THE SHORT OF IT...
L. Avery Brown is a writer - a reader - an editor - and a reviewer. You may have read some of her detailed reviews when she ran a website called 'The Magnolia Blossom Review.' The MBR came to an end when the volunteers who read and reviewed for the site using the specific rubric Avery created had to pull out because they were all writers whose work started to take off -or- they went off to college leaving Avery to read and review hundreds of reviews - yes, hundreds. And this all happened at a time when Avery was plunging deep into her writing/editing/literary liaison career.
Today, Avery is still writing her work, editing, and offering indie authors help in going from 'OMG! I wrote a book! Woo!' to 'OMG! I wrote a book...now what do I do?' And she's mentoring some young and young at heart newbie writers, too.
But she's also back reading with the intent to review. Only now her focus has changed from 'reading/reviewing pretty much anything' to reading and reviewing erotica as Avery has embarked on a new aspect of her writing by writing erotica because...well, it's fun! So, if you're looking for in-depth reviews of erotica as seen through the eyes of someone who has an actual system she follows when reviewing whatever she's reading - then perhaps you'll want to check out this all new aspect of reviews by L. Avery Brown.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
THE LONG OF IT... (everything you probably never really wanted to know about Avery, but for some inexplicable reason you feel compelled to know!)
L. Avery Brown...just call her Avery...has always loved writing and storytelling since she was a young child. But as happens even though we sometimes wish it wouldn't, Avery grew up and had to get a 'real' job. She became a history teacher because some of the best stories are the ones told about real people and real events.
The textbooks her students had to use in her classes were so boring - fact after fact, date after date, and none of the 'behind the scenes' things that make history fun and exciting. It reminded Avery too much of what it was like when she was in school as a kid. That was when she decided to use her penchant for storytelling and use she'd learned over her years as a student and as a kid listening to her family and friends talk about their involvement in the recent past to write researched 'History Read 'Em Ups' for her students.
With that in mind, it's fair to say that Avery's first foray into writing for others came out of a necessity to teach kids between the ages of 13-16 who didn't give a rat's hiney about history. Somehow, Avery, known by her 'kids' as *Ms. B* was able hit all the vocabulary and the 'state required' information, her kids had to learn while keeping the subject fresh. Yes, that's right...fresh history - now that's an oxymoron if ever there was one!
But Avery decided to write those HREUs in a way that they opened a door for her students. Instead of history being nothing but a bunch of stuff about a lot of dead dudes who did something that made them famous (and/or infamous) those people from way back then were just PEOPLE - like those students sitting in her classrooms. They had families, and they had personal ups and downs and in-betweens, just like we all do. Yes, somehow Avery was able to reach and teach kids who came to realize that ONE person can change the world - for the better or for the worse and it's always better to be on the side of 'for the better.'
And Avery isn't at all ashamed to say, 'I made an impact on those kids, and I was a damn good teacher, too!' In fact, some of her kids made substantial academic turnarounds and came to her to thank her for helping them finding something to like about school. A few of them went on to become teachers specifically because Ms. B meant that much to them.
Those were the good days of teaching...no; they were the BEST days.
It didn't matter if Avery was working with kids in a Title 1, low socio-economic, innercity school with gang activity all around - when those kids were in her class she said 'This...this is MY territory. When you walk through that door, there are no colors, no tats, no signs because you're all my kids. I'm strict. And I do not make empty threats.' Never once did she have issues with her kids - some of the teachers, yes, because Ms. B wasn't a 'scare the hell out of 'em' teacher - but they're grown-ups - you know how they can be.
It didn't matter if she was teaching in a property-rich district with kids whose parents took their kids away from their multi-million dollar homes to go on luxury vacays to ski or surf. When those kids were in her classroom, she didn't see dollar signs. She saw kids who needed someone to be straight with them to show them using all the information she'd gathered about those long dead dudes that while they might have advantages others didn't have the thing that mattered way back then all the way up to right now is what you do with who you are and what you know so that one day people like Ms. B will be pointing out 'them' and how they impacted the world around them.
Every student she met and taught during her years in education made an impression on her in a positive way - even the ones who could be trying. That, however, was Avery THEN because from 1994 to 2007 her life was family first, teaching second, fun (?) third.
