How to breathe when you sing

Yo dudes and dudettes! I just posted a new SINGING TIPS video about singerly breathing on my YouTube Channel. Check it out below or visit my channel here!

Newsletter: Oz-Stravaganza and More

Just sent this to all my email list subscribers! (If you'd like to join the fun, click here for news, updates and ramblings.)

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Dear Clever and Beautiful Ones! 

Behold! I've crawled from my cold and silty e-grave of email neglect to re-engage with ye, my trusty mailing list subscribers! I pray with all my might you'll take me back, despite my persistent neglect and distinctly corpse-like appearance.

Perhaps I can entice you with exciting news?

Unnaturally Green is now LESS THAN $4 BUCKS (for the e-book) and a mere $11.99 for the paperback! Now's the perfect time to give it as a gift to everybody you know (since I righty assume you ALL, without exception, have read it). Get another copy, like, ASAP!

What's more...

I'll be appearing (live! in the flesh!) alongside author Gregory Maguire and actor Andre De Shields this June 1-3 at the 34th Annual OZ-STRAVAGANZA Festival in Chittenango, New York (right near Syracuse), touting my book, signing things, and answering questions with unfounded authoritativeness. Get more info here!

OTHER FUN STUFF

• I've been updating my Five-Trick Pony blog with greater frequency, which means I've been resorting to posts like this.
• Unnaturally Green now has 71 five-star reviews on Amazon.com! (Did you read it? Leave a review!)
• It was my birthday this past week! Which means I'm only slightly more depressed every time I shop for clothes at Forever 21.
• Want to give me a present? Write a Facebook post about Unnaturally Green and be sure to tag the name of a friend (or friends) who you think would like it!

Do you have questions ("What the heck have you been doing lately?"*), comments ("I find your excessive enthusiasm to be endearing"), or ideas ("I think there's a market for edible nail polish")? Shoot me an email and I'll do my best to write back!

As always, thanks for being a part of this zany list!

Much love and aged cheeses,

Felicia

*Answer: I've been writing, writing, writing (novels are hard (yep, I'm writing a novel (it's going to take a loooong time (so don't get too excited now)))), teaching voice, reading amazing young adult books, like this one, eating protein, lifting heavy weights, tweeting...enjoying this most unusual and utterly enjoyable late-mid-twenties phase of my life. What have you been up to?

I met Stephen Schwartz!

THIS IS A BLOG POST ABOUT THE TIME I MET STEPHEN SCHWARTZ (HOLY CRAP) WHICH WAS LAST NIGHT OUTSIDE THE  ST. JAMES THEATER (HOLY CRAP) AND THEN I SKIPPED ALL THE WAY HOME (HOLY CRAP) AND NARROWLY DODGED GETTING SIDE-SWIPED BY A TAXI (IT HAPPENS).

AND YES I'M GOING TO START WRITING THIS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT GIVES THE IMPRESSION THAT I'M SHOUTING AND INDEED I WISH TO SHOUT BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO CONVEY MY EXTREME EXCITEMENT.

[Felicia takes sip of water, regroups.]

Okay, I just took a sip of water and regrouped, so I guess the shouting can stop (FOR NOW).

St. Patrick's Day Roundup: Moments of Greenness

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! A holiday overbrimming with Irish food, leprechauns, red chin beards, raucous displays (if you're of-age, or one of the many irritating people outside my window) of public drunkenness, and, of course, greenness.

While I'm not typically a practitioner of the aforementioned (my idea of a wild night is staying up to watch an extra episode of Hoarders), as the 1/8-Irish author of this unnaturally GREEN blog, I couldn't NOT do a Saint Patrick's Day post! I just couldn't! What would my green baby of a book say to me, in all its personified glory? 

Below is a compilation of recent "Moments of Greenness" -- a list of the ways I've been green lately. It will give you a window into my strange and evolving world. In turn, I invite you to leave comments to let me know how you are practicing greenness (of any form!) in your day-to-day life. 

(If you've read my book, these definitions might look familiar...)

