Katdish.net

Over the past five years, Billy Coffey has done a variety of interviews. In addition to multiple online and print interviews, he has also appeared on the PBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., a morning news show in in Richmond, VA and has participated in a few radio phone interviews. I remember listening to his first on-air live interview when his debut novel, Snow Day came out. The scheduled interviewer had read the book and liked it. Unfortunately, something came up at the last minute and she had to bow out. Instead, the interview was conducted by a guy who knew nothing about the book, Billy or how to conduct an interview. He was clearly unprepared and more than a little distracted. He spent most of the interview talking about himself and at one point, stopped to feed his cat.

Yes. You read that right. He fed his cat, which you could hear meowing in the background. Billy was a real pro and tried his best to steer the conversation back to the book, but I swear I haven’t cringed so many times since I heard Roseanne Barr sing the National Anthem.

Aside from that rocky start, I’ve found Billy’s interviews to be interesting and informative. Most tend to focus on story lines and the craft of writing, which makes sense–he’s a writer trying to market his books, after all.

But I thought we would take a little detour from all things literary and writerly and do a little “out of the box” multiple choice Q&A with everyone’s favorite fancy redneck, Billy Coffey.

Bill, (can I call you Bill?) thanks for taking time out of your busy day to answer a few questions here at katdish.net!

Like I had a choice. I’m busy, so let’s hurry this up. Unlike some people, I have a job.

And don’t ever call me Bill.

I suppose you’re right. Helping make other people’s dreams come true really isn’t a job. It’s more like mission work. It sure pays like mission work. And speaking of me, here’s your first question:

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1) Which TV work relationship do you think best reflects our working relationship?

A) Shaun Spencer & Burton Guster from Psych

B) Jack Bauer & Chloe O’Brian from 24

C) Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Art Mullen & Deputy Raylan Givens from Justified

D) George Costanza and George Steinbrenner from Seinfeld

E) Dr. Frasier Crane and Agent BeBe Glazer from Frasier

F) All of the Above

G) None of the Above

I’ll go with G, assuming that I’m Gus, Chloe, Art, George, and Frasier.

****

2) You have an irrational fear of

A) The Zombie Apocalypse

B) Big cities

C) Eccentric medium Tangina Barrons from the movie Poltergeist

D) Ice Cream Trucks

E) All of the Above

F) None of the Above

Are you kidding me? I couldn’t even get through that list without dry heaving. E.

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3) When traveling on business, after leaving the airport you typically

A) Check into the hotel, find the nearest Starbucks with wifi, sit down and get some writing done.

B) Hail a taxi and ask the driver to take you to a few local hot spots or points of interest.

C) Look up a few locals and ask them to meet you for lunch or dinner.

D) Go straight to your hotel room, order room service then barricade yourself in your room by pushing the largest piece of furniture you can find up against the door.

E) All of the Above.

F) None of the Above.

D. Isn’t that what everyone does? I mean, come on. It’s THE CITY. If city folks came to where I live, they’d do the same.

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4) You’ve written about your father before. Most recently in an article you wrote for The Good Men Project, A Father’s Long Shadow. Which on-screen father/son relationship would you say is most representative of your relationship with your father?

A) Andy Taylor and Opie of The Andy Griffith Show

B) Martin and Dr. Frasier Crane of Frasier

C) Jackson and Leroy Jethro Gibbs of NCIS

D) Sheriff Buford T. Justice and Junior of Smokey and the Bandit

E) All of the Above

F) None of the Above

I wish I could say the Gibbs’s, but I could sue the writers of Smokey and the Bandit for basically stealing my childhood story.

****

I’ve saved the hardest question for last.

5) If you were only allowed to watch three television shows for the rest of your life, but were given access to all episodes, which three would you choose and why?

Sweet fancy Moses. Okay—Justified, Castle, Ed, Sherlock, and Frasier. Yes, that’s five instead of three. But that’s what you deserve for not putting any sci-fi AT ALL on that list. No Battlestar Galactica? No Eureka? No Star Trek?

I’m done with this interview.

***

I suppose I’ll allow the five rather than three, even though in some circles The Twilight Zone and Fringe would be considered sci-fi.

I keep forgetting what a hopeless nerd you are.

It’s the hat that throws me off, I guess.

Thanks again for taking time for this interview, Billy. And no, you really didn’t have a choice. Now get back to work.

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For those of you who are still with us, now is your opportunity to win a signed copy of Billy Coffey’s fourth novel, The Devil Walks in Mattingly. Just leave a comment here. A winner will be chosen at random on Thursday, March 27, 2014.