By the end of the school year in 2007, something changed. The career Ms. B loved -because she saw the CARE in career- became more and more bogged down by paperwork that had nothing to do with teaching. And that's when she decided things had to change. So, with the love and support of her husband who asked, 'well, what do you want to do if you don't want to teach?' after she told him she just couldn't do 'it' anymore, Avery said...I want to write.
Without further ado - Avery NOW
Since June of 2007, Avery has been writing. She started with a Personal Observation/Southern Humor blog 'When a Southern Woman Rambles...' and then joined an actual writing group/site called BookRix. That's when she found 'her people' the ones who wrote because it filled something deep inside them.
She took those blog entries from WASWR... and compiled them into a series of books which she released for sale and -SHOCKER!- they sold. But they needed a little revamping. She's working on them in her spare time and when they're ready they'll be sold under the pen name, Landonia Anne Bickerton.
It's not a name she plucked out of the sky because it sound's like a good ol' Southern name. No. Those names come directly from the strong women in Avery's family - and there's nothing more Southern than a Southern gal calling on the women of her line to help her move forward by clinging to the strength they offer from the past.
While Avery was busy working on her WASWR... blog and making a book series, she started another blogsite called The Magnolia Blossom Review or TheMBR for short. At TheMBR, Avery enlisted the help of some of her writing friends to write in-depth reviews for books submitted by authors who agreed to let TheMBR use a detailed rubric Avery designed in a way that examined every part of a book from the cover, to the blurb, to the concept itself. But Avery had to put an end to the site after writing over 100 reviews as well as preparing 25 or so video reviews because not only did Avery find herself busy with her own writing and editing career, but all the reviewers who volunteered for TheMBR had their work take off and the younger reviewers went off to college.
A few years before creating TheMBR, Avery wrote a short story inspired by a poem her father wrote called 'Miss Callie' back in the 1930s. When her short story was first penned, Avery gave it the title 'The Driver' because she didn't know what else to call it. (Titles have always been a sticking point for Avery) Avery got lots of positive reviews from fellow writers she met via BookRix and through her blogging (bear in mind this was all well before TheMBR was born). After the feedback, Avery decided to try putting the honest to gosh short story, The Driver, on the market.
And -DOUBLE SHOCKER!- The Driver also sold pretty well, too. It even got reviews with phrases like 'have your box of Kleenex ready' and 'beautiful, just beautiful' which filled Avery with glee. But then, seemingly out of the blue, Avery decided to pull it off the market. She didn't do it because the book had editing issues. Rather it was because deep down Avery knew there was more of that story left to tell, and decided to tell it the way her heart told her to tell it. The short once known as 'The Driver' has a new title - a title Avery thinks it fits the story it to a 'T' -- Harlan Dairy Road. HDR will be on the market under the pen name Landonia Anne Bickerton as soon as she can get it there.
Is that all there is to Avery? Does an elephant have wings? No!
There's more to Avery as a writer than a wordsmith who focuses only on sweet, silly, sentimental shorts with some Southern flair thrown in for good measure. That's because Avery is not a writer who likes to be pigeonholed into 'one genre' like lots of other writers find themselves.
In fact, it's because of that desire to write 'what she feels when she feels it' that some people call Avery a 'Genre Jumper' as if it's a bad thing. It isn't. At least that's not how Avery sees it.
For her, being able to leapfrog into this genre or that genre is freeing because when a particular mood strikes her, Avery grabs hold and lets those thoughts flow out of her like the air she breathes.
Sometimes, Avery might be of a mind to write adventurous, fantastic, and magic inspired prose. And being the wordy woman she is, Avery never dips her toe lightly into a genre. So, Avery decided to try out the world of fantasy adventure writing and dove into the deep in without water wings. When she got out of the pool, she had an epic fantasy adventure novel series which started out as a little story she told her then 8-year-old daughter over a three day period when the electricity went out thanks to a massive ice storm. When the power came back on her daughter said, "That was pretty good, Mommy. You should write it down before you forget it."
That one comment by her daughter is what inspired Avery to write beyond what the work she wrote for her students because it was all fact-based and a means to an end. So, Avery did it. She sat down over six months and wrote the first draft of her fantasy adventure story. And, GASP!, Avery asked her husband to read it - it was a pretty big deal because her husband is a huge fantasy adventure reader. He liked it!
