My old Bios

Biolicious:

Welcome to my site! I'm Samantha Holloway, up-and-coming writer, editor and book reviewer. I can be reached at pirategirljack at gmail dot com, and below you can see my bios. If you'd like to see samples of my writing, a list of my publications, the services I offer, or anything else, please feel free to contact me-- just be sure to put the secret code WENCH in the subject line so I don't miss your email.

You can also find me at twitter.com/pirategirljack-- follow me to keep up on all my millions of weekly writings and ramblings!

Thank you!


Bylines:

(From NY Journal of Books): Reviewer Samantha Holloway is a freelance writer and editor, and is working on her first novel. Her most recent short story is in Fiction International’s FREAK issue and an upcoming anthology, and her academic work has appeared in The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, and at various conferences.

(From Examiner.com): Samantha Holloway has been a scifi and fantasy fiend all her life, presents and published papers on both, and will soon marry her TV.

(From TV Geek Army): Samantha is a freelance writer, editor and book and TV reviewer. She's currently in gradschool and working on her first novel, and one day she'll rule to world. Or marry her TV. Whichever comes first. Follow! twitter.com/pirategirljack.

(From The TV King)

200 Word Bio:

Samantha Holloway spent the first ten and a half years of her life overseas, living in Turkey, Italy, Japan and Scotland, and credits the wide range of social and cutltural influences for her life-long love of and fascination with Fantasy and Science Fiction. That, and the fact that her dad’s bookshelves were always full of the classics. She read Bradbury at ten, McCaffrey at eleven, dove into (and quickly climbed out of) Crighton and Rice at twelve, and has always read as many books as she could squeeze into her head at any given moment. When she learned to read, she skipped from the practice books to Charlotte’s Web because the practice books were too slow and boring. She started writing in self-defense when the family was too poor to buy new books and hasn’t looked back since. She wrote her first complete novel at sixteen, and immediately declared it ‘derivative dreck’ and decided to focus on not doing that again. She writes the stories she wants to read, stories about girls who go and have adventures, worlds that crumble as you watch, gods born out of mortal upbringings, and is thrilled that other people want to read them, too.


500 Word Bio:
Samantha Holloway was born in Georgia, outside Atlanta, but quickly moved on to a decade of travel and cultural experience all over the world. Between the ages of a year and eleven years, she lived in Waynesville, North Carolina; Orlando and Pensacola, Florida; Isanbul and Ankara, Turkey; Brindisi, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; and Kirn and Dunoon, Scotland. She’s attended fourteen schools between preschool and gradschool, met hundreds of people, picked up random cultural appropriations and snippets of language from all over the world, and grew up steeped in a rich tea of ideas, cultures, mythologies, and landscapes.

In Japan, she learned to read and almost immediately decided that the learner books were too slow and boring and moved on to Charlotte’s Web. It took three months to read, but she read it four times that year. In Scotland, her teacher had a wonderful collection of British fairytales and children’s lit, which she devoured, two or three books at a time. By fourth grade, she was reading novelizations and mythology, and by sixth, she’d grown bored of kidlit and started reading adult novels. Victoria Holt showed her how people can fit together, but it was Anne McCaffrey who changed her life.

Samantha was always a storyteller, often making other kids play along, but one day in sixth grade when she was home sick, she grew bored of mom’s romance and mystery books and went instead to dad’s shelf where a girl rode on the neck of a dragon, and never turned back. It’s one of those ‘coming home’ stories: Science Fiction and Fantasy held all the action, adventure, weirdness, speculation, human condition, emotional entanglements, and nifty gadgets that she’d always been looking for. Within a day of finishing that first book, she’d written three stories; within five years, she had a novel done and three file boxes full of notes, stories, never finished projects, and ideas for hundreds more. That first novel was ‘derivative dreck’, but the decision had been made: this was the only option to answer the question What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

She started taking writing classes, reading books about inproving the craft, devouring her way through classic scifi and all the anthologies and magazines she could find. She read fantasy, horror, science fiction, magical realism. She majored in English in college and absorbed all the classics.

Samantha’s first published work was a poem called “Night” published in highschool, followed by a scattering of stories and poems through college, some academic work after. After college, she started freelance editing and continues to write.

Now, she lives with her best friends and two cats, three fish and dozens of plants in a poorly-renovated Victorian in the Nation’s Oldest City, writing, reading, telling stories, and lucky enough to be part of a grad school that encourages her to keep doing all of that. She’s working on her first real novel and about fifteen side projects, and hopes to be a full-time writer within the next two years.

Wildcats In The House

From a longer creative nonfiction piece:

Wild Cats in the House

Isn’t it strange to think that the little eight-pound creature purring in your lap is related to lions and tigers?