But wait…there’s more! Win a Kindle HDX from Billy Coffey in “The Devil Walks in Mattingly” Giveaway!

Win a Kindle HDX!

In the meantime, it would be great if you could help get the word out about the book by sharing links via social media, reviews or just good old fashioned word of mouth. I’ve provided some links below:

Billy’s website: http://billycoffey.com
(Be sure to sign up to receive new posts via email. He writes good short stories, too!)

Twitter: @billycoffey

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mattinglyva/

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/billycoffeywriter

Join the Launch Team: Devil Walks in Mattingly Launch Team

Thanks for helping spread the word about Billy’s latest (and greatest, I think), The Devil Walks in Mattingly. I’ll notify the winner via email next Friday.

Good Luck!

Those of you who have been following along with me in my blogging journey for awhile may remember that once upon a time, the name of my blog was “Hey look a Chicken”. Remember?:

Ah, good times, right? As much as I enjoyed that silly little blog, after helping Billy Coffey and Peter Pollock design this blog:

I was having a serious case of website envy. I still think BillyCoffey.com is one of the best looking writer’s websites around, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. It’s been used as an example of a model platform for aspiring authors by at least one publishing PR firm. What I love about Billy’s site is that the reader can get a sense of who he is as a writer and as a person. I’ve tried to do that here as well.

It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of Blogger, even though it served me well, I think I just outgrew it when blogging became more than just a hobby for me. Part of what I do (besides being ridiculous and snarky) is to help promote and encourage other writers and bloggers, which means the image I reflect here is important. I think the cleaner, more professional look of Standard Theme by mastermind John Saddington has helped me accomplish this while still allowing me to maintain my personality. And lest you think all WordPress themes have to look alike, check out the variety of templates Peter Pollock has helped create and maintain for his clients:

Why should you care about any of this? Because if you’re ready to makeover your blog, Peter Pollock and I would love to help you do that. So much so that we’re giving away a year of free self-hosted wordpress blogging! Including site design by Peter and me for one  lucky winner.

We have three prizes to give away:

3rd prize: One year of free blog hosting + a standard license for Standard Theme

2nd place prize: One year of free blog hosting, a domain name (.com or .net) and a standard licence for Standard Theme

1st place prize: One year of free blog hosting, a domain name (.com or .net), a standard licence for Standard Theme plus site design by @Katdish and Peter Pollock

Total value of all prizes: $775

• Entry is easy. Simply leave a comment on this blog post and/or on the one at Peter’s site and you get one entry into the prize draw.
• Get an extra entry every day by tweeting about this giveaway and adding the hashtag #nomoreblogger
• You can also gain additional entries for the next ten days by visiting our sites and checking for our daily entry opportunities.

All entries will be numbered. At 12:01 CST on February 28, 2011, we will close entries and use the random.org random number generator to pick our three winners.

If you don’t need blog hosting, you can still enter and then give the hosting to a friend, if you win.

If you’re already a customer of New Blog Hosting and you win, we’ll add a year to your renewal date!

Enter here in the comments section and/or Peter’s site, PeterPollock.com

So, what do you say? Are you ready to be fabulous?

Many thanks to John Saddington of Tent Blogger and designer of the incredibly fabulous Standard Theme: The De Facto Professional Blogger’s Theme, for donating THREE Standard Theme templates for this contest. Even if you don’t enter the contest, I would highly recommend checking out his blog. It’s literally a treasure trove of useful and practical advice for bloggers.

The Winners are Helen and Wendy. (Please email me your 411 – okay, that was kind of lame.) I should send Candy some yard art just for spite, but I’m praying for her ungrateful heart. Also, I think Helen knows me better than some family members.

And now lemme break it down for you people:

8 Things I MAY OR MAY NOT have done Yesterday:

1. Made red beans and rice for lunch.
True – It was from a box, but it was sprinkled with love.

2. Shot a man just to watch him die.
False – I did not shoot a man to watch him die. On Wednesday.

3. Sent Donald Miller* a tweet with the word frigintastic and got a response to said tweet.
True – He posted a twitpic of a bar that I may or may not have patronized in downtown Austin. I asked if the pic was from downtown Austin, frigintastic! His response: “Absolutely. An Awesome Town.” Not so wordy in the non-book setting.

4. Threatened to kick my kids out in the rain if they messed up my clean house.
True – That’s a no brainer.

5. Got rave reviews from Simon Cowell after singing “Jenny” on American Idol for Wii.
False – I did not play the Wii on Wednesday. But I totally rock that song.

