​Conversations for the Dinner Table
By Elizabeth Dubos
 
The holidays are right around the corner. This can be nerve-racking for people because they worry about friend and family gatherings around the dinner table. Dinner table conversations can ignite anxiety when you’re not social or worried about the direction of the conversation. In the past, people kept asking you too personal questions, or brought up unsettling topics to discuss like ineffective government, poverty, civil rights, affordable housing, or pollution. These topics matter, but are not appropriate for the holiday family dinner table. You just want to enjoy their company and your delicious meal right in front of you. Here are some conversation topics that will keep the dinner table light and airy. Plus, you might even laugh or smile.
 
1. What are you most thankful for this year?
2. Have you watched anything good or funny on YouTube this year? What are your YouTubers to watch?
3. Have you seen any movies this year? What was your favorite one that you saw?
4. Have you watched anything good on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc. recently? Would you recommend the show?
5. What’s your favorite book that you’ve read this year? What was it about?
6. Did your favorite musicians or bands release any new music this year? What did you think?
7. If you had to select a new team of Marvel Avengers, who would you choose?
8. What three things are at the top of your bucket list?
9. Have you seen any funny memes on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter lately? What made them funny? Would you like to share?
10. Did you go on any vacations or weekend trips? Do you have any exciting stories, pictures, or videos to share with us?
11. What is your favorite season and why?
12. What do you think is your spirit animal?
13. What is your Hogwarts House or Patronus?
14. If you were a gingerbread person, how would you decorate your house? What type of food or ingredients would you use?
15. What is your favorite holiday movie?
16. What was your favorite holiday tradition growing up?
17. What is your favorite holiday food or trimming?
18. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
19. Do you have a favorite holiday outfit?
20. What is your favorite holiday memory?
21. What was the most memorable-funny gift you’ve received during the holidays?
22. Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions yet? If so, what are they? What are your plans for the new year?
 
Edited by Emily Chance

What to Bring to Thanksgiving
By Elizabeth Dubos
 
Disclaimer: This blog post is not sponsored. These thoughts and suggestions are my own.
 
Thanksgiving is a time to spend with friends, family, or someone special. It’s a time where people express what they’re thankful or grateful for. There are numerous Thanksgiving traditions like hosting a feast, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, or playing football. A similarity between Thanksgiving, is that people gather together to celebrate this holiday. If you’re going to someone’s Thanksgiving gathering, you might consider bringing something to express your thankfulness for an invitation. However, you might not know what to bring. The following thoughts might be swirling around in your head. Do I bring a side dish or dessert? Do I bring wine? Do I bring a card? Do I bring flowers? How much time or money should I spend on this gift? What to bring to Thanksgiving can be a daunting task because you don’t want others to think you’re not grateful for them opening up their house and preparing a meal for you. Here is a list of suggestions that will help you decide what you should bring to Thanksgiving. Lastly, don’t be so hard on yourself, because it’s the thought that counts. 
 
1. Leftover containers. This will come in handy for Thanksgiving leftovers. The host will be appreciative that they don’t have to worry about the excess food in their fridge that could possibly go to waste. You and other guests can bring the leftovers home and enjoy them for a delicious lunch!
​
2. Flowers. You can easily pick up a beautiful bouquet or vase of flowers from the grocery store and present them to your host. Also, flowers take up less space, so the host doesn’t have to worry about where to put them.

3. Wine and an opener. Everyone can enjoy a delicious drink before the Thanksgiving feast. Wine and openers are easy to purchase and transport to your Thanksgiving celebration. Plus, you can purchase a wine gift bag to enhance its presentation for your hosts.

4. Coasters. Everyone will have a drink, whether it’s alcoholic or not. People will start to leave their drinks around and this could possibly stain the furniture. The coasters will prevent stains and save your host’s furniture.

5. Candles. Head on over to Yankee Candle and pick out a Fall or Thanksgiving scented candle for this occasion. It will enhance the Thanksgiving atmosphere. Plus, the scent can be a great conservation starter and bring up memories of past Thanksgivings.

6. Bring a card game. If the celebration is adults only, then consider bringing Cards Against Humanity. If there’s children, consider bringing Apples to Apples. These two card games are an excellent source of laughter that everyone can play together. Card games are great for when everyone is digesting their food and not ready for dessert yet.

7. A card. Thanksgiving cards are simple and sweet. Plus, you can write a thoughtful message in the card about why you’re thankful that they invited you.

8. Pinterest Craft. It’s okay if you can’t find the right gift. Head on over to Pinterest and look up Thanksgiving crafts. People love homemade gifts because it shows the hard work and effort you put into the gift.

9. A Gift Card. Show your appreciation with a gift card to their favorite store. The host worked really hard to make Thanksgiving successful and when they’ve recovered, they can go to their favorite store. Maybe they could use it for Black Friday shopping?

10. A bath bomb or bath salts. Hosting a Thanksgiving celebration can be exhausting. After the celebration has concluded, the host can enjoy dipping into a nice warm bath and relax with their bath bomb or bath salts.

