Jenni Ogden, Off-Grid Writer

Out today, the audiobook of 'A Drop in the Ocean'. It is fabulous; Cat Gould, the narrator, turns it into a whole new experience! If you love audiobooks or know people who do and haven't read the book, please do let them know. It is available through Audible on Amazon as well as Tantor Audio (who produced it) and Google Play and presumably all the other book and audiobook online retailers.

Amazon link:
http://a.co/c4B1aE2
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New Zealand author, Jenni Ogden, wins the Gold in the 2016 Nautilus Book Awards for Fiction, Large Publisher, for her novel ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ published by US publisher, She Writes Press.

She shares the GOLD with Monica Wood for her novel ‘The One in a Million Boy’ published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The Nautilus Fiction Award has been won in past years by many well-known authors, including NoViolet Bulawayo in 2013 for ‘We Need New Names’ (Shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize [won by New Zealander Eleanor Catton that year] and winner of the Etisalat Prize for Literature and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award), and Barbara Kingsolver in 2013 for her novel ‘Flight Behavior’ (a New York Times Bestseller, and declared "Best book of the year" by the Washington Post and USA Today).

‘A Drop in the Ocean’ also won the GOLD in the 2016 Sarton Women’s Book Awards—Contemporary Fiction; the GOLD in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYS)— Best Fiction, Australia and NZ; and the SILVER in the 2016 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards, Women’s Fiction.

The five winners are listed below.

2016 Nautilus Book Award for FICTION, Large Publisher

GOLD A Drop in the Ocean by Jenni Ogden, She Writes Press
GOLD The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
SILVER LaRose – a novel by Louise Erdrich, HarperCollins / Harper
SILVER In the Blue Hour by Elizabeth Hall, Lake Union Publishing
SILVER Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, HarperCollins

Now completing its 19th year, Nautilus Book Awards recognizes books across a wide range of genres that transcend barriers of culture, gender, race, and class, and promote conscious living & green values, spiritual growth, wellness & vitality, and positive social change. Last year, Nautilus received entries from 36 States of USA, and from 12 other nations. Dedicated to excellence and high standards of both message and presentation, the Nautilus program celebrates books that inspire and connect our lives as individuals, communities and global citizens.

Nautilus Book Awards is held in particular high-regard for recognizing and promoting outstanding print books that nurture positive change to co-create a Better World.

Nautilus is one of the few major Book Award programs that welcomes entries from the full range of the publishing spectrum: Author Self-Published, from Small Press (2 to 10 books annual & from multiple authors), and from Large Publishers. All the books selected as Winners are potent seeds for the growth, coherence, and healing of our world.

The Nautilus Mission is to make more visible a wide subject-range
of Better Books for a Better World.

Thank you for supporting and sharing on social media about Nautilus! Read More 

The Sarton awards are sponsored by the Story Circle Network, an international nonprofit community of women writers. The program is named in honor of May Sarton, who is remembered for her outstanding contributions to women's literature as a memoirist, novelist, and poet. The awards are given annually to women authors writing chiefly about women in memoir, biography and fiction published in the United States and Canada. Congratulations to the other four category winners! May the spirit of May Sarton live on! Press release here:

http://www.storycircle.org/SartonLiteraryAward/pressrelease.php
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Please to share the news that "A Drop in the Ocean" is a Finalist in the highly regarded US Sarton Women's Book Awards, in the Contemporary Fiction Category. Fingers crossed! Winners announced April.

The Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYS) for 2016 have been announced and A Drop in the Ocean is the GOLD WINNER for
AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND – BEST REGIONAL FICTION

Very nice too!

In the last week or so A DROP IN THE OCEAN has been getting many great reviews on Netgalley and two more humbling endorsements from two of my most favourite authors, Robin Black and Barbara Claypole White. I have of course added them to my other endorsements from generous authors under Reviews, but wanted to share NOW! These authors take so much time to first read and then write an endorsement when they are all completely overloaded themselves with deadlines for their current book and all the marketing stuff that f goes with it (apart from their normal lives...) And I added the final sentences of a review from "For The Love of Books" (one of the many Netgalley book reviewers) because I really love it!

