Revisiting Duane Simolke

I completed an interview with Duane back in January 2023 (link here) and loved his book, The Acorn Stories. I was keen to catch up and find out what had happened since our chat:

'Several years back, I released Sons of Taldra: A Science Fiction Adventure. It took quite a while to write and turned out much shorter than I expected. However, I love the resulting book; it contains lots of action, humor, and romance. Mostly, though, I love the chemistry between its characters.

For a while, I thought I would switch back from novels to short stories, since I was having so much more trouble finding time to write. I focused on creating new stories set in Texas, even though I had ideas brewing for another scifi novel.

The stories, unfortunately, just didn’t turn out as well as the ones I wrote for The Acorn Stories and The Acorn Gathering. Some I just never finished, finally realizing my heart just wasn’t in them.

Other worlds called out to me. An Iroquois family led the cast in Sons of Taldra. They often became involved in danger and heroics. Taldra even led the human home world in the alternate reality I had created for that book and one of my previous novels, Degranon. Both books told self-contained stories that avoided cliff-hanger endings, but I later considered other possibilities for the characters.

Of the family members, Argen was the most fragile and vulnerable, the most misunderstood. Since I already had ideas for a spinoff, I kept wondering what would happen if I put Argen in it, separating him from his loved ones and leaving him alone to save the day.

The novel I’m now writing uses the working title Argen: A Science Fiction Adventure. It might take me a long time to write, but I love coming back to a tale with classic science fiction elements like time and space travel and alternate history. It’s all here, slowly unravelling on the pages I write or the thoughts in the back of my head. My love for storytelling keeps the possibilities going, and I’ll eventually share the finished novel with my readers.

(Artwork by Anadelaossa, based on Argen, a character from #Degranon and #SonsOfTaldra.)

My books continue to find new readers and garner positive reviews. I appreciate all the love they’ve received over the years, and I’m happy to be part of the reading and writing communities. Readers can learn more about at books at https://duanesimolke.blogspot.com/.

Please visit my Book Blogger and Podcasts list at Twitter/X. (https://twitter.com/i/lists/983342235147173888) It includes some great resources for readers and writers. I want to recognize just a few of the book blogs readers can find there, but also say “Thanks” to all of them for helping me or other writers.

Leonard Tillerman writes about blogging, indie writers, and more. He reviewed The Acorn Stories a while back, and many readers keep reposting links to that in-depth review. (https://leonardtillerman.substack.com/p/the-acorn-stories-by-duane-simolke).

I discussed my experiences as an indie writer at the book blog The Redhead Notes, which also includes a review of The Acorn Stories. (https://theredheadnotes.com/authors/duane-simolke/). Read more about that blog and the blogger’s plans at https://theredheadnotes.com/where-do-we-go-from-here/.

And congratulations to you on two years of this book blog! I was honored to have my interview and book review featured here and that the post garnered a Top Authors Award during the first year of Tweetables. The recognition helped and brought more attention to my writing.

Book bloggers, podcasters, booktubers, and the like help readers discover new worlds of the written word. Thanks again for Tweetables and for including me in it. I hope your book blogging will continue for many years, sparking more discussions of writers and their books.'

Aww, what a sweetie! If you'd like to follow Duane or learn even more about him, please click on his links below:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DuaneSimolke
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acorntexas/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@duanesimolke
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/3110497296

Tweetables is nearly two years old!

🎉I can't believe that Tweetables is 🥳

two-years old at the beginning of March

- where has the time gone! 

45 wonderful authors have given interviews! 

The blog has nearly 50,000 views!

😍   WOW   😍 

Thank you all!

  

To celebrate, I'm revisiting five wonderful authors, and finding out what they've been doing since we first chatted. They all have wonderful news, so here's a sneaky peek at who's coming up:

 

1st March - Lisa Haden

 

 

6th March - Duane Simolke

12th March -  Kelly Miller

18th March - Helen Sedgwick

24th March - Laban T M'mbololo, Esq

 

Please join me in my celebrations and keep an eye out for these great interviews! Also, and this is a big one, thank you so much for continuing to follow the blog and support these wonderful authors. You're amazing 😍💖

Enjoyed this post? Never miss out by following here

Wonderful authors part 2

I've now moved onto day 6 of my celebrations (I know, I know, but there's so much to celebrate 🎉🥳) and I wanted to highlight these wonderful authors who have all been kind enough to appear on the blog.

They're in alphabetical order and if you click on their name, you can read their interview!

 

 JOE CLARK

 

MARTIN FEATHERSTON

 

JESS FRANKEL

 

TOM FRANKS

 

JOHN RUSSO

MAXIMILIAN SAM

 

SHANE SCOTT 

 

 LAWRENCE W TAYLOR 

 

SIMON VAN DER VELDE

 

 An outstanding group of writers, I'm sure you'll agree! That concludes my celebrations for the year - here's to the next year and more amazing writers!