6. Alphabetized my spice rack.
False – I do not own a spice rack. We buy our spices in big redneck vats.

7. Took an extra dose of Ginkgo Biloba for good measure.
True – Having kids home from school unexpectedly requires contingency plans.

8. Booked 2 appointments with potential new clients for next week.
True – I’m fixin’ to get really busy.

8 Shows I MAY OR MAY NOT Watch

1. Best Show in the History of Television (also known as The Deadliest Catch)
True – nuff said.

2. Dancing with the Stars
False – That show is for girly girls. I’m not exactly rocking a mullet and birkenstock sandals, but I have a bit more testosterone than your average female. And say what you will about the athletic prowess of Emmitt Smith, as far as I’m concerned, he surrendered his man card when he agreed to be on that show.

3. CSI Miami
False – Sorry – David Caruso as Grown-up Angry Opie from The Andy Griffin Show doesn’t do it for me.

4. CSI NY
True – That show rocks.

5. CSI Las Vegas
True – That show also rocks. Even though I really miss Grissom and Warrick Brown. I loved me some Grissom and Warrick Brown!

6. Dirtiest Jobs
True – Mike Rowe is the second sexiest man alive, my dh being the numero uno.

7. Myth Busters
True – Blowing stuff up is awesome. Plus, if I were a tv star, I would want to be Kari Byron. She’s an artist and a knife thrower. How cool is that? She also referred to someone as a hippy, crystal gripping tree hugger on the show.

8. The Office
True That’s what she said.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do (or might actually be able to do):

1. Paint with either hand.
True – I am right/left brain confused, but sometimes it comes in handy.

2. Juggle.
False – I am a klutz of epic proportions. Juggling requires eye hand coordination.

3. Write song parodies a-la Weird Al Yankovitz.
True – I once wrote Christian lyrics to “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it was my friend J.D.’s going away gift. I also wrote a parody of the song “Church on Fire” for a departing pastor who was fond of the tacky Hawaiin shirt entitled “Shirt on Fire”. I do not heart that song.

4. Recite the preamble to the Constitution.
True – I grew up on Schoolhouse Rock.

5. Play the harmonica.
False – Although I play slightly better than Alanis Morrisette.

6. Roller Skate backwards.
True – I am ALL up in that! I can skate better backward than forwards.

7. Make awesome chicken enchiladas.
True – They are awesomatastic!

8. Sing “American Pie” in its entirety (the long version) by memory.
False – Sad, but true. Dig that song, though.

8 Things I MAY OR MAY NOT be Looking Forward To:

1. Meeting some of my bloggity gal pals this summer.
True – Heck yeah!

2. Tomorrow.
True – New day. Fresh start.

3. Redoing my guest bathroom.
True – I’m planning on making a mancave for my dh.

4. Old age.
True – Even though I wish I had more nieces and nephews. Crazy Aunt Kathy has a nicer ring to it than my Crazy Mother.

5. Catching up on a season’s worth of American Idol on Tivo.
False – That show made me mad when they voted off Dirty Rocker Chris Daughtry. I watch from time to time, but I think this year’s talent is rather sucktacular.

6. Going to my husband’s high school reunion.
True – Like I’m gonna say False. He reads my blog, you know. Not every day, mind you. But it’s sort of like random drug testing. You just never know. Besides, what’s not to like about being around a bunch of people telling you stuff about your spouse that you might not know?

7. Going to Japan with my mom someday soon.
True – Although I’ll probably have to sell a kidney to be able to afford it.

8. The premiere of the movie “New Moon”.
True – Also, did you know that there’s a 5th book? Twilight from Edward Cullen’s perspective. Oh, heck yeah!

There you have it. Thirty-two things you never wanted to know about katdish. I will now open up the comments section to completely random and totally unrelated comments…

So…I pretty much got nothing. Plus, I’m still reeling from the fact that my first guest blogger is more popular than me ON MY OWN BLOG. How suck is that? (Just kidding – that’s awesome.) Maybe I should spend more time carefully weaving a story that is humorous, engaging and thought provoking…Oooo! Shiny vampire!

I suppose I could write about the weather: It rained. A bunch. Rednecks swam in flood waters. For fun. There was no school. There better be school today. The end.

