Tag Archives: Cozy Cat Press

Granny’s (Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestat) At It Again!

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It is official, my new book is out. Granny Skewers A Scoundrel is on Amazon as a paperback and an e book. Here is a little tidbit from the book.  GrannySkewers

Granny has a new addition to her arsenal of crime fighting weapons as Fuchsia, Minnesota’s most colorful detective. Now, along with her famous crook-hooking umbrella, she’s acquired a scoundrel-skewering knitting needle. And just in time! Residents of Fuchsia seem to be dropping dead like flies! First, it’s Granny’s neighbor Sally (who gives up the ghost in her weed-filled front yard), followed by Esmeralda Periwinkle (the squirrel lover on Main Street), and then, Mr. Nail, owner of the local hardware store (who is squashed when dozens of bags of fertilizer fall on top of him). Granny is baffled. Who is behind this murder spree?Granny enlists the help of her sort of boyfriend franklin Gatsby, the town’s police chief Cornelius Stricknine (or “The Big Guy”), her reality-show loving neighbor Mavis, and her own son Thor. And, of course, the special assistance of her menagerie of pets — including Mr. Bleaty, the goat. Soon Granny is hot on the trail of this dastardly murderer. Unfortunately, when Granny herself is poisoned, everyone insists that she cool her crime solving ways and stay indoors and out of harms way. Of course, that’s never going to happen! Not when Granny knows all the secret passageways and tunnels that run underneath Fuchsia. Out she goes–and watch out, you evil doers! Granny will solve this mystery–you can bet your pink undies, she will!
It is the second book in my Fuchsia, Minnesota Series. Granny is silly, loveable, will give you a laugh and hopefully at times will touch your heart. My Fuchsia, Minnesota series is a little satire about the communities that we live in today. It is not meant to be believable although as we get older I believe there is a little bit of Granny in all of us but we have lost touch with that part of us or we don’t want to admit it exists because as we age we are supposed to act a certain way to fit into society and if we don’t we are labeled forgetful, and other names I choose not to address.
I am also including what my editor said about me at the end. It will explain a little about why I write what I do.
About the Author: Me

 

Julie Seedorf believes that if you believe it, you can do it. Julie retired from her computer business in 2014 to journey into writing full time. Putting her creativity to work, she is the author of the fictional Fuchsia, Minnesota Mystery series. Her first book Granny Hooks A Crook weaves a story about a fictional town in Minnesota that doesn’t conform to the conventional rules and regulations of the communities that we live in today. Granny herself is unconventional and many say unbelievable. Perhaps she is only unbelievable because we have stereotypes of the way older people are supposed to age. Julie’s books in the Fuchsia, Minnesota series are meant to poke fun at those ideas.

Adding to her career as an author, Julie also writes freelance human interest stories for Minnesota area newspapers, the Albert Lea Tribune and the Courier Sentinel. She hopes to expand her freelance career in the future. Seven years ago Julie started her career as a columnist. Her column Something About Nothing can be found in the Albert Lea Tribune, the Courier Sentinel and online at her blog http://www.sprinklednotes.com.

Having lived in small communities all her life Julie knows the richness that a small community can have in bringing up a family. Julie raised her children in small communities and takes the time to make sure her grandchildren learn the importance of the saying, it takes a village to raise a child.

The experiences of grandchildren learning who a grandparent was when they were young, is the subject of the Granny’s In Trouble series that Julie writes with her grandchildren. The first book in the Granny’s in Trouble series, “Whatchamacallit? Thingamajig?” was published in 2012. The next book in the series will be out soon.

You can find Julie on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sprinklednotes, on her blog sprinklednotes, on twitter at @julieseedorf or on her website at julieseedorf.com. Her books are available on Amazon, Createspace, Barnes and Noble and other independent bookstores.

There is a giveaway going on for the next two weeks on Goodreads if you are member. I am giving away three paperbacks.

Let you little shine shine this week, no matter how old you.

 

Please Give Me My Discount. I am Older!

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GrannySkewersSomething About Nothing by Julie Seedorf- Published in the Albert Lea Tribune and Courier Sentinel week of March 24.

It might surprise you know to know I am a senior citizen. All right, it’s no surprise because I am always telling you I am old. I happen to like being a senior citizen. I became a senior citizen at the age of 55 when I could order off of the senior menu at Perkins Family Restaurant. I loved it. It was great to get a few benefits for growing older.

One of the perks of growing older are senior citizen discounts. I have heard the arguments against these discounts because many people think senior citizens have a lot of money and don’t need the discounts. I suppose that is opening a can of worms.

There are many senior citizens who struggle to make ends meet. They worked hard all of their life, paid in to Social Security and worked at a time where there were not retirement accounts. They did what they had to do to put food on their table for their family.

There wasn’t any extra to save for that retirement. Many salaries were not what they are today even if you were a business owner. Senior citizen discounts are very valuable to these people.

I was 55 nine years ago. You can do the math to figure how old I am now. I haven’t in all those years thought too much about senior discounts until recently. I wasn’t aware of all the discounts out there for seniors.

I was aware that my local grocery store, Wells Marketplace Foods, offered a discount for senior citizens on Wednesdays. They are very good about applying that discount without us asking for it on Wednesday. I knew Wednesdays were a big day for those who live in our Broadway Apartments complex as the occupants must be over a certain age to live there. Wednesdays is grocery day for the older generation in my community. I knew the new Kiester Market offers senior discounts, too.

I happened to be in Mankato on a Tuesday and visited their local Hy-Vee store. I presented my coupons to the clerk, I am a coupon shopper and the clerk asked me if there were any other discounts. I looked at her with a confused face and she leaned forward so as to not embarrass me or her, just in case she was wrong, if I wanted to apply my senior discount. Of course, I did. Apparently at Hy-Vee in Mankato Hilltop and downtown they have two days where they offer senior discounts. I believe they are Monday and Tuesday.