Enjoyed this post? Never miss out by following here

Most popular interviews in 2022/23

Huge congratulations!

I didn't feel I could let this year go by without sharing more of Tweetables' achievements. The first is that there have been over 20,000 visitors to the blog in this first year alone - whaaaat? This figure blows my mind 🤯 

 

So a huge thank you to all of you, for your support, as they'd be no point me chatting with all of these talented authors if you didn't read their interviews, so thank you so much for reading!

 

I've also been monitoring which interviews have been read the most. The authors don't know about this so sssshhh, this is just between us, but I think we should congratulate the top 5 writers who obviously engaged you the most!

 

So, without further ado (I've always wanted to say that!), I'm delighted to announce that the top 5 most read interviews, as at 28th February 2023, are:

 

 Lisa Tomas - July 2022

Lisa is a talented writer, singer, well, the list goes on (click on her name above to read more). Here's a synopsis of her brilliant book (tweet here):

‘An alternate history where a fragile balance holds tragedy at bay. In a world far darker than it once was, will we risk losing our humanity, for the sake of humanity? Either way, millions will die in these unprecedented times…’

  

 

Liz Treacher - my first post! 

Liz was my first author and I'm so grateful for her kindness during my setup months! Here's a quote from her fabulous novel 'The Unravelling' (tweet here)

‘A cappuccino.’ He spoke clearly but slowly, as if he was a stranger here.
‘One shot or two?’ He looked like a two-shot kind of guy.
He gazed at me with thinly veiled contempt. ‘Oh, you only get one shot.’

 

Duane Simolke - only January this year!

Duane's fun look at smalltown America is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and he's so skilful in drawing characters. Here's an extract (tweet here):

'People tell me a little more than they should. Well, a lot more than they should. Actually, people tell me way too much. Or they say too many things where I can hear them, which is just the same as telling me, as far as I'm concerned.'

 

Shane Scott - 2nd post - March 2022

Faith was my second book review and Shane was a joy to interview. His novella was extremely popular with readers too - here's a synopsis (tweet here)

 

The world burns and humanity teeters on the edge of annihilation.

Heather fights for survival. After she rescues 8 year old Sarah, everything changes A dystopian, postapocalyptic novella.

Martin Featherston - Nov 2022

Martin was my first author-interview where I didn't complete a book review, although I've read it since because he made me laugh so much! Here's a tweetable extract from Nothing Sacred (tweet here)

‘Morning arrived, as it often does, all bright and frisky and annoyingly full of hope. Another day dawned on the wickedly slow pace of planetary evolution. The earth rotates one more time. The moon disappears, and the sun resumes sunning - cyclical blessings from the patron saint of second chances.’

 

 A huge congratulations to all of these authors for scoring so highly with you and I will attach a 'Most Popular 2023' medal to their interviews to signify their achievement in my first year. 

 

However, this can't be the end of the medals because I've also received correspondence and comments from readers, either feedback about an interview or comments after reading one of the reviewed books, and I'd like the authors to know that you cared enough to get in touch. 

 

This is a tough one though, as I'd really love to give awards to all of my authors, because they're all brilliant and have all received great feedback - without exception! However, sense dictates capping it, so another 5 authors will each receive a 'Page turner' medal, to signify the level of audience engagement they've generated. These will be announced tomorrow! I look forward to seeing you then!

 

Enjoyed this post? Never miss out by following here

All these wonderful books!

 

I'm still in party mood, celebrating Tweetables' one-year anniversary.  

Going back a year, my aim was to start a blog to help highlight amazing authors and their work. 

So far I've been privileged in meeting 22 wonderful authors (with many more booked for 2023!) and the photo above shows all the books featured - wow, what an amazing array!

I've covered fiction and non-fiction authors, some books are parts of series, others are short stories, but the range is huge and the genres numerous - hopefully ensuring there's something here for everyone. 

The only thing all these books have in common is the hard-working author writing their socks off for us - thank goodness for them! So below are the links to all their wonderful interviews and book reviews. Please do take a look and support these wonderful writers. 

If you click on their name below (in alphabetical order), their article will appear...

JOE CLARK   VIRGINIA CROW     MARTIN FEATHERSTON  JESS FRANKEL  TOM FRANKS

GERRI R GRAY  NAOMI E KENNEDY   JACKIE LAMBERT  TOULA MAVRIDOU-MESSER

GENNA ROWBOTHAM   JOHN RUSSO    MAXIMILIAN SAM  SHANE SCOTT  HELEN SEDGWICK

DUANE SIMOLKE   AMANDA STERCZYK   LAWRENCE W TAYLOR  LISA THOMAS   LIZ TREACHER

ALEKSANDRA TRYNIECKA    SIMON VAN DER VELDE    ZEL WINTER

Enjoyed this post? Never miss out by following here