Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Happy Halloween!

 Halloween PumpkinHalloween is my favorite holiday!

I can’t wait to hand out goodies and see all the costumes. I’m a big fan of scary for Halloween, so anyone in a scary outfit scores more points in my book.

Hope everyone has a (safe and) frightening holiday!

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Back From Retreat

I’m back from retreat at the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. This was the view from my window in the early morning. Isn’t it gorgeous?


Glorious Mountain View

If you’re looking for an inexpensive location to get away to for “recharging” your writer’s batteries, I can’t recommend it enough. The Abbey built the retreat house specifically to lure people to the grounds, ostensibly for religious retreat, but not necessarily. My face-to-face critique group chose the Retreat House location primarily for writing.

One wonderful aspect of the Retreat House is a rule of respectful silence.

No talking is allowed at meals, no visitations are allowed in rooms, and guests are requested not to talk when meeting in the halls. In fact, it’s encouraged not even to meet the eyes of others or to nod or greet each other, as one aspect of retreat is meditation, and a simple acknowledgment of another’s presence could possibly interfere with his or her thoughts.

This silence created the perfect atmosphere for writing.

If that doesn’t excite you, the scenery might. Holy Cross Abbey is located in the Shenandoah Valley, surrounded by mountains and hundreds of acres of pastureland. I spent a few afternoons soaking up the sunshine, banging away at the keyboard, listening to the cows low.

I sound like a commercial, don’t I? I can’t help it. I’ve had a fabulous week on retreat, and I’ve got all kinds of ideas kicking around in my head now. I can’t wait to get started.

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Capclave 2009

Capclave Dodo I’ll be at Capclave tomorrow, reading from Blood Soup.

Capclave is hosted by the Washington, DC Science Fiction Association and promotes short fiction. Their motto is: Where reading is not extinct!

The convention tends to be small and literary, but enjoys participation from big names in the field. This year’s Guest of Honor is Harry Turtledove.

I’ll be reading with other members of Broad Universe, including Jean Marie Ward, Roxanne Bland, Victoria Janssen and Diane Arrelle. We’ll be doing a “Rapid Fire Reading.” Each of us will read for ten minutes or less from out works.

And, we’ll have chocolate.

If you’re in the Washington Area around 1 p.m., please join us. I’d love to meet you.

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Blood Soup Available on Your Smart Phone!

Blood Soup by Kelly A. Harmon - Cover Flat

All Romance.com has partnered with Aldiko (an eBook reading application) to make their entire 10,000+ book-catalog available to Android Smart Phone users. (Here’s the entire Press Release at PR Web.)

The bottom line is: Smart Phone users can obtain stories via their phones without a computer, cables or subscription!

Which means, if you’re interested, you can purchase Blood Soup from pretty much anywhere you have a cell phone connection. (Blood Soup can be purchased here. )

I also recommend these titles from Eternal Press:

The Sea Wagon of Yan Tai by Steve Southard
Frenzy by Carole Johnstone
10:15 by Trent Kinsey.

If you like to “try before you buy,” Aldiko can hook you up. Download and install Aldiko and choose from thousands of books.

From the Gadgeteer Website: “Aldiko comes with Sun Tzu’s Art of War and H. G. Well’s The Invisible Man pre-loaded. However, you can browse and load any of the books available on Feedbooks right from the application. The site contains thousands of public domain and creative commons works.”