I started thinking about all the discounts I might be missing. I started asking around. Juba’s in Blue Earth quit senior discounts in favor of spreading the discounts around in the place of discounts on gasoline.

The Hy-Vee in Owatonna offers senior discounts on Tuesdays. Hy-Vee in Albert Lea and Austin does not offer senior discounts, nor does Nelson’s Market Place. They may have other offers in place that I do not know about. However, Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits in Albert Lea does offer a senior discount. Check with the store for the day.

I have started asking each business I visit and make a purchase if they have senior discounts. I learned that at most places you have to ask. I have received a senior discount at Applebee’s and found out that starts at age 60. I could have had savings for many years as I dined in their establishment. I didn’t ask. Cost Cutters, a movie theater, Michaels and Herberger’s are a few other places that gave me a discount recently. Discounts vary by city and state. Many companies leave their discount plans up to local stores which is the case with the Hy-Vee chain.

It is no secret that I am doing freelance writing work and recently I have been asked to do a column twice a month called “Senior Cents” for one of my gigs.

I am excited to find out what all is out there for someone that is “older.” I will be researching restaurants, hotels, businesses and Internet for what is available for seniors in the southern Minnesota area.

I am excited to be able to help senior citizens save a little money and hopefully along the way I will meet many new people like myself. We’re not getting older; we’re getting better and having fun doing it.

After all as Doris Roberts quoted, “The minute you’re born, you’re getting older. Who can argue with that?”

 

What is a Readers Responsibility

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I am a writer. I write books, newspaper articles and an opinion column. I am also a reader. I love to read. I must admit I like fiction better than history. I like romance better than war. I like Cozy Mysteries better than gore and violence.

I also feel as a writer and a reader it is important to leave reviews of those books and articles I have read. As a writer I also receive reviews on what I have written. As I was reading those reviews some great, some good and some not to good I started thinking about my responsibility as a reader when leaving those reviews. How can I  give a review that describes my feelings about a book, especially if it is one I am not fond of, without being destructive and brutal.

We’ve all had those destructive and brutal reviews. It could be our writing is not up to snuff but as I investigated my reviews and the reviews of other authors, I found that many of the brutal reviews, even for best selling books have a piece of the story about the person doing the reviewing that is not being told.

When Oprah had her book club, this was before the Kindle, I would buy some of the books Oprah recommended. She loved the books and her fans did too. Without mentioning any of the names of the books, I will tell you that more times than not I did not like the books. They were best sellers but I would read them and they left me flat. This was before it was so easy online to review books. If I had been reviewing them on Amazon I would have had to look hard and long for honesty in my review. Did I not like the books because they weren’t any good or they weren’t well written? No, I did not like the books because they weren’t the type of book I usually would read. It would not have been fair of me to trash the book and give it a bad rating. The fault was not in the book but in the choice of a book for me to read.

I recently ordered some tea for a gift for a person. I didn’t take the time to look at the description of the tea. I, who know nothing about tea, thought the name sounded cool so I ordered it. It turned out it was tea smoked with Pine Tar and we thought we could actually smoke ribs with this tea. Other people raved about the tea. It was not the right type of tea for the person that was receiving it. Was it the fault of it being bad tea, no. It was the fault of the person that ordered it and that happened to be me. I did not pay attention when looking for a tea. I got excited about name and not a description.

I have learned, when ordering tea and when ordering a book on Amazon or downloading a free book, I need to check the description, length of the read or flavor of the product and then make a choice. I still read some books I normally would not read. Occasionally I will pick up a history or geography or something very out of my realm. Recently I downloaded a book from Amazon. It cost me $4.99. It was the work of an author I had previously read. I absolutely did not like the book because of the content. Did I ask for my money back? No. I made the choice. Did I leave a bad review. No. I felt I had to be fair. I gave it a three and explained it probably deserved better but it was not the type of book I normally read or liked and if someone liked that genre of book it probably deserved a better rating.

Then there are the books that I start reading but do not finish. If that happens I usually do not leave a review at all. However if I see it as a book problem I will find the author and email them and discuss it with them. Maybe I am wrong. If I can’t reach the author and I do leave a review I usually explain gently my feelings about the book.

When buying a book online I would offer this advice to readers. Check out the book details, check out the reviews. If you see a bad review, check out the reviewer. This has to do with the there is more to the story that I mentioned above. It has been my experience that the bad review has more to do with the fact the reader doesn’t like that type of book. If you look at the readers reviews check out the books they gave high reviews vs the ones that got low reviews. You may find there is a pattern. There are also the reviewers that trash every book they read. Before you exclude a book that you had previously been excited about owning, look into the entire story behind the reviewer.

I have asked myself at times when looking at someone’s reviews when they had trashed a book, why they had even chosen that book to read because it was clear it wasn’t what they liked. I might add if you are one of those that leaves a scathing review with no tact, think about the person on the other end of the review. What if it were you and it were your book? Does it may you feel good to make someone feel bad? Authors have pretty thick skins but it doesn’t mean once in a while that the barb hits. There are times criticism in a review as long as it is tactful and constructive is a good thing.

Just a little musing as I was leaving a review. The next time you choose a book, check out the details. Is a mystery? Is for kids or adults? Does it have enough pages for you? Does it contain any type of material that you would not like? Know the facts before your buy.

cropped-collage.jpgThe next time you read a book and you leave a review I challenge you to ask yourself what your responsibility is as a reader. Is it to bash and trash, fling and sting or heighten and enlighten? Only you know for sure.