My cat, Rhiannon, was a poster-child for domestication.  She was an animal, of course, as all cats are, but she couldn’t really be called a natural creature.  She was bred for looks, and so was the perfect specimen of a Siamese cat.  The only food she ate was dry kitty-kibble—not even the canned stuff—and occasionally the cooked and seasoned food we ate.  She liked corn and peas; who ever heard of a wildcat munching on a corncob or a pea pod?

Cats have this reputation in the public imagination as mousers; this is probably why wild cats were domesticated to begin with—to keep mice out of the granaries.  Rhiannon, however, never saw a mouse in all the four yours of her existence, and was wary of anything bigger than a spider.  Don’t get me wrong, she did hunt, but it was never a matter of life or death for her; if the bugs got away, she still had a bowl of food in the kitchen, and a warm lap to nap on. 

Rhiannon was a housecat.  She slept in our beds at night, and lay in the sun streaming through the windows during the day.  In the winter, she lived in a five-foot space around the heater.  The furthest outside she ever went was onto the top step of our front porch—and then only when the weather was warm and dry—where she would sit perfectly upright, her feet bunched together, and her tail wrapped around her toes.  I always thought she looked like a statue, then.  She was a pureblood, show-quality Siamese, all angular and bony; when she sat very still, she looked like those statues of Bast on display in natural history museums.  And maybe that’s why she made sure so carefully that she was spoiled.

Siamese cats were supposed to be descended in a straight line from two temple cats brought from Siam—now Thailand.  There, they were looked after very carefully, because the souls of the dead were believed to live on in the bodies of these cats before passing on into the afterlife.  The monks in these temples fed them the best food, decked them in jewels (it’s said that the weight of diamond necklaces gave them their long necks), and made sure that they wanted for nothing.  They were treated like royalty.

7 Healthy No Nonsense Weight Loss Tips

Weight loss is one of those issues that generates a lot of information, leaving the consumer lost as to which are the best weight loss tips and which diets to follow. But if you take a no-nonsense look at it, and remember that losing weight is a slow and steady process, it’s much easier to know when something is worth trying.

Here are seven no nonsense weight loss tips:

Eat More Often

This might sound anti-intuitive, but it’s really very sensible. Eating smaller meals more often, you will eat less overall because that point of starvation that causes overeating never happens. Aim for four to six meals of around 300 calories each, and eat every four or so hours to keep blood sugar steady and stomach full. Three hundred calories may seem like not much, but keep in mind that vegetables have very few calories, and so you can eat a huge salad or bowl of soup for the same number of calories in one candybar.

Include More Fiber

Fiber gives a sense of fullness and keeps you full longer. It keeps the intestines working and takes longer to digest, burning more calories as the body works on it. It helps maintain blood sugar so there’s no late-afternoon crash to contend with. Aim for 20-35 grams a day for adults.

Get Five Colors, Textures and Flavors Into Every Meal

The more varied the colors, textures and flavors on a plate, the more varied the nutrients represented, and the more balanced the meal will be without having to fuss over it. There’s a Japanese saying that says every meal should aim for five of each: five different colors, flavors, and textures, and they should know. The Japanese are generally among the healthiest people in the world.

Eat Seasonally

For one, eating what’s in season encourages creativity and diet diversity. For another, seasonal foods are at the peak of their healthiness and taste their best. Eating foods that are in season right now encourages healthier eating habits just by including more fruits and vegetables. Weight loss follows naturally! Look online for lists of what’s in season by month, or see what’s most abundant at the grocery.

Move Around More

Exercise is exercise, however you get it. Try walking up stairs instead of taking the elevator. Walk to the store if it’s less than a mile. Do jumping jacks during commercial breaks. Join a yoga class. Just find something that you enjoy doing, and do it as often as you can to break up the sitting around that modern life encourages.

Drink More Water

Hydrated bodies are happy bodies, and they’re more able to digest food and wash away wastes, both of which help with healthy weights. Try to get at least eight glasses of water a day.

Use Smaller Plates

The size of the plates people have been eating off of has been growing since the 50s, and the weight of the people eating has grown, too. So go back to basics, and eat from smaller plates. It’s easier to clean your plate without going overboard, and once the adjustment period is past, you’ll feel just as full as before. Just don’t go back for thirds and fourths!

Following these few simple weight loss tips can help anyone start the journey back to a healthy weight. Better yet, it can help anyone maintain those healthy weights once they’ve been reached. These’re simple, straight-forward and easy to do weight loss tips. And best of all, there’s nothing to lose but unhealthy pounds!