That was a few years ago. In fact, more than a few because Avery's daughter is almost 21 now and the final version isn't yet ready for primetime reading.It is taking a long time getting it 'right,' but Avery says it'll be worth it. Then again, the truth of the matter is it'll be up to the readers to determine whether it was worth all the time and effort Avery put into it after it's released.
FINALLY, we come to the end of this ridiculously long 'about me' thesis. And with it is the introduction of a new side to L. Avery Brown's writing. It's the part of Avery that's all woman because while she may write rambling personal observation tales and short stories, there are times when Avery gets an itch to tap into her sensual, sultry, sexy side.
About a year ago, Avery started writing sizzling stories for readers of Erotica. Thus far what she's written has been done so anonymously, after all, if it was horrible, she didn't want her name tacked to it, and there was a natural fear of people thinking she must be deranged for writing 'smut.' But now that Avery is more comfortable in her erotica writing skin, she's allowed herself to embrace it because at the heart of all of her erotica prose is a story. A story that would be solid even if it had only chaste kisses and allusions to things done behind a closed door with nary the mention of anything naughtier than 'her womanly bosom,' and 'his powerful manhood.'
Being a bit of a perfectionist, Avery decided to read the work of others to make sure she didn't sound like a complete loon because it's not like she lives the life of the people she writes about in her erotica! Avery is a loving wife with a daughter nearing the end of her college career. She takes care of her elderly mother and cooks, cleans, and uses a broom as most people do.
And being an avid reader, it was only natural to wonder how her steamy words and situations compare to other writers. After reading - a LOT - Avery decided, 'Yeah, I got this' regarding if she could even compare to established authors. Avery also decided, 'Hey, I put so much time into reading all these books, some of which are AMAZING, that it would be nice to share her take on what she got out of the stories she read. Thus the rebirth of her book reviews.
But this time, it'll be all Avery. She's come up with a whole new rating method, and she's got no one to help her out with the reviews. It's just Avery, her interpretations, and ultimately, her recommendations based on a Sizzle or Fizzle scale.
There you have it - Avery in short and Avery in L-O-N-G!
L. Avery Brown is a writer - a reader - an editor - and a reviewer. You may have read some of her detailed reviews when she ran a website called 'The Magnolia Blossom Review.' The MBR came to an end when the volunteers who read and reviewed for the site using the specific rubric Avery created had to pull out because they were all writers whose work started to take off -or- they went off to college leaving Avery to read and review hundreds of reviews - yes, hundreds. And this all happened at a time when Avery was plunging deep into her writing/editing/literary liaison career.
Today, Avery is still writing her work, editing, and offering indie authors help in going from 'OMG! I wrote a book! Woo!' to 'OMG! I wrote a book...now what do I do?' And she's mentoring some young and young at heart newbie writers, too.
But she's also back reading with the intent to review. Only now her focus has changed from 'reading/reviewing pretty much anything' to reading and reviewing erotica as Avery has embarked on a new aspect of her writing by writing erotica because...well, it's fun! So, if you're looking for in-depth reviews of erotica as seen through the eyes of someone who has an actual system she follows when reviewing whatever she's reading - then perhaps you'll want to check out this all new aspect of reviews by L. Avery Brown.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
THE LONG OF IT... (everything you probably never really wanted to know about Avery, but for some inexplicable reason you feel compelled to know!)
L. Avery Brown...just call her Avery...has always loved writing and storytelling since she was a young child. But as happens even though we sometimes wish it wouldn't, Avery grew up and had to get a 'real' job. She became a history teacher because some of the best stories are the ones told about real people and real events.
The textbooks her students had to use in her classes were so boring - fact after fact, date after date, and none of the 'behind the scenes' things that make history fun and exciting. It reminded Avery too much of what it was like when she was in school as a kid. That was when she decided to use her penchant for storytelling and use she'd learned over her years as a student and as a kid listening to her family and friends talk about their involvement in the recent past to write researched 'History Read 'Em Ups' for her students.
With that in mind, it's fair to say that Avery's first foray into writing for others came out of a necessity to teach kids between the ages of 13-16 who didn't give a rat's hiney about history. Somehow, Avery, known by her 'kids' as *Ms. B* was able hit all the vocabulary and the 'state required' information, her kids had to learn while keeping the subject fresh. Yes, that's right...fresh history - now that's an oxymoron if ever there was one!
