Pick the KISS Movie Cast

When Ted and I were writing KISS, we had certain images of our characters in mind. And even though the book touches on descriptions of each of them--for example: Shauna is part Guatemalan, Wayne is an athlete, Landon is a Texas-weathered Irishman--we had some surprise while on tour last weekend, when we discovered that our visions of these people were unique. "My" Wayne Spade (who looked a lot like someone we had breakfast with, who in turn looked a little bit like Lance Armstrong), was not the man Ted had in mind. (You'll have to ask him for details.)

As it turns out, there's a terrific Web site out there where everyone can express their own visions of the characters, at least in a Hollywood context. Storycasting dot com gives readers a chance to cast movie versions of their favorite books. So if you're just certain of who should play Shauna, Miguel, Wayne, Trent, Landon, or anyone else, have fun going here to assemble your own star cast, or to cast a vote on someone else's:

http://storycasting.com/work.aspx?id=05b7224d-aa10-495e-867f-3063cfcc513d

Who knows? Maybe KISS will be on the big screen one of these days after all--and maybe some director will think a bit like you.

Suffering on Inauguration Day

Lately I've been doing a lot of interviews about Kiss, the novel Ted Dekker and I co-authored. Yesterday someone asked why Kiss keeps coming back to the theme of pain and the importance of remembering pain. If you've read any of my numerous online interviews, you'll have "heard" me say repeatedly that we remember pain not to wallow in it, but to commemorate our deliverance from it, whether that be physical, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise.

This morning in my car, I was listening to radio coverage of President Obama's inauguration. The announcer mentioned almost in passing that members of the King family--the children of Martin Luther King, Jr.--were being escorted to their seats. That simple observation, almost inconsequential in the context of everything else being discussed today, brought me to tears.

Maybe it doesn't take much to bring me to tears these days. But here's what I was thinking: The particular suffering that family has experienced is beyond my comprehension. (I'm a privileged white girl whose father is still wonderfully alive.) I wondered what this particular day would mean to them if they did not carry with them all the pain of their history. Would the election of Barack Obama be as sweet? Would they feel as much optimism for our country, or as much hope?

What would this day be like, if we all abandoned the pain of our pasts? I'd be interested to hear you speculate.

How to contact me

Okay, so I'm new enough to the whole blogosphere/social-networking/virtual-connections world that I'm a little bowled over by this brave new world. In a matter of days I'll probably be wondering why it took me so long to join it; in the meantime, I've got some learning to do, and more e-mail address than I've ever managed before. So here's the best way to reach me:

For interview requests, please contact Christina Garvin at The Media Collective: christina at themcollective dot com

For matters that aren't interview or blog related, you can reach me through the contact page of my Web site: www.erinhealy.com, or e-mail me at erin at erinhealy dot com.

Thanks! It's a treat to be hearing from so many people.

KISS Release

It's official: KISS is on store shelves ... or on Kindle airwaves ... or on Amazon's dock, ready to ship. A certain amount of this is a little surreal. After all, Ted and I finished the book more than a year ago. Our second book, BURN, is already in the hands of our publisher's most talented production team. And I'm working on my first solo venture, ILL WILL, which is due ... well, much sooner than I would like to admit. All that to say, I hope KISS is the first enjoyable read of many with my name on it.

Thanks to those of you who are Ted Dekker fans, for reading the book and posting your reviews on the blogosphere. And though you didn't exactly get a say in the matter, thanks for the warm welcome to the Dekker team. I'll try hard to live up to expectations, knowing just how high the bar is set.

Can't wait to hear what you think of KISS. Tell the truth. I can handle it. (Or maybe I'll find a way to steal away your bad memories of it, even if I can't kiss ya.)