Fave restaurant

My teen daughter and I went to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch. The IRIS is located inside the North Carolina Museum of Art. The food is delicious, the presentation is gorgeous, and you get to leave through the Rodin Sculpture Gallery!

Here are our desserts and beverage.

My blueberry-mango crumble

Daughter's Lemon Cheesecake

Fresh lemonade

Yes, it was a happy meal.

If you've read A Whisper In Time, you may have noticed that Susanna and Mark have a picnic date on the grounds of the NC  Museum of Art.  Just in case, here's a little reminder from that scene:

We biked on the greenway to the Museum of Art and followed it past the buildings as it wound through their outdoor garden of artwork. We continued up a hill and down into a valley, swallowed by a lovely forest. Once we crested the next hill, we left the pavement and locked our bikes.

Mark carried the basket with one hand and clasped mine with the other. We found the perfect spot high on the ridge, cool and fragrant with pine. Glimpses of the museum’s manicured grounds stretched below us...
 
“Mark.” I stared straight ahead, arms wrapped about my knees. “Have you been on picnics before?”
 
“A lot.” He reached up to wrap a stray curl from my ponytail around his finger. “But…this is the first time I’ve been on a picnic date.”
 
That pleased me. “Do you know what happens on a picnic date?”
 
“Whatever you want.”
 
“I don’t know what I want.”
 
“No problem. I have plenty of ideas.” His fingers slipped to my cheek, cupped it gently, and turned me toward him. “Kiss me.”
 
I braced a hand on his chest, the muscle hard and smooth beneath the fabric of his shirt. Our mouths clung briefly and then released.
He smiled lazily at me. “That is official picnic behavior.”
 
“Indeed? Picnics involve kissing?"
 
“The two-person kind of picnic does.” He urged me back against the blanket. I shivered with anticipation and uncertainty, but all thought fled at the slide of his lips over mine.

Okay, I can't promise any official picnic behavior if you go there, but I can promise beautiful works of art, and yummy food if you stop by Iris.

Mark likes it so well that there will be visit to Iris in Whispers From The Past.

I WISH ARCs giveaway

I have a goodreads giveaway for book #1 in my new magical realism series, I Wish. (This giveaway is US only.)

Keep checking back for more giveaways on my blog coming up this fall, as I'm releasing two books—I Wish and Whispers From the Past (Whisper Falls #3).
I'll try to include some giveaways from my international readers.

Or better yet, sign up for my newsletter and I'll send you email reminders.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

I Wish

by Elizabeth Langston

Giveaway ends July 11, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Hurricane watch

Every place on earth has its unique weather woes. In North Carolina, we have hurricanes.

Each year, from June to November, the Atlantic hurricane season cranks up.  We've made it all the way to July before having our first named storm.

Arthur is on his way. We expect him to brush the North Carolina coast Thursday afternoon.  He is expected to remain a Category 1 hurricane (bad but not horrific.)  North Carolinians live through so many hurricanes that we really do know how to respond to them. We remain respectful and ready.

However, send us a centimeter of snow—and we will fall apart.

When I wrote Whisper Falls, I added a scene late in the book where my hero Mark is monitoring the status of a "Cat 1" hurricane. His thoughts are almost bored. No big deal. Big tropical storms happen here as much as big snow storms happen in the northern regions of the US.

But to my editors? Mark's attitude was surprising. They live in New England. They had just suffered through a rare-to-them hurricane. It had been devastating in a way they hadn't experienced in 50 years.  They wanted me to change how that scene was written.

And so I did, but not to change his attitude. His response was correct for this area. However, I did have him think through it in a different way—so that people not often exposed to our weather patterns could understand why.

It was important to my editors for Mark to be sensitive, and it was important to me for him to be honest.  I rewrote the scene to achieve both.

We are hunkering down here in North Carolina, awaiting Arthur, and preparing for the aftermath.  The weather will be beautiful on the coast this Friday. The sand will be a mess. And we'll roll up our sleeves and get to work.

FROZEN the movie

My daughter convinced me that I simply must watch Frozen. (I have a bad habit of referring to it as "Let It Go." I don't think I'll do that anymore.)

Okay, that was a great movie. Wow. And not what I expected from Disney.  I thought it was wonderful that the strongest relationship in the film is between two sisters. I loved that a sympathetic character had unsympathetic qualities. The music was lovely. The animation, gorgeous.

We need more films like Frozen.

Giving away ARCs of I Wish

In November, I will be releasing the first book in a new series.

What Lacey needs  is a miracle; what she gets is a genie with rules.

I Wish is YA magical realism.  It's set in contemporary, small-town North Carolina. My heroine, Lacey, is juggling a depressed mom, dire financial straits, and her final semester of high school. Into her realistic/fictional life arrives one magical element, a "genie".

I have several advanced reader copies (ARCs).  If you're on goodreads, feel free to sign up (United States only) to win one of the ARCs.

Later in the summer, I have more giveaways, so check here on the blog or sign up for my newsletter (and I'll notify you when I have giveaways).

Goodreads Book Giveaway

I Wish

by Elizabeth Langston

Giveaway ends July 11, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

What if workshop in NC

Every author has a process he or she uses to create ideas and write the story. One of the most powerful tools in that process is the question "What if?"

• What if a genie could say no?
• What if a waterfall became a window to the past?
• What if you could visit other peoples' dreams as if they were vacation resorts?

On Monday, June 16 from 4-5, at the Cameron Village Library in Raleigh, NC, I will be leading a workshop on how to use What If? to generate story ideas.  If you know an aspiring teen writer in the Raleigh area, invite them to attend.

BEA 2014 recap

I had a great time at BEA 2014 in New York City. It was hectic, crazy, and a lot of fun.

Here are a few photos to share.

My daughter with Neil Patrick Harris

The booth for Spencer Hill Press, my publishing house. (I'm sure there are bookmarks in there somewhere for I WISH, but I can't tell were.)

My author-friend Amanda Brice was signing copies of her book in the RWA Booth...and I spied books by two other author-friends, Deb Marlowe and Bev Pettersen.

Daughter brought home a lot of books this time, but not me.  Just a few, but they are a greatly-prized collection! Also, note the gorgeous, handmade bag by my editor Jessica and the bronze medal that Whisper Falls won for the Moonbeam Awards!