Writer's Grove

Still Life with Beer and Book

This is a fun contest thingie. :) The prize is a signed early copy of HUNTED. I have five o’ those to give away and it’s an international contest. I’ll send you a signed Oberon bookmark too!

Photo contests are spiffy because everybody likes looking at the entries afterward. We’ve done the Iron Pet contest and Nerdscapes and we even did this one where we took pictures of sausage, but I don’t want to repeat myself so we gotta do something else. I’ll give you one guess what we’ll do. But first I will point you to the blog post title.

The Rules:

1) You’re required to have fun!
2) Send your entry as a jpeg to kevin@kevinhearne.com. Entries sent via Twitter or Facebook will not be counted. Include your name in your email. If you want me to call you Sparkly Puffypants that’s fine, I just want to give credit for the photo so that in case you win I can say HEY SPARKLY PUFFYPANTS, YOU WON!
3) Your still life must have a beer and a book. Anything else is a bonus.
a) Wine doesn’t count. Nor do wine coolers or harrrrrd likker! or whatever. This is a Beer & Book still life.
b) Yeah, you should probably be 21 to enter. Because you might have to acquire beer.
c) This isn’t about beer snobbery, though! If you have a Pabst or whatever that’s totally cool. This is about art and life and enjoying them. Don’t feel like you have to find the One True Beer or anything. (On the other hand, a quest for the One True Beer sounds pretty fun.)
c) The book must NOT be one of mine. I already know you read my books or you would have no interest in entering this contest. I—and everyone else—would really like to see what’s your top recommendation right now outside of Atticus n’ Oberon. :)
d) You can use a hardcover, paperback, or ebook. If the latter, then please set your ereader screen to the cover of the book so we can clearly see what you’re reading. The cover/title/author need to be visible.
e) Totally cool to have other books in there besides the one you’re focusing on, but again, please, no Iron Druid stuff. Seriously. And of course you can have dogs and lizards and weeping angels and whatnot.

Ready for my examples, which often pale compared to the entries you guys send in…? Here’s the first one:

That’s Jamaica Red Ale with The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough. Also my Twenty-Sided Dice Fez and a bottle opener from Ommegang Brewery in New York. Can’t recommend Jason’s work enough; in fact, if you look closely, you’ll see I wrote the blurb at the top of the cover. It comes out July 30, so I’d say pre-order that puppy now and prepare to have your shit blown up. Greatest sci-fi I’ve read in years!

Okay, here’s one with my ereader. I rock a Nook SimpleTouch.

That’s Oberon Ale from Bell’s Brewery in Comstock, Michigan. There’s also something cute and fluffy there and IT’S SO FLUFFY but I can’t for the life of me explain why it’s in my house. The book is Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig. I’m about to dive into that because I read his first book starring Miriam Black (called Blackbirds) and really liked it. Chuck’s a lot of fun to follow on Twitter if you’re not already doing so (@ChuckWendig) and his blog is balls rad too.

Deadline for entries is Sunday, June 9. I’ll post ’em all up on my Facebook page each day as they come in and you can like the heck out of ’em and get giant lists of beer and books to try out. And maybe win stuff. :)

I’ll pick two winners by somewhat arbitrary standards of coolness but generally skewing toward photographic quality. Between my two example pics, the second one would win in my eyes because it’s in a bit sharper focus. I’ll also pick three winners randomly, so you have a chance of winning no matter what. I’ll announce winners on June 10.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with! And as always, thanks for reading!