Kendra L. Saunders's Blog

It's been an interesting journey, writing Engaged to an Alien Pop Star. This is the first ever sequel that I've written over the years, even after writing about 8-10 books (including poetry collections).

Sequels in a trilogy are already hard enough, when you think about it. A sequel must keep old readers interested even though they know everyone. It must keep new readers interested, even though they don't know anyone. Oh, and it also needs to set events up for a third book. No big deal!

This book was challenging in more ways than just by being a sequel, though. I started writing an early version of it almost two years ago, the day after I finished Dating an Alien Pop Star. After about 70 pages of enjoyable, funny content, I realized that what I had written was better suited for a third book than a second, and I temporarily scrapped the project. After all, real life was taking over, and I had just written two books back to back in the space of about 9 months (Unlove Spell, and Dating an Alien Pop Star).

Read the rest: on my blog

ALIEN SQUAD!!! Your time has come!! Your first mission is finally at hand...

Between now and January 10, post the ‪#‎aliensquad‬ logo and the goodreads link https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... on as many forms of social media as your little part of the galaxy allows. This includes your blog, Livejournal, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Get creative! Tweet me @kendrybird with how many you were able to post, or email me ( kendralsaunders@yahoo.com ) before January 10! Whoever posts the most gets an #aliensquad pin to wear, and a piece of original Griffin art! Go go go go go!!!



Link to #aliensquad logo: https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/...

In person, Dmitry is both gracious and graceful, standing a little taller than everyone else and possessing an old-world charm in manner and speech. At once professional and keenly intelligent, he’s also able to surprise you with a quick sense of disarming humor when least expected. He’s a conversationalist who truly knows a little about everything… from pop culture (Grumpy Cat! Game of Thrones!) to worldwide travel (Russia, Europe, dreamy beach locales) to spiritualism and beyond.

And he designs clothes that can be worn with confidence by women of a variety of sizes.

When I first met Dmitry for his Lord & Taylor presentation, the line of fans waiting to meet him all shared a similar palpable excitement to meet the designer. At Book Expo America 2013, when he was gracious enough to join me for a brief appearance, he was met around every corner with delight from fans who wanted to say hello or snap a picture. Dmitry’s fans are a varied lot, covering every corner of our little planet, but they’re also a creative lot, making gif images of some of his quips from Project Runway and fanart that pops up on Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. He’s inspired fan accounts on almost every social media platform, both because of his incredible talent for fashion and his affable personality.

FOR THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AND THE INTERVIEW VISIT MY BLOG: http://kendrybird.blogspot.com/2014/0...

*Note: this essay is borrowed from my blog: http://kendrybird.blogspot.com/

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When I set out to write The Unlove Spell, I was beginning a journey that was new to me. I’ve always written about magic, and complicated, dark haired (usually foreign) men, and I love to write with a humorous tone that wheels between screwball and dark, but a romance? That was a new experience altogether.

The Unlove Spell is the story of Marling, a young witch who accidentally placed a spell on herself to prevent her heart from ever belonging to anyone but Viktor Arson, the hot Russian writer she shared a passionate, but brief, fling with. Marling’s spent the five years since their fling alone, occupying her personal time with the internet and hot chocolate. Viktor, who is actually a fae prince, has gone on to become a world-famous writer. He can also still make a killer good cup of coffee and wear the hell out of some leather pants. Marling finds herself caught up in a screwball plot by one of her former magic teachers and winds up in Russia, hunting Viktor down and trying to determine if she really loves him, or if her feelings are just a product of the unlove spell.

Facing a story that is primarily romantic left me nervous about falling into the deep treads of BEEN THERE, DONE THAT. Let’s be honest… there’s nothing new that could ever happen in romance. Two beings fall in love with each other, face some kind of adversity, overcome it and live happily ever after. Or one of them freezes to death on a raft that could have likely supported the weight of two people. Ahem.

One of my biggest goals with Marling was to portray a girl we all know and can believe in, instead of the 'effortlessly cool' girls I see in a lot of romantic fiction. She’s a little flighty, she doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do with her life, she sometimes lies to her peers about having a stomach bug to avoid going to an awkward party. She likes to look at pictures of cute animals on the internet. She can't go all Black Widow and kick someone in the face with her high heeled boots. But my real starting point for Marling was this:

There were three things that Marling was not particularly pleased about in regards to herself. One, her nose was crooked. Two, her voice was a bit deeper than she’d like it to be. Third, even after two consecutive years of French tutoring as a child, Marling could only remember about a dozen French words. Of course, there were also three things that she was terribly proud of. One, she’d never dyed her chesnut-brown hair (well, maybe once she’d dyed it with a spray can of sparkly pink stuff but it had mostly washed out after five weeks). Two, she had always maintained a comfortable size 12 (petite). Third, she had over six thousand followers on tumblr.

