Win the OTHERKIN Trilogy in my Facebook-Only Giveaway!

To reward the folks who've so kindly liked my Facebook page this year, I'm giving away THREE (yep, 3) full sets of the OTHERKIN trilogy, signed and personalized for each winner. This is an international giveaway, opent to all.

Three folks will get a signed hard copy of OTHERKIN:

OTHERMOON:

And the Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of OTHERSPHERE. All the ARCs of OTHERSPHERE are mysteriously missing the last five words of the story. Crazy, right? So I promise to hand-write those last five magic words into the last page of your OTHERSPHERE ARC myself, making it just that much more personal.

Unless you don't want me to and want to be left hanging because you're funny that way. Up to you!

Just go here to my Facebook page and comment on the post announcing the giveaway (you might have to "like" the page first), telling me your favorite animal character in literature. (By which I mean any animal, magical, talking, or not! And not shifters like my characters.)

Animals in books are part of what drew me to reading in the first place, whether it was Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia or Charlotte, Wilbur, and good old Templeton the rat (see any resemblance to my character November?) in CHARLOTTE'S WEB. But as my all-time favorite I have to pick Iorek Byrnison from THE GOLDEN COMPASS/HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy by Philip Pullman, probably because this amazing armored polar bear is as flawed and three-dimensional as any human character in books.

  

This is a still from the movie, but don't see the movie. (It's not that great.) Read the books! They're amazing.

And thanks to everyone on my Facebook page this year. I really am thankful for you all!

Tomorrow is World Elephant Day!

After visiting Boon Lotts Elephant Sanctuary (BLES) last Christmas, I kind of fell in love with elephants. I realized how intelligent and social they are, and how many of them suffer in circuses, ill-equipped zoos, as tourist lures, as loggers. Elephants mean money, whether they're giving rides to kids (which is NOT safe for them or the children!) or being killed for their tusks.

So I'll be celebrating World Elephant Day tomorrow by advocating for elephants. It's so easy to make a difference by signing petitions and spreading the word.

If you want to know more, go here. You can sign their petition or learn more or download badges like the ones I have here.

And here's a petition near and dear to my heart - to Free Mali, the elephant suffering alone in the Manila Zoo without friends, in a tiny concrete pen, suffering from bad feet. I'm actually not a huge fan of PETA for many reasons (you do NOT want to get me started on that!), but I do completely support this effort by them and other organizations to move Mali to BLES, where I myself have seen just how happy the elephants there are.

Here, for example, are how the elephants at BLES are handled - with no hooks, spikes, or whips - just gentle guidance from their kind, trained mahouts

They walk and wander where they like on natural surfaces, get regular foot and veterinary care, and eat nothing but the freshest plants and fruits. They also get to choose their friends, and spend all day and night happily in their company.

Here are Lotus, Wassana, and Pang Dow, three ladies who are the best of buddies, on a day they decided to go down to the river and splash in the mud.

There are more like Mali out there, but that's enough lecturing for one blog post.

Maybe one day we can stop the trafficking of ivory, save the elephants in the wild, and treat those in captivity with the respect they deserve.

So here's to that day and early Happy World Elephant Day!