Monday, August 29, 2016

Discover Sideshow and Win some great prizes


Discover the world of author Amy Stilgenbauer's Sideshow and don't forget to enter the giveaway for a chance to win some amazing prizes from the author at the end of the post. The contest closes on September 14th. The tour is sponsored by Pride Promotions.

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Amy Stilgenbauer author of Sideshow.

Hi Amy, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.

Glad to be here! I’m a writer from Michigan who also spends most of her time buried in historical documents. My lifelong fascination with the written word, storytelling, and history led me down the very obvious path of writing historical fiction. Sideshow is set in the late 1950s and follows the adventures of Abby Amaro, the daughter of Sicilian-American immigrants, as she joins up with a traveling carnival and finds love along the midway.



Talk to us about your characters in this book. What makes them unique?

It was important to me that the characters in Sideshow all have lives beyond the page. They each have lives and dreams and ambitions that extend further than Abby’s story. This may not be readily evident at all times, but I think keeping these things in mind is important in order to present a well rounded world. Some little tidbits include: Della ran away from home when she was 16 because she was having panic attacks, Vinnie has bad memories of Cleveland because he lived there during the torso murders, and Constance’s family has been involved in carnivals for three generations.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in getting your book from start to publish?

When I self-published my first novel, I was very much on my own. I sent my manuscript to editors and got their input, but it was certainly not a collaborative process. That was different this time around and it took some getting used to. I had to be reminded a number of times that I wasn’t alone in this and that, yes, if I needed support or advice or what have you, there actually was someone to ask. I am debilitatingly shy, so it can be difficult for me to reach out and ask for help, but it was so nice to know that someone was there.

Have you ever gone to a convention? If so, how was it? If not, do you think it’s something you’d like to do in the future?

I really want to. Going to a convention or two is definitely on my career bucket list. Unfortunately, I’m a big introvert who has a hard time approaching people in unfamiliar settings and I do work a lot at my day jobs. Those two facts make it really easy to talk myself out of going to conventions. I don’t plan to let that go on much longer though. My goal is to get myself to a convention sometime within the next year and I plan to stick to it.


Would you like to be a full-time writer?

Part of me wants to say “More than anything.” I have so many ideas rolling around in my head and I simply don’t have the time execute them between working full time and all the other little life necessities. I mean, do I really have to go grocery shopping, again? Still, I think I’d miss archival work. Getting my hands dirty in history is part of what inspires my writing in the first place. Maybe if I could do both my jobs part time? A girl can dream, right?


Design the ultimate pizza.

This is going to be a little contentious. I apologize to all of you. For me though, the ideal pizza, is a thin crust, brushed around the edges with olive oil and sprinkled with chopped garlic and sesame seeds, followed by a thin layer of tomato sauce and diced onions. Then it would be topped with fresh mozzarella, anchovies, olives, artichokes, and pepperoncini. Finally there would be a light sprinkling of parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes. Now I’m really hungry.



Now let's check out Sideshow:


Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist: C.B. Messer
Release Date: August 25, 2016

Blurb:

Abby Amaro wants to sing at La Scala Opera House, but she’s a good girl, and in 1957 good girls get married. Still, when she receives her first marriage proposal, she freezes, knowing the way her suitor makes her feel bodes trouble. When he won’t take no for an answer, she flees, joining up with a traveling carnival.
Thanks to a burlesque trapeze artist and the world’s saddest clown, Abby bides her time and fits in until she can rejoin the world she knows. She doesn’t expect a sideshow strongwoman named Suprema, who captures her imagination. As the carnival makes its way across the Midwest, Abby learns much more than she had ever imagined—about herself, about her identity, and, most importantly, about love.

Pages or Words: 61,000 words

Categories: Fiction, Historical, Lesbian Romance, Romance

Excerpt:
Abby couldn’t remember falling asleep. She only remembered the dark night and how, outside the window of Della’s trailer, the rolling slopes of Eastern Ohio slowly flattened into the farmland of the western side of the state and faded into darkness. She didn’t say much during the trip, but her mind was spinning, unable to process what she had done.
Once, when she had been a little girl, barely older than Annette was now, her mother had taken her and Natale to visit their aunt in Chicago for a week. It had been a nice visit. They had embarked on the train with a great deal of ceremony, and Za Teresa had spoiled the pair rotten, loading them up with peach-shaped marzipan and pizzelle until they were both sick. She hadn’t left Cleveland for any extended period of time since. Oh, sure, she’d talked and dreamt about it. Nonna often wistfully mentioned taking a trip back to her girlhood home one more time now that the war was over and taking Abby along to look after her, and then, if her opera career took off as she had once hoped, she would be visiting all the great cities. In her scrapbook, clippings of Palais Garnier, La Scala, and The Met were decorated with carefully drawn hearts and hopeful stars and the scrawled word: someday. Still, she had never imagined that when she departed the Coventry neighborhood again, it would be in a burlesque dancer’s trailer.

Buy the book: 
Interlude Press             http://store.interludepress.com/collections/sideshow

Amazon                        http://amzn.to/2b43njS


Apple iBookstore            

Smashwords                        https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/648885

Kobo


Book Depository                        not yet available

Indiebound                        http://www.indiebound.org/book/978-1-945053-01-6&aff=interludepress


Tour Dates & Stops:



Meet the author:
Amy Stilgenbauer is a writer and aspiring archivist currently based in southeast Michigan. She is the author of the novelette series, Season of the Witch, as well as the Young Adult novel, The Legend of League Park. Her short story, The Fire-Eater’s Daughter, was included in Summer Love, an LGBTQ Young Adult collection published by Duet, an imprint of Interlude Press. When she isn’t writing, Amy enjoys all things bergamot and tries to keep her cats away from her knitting.
Where to find the author:


GIVEAWAY: $25 Interlude Press gift card for one winner, an e-copy of ‘Sideshow’ for five winners



a Rafflecopter giveaway

1 comment:

Amy Stilgenbauer said...

Thank you for hosting a stop on the tour! I would be happy to answer any questions about the book.

Discover Cursed Wolf by Sophie Ash

  Cursed Wolf by Sophie Ash (Howling Death MC) Publication date: March 29th 2024 Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance   Synopsis: If the...