Marling is never called plus-sized. Marling doesn’t endure pages of self-torture about diets, eating, losing weight, looking ‘fat’ or worrying about how thin other people are. In fact, the only time Marling’s size is called into question is when Viktor’s mother- a major antagonist in the story- calls her fat. The scene is painful for Marling, as it would be for anyone. Yes, Marling is a size 12. No, she’s not as small as some girls. Yes, she’s probably been called fat in her life. But she doesn’t obsess over her weight or expect others will either.

Marling Ellis is an average sized, brunette American girl, and she likes nice clothes and meets a great guy, no calorie-counting or salad obsessions or “aww, the fat girl gets a guy too, aren’t you shocked!?” plotline needed.

If I can make only one revolutionary wave in the world of modern romance stories, I’d be proud for this to be it.

I'm truly amazed! Thanks to your support and awesomeness, Death and Mr. Right actually SOLD OUT on its release day, on amazon! Thank you so much.

Amazon is back in stock now, so jump in there and grab your copy while you can. In the meantime, if you have a copy, make sure to review it here and over on amazon. Feel free to tweet me about it, too, I'd love to hear what you think! @kendrybird

I've finally joined instagram, @kendralsaunders and have finally started a blog dedicated to my adventures in the fashion world, especially my interviews with designers, models and other fashion professionals: http://kendrybird.blogspot.com/

Check it out and follow me!

Excerpted from: http://jasonharrispromotions.org/2013...

Last year, I pitched a novel to Kate Kaynak in New York City, as we carpooled back to New Hampshire together. It was my first time in America’s best city and I was overwhelmed with exhaustion, inspiration and lyrics from Interpol songs. Death and Mr. Right had a title and it had already been written as a short story. The premise: the agent of nightmares falls in love, loses his job and is exiled into the modern world. Kate loved the idea and asked me to write it and submit it to her. I returned home, my head buzzing, and wrote Death and Mr. Right in only a few months. I edited it and put the finishing touches on it Halloween 2012. The next morning I began writing The Unlove Spell, a novel I’d been kicking around my head for weeks.

Death and Mr. Right was accepted by Spence City in late 2012 and I wrote The Unlove Spell in a few brief, joyous months. Both books were comedies, full of light and dark, in-jokes, colorful characters and tributes to my friends, muses and heroes. They were the easiest books I’d ever written. Both were also surprisingly personal – much of Death’s backstory was linked to my own youthful neuroses, brought to life through the safety of humor. Viktor’s struggles to balance a demanding family member with responsibility and his own dreams of being a writer reflected my own familial troubles as an eldest child with a difficult relationship with a cruel parental figure. But both were full of bliss, a cathartic experience, a creative binge that left me worn out in the best possible way and glowing afterward.

When my publisher said we would have review copies of D&MR to sign at Book Expo America, I planned my whole year around the trip, reserving a room at the Jane Hotel as much for its special meaning to my best friend (her favorite building in the city) as for the inexpensive price.

All of my books are written like movies, with a complete cast of muses. The Unlove Spell had been inspired by Clemence Poesy as my impulsive witch, Marling, Lana Del Rey as my crazy fae queen (perfect, right?) and Dmitry Sholokhov as the honorable, rock star writer who is also hiding a huge secret – he doesn’t write about magical beings. He IS one.

I met Dmitry at his Lord & Taylor event to launch his capsule dress collection and told him how much he’d inspired me, both because he’d worked so hard to get where he was (a kick for me to get moving!) and as a muse for Viktor. Fast forward to May and Dmitry was gracious enough to take time out of his busy schedule to drop by the Javits Center for a bit, as my guest.

My signing took place between 12:30 and 1:30, deep inside the air-conditioned safety of the Javits. Handing my book to bloggers, librarians and reviewers was absolutely enchanting and nerve-wracking, in the right portions. One gentleman caught sight of it as he walked by, wandered over to investigate and ultimately asked for a copy. I guzzled two water bottles to suppress nerves, and received a steady stream of compliments on my dress, shoes and book cover.

Books and fashion? Win-win!

Dmitry arrived at the end of my signing and I handed him a special unbound copy of The Unlove Spell’s unedited manuscript, told him all about Viktor and then posed for pictures. Though it was a blur, I do remember looking out and seeing a line of ten? fifteen? digital cameras, professional cameras, cell phones and a pink iPad. It was crazy.

