Guest Post with Ashli St. Armant - Viva Durant and The Secret of the Silver Buttons

Photo Content from Ashli St. Armant

Ashli St. Armant is a vocalist, actor, writer, and arts educator based in Southern California. She is the founder of Leaping Lizards Music, a music and theater education program for students, TK-12. She is a professionally trained vocalist and actor who attended the Orange County High School of the Arts and holds a degree in Child Development from Saddleback College. Alongside teaching, writing, and raising her two sons, Ashli tours with her band, Jazzy Ash and the Leaping Lizards, a jazz band for young audiences. Together they have produced four albums featured by NPR and L.A. Times, and have performed at numerous venues, including Lincoln Center and Sprout Network (NBC).Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons is Ashli’s debut audio original, and sets the path for her new venture into children’s literature.

INSTAGRAM | AUDIBLE | GOODREADS

  

TEN WAYS YOU GET INSPIRED TO WRITE

• Write down whatever comes to my head in the morning, before I get out of bed.
• Change my environment (for example: go to a coffee shop, or my parent’s house, or the sit on the floor in the bathroom!)
• Take a walk outside
• Have an older person tell me a story about when they were young
• Get lost in the wilderness
• Play my piano or ukulele
• Read history
• Travel to the setting of my story
• Listen to music that could accompany my story
• Paint or draw elements of the story (the characters, a map of the environment, etc.)

"It’s a great, funny, wonderful adventure. I was very entertained by the fantastic sounds and jazz music accompanying the book. It made me feel like I was really in New Orleans!" —Yesenia O., Audible Listener

Viva Durant, New Orleans’ youngest detective, is on a quest to solve a jazzy mystery involving hidden treasure, while exploring the city’s unique culture, history, and music. This family-friendly audio original features original jazz music from the creator, Ashli St. Armant, and an enthusiastic performance from Audible Hall of Fame narrator, Bahni Turpin.

Plucky 14-year-old Viva Durant heads to New Orleans every summer to spend time with her loving but stern grandmother, known as Gram. After Gram reads Viva an article in the local paper about a missing treasure related to the world-famous song, "Miss Mary Mack," Viva traverses the Crescent City on an epic adventure to solve the mystery. Along the way she meets some of the city’s most colorful characters as her journey takes her to the French Quarter, a jazz club, a creepy cemetery, and even the circus. Can Viva rise to the occasion and solve this musical mystery? Listeners will find Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons a joy to listen to!

ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Bahni Turpin is a Los Angeles-based actress with many television and film credits in addition to being an award winning narrator. She is honored to have been awarded an Audie for Best Female Narrator, 2015, Audible Narrator of the Year, 2016, and American Library Association’s Voice of Choice for 2017. In 2018, Bahni won best female narration again, and was also inducted into the Audible Hall of Fame. She is a two-time Odyssey Award winner, and was also named as one of Audiophile's Golden Voices for 2019.

And now, The Giveaway.

Thank you ASHLI ST. ARMANT for making this giveaway possible.

1 Winner will receive an Audible Credit for 
Viva Durant and The Secret of the Silver Buttons by Ashli St. Armant..

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