WINNERS!!! and Something Very Exciting

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the contests all week long. Here's the list of winners (in Monday through Saturday order, so there's no confusion):

Hillary
Liyana
Kate Sutton
What a Girl Reads
RagDollVampGirl
Breanna

Please contact me via email (tlc@teralynnchilds.com) with your mailing info. Congrats!

And now, it is my exceptional pleasure to give you the details on one of the coolest things we've ever done here on the Buzz Blog. For almost three years(!) you've tuned in to read about us Buzz Girls and our books and some of our happy/sad/wacky/inspiring/terrifying experiences. Well, this week we're changing it up. This week we're going to introduce you to some other authors.

Over the next few days, each Buzz Girl will be posting an interview they conducted with an author they admire, but whom they might not know very well. Let me tell you, Buzzies, we've got some big fish lined up for your enjoyment. (I'm not spilling the beans, but let me just say that my interviewee is made of awesome!)

Plus, not only will you get to read about these amazing authors, but you'll also get a chance to win one or more of their books! (Yay, free books!)

So, be sure to check back every day, because this is one week you will not want to miss!

Hugs,
TLC

OH. MY. GODS. (now in paperback!)
GODDESS BOOT CAMP (out now!)
teralynnchilds.com

Summer Camp with a Twist

What an exciting week we're having here celebrating Tera Lynn Childs’ second book Goddess Book Camp with a daily book giveaway! Thanks for hanging out with us and huge congrats to TLC!!

I have to admit that I allllllllways wanted to go off for summer camp to some lake with cabins and (sorry Tina) outdoor bathroom facilities. I wanted to make a bird cage out of popcicle sticks and a bird feeder from pine cones - all the things that Girl Scouts engrained in me. Alas, it was not to be. My parents, God love them, didn't feel good about sending me off into the "wilderness" and so my time at a dream camp never happened.



However, I did get to go to a summer camp with a twist...

I went three years in a row to summer music camp at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. First off, if you know me, you know I went to The University of Alabama and Auburn is our arch rival...so for me to step foot on this campus, let alone live, eat, and sleep there for a week, was an act of faith. LOL!



Music camp was a blast though...but it wasn't fun and games. This was for people who were serious about their art. There were two tracks: choral and band. For those of us who really lived on the edge, you could do both tracks. I did choral only my first two years and both tracks my third year, which was mega hard work.



In choral, we had to have a singing try out to be placed in the proper voice group. I was a soprano for two years and an alto my third year. Inside choral, it was broken into subgroups: formal chorus, accapella, and show choir. I, of course, did all three. Formal chorus consisted of singing arias and opera-type stuff. Accapella is singing without musical instruments accompanying. The secret to that is staying on key. Let me tell you, it sounds easier than it is. And, show choir is performing dances while singing popular songs or ones from Broadway shows. One year, we did a tribute to Barry Manilow. To this day, I still can't hear "Daybreak" without running through the dance steps and hand motions in my head.



Band was a bit more challenging. You had to try out for a "seat" with whatever instrument you played. I played cornet - or a smaller trumpet for those of you not familiar. I nabbed a second chair seat, which was pretty cool, considering how many trumpeters there were in the camp. Practice was long and hard, but our concert totally rocked.



By the end of the week, I needed another week of vacation just to recuperate! But it was an amazing experiences and I met a lot of wonderful people along the way. The "camping" part was spent in dorm rooms on the campus and eating in the cafeteria. It really got me excited about college life to be with so many people from so many different places all after the same purpose.

I wish I could post some of the pics that I have from those days, but sadly...no scanner in my abode anymore. You'll just have to imaging...LOL!!

Did you ever experience a different type of summer camp? If so, what was it? What was your experience? Leave your comment in the trail to be entered to win a copy of Tera's book! Feel free to enter as many times as you'd like!

Hugs,
Marley = )

Summer Madness!

We are celebrating the release of Tera Lynn Childs’ second book this week,
Goddess Book Camp with one giveaway a day, as well as chat about summer camps. Yay!

I only went to summer camp once. (Once being quite enough.) But let’s start a little further back, in the spring of 5th grade. A girl from school asked me if I’d like to attend the two-week session with her. An avid reader, I was intrigued by all the books I’d read about camp, but as a dyed-in-the-wool comfort creature, I WAS a little worried about the big outdoors and bugs and stuff. She pointed out that you could sign up to bunk with a friend, and that she’d been to camp before and would get me through.

That worked.