"This is a quietly majestic book, taking on quests for identity, for connection, for love, for self - always with dignity and with an impressive breadth of understanding. Like the turtles whose lives and habits are tracked in these pages, the characters at the heart of A Drop In The Ocean move gently but with enormous consequence. Here is a book to lose oneself in - and then share, enthusiastically, right away."
—Robin Black, bestselling author of Life Drawing and Crash Course: 52 Essays From Where Writing and Life Collide.

"A novel about turtles, the fragility of life, and the complexity of love, A Drop in the Ocean will transport you to remote islands with its lyrical natural imagery. This is a story to savor, discuss, and share.”
—Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son

"I fell in love with the island and with Tom myself, but those turtles. Oh, those turtles, I wanted to quit my day job and head to Australia to do everything I could to protect those magnificent, wise creatures.”
—For the Love of Books  Read More 

Writers and Readers festivals are pure bliss for those of us who love books. I have been to many throughout the world; in fact if we are traveling anywhere I check out book festivals (and music and wine and food festivals) in case by tweaking our dates we can go to more. I think it is the buzz of being in the midst of so many others who love the same things as you do. But NZ hosts festivals every bit as wonderful as overseas festivals. I particularly love the Auckland Writers Festival, which is massive but incredibly well-organised and very friendly. World-class writers (including world class NZ and Australian writers) are guest speakers, and this year they sold over 63,000 tickets to events. WOMAD NZ in the beautiful New Plymouth is a wonderful weekend of music from many countries in a fabulous atmosphere and held in an incredible venue.  Read More 

Getting one's cover for one's new novel (especially one's debut novel!) has to be one of the best moments in one's writing life. Here is the cover for A Drop In The Ocean, not out until May, 2016, but I'll remind you again then, no doubt! Here is a brief "back cover" description.

"On her 49th birthday, Anna Fergusson, Boston neuroscientist and dedicated introvert, arrives at an unwanted crossroads when the funding for her research lab is cut. With her confidence shattered and her future uncertain, on impulse she rents a cabin for a year on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. But Turtle Island, alive with sea birds and nesting Green turtles, is not the retreat she expected. Here she finds love—for the eccentric islanders who become her family; for Tom, a laid-back turtle researcher; and for the turtles whose ancient mothering instincts move her to tears. But Anna finds that even on her idyllic drop in the ocean there is pain, and as the months fly past her dream for a new life is threatened by a darkness that challenges everything she has come to believe about the power of love.

Evocative and thought-provoking, A Drop in the Ocean is a story about second chances and hard lessons learned in the gentlest of ways.  Read More 

PLEASE SUPPORT MY NEW CAREER AS A NOVELIST! READ ALL ABOUT IT UNDER "NEWSLETTER" IN MY WEBSITE, AND IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU READ, SIGN UP. THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU!

Yah! My first novel will be published in April, 2016, by US Publisher, She Writes Press. Its working title is THE REST OF HER LIFE and here is a preview of the book description.

A novel about love, sea turtles, and an unthinkable choice

Too young to retire and too old for a career change. That’s the conundrum that faces Anna Fergusson—Boston neuroscientist and dedicated introvert—when on her forty-ninth birthday her Huntington's Disease research funding is ripped from under her. Will renting a cabin for a year on a coral island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef give her the space to decide what comes next? Turtle Island—alive with sea birds, nesting Green turtles, and eccentric islanders—is a world of its own, and Anna is enchanted. Here she finds a family, and the motivation to mend her relationship with her mother when she reluctantly journeys to Unst in Shetland, the island on the far side of the world that has captured her mother's heart. But back on her own idyllic drop in the ocean Anna discovers there is still pain, and as the months fly past, her dream for a new life is threatened by a darkness that challenges everything she has come to believe about the power of love.

Evocative and thought-provoking, The Rest Of Her Life brings home the potent message that it is never too late to embrace life’s second chances.

Publisher: She Writes Press, USA. Publication date: April, 2016 Read More