After wandering a bit, laughing about Grumpy Cat’s impending appearance and signing some silly messages in Dmitry’s copy of my books, we said our goodbyes and headed out into the blistering afternoon. All I could think of, over and over, was The Great Gatsby. My friend Megan and my sister hopped into a cab with me and we escaped to Greenwich Village, intending to hide out in the cool of our hotel, just as the protagonists of Gatsby had. I’d only taken a few steps away from the cab when my shoe broke.

I took this as a good omen. I’d traveled to the big city, brought along some dear friends, been aided by several fairy godmothers (complete with lip balm, tissues, and bottles of water!) What a fairy tale.

Pictures: http://www.kendralsaunders.com/BEA201...

It was a last minute trip, planned only a week in advance. I would journey from New Hampshire to New York City by some means of transportation and buy a dress from Dmitry Sholokhov’s collection while he made an in-store appearance. Two amazing girlfriends of mine made this whole thing happen, one, Steph, by offering to let me crash with her and the other, Kate, by checking out the situation with Lord & Taylor beforehand.

Last season’s Project Runway was incredibly inspiring for me. I was still writing Death and Mr. Right, but was forming a new idea. Seeing the talented and hard-working Dmitry Sholokhov win the show was so exciting. There’s something about seeing a deserving person get somewhere that leaves you with an infectious sense of happiness. His work is stunning- if you haven’t seen it, you need to look it up- and his manner was always quite gracious.

As I finished Death and Mr. Right, the ideas for The Unlove Spell had finally reached a point of gluing together. National Write a Novel in a Month (NANOWRIMO) was poised to take place only a few days later, and I decided to try writing The Unlove Spell for NANOWRIMO. Dmitry helped inspire the kind-hearted but mysterious writer Viktor Arson and I tore through the first draft of the book in a ridiculously short period of time. Even before it was done, I received questions about it and interest from book-industry people.

So really, a trip to New York City to snag the perfect dress for my booksigning and meet a muse? A win-win situation.

Wednesday morning I piled onto the first of two busses and began a 7 hour journey to the best city in America. Mercifully, the trip there was rather uneventful. No one gave birth on the bus, though a series of screaming babies certainly attempted to make it SOUND like a maternity ward on both busses.

Mostly I was just thankful to get off the second bus late Wednesday afternoon and stretch my legs.

New York City is a series of colors, lights and overwhelming impulses when you visit it the first time. It’s different when you return. Everything seems vaguely familiar, though there are still keyholes of magic in the shadows, in the reflection of certain store windows, in the tidal waves of human voices. I met up with my girlfriends for dinner at a cute little French café in Chelsea and we talked in excited voices about writing, publishing trends, how frustrating shallow female characters are and, of course, the way that plot just… well, happens.

By 11 that night, I’d crashed out, with the lyrics to Huey Lewis’ Once Upon a Time In New York City playing in my head, a reminder of the big dreams I’d had as a kid and how they were all starting to come true, slowly but surely.

Thursday morning I rode into Manhattan with Steph and spent all of six hours walking here and there, popping into shops I’d always wanted to visit and revisiting some favorite spots. One very helpful salesman at Sephora laughed with me about how pale I am (bleached white bread), but then turned me on to the most amazing concealer I’ve ever found (Kat Von D, for those who’d like to try it). I promised him that his service would be remembered, and I figure this is as good a place as any to mention it.

Somewhere around 4pm, though, the excitement of the city had turned into a sort of draggy observation of killer outfits, high heels and hot dog stands. You can find anything in New York City, anything at all, except a quiet place to sit and recharge for a while. As I walked along 5th Avenue towards Lord & Taylor, a woman flagged me down and said, “DO YOU KNOW WHERE LORD & TAYLOR IS?”

After a few seconds of energizing pleasure at being mistaken for a native, I pointed her in the right direction. She bobbled off to shop and I put my headphones back in and walked with a new swagger. There are three main things to remember if you want to pass for a native: pop headphones in, walk with purpose and don’t hesitate in the crosswalks.

Cool!

Lord & Taylor had placed Dmitry’s dress collection in the middle of the second floor, near the shoes. Not many things could probably distract from Lord & Taylor’s massive smorgasbord of sexy, well displayed shoes, but Dmitry’s display was able to do just that.

My favorite of the collection, a little black dress with a ruffle, ended up being just as perfect as I suspected it would be. After trying several of the dresses on for fun (the white one? Astoundingly beautiful. The flowy slate-blue one? Gorgeous), I made my purchase.

