Friday 31 August 2012

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN: 1000+ downloads on current FREE promotion

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all the many literary fiction and contemporary fiction lovers out there who have downloaded THE MEANING OF CHILDREN during the current free promotion on Amazon worldwide (Canada, USA, UK, Germany, India and everywhere else!!)


Eleven hundred downloads is no small potatoes for an unknown literary writer from Montreal, Canada! I really appreciate all the feedback, including the latest review from Steve of Highland Park, NJ:
  •  "Grace, subtlety, and emotional precision. Years ago, I read a remark to the effect that great writers are people who never forgot what it was like to be a child. Beverly Akerman remembers her childhood in every detail. She also remembers mine, and probably yours as well. She also remembers that for a parent there is no such thing as an unmixed emotion, and in these stories she uses emotions the way Monet used color. A collection to muse on, to savor, and to re-read." 


We've made it to #16 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Literary Fiction, right after the old masters (Dickens, Bronte, Austen, Dostoyevsky, etc.).




The giveaway concludes Sept. 2nd, end of day, so please keep downloading and passing along the link to those you know who love heartfelt stories that are worth reading, that stick with you, and help illuminate your own experiences... Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone!

Thursday 23 August 2012

FREE on Amazon.com Aug. 29th to Sept. 2nd: THE MEANING OF CHILDREN


2010 David Adams Richards Prize Winner


2011 CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice Top 10

 

2012 Honourable Mention, Eric Hoffer Award Finalist 

(General Fiction)

 

The Writers' Union of Canada's Short Prose Contest Finalist  2005 & 2007

 

and many other honours

 
And you are cordially invited to download a FREE copy 
Aug. 29th to Sept. 2nd.
 
“A luminous talent...A keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. A work with a brilliant sense of story.”
~JoAnne Soper-Cook, Judge, 2010 David Adams Richards Prize
“Profound...a writer of such substance that she is obviously headed to the top echelon  of writers of our time...a book of rare sensitivity and masterful creative writing [that] must surely be shared with as many friends and fellow readers as possible.”
~Grady Harp, Amazon.com Hall of Fame Reviewer, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com
“This isn't the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment...[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.”
~Katie Hewitt, The Globe & Mail
“Loved your book; read it in one sitting.” 
~Mutsumi Takahashi, Anchor, CTV News Montreal; Interview

“...this lovely little book, short stories about life in a family that might just resemble yours...A wonderful gift for mother's day, perhaps more long lived than the usual cut flowers.” 
~Anne Lagacé Dowson, CJAD Radio
“Akerman engages with dichotomies. Childhood is that safe, magical, carefree time and place — but it’s also risky, threatening, ominous and dangerous — full of impenetrable mystery around things seen and experienced, but beyond understanding. And if it’s not too much of a simplification or stating the obvious, life and the world are not gentle on children simply for being children…If, as Dostoevsky once remarked, and as is quoted on the collection’s frontispiece, “The soul is healed by being with children,” it is the tragedy of adulthood that we become so isolated from childhood — and what children offer us. Artfully, evocatively, Beverly Akerman’s The Meaning of Children reminds us of that.”
~Darrell Squires, The Western Star
“Beverly’s background as a scientist, MSc and twenty years as a molecular researcher, inevitably spills into the stories…characters, the settings and her style. Intelligent, objective, open-minded but not clinical, her prose is refreshing and unprejudiced. Her characters are frank and genuine ...With The Meaning of Children, we get a beautifully written exposé on the meaning of life.”
~Francine Diot-Layton, The Rover

“I can't stop thinking about this book...I can't remember a book, let alone a collection of short stories, where I could identify so heavily with the emotions and feelings of the characters.” 
~Martin Crosbie, author of My Temporary Life, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com

“Remarkable in its intensity and craft, The Meaning of Children is a book that bears discovering, and Akerman a writer to watch.”
~ Samuel Peralta, poet, author of Sonata Vampirica & other books, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com
More reviews HERE!
(Please note: you don't need to have a Kindle to be able to download my book. Check out their free apps for phones, tablets, and computers HERE)
I'm a featured author at Freebooksy

Friday 17 August 2012

Goodreads Giveaway of THE MEANING OF CHILDREN complete


GOODREADS GIVEAWAY RESULTS: 

Congratulations to Erin from Calgary AB 

and  

Sherrie from Ontario CA (that's California, not Canada, lol!), 

randomly selected from among the 

768 wonderful people 

who entered the giveaway for two paperback copies of THE MEANING OF CHILDREN. 

Your books will be in the mail next week. 

Thanks so much to all of you who entered...let's keep in touch!

FYI, the paperback is once again available through the major online sellers.

Or you can buy the e-book.