We're on Wikipedia! And we're $3.99!

Three quick announcements!

1) Wikipedia, purveyor of all useful knowledge, now has an Unnaturally Green page! 

2) All UG e-books are now only $3.99! (Get it for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Sony Reader). That's, like, the price of a Venti Starbucks drink!

3) I like using exclamation points!

Love,

Felicia

Updates and such! And I need your opinion!

Friends, countrymen, countrywomen, non-countrymen, and non-countrywomen!

First off, Unnaturally Green now costs only $14 on Amazon.com! FOURTEEN DOLLARS, I SAY! That's the price of a movie ticket! So affordable, I can't stand it!

Second off. Remember that time I was like, "Hey, I'm going to release a fun little How-To guide on getting started in ShowBizNess (<-- except I didn't spell it nonsensically) slash how to write stuff?" I tentatively called it a guide to "following your dreams." WELL. That project is finally coming to a close...to be released as an e-book very soon!

But here is the thing, muchachos: I need your advice. I'm in the midst of editing, and I find that a flaw of the booklet is that I discuss two pursuits, acting and writing. I do this because lots of the book is about general dream-following. Like, how to prepare to do something when you have no idea how to do it, and, naturally, I speak from experience, getting into some specifics from my own life with respect to Wicked and writing about it in Unnaturally Green. Hence, acting and writing.

TOO CUTE NOT TO SHARE

Here are pictures of some of the super rad peeps who entered the Godspell giveaway. They're holding copies of Unnaturally Green, open to their favorite quotations. In the words of Celine Dion, I lurve them all! Thank you again to everybody who entered, and for supporting UG!

And the winner is....

Mucho congrats to Nicholas Clar, winner of our Godspell giveaway! His favorite UG quote was:

Think of something, anything!
"Unlimited..."
"STOP!"
Motherfu--


Yay, implied profanity!

Thank you to all who entered! Contestant pictures are forthcoming (from those who entered and gave me permission to post).

Stay tuned!
FR

"Godspell" tickets giveaway!

A new month, a new giveaway! Because I haz the sweet hook-ups, I recently secured TWO FREE TICKETS TO SEE GODSPELL ON THE BWAY! And I'm giving them away on this blog! AAAAAAAH!!!!!


HERE'S HOW TO ENTER! (Three steps)

1. Snap a photo of yourself holding your copy of Unnaturally Green, open to the page containing your favorite quotation! (You can also pull it up on your e-reader.)

2. Go to this blog's submission page and upload the photo, writing your name in the "Here is my idea" box. (If you like, you can also transcribe the quotation into the "Here is my idea" box -- but it's not required.)

3. Check back on February 15, 2012 to see if you won!


It's as simple as that! If you don't live in NYC, you can win always try to win the tickets to give to a friend, or make an East Coast trip out of it! The winning voucher is good for any Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday night performance through May 1, 2012.

And in case you didn't know -- Godspell is back for its first-ever Broadway revival! Written by Grammy and Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz (composer of Wicked (OBVS!) and Pippin as well as the movies Pocahontas and Enchanted), Godspell stars Hunter Parrish (“Weeds,” Spring Awakening) and many others, including Nick Blaemire (with whom I once recorded a demo about a Duck that runs for president; he probably wouldn't know me if I accosted him on the street, but, oh well, he's really funny in the show!) and Celisse Henderson (who was Shen-Shen in Wicked San Francisco before I arrived; she also probably wouldn't know me if I accosted her on the street). You should totally go see it! It is great!

And, to recap, the winner will be announced on February 15, 2012! Good luck!
--FLR

Tonight's event was great fun!

Thank you to all who showed up tonight at Housing Works NYC to see "Broadway Backstage," in which I sat sandwiched between Michael Kostroff and Arthur Anderson -- both of them wise and gracious gentlemen -- talking about Unnaturally Green, my little-memoir-that-could.

If you'd like a peek at what you missed, check out these videos on my Unnatural UStream Channel (and thank you to all who watched it live!).

Peace out, chickadees!