And now…I’m going to punt. A few members of the Magnificent Infinity posted “8 Things” posts, so I’m going with that. We used to be the Magnificent 7, but we’re a friendly bunch, and people dig us (especially Annie K). I’m changing mine up a bit because I like to be different, and they’re not the boss of me. Here ya go:

8 Things I MAY OR MAY NOT have done Yesterday:
1. Made red beans and rice for lunch.
2. Shot a man just to watch him die.
3. Sent Donald Miller* a tweet with the word frigintastic and got a response to said tweet.
4. Threatened to kick my kids out in the rain if they messed up my clean house.
5. Got rave reviews from Simon Cowell after singing “Jenny” on American Idol for Wii.
6. Alphabetized my spice rack.
7. Took an extra dose of Ginkgo Biloba for good measure.
8. Booked 2 appointments with potential new clients for next week.

*yeah, “Blue Like Jazz” Donald Miller.

8 Shows I MAY OR MAY NOT Watch
1. Best Show in the History of Television (also known as The Deadliest Catch)
2. Dancing with the Stars
3. CSI Miami
4. CSI NY
5. CSI Las Vegas
6. Dirtiest Jobs
7. Myth Busters
8. The Office

8 Things I Wish I Could Do (or might actually be able to do):
1. Paint with either hand.
2. Juggle.
3. Write song parodies a-la Weird Al Yankovitz.
4. Recite the preamble to the Constitution.
5. Play the harmonica.
6. Roller Skate backwards.
7. Make awesome chicken enchiladas.
8. Sing “American Pie” in its entirety (the long version)by memory.

8 Things I MAY OR MAY NOT be Looking Forward To:
1. Meeting some of my bloggity gal pals this summer.
2. Tomorrow.
3. Redoing my guest bathroom.
4. Old age.
5. Catching up on a season’s worth of American Idol on Tivo.
6. Going to my husband’s high school reunion.
7. Going to Japan with my mom someday soon.
8. The premiere of the movie “New Moon”.

Just to make this interesting and to lure you lurker types out of shadows, I am offering a frigintastic prize to the person who can come up with the most correct true or false answers to the aforementioned statements. In the event of a tie, I have more than one of these quality pieces of yard art:

These are not the actual birds in my possession, but seriously – close enough! I didn’t feel like taking a picture, downloading it to my computer, etc. Besides, mine are hermetically sealed in the original packaging. Sa-weet! This is a friendly competition and all results are final. Please – no wagering.

The winner will be announced on tomorrow’s post.

Bonus Question: I MAY OR MAY NOT have given out the following phone number on one or 30 occasions “back in the day”:

While surfing the blogosphere, I have been impressed with how “fancy” some blogs are out there. My friend Pam’s blog is uber fancy! She’s even got a jukebox playing when you click over to her site. The music is great, it just scares my dog. (He is usually sitting on my lap when I’m on the computer.) I am fairly computer illiterate. I’ve been trying for weeks to expand my margins to no avail. (Hucklebuck, if you’re reading this, I could use some advice!) Another interesting phenomenon on many blogs (especially blogs written by women), is “The Contest”. I guess everyone loves a contest! Me, not so much. I’m just not very competitive. I know, I know…incredibly un-American, but what can I say, that’s how I roll…

But for my loyal readers, I thought I would make this one exception. Especially since for some weird reason (aka – an SCL shout out), my site counter has been hitting some pretty impressive numbers. I also think people just like reading the comments. Although, I gotta tell you, unless you read all the blogs in my sidebar, you’re likely to miss large segments of the conversation.

Back to the contest. Here’s what I’m looking for. Find blogs in the following categories:

-funniest (don’t say this one. Nobody likes a suck-up.)

-most thought provoking or challenging

-weirdest content (G or PG rated please)

-blog with the nicest layout

I’m sure you’re all wondering what wonderful prizes await the winners in each category! Perhaps your own personalized slanket? A box of Hot Pockets! autographed by Jim Gaffigan? A sarcasm thesaurus? For those of you expecting a wonderful reward for HLAC’s first contest, let me just say:

“I don’t think so. Homey don’t play that!”

It’s not that I don’t want to give out prizes. It’s just that I can’t deal with the pressure of having to actually mail anything out. I still have every one’s CDs by the way. I also have 3 books for Mare sitting on my nightstand. I am a horrible procrastinator. I’ll attempt to get the CDs and the books in the mail before Christmas, but I’m not making any promises!

But seriously, I’m interested in what ya’ll come up with. I’ll start:

Pigs and Pigs is, as the name would imply, a blog completely dedicated to pigs. Not even real pigs — stuffed pigs, piggy banks, pig signs. If you have a freakish attraction to this kind of thing, this blog is Pigtastic!

Okay? You get it? GO!

P. S. – You’re not allowed to use your own blog. (I don’t think I need to mention any names here.)