But Avery decided to write those HREUs in a way that they opened a door for her students. Instead of history being nothing but a bunch of stuff about a lot of dead dudes who did something that made them famous (and/or infamous) those people from way back then were just PEOPLE - like those students sitting in her classrooms. They had families, and they had personal ups and downs and in-betweens, just like we all do. Yes, somehow Avery was able to reach and teach kids who came to realize that ONE person can change the world - for the better or for the worse and it's always better to be on the side of 'for the better.'
And Avery isn't at all ashamed to say, 'I made an impact on those kids, and I was a damn good teacher, too!' In fact, some of her kids made substantial academic turnarounds and came to her to thank her for helping them finding something to like about school. A few of them went on to become teachers specifically because Ms. B meant that much to them.
Those were the good days of teaching...no; they were the BEST days.
It didn't matter if Avery was working with kids in a Title 1, low socio-economic, innercity school with gang activity all around - when those kids were in her class she said 'This...this is MY territory. When you walk through that door, there are no colors, no tats, no signs because you're all my kids. I'm strict. And I do not make empty threats.' Never once did she have issues with her kids - some of the teachers, yes, because Ms. B wasn't a 'scare the hell out of 'em' teacher - but they're grown-ups - you know how they can be.
It didn't matter if she was teaching in a property-rich district with kids whose parents took their kids away from their multi-million dollar homes to go on luxury vacays to ski or surf. When those kids were in her classroom, she didn't see dollar signs. She saw kids who needed someone to be straight with them to show them using all the information she'd gathered about those long dead dudes that while they might have advantages others didn't have the thing that mattered way back then all the way up to right now is what you do with who you are and what you know so that one day people like Ms. B will be pointing out 'them' and how they impacted the world around them.
Every student she met and taught during her years in education made an impression on her in a positive way - even the ones who could be trying. That, however, was Avery THEN because from 1994 to 2007 her life was family first, teaching second, fun (?) third.
By the end of the school year in 2007, something changed. The career Ms. B loved -because she saw the CARE in career- became more and more bogged down by paperwork that had nothing to do with teaching. And that's when she decided things had to change. So, with the love and support of her husband who asked, 'well, what do you want to do if you don't want to teach?' after she told him she just couldn't do 'it' anymore, Avery said...I want to write.
Without further ado - Avery NOW
Since June of 2007, Avery has been writing. She started with a Personal Observation/Southern Humor blog 'When a Southern Woman Rambles...' and then joined an actual writing group/site called BookRix. That's when she found 'her people' the ones who wrote because it filled something deep inside them.
She took those blog entries from WASWR... and compiled them into a series of books which she released for sale and -SHOCKER!- they sold. But they needed a little revamping. She's working on them in her spare time and when they're ready they'll be sold under the pen name, Landonia Anne Bickerton.
It's not a name she plucked out of the sky because it sound's like a good ol' Southern name. No. Those names come directly from the strong women in Avery's family - and there's nothing more Southern than a Southern gal calling on the women of her line to help her move forward by clinging to the strength they offer from the past.
While Avery was busy working on her WASWR... blog and making a book series, she started another blogsite called The Magnolia Blossom Review or TheMBR for short. At TheMBR, Avery enlisted the help of some of her writing friends to write in-depth reviews for books submitted by authors who agreed to let TheMBR use a detailed rubric Avery designed in a way that examined every part of a book from the cover, to the blurb, to the concept itself. But Avery had to put an end to the site after writing over 100 reviews as well as preparing 25 or so video reviews because not only did Avery find herself busy with her own writing and editing career, but all the reviewers who volunteered for TheMBR had their work take off and the younger reviewers went off to college.
A few years before creating TheMBR, Avery wrote a short story inspired by a poem her father wrote called 'Miss Callie' back in the 1930s. When her short story was first penned, Avery gave it the title 'The Driver' because she didn't know what else to call it. (Titles have always been a sticking point for Avery) Avery got lots of positive reviews from fellow writers she met via BookRix and through her blogging (bear in mind this was all well before TheMBR was born). After the feedback, Avery decided to try putting the honest to gosh short story, The Driver, on the market.