How to write a Shakespearean sonnet

How to Write a Shakespearean Sonnet

Sonnets are one of the most recognizable of all the poetic forms, and they may look complicated, but they have a very clear pattern that makes them much easier to write than you might expect. Just follow these steps!

Requirements for a sonnet:

• ·         Must have 14 lines.
• ·         Must be written in iambic pentameter which means that the pattern the words make should be like this: duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH. Something like shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmers DAY. It’s not far off how people talk, and if you write a lot of sonnets, you’ll start thinking in iambic pentameter! Usually, there are ten syllables in each line, five soft and five hard.
• ·         Must follow a specific rhyme pattern. In this case, the pattern is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. That means the first four lines, the first and third line rhyme and the second and fourth line rhyme, then the next four lines and the four after that have different rhyming words, but also rhyme one and three / two and four, and then the poem ends with two lines that rhyme with each other.
• ·         Must have a turn. That means that the last two lines, the couplet, bring a new meaning to what the previous lines were talking about.

·          

Here’s an example, William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day”, also called “Sonnet #18”, with the rhyme pattern in parentheses:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? (A)

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: (B)

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,(A)

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date: (B)

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,(C)

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;(D)

And every fair from fair sometime declines,(C)

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd: (D)

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade (E)

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; (F)

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,(E)

When in eternal lines to time thou growest: (F)

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (G)

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (G)

Now, you try! Just fill in the blanks:

A:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

B:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

A:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

B:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

C:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

D:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
C:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

D:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
E:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

F:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

E:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

F:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

G:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

G:___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Quiz / Trivia Questions

Three questions for a horror movie quiz:

Real people aren't usually killed or mauled while filming movies. What was used for the blood in Night of the Living Dead?
a. Real blood
b. Chocolate syrup
c. Food coloring
d. CGI

Horror movies are as old as movies themselves. What is the first notable horror movie ever filmed?
a. Frankenstein
b. The Girl From The Dead Room
c. Nosferatu
d. The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Lots of horror movies are pretty gross, but what was the goriest movie ever made?
a. Friday the Thirteenth
b. House of a Thousand Corpses
c. Jesus Christ, Vampire Killer
d. Dead Alive

How to care for curly hair

Not all hair is created equal. Curly hair is much more fragile than straight, and is more easily damaged by improper care techniques or use of the wrong products, but most people with curly hair don't know this and continue to treat it the same as straight hair. This leads to breakage, split ends, frizziness and dryness.
But it doesn't have to be that way.

Curly hair is curly because it has a flatter shape to the hair shaft, and the extra surface area means it loses moisture faster than straight hair. This, in turn, means that to keep it healthy and soft, moisture needs to be the primary concern in care.

First, use gentle shampoos and conditioners intended for dry or fragile hair. Dove makes a nice line that is meant to leave your natural oils intact, and there are a number of lines available now that have removed the harsh and drying Sodium Laurel Sulphate from their formulas. When finding a new shampoo, buy smaller bottles and try each one for a few weeks to see how your hair adapts to it, then keep the ones that work best for you. Frequently, the shampoo and conditioner that the company has pre-matched won't be ideal, so don't be afraid to mix and match along the way.

Next, don't wash your hair too often. The curlier the hair, the less frequently it needs to be washed. Remember: frequent washing can dry hair as surely as anything else can. Try skipping a wash once a week. If your hair looks better afterward, try skipping another. Use shower caps or tie your hair up out of the water to keep it dry while you shower.

Use the right sort of tools. The curlier your hair, the less you should detangle with a brush--it'll only separate the curls to the point where their only option is to puff and split and fill with static. Try using a comb or a pick. The ones with widely-spaced tines are the best for detangling without tearing. Don't comb or brush your hair when it's wet, because that will  only make it easier to break, which in turn will make it easier to fruzz and split at the ends.

When you do wash your hair, start with a conditioner. Condition from the roots to a few long inches from your scalp, and leave that in. Use small amounts of your gentle shampoo only on the scalp to remove oil, dirt and dead skin, and let that sit for a little while, too. Rinse completely, and then condition your whole head and let that sit while you finish your shower. Rinse right before you get out. Some people find that rinsing this final time in cool or cold water helps to keep their hair smooth and soft.

Let your hair dry naturally, and don't mess with it too much while it does--the more it moves around as it dries, the more it'll tend to frizz. If you have to use a hairdryer, invest on one of the ones that uses ions to help avoid frizz, and keep the heat as low as you can. Flat-iron only sparingly, and always use a heat-protector beforehand and a leave-in conditioner after.

If you follow these suggestions and pay attention to how your hair reacts to them, then keep the ones that work best for you, you'll develop your own individual beauty regime that will keep you looking your best.

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