“With great attention to the battles that brought the South to its knees, the author balances her characters’ inequities with precise historical detail, a disturbing backdrop for Hugh and Serena’s loss of innocence.” – Curled Up With a Good Book

“Civil War buffs will want to check out this debut novel from Rosen…” – Military.com

“I think Ms. Payne Rosen did an amazing job of writing this novel. Not only is the book beautifully written, but it’s apparent that she did a great deal of research on the events of the Civil War.” – Booking Mama

And the Marin Independent Journal recently featured an excellent article about Payne Rosen and Hallam’s War.

Download: Unbridled Aloud, Episode 18: Elisabeth Payne Rosen

Also check out the short interview with Tara in ForeWord This Week!

I know, there are plenty of books out there that tell writers what to do. Even books that inspire. But there’s something about working with someone who is right there. Someone who listens. Someone who has done it and survived. I think that’s a lot of it.

Click here to read the full post!

Many years ago, in a graduate writing workshop, the professor—who has authored a long list of novels I admire—surprised us by beginning class with a warning. He instructed us to spend as little energy as possible on the classes that we taught. He told us to keep time with our students to an absolute minimum.

“Teaching, critiquing, working with them. I’ll suck out your writing soul,” he said.

The class got quiet. We were sorry. We’d clearly extracted a good chunk of his…

Read the full post by clicking here!

Andrea Portes’ First Novel, HICK, to Be Feature Film

Unbridled Books is pleased to announce that the film rights for Andrea Portes’ debut novel, HICK, have been sold to producers Christian Taylor of Taylor Lane Productions and Steven Siebert of Lighthouse Entertainment.

HICK, which Unbridled Books released in May 2007, was a Los Angeles Times paperback bestseller, a Book Sense Pick, a Book Sense Reading Group Pick, and a Midwest Connections Pick. It earned rave reviews nationwide.

HICK is the story of Luli McMullen—feisty, precocious, and out on her own at 13. Luli is running away from Nebraska to Las Vegas, where she plans to escape her disturbing present and even less hopeful future by finding herself a sugar daddy. That Luli finds trouble on the road almost immediately is no surprise. But on her perilous journey west, she learns the truth of American rootlessness and discovers both the power and the peril of her own sexual curiosity. Raw and edgy, hilarious, hopeful and heartbreaking, the novel is at once a true-to-life portrait of an inviolable spirit threatened by drugs and alcohol, sex and crime, and a stubbornly idealistic novel about growing up in America.

Taylor said of the acquisition, “I was immediately struck by the unique voice Andrea had created in 13- year-old Luli. Films like Badlands, Paper Moon and Taxi Driver had left strong impressions on me during my own adolescence, and I was excited by the idea of bringing this kind of character to life on the big screen.”

Luli’s story is loosely based on Andrea Portes’ own childhood. She grew up outside Lincoln, Nebraska, later shuffling between Illinois, Texas, Brazil, North Dakota, and North Carolina before attending Bryn Mawr College. She received her MFA in Theater from UC San Diego and became a script reader for Paramount Pictures. She lives in Los Angeles.

Portes is in negotiations with the producers to adapt the screenplay. Learn more about Andrea Portes at http://www.myspace.com/andreaportes.

The Hollywood Reporter has a neat, little article about best-selling novel, HICK (by Andrea Portes), becoming a film. Andrea will be writing the screenplay!

Click here to listen to Michael Pritchett’s interview and reading on the Food for Thought radio program!

Download: Unbridled Aloud, Episode 17: Jack Fuller

Download: Unbridled Aloud, Episode 16: Stephen Evans]]> http://www.unbridledbooks.com/blog/UnbridledAloudEpisode16 Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:53:43 GMT Unbridled Books tag:www.unbridledbooks.com,2008-04-14:a5f027ddf95860f2c12777bf6f69d382/7824d794c6c6ede8b974c5eeb821a653 Tara Yellen, author of the new novel After Hours at the Almost Home, is the featured guest of this episode of Unbridled Aloud. Smart, provocative, and flawlessly on target, Tara Yellen’s revealing debut offers keen insights on a group of people left to put the pieces of their own lives back together in the wake of a friend’s disappearance. After Hours at the Almost Home will put you in an altered state—it’s got kick and goes down like a shot. But its effects might be far more lasting. Please click below to listen to or download this podcast!

Download: Unbridled Aloud, Episode 15: Tara Yellen

Unbridled Books, headquartered in Denver and Columbio, Mo., with nine employees scattered across the country and a webmaster in Estonia, continues to buck industry trends in its business model. At a time when other small presses are holding steady in their output or even trimming their fiction offerings, Unbridled is both growing its list—a mix of literary and commercial fiction written by both debut and seasoned authors—and successfully promoting its books in both traditional and unconventional ways.

Click here to read the full article!

At age 19 I made the decision to become a writer. I hadn’t finished college yet (and wouldn’t) and did not formally study creative writing (though I delved deeply into good literature both contemporary and classic). And because from the start I possessed precisely zero affiliations in the publishing or academic worlds, I’m living proof that one needs no golden key or inside connections to pursue the work one most desires.

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Pam’s in the middle with the hat, and is surrounded by, from left to right, Emily Mitchell (The Last Summer of the World), James Cañón (Tales from the Town of Widows), James Collins (Beginner’s Greek), Aoibheann Sweeney (Among Other Things, I’ve Taken up Smoking), and Jose Manuel Villanueva.

First part of the skiing lesson: How to get back up.

Pam answers a question from the audience as James Cañón and Emily Mitchell look on.

Margaret Cezair-Thompson’s surprise fall hit, THE PIRATE’S DAUGHTER, is the winner of the first annual Essence Literary Award in Fiction. Winners were announced at a standing room only gala event in New York on February 7, 2008.

Unbridled Books Co-Publisher Greg Michalson said, “We are proud to have published THE PIRATE’S DAUGHTER, and we’re delighted that Margaret Cezair-Thompson’s wonderful novel has gotten this kind of recognition from such a significant magazine.”

The award is the latest in a string of kudos for this independent press title. THE PIRATE’S DAUGHTER was the Number One Book Sense Pick for October 2007. Also, the novel earned rave reviews from national publications such as People, The Washington Post, and USA Today and from booksellers across the country.