Bøker av Shana Thornton

The Nudge Writing Prompts work for the lone writer and in class settings, writing groups, and between pairs of friends. In The Nudge Writing Prompts, Shana Thornton gives you the writing elbow--prompts for all types of writers, from fiction novelists to memoirists, poets, and those who want to journal for self-reflection. You'll discover writing prompts with questions for further character development, thematic prompts, vocabulary prompts, historically-based nudges, and self-reflection prompts for you as a writer. You'll find tools for revision and editing and suggestions for getting the most out of your characters. Grab a blank notebook, a manuscript already in progress, or open a new note in your phone--The Nudge Writing Prompts will generate endless ideas for you as a writer.

Ripe for the Pickin' by Shana Thornton takes readers on a road trip with Robin, her music, and old secrets. The Family Medicine Wheel series weaves Southern family tall tales, plant lore, & songwriting.

Seasons of Balance: On Creativity & Mindfulness explores the creative life...through changing relationships, fitness practices, meditations, aging, gratitude, and more. As one season helps us to restore our creative practices, so does another season arouse our artistic endeavors and still another that stimulates us to action. We need all of the seasons to meet the goals we have set for ourselves. We hope you will use this book to inspire you with affirmations, prompt meditations, and/or as a creativity journal. "'Seasons of Balance' is an exquisite work of writing that encourages you to tap into your own creative crockpot and weave some beautiful webs of truth. Teague and Thornton each have unique, yet informal voices that make them feel real, approachable, and most importantly, relatable. You'll be scrambling for your pen as their thought-provoking stories and poetry carry you up and down the roller coaster of human emotions. Both artists have an obvious talent for prose, a well entwined style, and the uncanny ability to discuss seemingly mundane bits of everyday life, while revealing the true depth and magic under the surface. Seasons of Balance is an excellent resource for anyone looking to further explore the root of their creative being. The perfect ode to strength and femininity, with a solid splash of vulnerability thrown in for flavor."--STEPH GONGORA, author of The Beginner's Guide to Handstand

When Robin Ballard takes a writing course in college, she goes searching for answers about her homeless father and wanders into the secret lives of her relatives as they gradually reveal their personal histories. Set in Nashville and the surrounding rural towns, Poke Sallet Queen and the Family Medicine Wheel offers a look into the superstitions and changes of a middle Tennessee family from the 1920s to the 21st century. Based on novel events, homework assignments, old magic recipes, drunken revelries, senile remembrances, midnight songs, some tall tales, some folk tales, and the lost journals, Robin Ballard tells a true Tennessee family history.Reading Shana Thornton's highly original novel will make you want to get your own family stories to the page. You'll meet larger-than-life characters like Hoot and Zona, Aunt Cora and Jane, Miss Emy, and Nenny, the matriarch, who rolls her own cigarettes and knows all the secrets of the family medicine wheel. You may even find yourself signing up for a writing class like the one that sets the narrator, young Robin Ballard, to interviewing her aunts and grandmother, tracking down her homeless father, and digging out the family secrets, lost journals, and recipes that make POKE SALLET QUEEN & THE FAMILY MEDICINE WHEEL a most surprising and satisfying fictional family history. (At least, I think it's fiction!) -MARY HELEN STEFANIAK author of The Turk and My Mother and The Cailiffs of Baghdad, GeorgiaWhen I'm given a book to review, I like to open it up at random and see if what's on the happenstance page resonates at all. This time I found the heroine Robin Ballard singing Mother Maybelle Carter's Wildwood Flower at a beauty contest she does not expect to win. She is someone I recognize, who trips over a cord as she's leaving the stage, whose family's knowledge comes from the dirt not from parchment scrolls and crests that open doors. This character is humble and honest, and the book refreshingly natural and just different enough. I like it. -RHETA GRIMSLEY JOHNSON, author of Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second ComingShana Thornton has a fresh, unique voice and talent. POKE SALLET QUEEN & THE FAMILY MEDICINE WHEEL is a lyrical tale of love in the lush Tennessee hills, of generations gone by, and of people appreciated for simple things as much as the passing on of their history. There is mystery, sorrow, laughter and knowledge in these unforgettable characters. Shana writes a magical story that stays with you long after the final page. As with one of the characters, She knows real magic. -VIRGINIA BROWN, author of Dark River Road and the Dixie Diva mystery seriesVibrant in detail! Meet and fall in love with the characters of POKE SALLET QUEEN & THE FAMILY MEDICINE WHEEL and along the way, learn the secrets of great story-telling. -BUD WILLIS, author of Marble Mountain: A Vietnam Memoir

MULTIPLE EXPOSURE shares an intimate, ghostly portrait of the impact of war, and generations of military service, on a family. The "e;war on terror"e; has captured the lives of the U.S. military and their families for over 10 years, and Ellen Masters' husband has been repeatedly deployed. In this novel, Ellen shares her desires to connect with her husband and family, and to discover her own strength by training for a marathon. Ellen describes the woodlands where she loves to run and the cave that fascinates her throughout life. The landscape is both inviting and haunting, intoxicating Ellen to stay in that place while her husband is assigned to an Army post in another state, and Ellen longs for their daughter to connect with him beyond photographs and Skype calls. Ellen shares the beauty of a Southern setting with the complexities of living in constant transition due to the consideration of life and the possibility of death on a daily basis. Ellen creates a way to channel her frustration and anger into running-an activity that both challenges and heals her.