I struck up a conversation with a lovely reporter and we chatted about clothes, Nick Hornby, the music industry and books. Eventually I realized she was at the event to interview Dmitry and, as someone who has conducted many radio and print interviews, it was fun to see one take place in person. I popped into line and Steph arrived, breathless from escaping work and breathless from the sweltering temperature of the store.

Dmitry was incredibly gracious in person and we chatted briefly about the dress I’d chosen and how far I’d traveled and how he’d inspired me for the book I’d just finished. We took some pictures and I headed out of the store with the beautiful black dress in tow.

All in all, by the next morning as I walked to the bus stop to head back to New Hampshire, I felt tired but excited for the future. And had already started plotting a sequel for The Unlove Spell…

To buy one of Dmitry's gorgeous dresses before they're gone: http://www.lordandtaylor.com/webapp/w...

Keep your dreams alive, ‘cause dreaming is still how the strong survive… It’s always once upon a time, in New York City…

And no, I don't mean the Celine Dion song... even if secretly I was just listening to "It's All Coming Back To Me". Shhhh.

No, by new day I mean... new day, a new edition, a new book, a new me! My book, Inanimate Objects, was one of those slow-cook books, the kind that takes about 4 years to finish. The characters had been bouncing around my head for years before I even started writing and after about 4 drafts with major changes (new protagonists, bad guys becoming good guys, good guys becoming bad guys and one little jerk getting removed entirely), I finally finished the book.

Family and friends had heard enough about it by then to want to read the dang thing. I had the choice of sitting around waiting to find a cover model that looked like what I wanted (aka my protagonist), or releasing the book with a somewhat pedestrian (wait- actually pedestrian: the cover featured two people walking on a sidewalk) cover... I went with the latter, just because people wanted to read Inanimate Objects and, as a writer, I wanted them to, too.

So fast-forward through some major game-changing life events and I decided to go to Arisia (a sci fi/fantasy/writing convention) and ran into a few absolutely awesome people, landed a job and got an idea for a short story or two. I became friends with a really incredible group of people, the steampunk group The Vagabonds. And it wasn't for a month or two that I realized that my friend could be Leo, with only one or two small tweaks.

And so finally after my loooooong search for a handsome, fine-boned, slightly androgynous guy with black hair (hard to come by in rural NH), I realized I had a Leo right in front of me. Days later, this new day was ready to dawn. (Yes, days. It took days for this new day to dawn).

Anyway, Inanimate Objects finally has a Leo.

For booking/more info about the cover model, please visit www.vagabondsteam.net or check out some of the Vagabonds videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/LockeValor All subscriptions, comments and likes help them to keep doing what they're doing.

People love music for different reasons. Some just want a distraction, some want something to dance to, some want brooding angry anthems for their troubles and some want gentle, stimulating music to feed their brains.
I can't help loving music that accepts the sadness in the world, admits it, and then finds a hopefulness in the middle of it.

Coldplay's "Mylo Xyloto" was early on proclaimed to be "different" than other albums by the band. Mentions were made of all of these differences, ranging from the structure of the songs to the use of a guest appearance (Rihanna). It was hard to guess what it meant and somewhere along the way you just imagined a member of U2 collaborating with Katy Perry on a shoegaze album via Slowdive. Thankfully none of these negative predictions ended up being true.

The album wheels back and forth from Coldplay's signature spacey-sadness ("Us Against the World", "M.M.I.X") to full bodied, synth anthems of joy. Somewhere along the way you can't help but feel uplifted, and not the least of which because Coldplay is well aware that they want you to feel this way. The first single, "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" is predominately focused on the way that music can make even the worst things feel better. The mention of 'trees being gone' and being 'in the black', 'on my knees' give the impression of the very apocalyptic fear we all feel in 2011, but then is swept away in the simple joy of listening to music, dancing anyway.

And that's what Coldplay does best. They admit to us that times are bleak, things are bad, but there is always a little hope left, even if it's just in the action of dusting off your favorite record and getting lost in music.

The boys have grown up a lot and they're more self-aware. The messages here are positive, and intentionally. And while this album is infinitely lighter than their first two records, it feels MORE of a return to early Coldplay form than Viva La Vida. The last track showcases another Coldplay strength... the ability to round out an album just right. "Up With the Birds" leaves you with the simple promise that "good things are coming our way." And you know? Maybe they are. This album certainly has a way of making you feel that way.

Note: Look up "Moving to Mars", a bside from "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall." It's a shame the track was left off the album, because it's one of their best and most moving songs to date. It easily could have been a track from the Rush of Blood to the Head era.