And -DOUBLE SHOCKER!- The Driver also sold pretty well, too. It even got reviews with phrases like 'have your box of Kleenex ready' and 'beautiful, just beautiful' which filled Avery with glee. But then, seemingly out of the blue, Avery decided to pull it off the market. She didn't do it because the book had editing issues. Rather it was because deep down Avery knew there was more of that story left to tell, and decided to tell it the way her heart told her to tell it. The short once known as 'The Driver' has a new title - a title Avery thinks it fits the story it to a 'T' -- Harlan Dairy Road. HDR will be on the market under the pen name Landonia Anne Bickerton as soon as she can get it there.
Is that all there is to Avery? Does an elephant have wings? No!
There's more to Avery as a writer than a wordsmith who focuses only on sweet, silly, sentimental shorts with some Southern flair thrown in for good measure. That's because Avery is not a writer who likes to be pigeonholed into 'one genre' like lots of other writers find themselves.
In fact, it's because of that desire to write 'what she feels when she feels it' that some people call Avery a 'Genre Jumper' as if it's a bad thing. It isn't. At least that's not how Avery sees it.
For her, being able to leapfrog into this genre or that genre is freeing because when a particular mood strikes her, Avery grabs hold and lets those thoughts flow out of her like the air she breathes.
Sometimes, Avery might be of a mind to write adventurous, fantastic, and magic inspired prose. And being the wordy woman she is, Avery never dips her toe lightly into a genre. So, Avery decided to try out the world of fantasy adventure writing and dove into the deep in without water wings. When she got out of the pool, she had an epic fantasy adventure novel series which started out as a little story she told her then 8-year-old daughter over a three day period when the electricity went out thanks to a massive ice storm. When the power came back on her daughter said, "That was pretty good, Mommy. You should write it down before you forget it."
That one comment by her daughter is what inspired Avery to write beyond what the work she wrote for her students because it was all fact-based and a means to an end. So, Avery did it. She sat down over six months and wrote the first draft of her fantasy adventure story. And, GASP!, Avery asked her husband to read it - it was a pretty big deal because her husband is a huge fantasy adventure reader. He liked it!
That was a few years ago. In fact, more than a few because Avery's daughter is almost 21 now and the final version isn't yet ready for primetime reading.It is taking a long time getting it 'right,' but Avery says it'll be worth it. Then again, the truth of the matter is it'll be up to the readers to determine whether it was worth all the time and effort Avery put into it after it's released.
FINALLY, we come to the end of this ridiculously long 'about me' thesis. And with it is the introduction of a new side to L. Avery Brown's writing. It's the part of Avery that's all woman because while she may write rambling personal observation tales and short stories, there are times when Avery gets an itch to tap into her sensual, sultry, sexy side.
About a year ago, Avery started writing sizzling stories for readers of Erotica. Thus far what she's written has been done so anonymously, after all, if it was horrible, she didn't want her name tacked to it, and there was a natural fear of people thinking she must be deranged for writing 'smut.' But now that Avery is more comfortable in her erotica writing skin, she's allowed herself to embrace it because at the heart of all of her erotica prose is a story. A story that would be solid even if it had only chaste kisses and allusions to things done behind a closed door with nary the mention of anything naughtier than 'her womanly bosom,' and 'his powerful manhood.'
Being a bit of a perfectionist, Avery decided to read the work of others to make sure she didn't sound like a complete loon because it's not like she lives the life of the people she writes about in her erotica! Avery is a loving wife with a daughter nearing the end of her college career. She takes care of her elderly mother and cooks, cleans, and uses a broom as most people do.
And being an avid reader, it was only natural to wonder how her steamy words and situations compare to other writers. After reading - a LOT - Avery decided, 'Yeah, I got this' regarding if she could even compare to established authors. Avery also decided, 'Hey, I put so much time into reading all these books, some of which are AMAZING, that it would be nice to share her take on what she got out of the stories she read. Thus the rebirth of her book reviews.
But this time, it'll be all Avery. She's come up with a whole new rating method, and she's got no one to help her out with the reviews. It's just Avery, her interpretations, and ultimately, her recommendations based on a Sizzle or Fizzle scale.
There you have it - Avery in short and Avery in L-O-N-G!
Hey...this writer is watching! So be good! And if you want to leave a comment - please pop over to the comment page and these eyes'll make sure to take a few minutes to read what you've got to say. Just remember to be nice!