Kalayna Price

Every year hoopers celebrate world hoop day by going out to spread the joy of hoop dance to others. While I plan to attend local outreach events in my community, I decided that this year I'd also attempt to reach all of you out in cyber land. So I recorded a  quick video about WHD, why I love hoop dance, and some very basic starting steps for those interested in picking up the best dance partner you'll ever have--a hoop! And, of course, I jam out a little at the end. I hope you enjoy: Happy World Hoop Day everyone!

Well, today ends a year for me and begins another. Because my birthday is so close to the first of the year, there isn't much point doing a wrap up. Basically, if you've been following along, my highlights and accomplishments are the same as my New Year post, A year in review with, of course, the addition of TWICE DEAD's release, ONCE BITTEN topping Amazon's Fantasy List over the holidays, and Twice Dead hitting #2 on Fictionwise's Dark fantasy list. (okay, maybe quite a bit has happened in the last two months.) Outside of my writing career beginning to, well, begin , one of the major influences/changes in my life this year was hoop dance. I talk about hooping quite a bit on twitter, and occasionally here on the blog, but today I decided to take a look at a visual archive of my year. I don't turn my camera on near far enough (perhaps a goal for this year) but, I found I did have several clips, which I compiled here for my your entertainment. My first year...

There has been a lot of internet chatter recently about a certain big press, Self-Publishing, and Vanity Publishing. I'm not going to go on a tirade here because other people have said it better, but I am going to hit the high points. So lets talk business. In publishing: Money should always flow toward the author. Be wary of anyone who refers you to a service. Do your research before you start querying. Okay, I'll expand on each of those points in a moment, but first I guess I should explain why I'm thinking about this today. Earlier in the week, Harlequin announced their new vanity publishing venture. Romance Writers of America , Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , and Mystery Writers of America (probably the three largest and most influential writing organizations in the US) took a stand against Harlequin, and basically told them that if Harlequin was going to pee in the sand box, they weren't invited to play anymore. Why would they do thi...

I’m going to answer questions today, but first I want to talk a bit about, well, today. Today was the annual lock-in. Every NaNo, my Co-ML and I host a day long write-in. The outcome of this event tends to be huge one day word gains (for me today that is about 5k words, but we’ve had two writers cross 10k for the day so far) as well as a lot of laughing and silliness because if you lock a dozen writers together for 14 hours, silliness occurs. The one thing we never get enough of at these events is exercise. So, abi showed up in the middle of the day with hoops to force the writers to move. He returned after dark for another exercise break (isn’t he awesome, and he’s leaving to run off to China) and this time he brought the fire hoop Yes, if you are looking at the picture right now, that is me, on fire. Okay. No. I’m not on fire . The hoop is on fire. But still . . . It was just . . . amazing ! This was my ‘virgin burn’ (which means this was the first time I’ve ever fire hooped) a...

While I try to keep this blog focused primarily on my writing, I am diverging today to share my favorite hobby with you. If you follow my twitter feed, you probably know I started hoop dancing about eight months ago. Well, today is World Hoop Day and the Columbia Hoop Troop gathered to draw attention to hooping. We had hoped to take hoops to the local children's home, but that plan fell through (and is in the process of being rescheduled on a weekend--World Hoop Day being on a Wednesday was the issue.) Instead, a group of about eight of us showed up at the State House in the middle of downtown, turned on some belly dancing music, and just had fun hooping on the green. We got a lot of stares and a couple tourists snapping pictures of us, but we also talked some of the suits walking by to hoop with us. It brought a lot of smiles to faces, and there was a lot of laughter. All and all, it was a great way to spend my lunch hour. If you are wondering about the draw of hooping, I can tel...