11. Thanksgiving Mad Libs. After you’ve finished eating your Thanksgiving meal and enjoying coffee and tea, why not play Mad Libs? You fill in words into the prompts and then read it aloud. Everyone will enjoy laughing together.
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Gobble-Mad-Libs-Roger-Price/dp/0843172924/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=thanksgiving+gifts&qid=1573489675&sr=8-10

12. Before you bring a side dish or a dessert, remember to ask the host what they would like. The host will have spent hours and days preparing their home and meal for Thanksgiving. You wouldn’t want to bring an extra dish to take up space. Plus, the host will be more aware of food allergies, so they can alert you on what will be the best dish to bring.
 
Edited by Emily Chance

When the vampire Nelleke Reitsma learns that a portrait of her, along with some documents and photographs from the past, might reveal her identity, she must act to protect herself and her coven. An ancient figure from the community of the undead leads her to a place where all possibilities exist, where time and circumstance can be altered, and the problem Nelleke and her coven is facing might be resolved. But the possibility of resolution is set beside the possibility that, within this realm, reality as she knows it could come to an end. Having entered, Nelleke must decide if she wants to return to the world she left behind or enter into a new life—one in which she is not a vampire.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  David W. Landrum lives and writes in West Michigan. His fiction, poetry, and scholarship have appeared in journals and magazines around the world. Landrum has published over 150 short stories in such journals as The Horror Zine, 34th Parallel, Black Denim Review, Silver Pen, Erotique, Non-Binary Review, Night to Dawn, The Lorelei Signal and in many others. His novellas--The Gallery, Strange Brew, ShadowCity, The Last Minstrel, The Prophetess, The Sorceress of Time, and The Court of the Sovereign King are available through Amazon. He has also published a great deal of poetry and many academic studies.


Book Prices:  $2.99 ebook, $8.00 paperback


REVIEWERS, BLOGGERS, VLOGGERS: Email Kristi at dreamingbigpublications@outlook.com to request your free electronic review copy today! Didn't read the first book in the series? Review copies are available for it as well! 

​Holiday Song Recommendations
By Elizabeth Dubos
 
Do you need help getting into the holiday spirit? Does your holiday party need some music to help spread happiness and joy? Is your house too quiet when you’re doing your holiday baking or cooking? Do you need background music when you’re putting up holiday decorations? Do you think the right holiday song could inspire your holiday dinner outfit or makeup? Do you need the nostalgia of holiday songs? If you answered YES to any of the previous questions, try listening to some holiday songs! Here is a list of song recommendations to help get you into a celebratory holiday mood. If anyone needs help finding these songs, I made a YouTube playlist.
 
Holiday Songs Playlist link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOWr4RELnWxcESPIjMPnBzGCBaZC-8bul
 
1. Carol of the Bells – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
2. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – L’Orchestra Cinematique
3. Jingle Bell Rock – Hot Chelle Rae
4. All I Want for Christmas is You ­­­­­­­­­­­– ­­­­Mariah Carey
5. Silent Night ­– Kelly Clarkson, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire
6. I Want a Hippopatamus for Christmas – Gayla Peevey
7. Christmas Don’t be Late – Alvin and the Chipmunks
8. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer – Elmo & Patsy
9. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Frank Sinatra
10. White Christmas – Michael Bublé & Shania Twain
11. A Holly Jolly Christmas – Lady Antebellum
12. Holly Jolly Christmas – Burl Ives
13. Run Rudolph Run – Chuck Berry
14. Let it Snow – Dean Martin
15. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch – Thurl Ravenscroft
16. Frosty the Snowman – Jackie Vernon
17. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
18. So this is Christmas – John Lennon
19. Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
20. Last Christmas – Wham!
21. Santa Baby – Taylor Swift
22. Rudolph the Red Noised Reindeer – Gene Autry
23. Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) – Gene Autry
24. Up on the Housetop – Gene Autry
25. HARK! The Herald Angels – Carrie Underwood
26. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town ­– Bing Crosby
27. Deck the Halls – Bing Crosby
28. Little Drummer Boy – Pentatonix
29. The First Noel – Pentatonix
30. Hallelujah – Pentatonix
31. When Christmas Comes ­– The Polar Express
32. Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel
 
Edited by Emily Chance

Here at Dreaming Big Publications, we get a lot of submissions, but probably not nearly as many as some other companies do. It can be overwhelming sorting through them all and deciding which ones we want to take a closer look at. Here are some tips that will help you get past the query stage.

Please note that some of what I'm pointing out here might pertain mainly to our company, but most is good advice for submitting anywhere.

1. Get their name right! Many times in the initial query, we are referred to as Dream Big instead of Dreaming Big. This is a problem. There actually used to be a company named Dream Big but that is not us. Never has been. (We still get emails from authors who worked with that company before they went defunct, asking about their manuscript, but that's off topic.) This may seem like a small thing, but it is attention to detail and that matters. It is a pet peeve of mine, and I instantly delete queries from authors who have queried us as Dream Big. On a similar note, it's okay to address "editor" or a title if you don't know the person's name. However, if you are going to address them by name, spell it correctly. 