Until we got there and found out there were TWO girls were her exact name, and I was linked to the other. Wah! And that other wasn’t looking for friends at all...so suddenly, I was out there in the wilderness, all alone.

Just me and my vivid imagination.

I kept my chin from quivering that first afternoon, but when the counselors called my group over to the latrine, I am pretty sure I took off to my Crazy Place. See, they not only explained that we had to “do our business” in an COMMUNAL HOLE that had smells and sights and sounds (okay, maybe the last two were only in my head), but each one of us was responsible for cleaning up the area afterwards with a toilet brush. And they'd somehow know if you didn't.

Here’s the kicker: they said that anyone who dropped the brush IN the hole had to go in after it.


Okay, I’m 11. I’m alone. I’m neurotic. (I’m Tina.) I believed them.

It’s possible I didn’t go to the bathroom the entire four days I stayed at the camp. (My mother picked me up for a swim meet that my coach needed me for, and I refused to go back.)

And to this day, I kid you not, I freak out at the idea of using a PortaPotty, latrine--anything but a regular toilet. It goes past rhyme and reason and back to the counselors who are probably still snickering about tormenting the new girls...

Hmmm...I might have to put some of this in a book someday.

In the meantime, YOU can be entered to win a copy of Tera’s newest book just by leaving a comment for me here. Tell me your thoughts about summer camp, counselors, PortaPotties, latrines...any offshoot you can find from this blog.

Good luck, and the winner to be announced on Sunday.

Tina

How to Hook a Hottie, 2009 Rita Finalist
The ABC's of Kissing Boys
Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress
www.tinaferraro.com

Welcome to Goddess Boot Camp

It's here, it's here! It's finally here!!! GODDESS BOOT CAMP, the long awaited (by me, anyway) sequel to OH. MY. GODS. is hitting bookstores later this week!


In true BuzzGirl tradition, we're doing a release week special here on the blog, and this week's theme is SUMMER CAMP! (And, no, Steph did not know this when she stole my thunder two weeks ago.) Not only will the BBGs be dishing on their own personal summer camp experiences, but you will have a chance to win your very own autographed copy of GODDESS BOOT CAMP every single day!

Now, let's start dishing....

When I was little, I dreamed of going away to a wilderness camp, like the one Hayley Mills (and Lindsay Lohan) went to in The Parent Trap. Everything about it--the friendships, the activities, the personal growth--sounded like bliss to me. Only I never went to wilderness camp. Instead, I spent more summers than I care to remember in ... basketball camp.

From the summer before my junior year. That's me on the far right.

Once a summer my parents would drive me to Bloomington, Indiana, to attend the Indiana University Girls' Basketball Camp. Instead of the smell of campfire, I had the smell of a sweaty gym. Instead of long hikes in the woods, I had the long walk down the hill to the field house (and then back up at lunch time and at the end of the day). Instead of the cabin-against-cabin prank war, I had a cutthroat, single-elimination basketball tournament. Instead of canoeing across a pristine lake, I had sprints up and down the court.

Because Pheobe, the main character in OMG and GBC, is a cross-country fiend, readers often ask me if I'm a runner, too. When I get done laughing I tell them, "No, I hate running." But whenever I had to put myself into Phoebe's running shoes, to feel what she felt at the end of a multi-mile run, I just take myself back to those painful weeks of basketball camp.

Okay, now for the good stuff—your first chance to win a copy of GODDESS BOOT CAMP! Here's the question you need to answer:

If you had to write about a character going through a physically grueling activity, what personal experience would you draw on to make it seem real? (In other words, what's the physically hardest thing you've ever done in your life?)

Good luck! All the week's winners will be announced on Sunday, so be sure to check back.

Hugs,
TLC

OH. MY. GODS. (now in paperback!)
GODDESS BOOT CAMP (out this week!)
teralynnchilds.com

There Be ARCs In The House

I'm nose-to-the-grindstone on the mermaid book at the moment, but I can always take time to share some good news. When I went to my mailbox today, what did I find but a lovely package from Penguin. My GODDESS BOOT CAMP advance copies!!!


Here's a picture of them piled nicely on my dining table (with my Fall centerpiece behind them and my mermaid inspiration books off to the side). Aren't they beautiful?!? Also, this is the first public display of my gorgeous new cover. Thoughts?

Hugs,
TLC

OH. MY. GODS. (available now!)
GODDESS BOOT CAMP (coming June 2009)
teralynnchilds.com