be!

I’ve been struggling with my weight recently as women of a certain age tend to do. (I only know because Connie told me.) I couldn’t figure out why my bras were getting tighter in all of the wrong places. Then suddenly the missing ingredient of my exercise plan came to me! It was Richard!  I’d quit doing the workouts when I was on a particularly crazy writing schedule and had never gotten back to them. And all of the biking and weight lifting in the world wasn’t going to loosen up those bras. So I dragged out SWEATIN’ TO THE OLDIES on Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning (I kid you not), I had lost 4 pounds.

As I was dancing that afternoon, a couple of other miraculous things began to happen--my cloud of PMS began to lift and I started having new ideas for my book. I also had a really corny thought--When I do this, I feel like the person I’m supposed to be.

I know. It’s hard to believe a fey little fellow like Richard, whose voice sends my cats (and my husband) racing madly for the screen door, could have such a profound effect on a life. But when I’m sweating to the oldies and Richard shouts, “You were born to be a star!”, I almost believe him.

So what about YOU?  Will YOU share your most fun and effective exercise tips, tapes or programs with us? 

Teresa’s Website

Pass the word! J.R. Ward, author of hugely popular The Black Dagger Brotherhood series, will be our guest at Squawk Radio! Her new release, LOVER REVEALED, is #5 on the New York Times bestseller list. Be here Tuesday, March 20 and Wednesday, March 21, when she’ll blog with us as well as going head to head in an interview with Kitty Kuttlestone. The Squawkers are currently taking bets on the outcome ...

In Seattle on Saturday March 24 from 1pm to 3pm, Christina Dodd will be autographing at the Northwest Women’s Show at Qwest Field Event Center. Oh, and the books are free with admission. See you there!

Connie has discovered that two books from The Rose Hunters series, MY SURRENDER and MY SEDUCTION have been reprinted at a special price of $4.99 and are available at various outlets like...well, I don’t really know., but I know they’re around because Christina saw them last week and told me. Then a couple other people told me. So they’re out there. At a special price. BOO-YAH!

Eloisa has spent the week celebrating because she not only finished a book, the second in the Desperate Duchesses series—but her editor likes it!  She’s so full of champagne that she can’t string together many coherent sentences, but she wants you all to know that there is nothing as wonderful as writing THE END.  Except perhaps hanging out with friends—if you happen to be around New Jersey, please come meet Eloisa and Lisa at the Springfield Barnes & Noble this Tuesday at 6:30!  We’re going to have an informal get-together in the cafe before Lisa starts signing books at 7:30.  More information on Eloisa’s Bulletin Board!

Liz has been teaching a writing workshop all week, so she’s taking a break from the music blog—which means you get an Eloisa Movie Blog!  (OK, this is only issue #2, but I do love movies.) The problem is that I’m no expert, the way Liz is about music.  In fact, I’ve only recently started to figure out just how important a director is to a film.  Yeah, go ahead, laugh.  I’ve been watching movies for years, and enjoying them—but never bothered too much about who the director happened to be.

Until last week.  I was visiting a friend who proposed a Robert Altman marathon.  I’ve heard of Robert Altman, though before last week I couldn’t have told you what his movies were.  We started at the beginning, which meant I now know three of Altman’s earliest movies (then I had to return to NJ, where there are children, jobs and very little movie-watching time). 

It’s fascinating to watch one director’s movies in a row!  Has anyone else done this?  By focusing on who directed a movie, you learn their quirks—the way Altman overlaps the dialogue, for example, and his idiosycratic, hysterically funny take on life.  My two favorites from the movie marathon:

MASH.  I guess I knew this was a movie, but I thought of it as a TV show.  There’s no love story here, but the tale of three bad but brilliant boys fighting to save people’s lives has an inherent sexiness that I adored.  I fell in love with all three of them.  If you haven’t seen this ever or recently—watch it!

THE WEDDING.  This is a wild, crazy, insane wedding.  I loved it.  In fact—I’m going to write it.  My own Altman homage...coming to you in Georgian period dress!

Has anyone else ever done this?  What directors are worth glomming onto and spending a whole Sunday watching?

I first fell in love with Sloane Tanen’s work when I read the caption above this photo:  “Samantha looked around the playground in amazement.  Her mother had been right.  She really WAS the smartest and the prettiest.” Now I ask you--has there ever been a more apt mascot for the chicks of SQUAWK RADIO?  (All you have to do is cross out SAMANTHA and write in CHRISTINA or ELOISA.)

If you thought you had to give up picture books when you graduated from second grade (Connie, you DID graduate from second grade, didn’t you?), have I got a treat for you!  Writer Sloane Tanen and photographer Stefan Hagen take those tiny little stuffed yellow chicks you can find at Easter and put them in wickedly funny scenarios in gorgeously detailed dioramas.  The first book in the series BITTER WITH BAGGAGE SEEKS SAME: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SOME CHICKENS beautifully captures the two qualities I most love about Liz--they’re both bitter and sunny-natured.  And I know that Lisa will be able to relate to adorable little spoiled tyrant Coco who is rarely seen without her tiara and dreams “that one day she would grow up to be a benevolent queen...or a supermodel.”

The second book in the series--GOING FOR THE BRONZE: STILL BITTER, MORE BAGGAGE is equally hilarious.  One of my favorite pages shows two chickens peering over the side of the Titanic while a chicken floats beneath them and one of them comments, “I don’t know, the last thing he said was something about being king of the world and then I may have accidentally pushed him.” No one is safe from the satire including Charles and Camilla, American Idol, and Hooters.  And the photographs are so detailed that you can spend hours just noticing things in the background. 

I should warn you that, due to a wee bit of naughty language, these picture books are for adults only, but Sloane Tanen has also written a children’s book called COCO ALL YEAR ROUND.  If you want your child to develop a deliciously dark and dysfunctional sense of humor right along with you, you can read them rhymes featuring the adorable Coco like “I walk down the street with my whole Girl Scout troop.  It would have been fun had I not slipped in poop.” (I’ll spare you a description of the illustration on this one.)

If you enjoy the humor of SQUAWK RADIO, I think you’ll definitely enjoy visiting Coco and company! 

So how about YOU?  What is the funniest book--fiction or non-fiction--that you’ve read lately?

Teresa’s Website

I’m on a short vacation with my family (Doodah, David, and Beloved of Doodah’s) and a few nights ago after listening to Frank Sinatra croon “I Did It My Way” the conversation turned to regrets. Specifically, we started asking one another the following question: If we were to take the big dirt nap tomorrow, what would we regret not having done in our lives? (Yeah, I know. Morbid. But we’re mostly Irish so morbid sentimentality is sort of a genetic privledge.)

Of course, no one could limit it to one thing so in a fit of inspiration I declared it LIFE LIST night. I proposed we each write a list of 25 experiences IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER we would like to have before we deep six it (again. Irish. Many names for “death") So we did.

After half an hour some of us couldn’t come up with twenty-five, some of us came up with thirty. Interestingly, many of our answers were similar. Some were surprising. (Who woulda guessed Doodah wants to learn fly an airplane?) We enjoyed the exercise so much I’ve kept the lists with the plan that in five years’ time, High Fiving the Grim Reaper not withstanding, we’ll check our lists to see which ones we’ve achieved and then revamp them.

So how about you? Ever make a Life List? What was number one on your list?

You were warned about the addictive properties of this book in the blog below and now we have to add a hearty congratulations to our darling Lisa Kleypas, whose first hardcover AND first contemporary SUGAR DADDY just hit the New York Times bestseller list at #14!!!  How very sweet it is!