Updates

Saturday, before the storm hit this area I was busy having a blast at this year’s PAYA Festival. I was so glad that so many book-lovers braved the elements to come out to the festival. The crowd in attendance was proof that even a hurricane can’t keep a true bibliophile away from books. Although it was raining a little bit on the drive back to New Jersey, the real rain didn’t start until Saturday evening. Then it started raining cats and dogs and elephants, and it kept up all night. As if the hurricane wasn’t enough there were tornado warnings too. We heard some gusts of wind here and there, but the big damage around here was mostly water related with flooding in all sorts of places and trees falling down thanks to the extra soggy...

I’m going off the grid for a few days  for a mini camping vacation. I can’t say that I’ll be disappointed to be away from this computer for a few days. Sometimes I feel like a slave to this machine. In the meantime, before I forget, I wanted to spread the news about a couple of upcoming events: First, next week, Saturday, August 27 is the big PAYA festival, and I’ll be there! This festival in West Chester, PA features a really exciting lineup of YA authors that I am honored to be a part of. Writing workshops take place in the morning, and book signings begin at noon. For those of you who are up Massachusetts-way I’ll be doing a book signing on Thursday, September 8 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Tatnuck Bookseller in Westborough, MA. As...

Around these parts, we’ve had record breaking temperatures over the past week, and so I haven’t been spending much time playing outdoors. Then again, my schedule hasn’t really allowed for it. Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to visit the Cape May County Library as a guest workshop leader for their annual teen writing workshop program. It gave me the chance to meet some talented teen writers who are working on some exciting projects, everything from high fantasy to memoir. I had a great time! On Saturday I attended the second annual Monroe County Book Expo. Last year, I attended as a writer anticipating the release of her first novel. It was nice to go back this year, with actual published books. It was also nice to meet so many talented creative...

For close to a week now, I have been dealing with some internet connection issues. It’s made life more interesting, and since most of my problems seem to stem from various Windows security settings, it’s convinced me that my next computer will be a Mac. Of course, in the meantime, I’ll muddle through with my troubled PC. In some ways, this problem is almost nice. When I can’t get online, I don’t have to worry about making sure I check my email and keep up with Twitter and Facebook. I almost feel a little bit more productive. Well, except for all the extra time I’ve spent trying to figure out how to solve my internet issues and driving to places where I could pick up a wireless signal. This past weekend was the first weekend in...

Did you try emailing recently using the contact form on my website? Chances are, I never received your email. If I never wrote you back, then I definitely didn’t receive your email. Turns out that contact form was not functioning properly. I’m not sure how long the form was out of service, but suffice it to say if you emailed me and never heard back that’s because your email went into a black hole, and I have no idea how to locate it. It’s worse than when vandals take a baseball bat to a mailbox because I didn’t even realize things weren’t working properly. Anyway, if you would like to contact me please drop me an email at alissagrosso@gmail.com, and if you did send me an email and didn’t hear back from me, could you...

I’ve just sent out the January issue of my newsletter, on time I would like to proudly point out. For those of you who subscribe you should be receiving it in your inbox shortly, for those of you who don’t subscribe you can still read it on the web here. Of course, subscribing means you have a chance of winning a prize each month. Speaking of prizes, each month’s giveaway will now be a fun prize pack of goodies with fun stuff for writers and book lovers and the other generally cool sort of people that read my newsletter. Another change for 2011, is a special section I’m adding called Subscriber Spotlight, and I want your help. Have a writing or book related tip to share? Have a burning writing question to ask? Just want to do some shameless...