2. Keep it short and simple.  Just tell them in the query what they need to know. A query should be a short synopsis, not long. I like one or two paragraphs, that's it. If it takes you several pages to tell me what your story is about, what this tells me is you are long-winded and might tend to ramble, which tells me the book might need way more editing to cut out unnecessary and boring content to get to the good stuff. If I'm reading 20 queries in a day, I want to know right away if I want to see more of this manuscript or not, and making me wade through a lengthy description is going to make my eyes glaze over and make me say, "next!"

3. Don't fall for cliches.  "Must read" or "best book ever", or "no other book like it on the market" doesn't work. Let reviewers use terms like "must read". Let the publisher decide for themselves if it is a must read or the best book ever. Don't waste precious time and space in your query with empty words like these. They don't attract our attention. These phrases don't tell us what the story is about and come across as clickbait I guess is a good way to describe it. 

4. Have a platform and let the publisher know about it!  I wrote another article describing what a platform is, so I won't go into that here. But the publisher doesn't just want to know if you have a good story, they want to know about you as well.  This should include other published works you have, awards you've won, speeches you've given.  If you are a celebrity or have a huge social media following or do a podcast, we definitely want to know about it. We want links to your author website and social media pages so we can check out your online influence ourselves. We want your credentials, especially if you're writing nonfiction.  We need to see what sort of a fan base you already have in place because that helps us figure out if your book has the potential to sell or not. You might have a great story, but without a platform, it isn't going to sell and we want books with selling potential.

5. Make your query error free!  If you have spelling and grammar mistakes in your query, I'm going to delete it and not respond. It tells me your book most likely is going to be full of the same kind of errors, and we don't want that. Make a good first impression. It matters a lot. 

6. Follow their instructions!  This is a big thing that I see a lot of lately. If I like the query and think the idea of the story shows promise, I ask to see the full manuscript, attached as a Word doc to an email, and there is information I ask them to add on the first page. I specify that they are to send just one document and I tell them what I want on the first page. Yet so many times they sent multiple documents, or they send a PDF file when I clearly said Word doc. I've had people send zip files before. The way I see it is, if you have trouble following simple instructions now, you may be a difficult author to work with throughout the entire publication process, and I'm going to pass on this one without even looking at the manuscript most likely.

7. Send a completely clean manuscript with no fancy fonts, styles, or markups of any kind. Don't put headers and footers, don't put images, don't use styles for your chapter headings. All of these hidden marks will need to be removed and we want a completely clean document to work with. I don't want page numbers or page breaks. Single space, no space between paragraphs, a normal font. PLAIN. If you have some of these in the manuscript you send to us for your query, it won't count against you, but if we accept it for publication, you will be asked to totally remove anything like that so we have a clean manuscript to work with.

8. Don't send a rough draft.  If you know you're not good with grammar or sentence structure, have an editor edit your manuscript and get it to where you think it is perfect before you submit it to publishers. If you didn't write with an outline, have a great content editor edit your manuscript before you submit it to publishers because it most likely rambles and needs a lot cut and needs rearranging.  Have people other than friends and family look at it, and take their advice. Writers groups are a good idea, either in person or online. You can hire editors if you want.  Get it as perfect as you can get it before submitting it.  (But then know that it isn't perfect and will still go through heavy editing if accepted, that's part of the process).

9.  Have the first 30 pages PERFECT and engaging.  Submission editors usually follow the rule of thumb that if their attention isn't grabbed in the first 30 pages, they stop reading at that point and discard the manuscript. You have 30 pages at most to grab our attention and make us want to read more. Sometimes, you have just the first page! If that first paragraph and first page is full of errors, or is boring and full of backstory, I am not going to want to read further. The opening should drop the reader right into some action. If our submission editors find themselves reading after the first 30 pages because they can't stand not knowing what happens next, we've got a good book on our hands. But if it is a struggle to read that far, we don't want it. We don't want something that bores us. And like I said, we won't make it off the first page if the first page and opening paragraph are horrible.

Know your genre. Be well read in the genre you are writing in. It will help you out a lot to see how other published works arrange their story, for example. World building, character development, plot - these things might vary greatly across the different fiction genres.  For nonfiction writers, you usually need to have professional credentials or something that makes you qualified to write on that subject. One of the biggest reason for rejecting certain nonfiction work is that the author has no qualifications in the subject they wrote about. A self help book is a great example. For memoirs, things that are relevant and meaningful to you probably aren't to readers, so be prepared to have a lot of material cut that you thought was important. Ask yourself if you were reading this book, would this passage matter to you? It's hard to be subjective when it's your own story. Unfortunately, what readers want and what authors are willing to put in the manuscript for the world to read are often two different things. The readers want the juicy bits. They want to hear details of the lows you sunk to when dealing with the worst of your bipolar mania, they want to hear the details of your extramarital affairs, or the abuse you suffered. These are usually the bits that authors want to gloss over or skip entirely. If your memoir is more of a personal diary that only matters to you or a handful of people who know you, it won't get published. It has to appeal to readers.


By Kristi King-Morgan

BIO: Kristi has a Master's in Social Work and an MFA in Creative Writing. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Dreaming Big Publications, and previously worked as Director of Corporate Operations at Pro Se Press. She resides with her family in Mississippi.