After an exhausting but exhilarating opening weekend of the show Fiddler On The Roof, I’m ready to return focus to the writer-icity schtuff. Oh, the show runs every weekend this month so I’ll have that to look forward to.

But meanwhile I only have a bit more to go on the thriller edits before sending back to my editor. AND I got my panel assignments for Thrillerfest where the awesome Allison Brennan will again be panel master. Our topic focuses on HOW DO YOU CREATE A SPELLBINDING SERIES CHARACTER? Other folks on the panel include:

Allison Brennan (Panel Master) is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 18 romantic thrillers and multiple short stories, and the author of the Lucy Kincaid series.

Jan Burke is a critically acclaimed and national bestselling author of fourteen books—twelve of crime fiction, a supernatural thriller, and a collection of short stories.

William Dietrich is the NY Times bestselling author of 15 books, including the Ethan Gage series of Napoleonic adventures that has sold into 28 languages.

Jack Hoban served as a US Marine Corps officer and is a subject matter expert on close combat who “trained” Nick Heller of the Joseph Finder thriller series.

Avalon Books published Victoria M. Johnson’s fiction debut. As a filmmaker, Victoria writes and directs short thriller films. Her upcoming thriller, The Sea of Cortez, introduces Connie and Jeff York.

Sharon Linnéa is the author of the bestselling Eden Thrillers, featuring Army Chaplain Jaime Richards.  These Violent Delights is the first of her new Movie Mystery Series.

Amy Shojai is the award winning author of 24 pet care titles, and channels her “inner bitch”  to write in dog-viewpoint in her debut thriller LOST AND FOUND which introduces series character animal behaviorist September Day and Shadow, the service dog she’s trained.

Debra Webb is a multi-published, best-selling author who writes spine-tingling romantic suspense and has just launched her first thriller series, the Faces of Evil, with the debut novel OBSESSION.

Yes, I’m feeling seriously outclassed and hope to learn a LOT from the other panelists. I’d encourage y’all to post any questions you might have for the panel and I’ll pass them on to Allison, and give a recap after the conference in July. Incidentally, the Craftfest classes and Agentfest (speed dating with agents!) will again be awesome this year.

Monday Mentions is the mash-up-day of all the neato-torpedo links and videos, pet schtuff and bling and writer-icity crappiocca collected over the past week. Some of this “schtuff” can be hard to categorize and may fit more than one topic so I urge you to at least scan them all.

WRITER-ICITY SCHTUFF

WANA INTERNATIONAL LAUNCHES! the brainchild of Kirsten Lamb, this is a community of and for artists with more than 40 online instructors, a great resource for stay-at-home writers who can’t attend conferences. I’ll be teaching “virtual” classes here in the future.

What Does “Content Abundance” Mean and should you care?

BlogPaws Registration, a social media marketing conference especially for pet writers (do you channel your inner fur-kid?). And don’t miss voting for your Petties (pet blogger awards)

Facebook Counts “Viral” Shares

Pinterest-Friendly Blog Posts from the terrific August McLaughlin

Whispering Prairie Press contest info

How Amazon Saved My Life a great essay from a traditionally pub’d author (and daughter/co-author with mom Susan Conant of the dog lovers mysteries)

Self Pub’ing with Book Baby

KOBO Self Pub’ing Program Launched I understand this is similar to the Kindle program

Interesting Survey of Self Pub’d Authors, who does it, what’s the success rate, and more

10 Facebook Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

PET SCHTUFF

The Dog Whisperer Show Cancelled

Dogs In The City trainer a fraud? hoo boy…is it too much to ask for the “experts” to really be experts???

CATS.About.com Franny Syufy Interview, now here’s a REAL expert!

Feral & TNR Facts interesting schtuff here

Pet Requiem offers house call veterinary service and end-of-life care for pets, what a compassionate and innovative practice!

I love hearing from you, so please share comments and questions. Do you have an ASK AMY question you’d like answered? Do you have a new kitten and need answers? Stay up to date on all the latest just subscribe the blog, “like” me on Facebook, listen to the weekly radio show, check out weekly PUPPY CARE must knows, and sign up for Pet Peeves newsletter with excerpts from the forthcoming THRILLER, LOST & FOUND, and pet book give-aways!