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Monday, July 23rd, 2018
Open voting will take place until August 17, and winners will be notified on the 19th! It would be lovely if you would be able to vote for my book! If you’re so inclined, the link is here: https://bardsandsages.com/efestivalofwords/2018/07/15/2018-finalists/
Tuesday, May 29th, 2018
7/23/2018 – Edited to add that The Pale Leaves is no longer an active web site, and the story is no longer available. 🙁 Sunday, September 10th, 2017
I share the Table of Contents with many fabulous writers, including: Monica Rose Song, D.A. D’Amico, squiddosnazz, Mike Lewis, Michael Harris Cohen, Virginia Frances Sterret, Eddie D. Moore, Richard King Perkins II, Dianne Williams, Robert Tokley, R.W.W. Greene, María Castro Domínguez, Patrick S. Baker, Virginia Frances Sterret, Halli Lilburn, Chanel Earl, Dick Yaeger, Benjamin West, Tod McCoy, Marsheila Rockwell, Ashleigh Gauch, squiddosnazz, Karen Bovenmyer, and Vonnie Winslow Crist. (This is the third anthology that Vonnie and I share this year, which is simply amazing. She and I are also co-editng an anthology, Dark Luminous Wings, which will be available in October!) Starward Tales II is only available on Amazon right now. You can find it in Kindle and Paperback editions here: Starward Tales II: Another Anthology of Speculative Legends I don’t have a story in the original antho, but if you’re interested, here’s the link for Starward Tales, Volume 1. If you prefer an audio version, Volume 1 is out: Starward Tales, Volume 1: Audio Edition. Thursday, January 28th, 2016
Here’s the link, if you’re interested in reading the interview: I’ve read some excepts, and I think it’s going to be fabulous. Every story in the book is going to be illustrated in a “woodcut” style to mimic old-fashioned fairy tales books. Danny Birt is the artist. Here’s the rough outline of a clockwork bird which will illustrate my re-telling of Hansel and Gretel (called, All for Beauty and Youth).
The anthology is being funded by Kickstarter, but it’s already a done deal. So, if you’d like to get involved with a winning project–to be delivered soon–you should check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/e-specbooks/gaslight-and-grimm-steampunk-faerie-tales. (Only six days to go!) Sunday, September 15th, 2013
Now, Lies has been published and is currently available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The wheels of distribution grind very slowly in some parts, but it should soon be available via Kobo, XinXii, iTunes and elsewhere very soon. I’ll let you know when that happens. In the meantime, here are the links to: Friday, December 23rd, 2011
Things have been pretty quiet around the blog lately. I’ve been baking lots of cookies, and working more than I want to at the day job, but it’s been hard to concentrate on the writing stuff — mostly — because I was being sued and had to go to court. In short: I was leaving a parking lot nearly three (3!) years ago when a man backed out of a parking space and struck my car. He brought suit against me this July. He claimed it was my fault, and he sought recompense for doctor’s bills, pain and suffering, damage to his car, etc. The amount he sued me for elevated the case out of the lower court and we had to go to trial. My lawyer successfully defended me, so all is well. (Now, maybe I can get back to the writing.) A funny part of the story: I learned I was being sued by advertising. I received three letters in the mail, all from attorneys offering to represent me, before I’d even been served. Here’s Your Prompt:
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
My office (and the rest of the damaged house) is starting to look liveable again. Fresh paint has been applied, and (even though insurance didn’t cover it The carpet folks laid most of the carpet yesterday–a charcoal grey, smooth piled loveliness–and will be back this morning to finish up. I can’t wait! But our furniture and things — which were boxed up and taken away by the Fire and Flood Company, won’t be back until early next week. That’s when the fun begins: I’m on a mission to “edit out” a third to a half of the items that were in my office originally. It’s true that the company carefully wrapped and boxed my stuff, making it appear more bulky. But the sheer number of boxes they removed from my office astounded me. And while many of them came from the double closets (yeah, that’s one thing I really like about my office space) and didn’t clutter up the room, even with the doors closed behind me as I wrote, I often felt the stuff “mentally” clutter my mind. It’s hard to write in that environment! Things I need to clear out:
The big issue for me, since I’m:
… I’ve got a terrible paper problem, especially since I so often want to keep things for “posterity.” But the paper is starting to weigh me down. At a minimum, I’m toying with scanning all the old manuscripts and tossing the paper. Ditto on the newspaper clips. But what I really need is a paper-flow system to get things under control. Most days, I’ve got more paper funneling in than out, and it’s taking a toll: hence the three boxes of collected papers I need to weed through before I even get to the closet items. How do you handle the influx of paper? What do you do with critiqued papers and clips and tear sheets that may or may not be looked at again? Where do you draw the line on what to keep? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sunday, September 11th, 2011
I was born long after the event, so these questions and answers felt more like a parlor game than shared remembrances — or shared horrors. Everyone had a different story, each unique, and each remembered with such exacting detail that you could almost imagine yourself there as the tale was told. I never dreamed I’d have my own such question to ask. What were you doing on 9/11? I was working in a federal building just outside of Washington, D.C. I was de facto Webmaster for a USDA agency, and working on a Web site. I’d just finished a particularly taxing page and popped over to Yahoo for a news break. Yahoo was reporting that an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Buildings. It was a one-line story, breaking news, and they had no further details. No photo accompanied the story. I had the foresight to hit “print” and capture the page. I still have it. It reads:
I’m glad I printed the story, because I was unable to visit my other go-to news sites for more information. The Internet was tied up. In a ‘denial of service’ caused by people wanting more information, servers became quickly overloaded. I tried phoning the Husband of Awesome™, but phone systems and cell towers in the D.C. area were also tied up. We had a small black-and-white TV in the break room, which got poor reception on good days, but I remember watching President Bush, interrupted while reading to a group of second-graders, stop and make a statement. After the second plane strike, and the hit on the Pentagon, fear began to percolate in our building. We were the tallest Federal Building for miles around. Could we be the next target? Federal employees were eventually told to evacuate their buildings and go home. Those inside the beltway had trouble getting out. Streets were packed, people apparently walked for miles to get home. Just outside the Beltway, the roads were like a ghost town. I remember getting onto the highway and being amazed that mine was the only car there. After a while, a few more cars came onto the road, but the eerie feeling didn’t leave, even with their presence. I got home, turned on the TV, and sat glued there for the rest of the day. Images of the planes hitting the towers were replayed over and over again. It’s changed the way I see airplanes. To this day, I can’t look at a plane in the sky and not remember 9/11. What were you doing on 9/11? Monday, August 22nd, 2011
Isn’t it gorgeous? It looks like there might be a change in title in this volume. It was originally to be called: The Complete Guide to Writing Paranormal: Undead, Cursed and Inhuman. Now, it just looks like it’s going to be called The Complete Guide to Writing Paranormal: Volume 1. A tentative publication date is slated for September or October (yes, 2011!) by Dragon Moon Press. Yay! Until Kim Richards took over the editing for this book, I was seriously doubting that it would ever get published. I’ve had to move it up my bibliography page for the last couple of years, having been first “Forthcoming in 2009,” I believe. I’ve never had a piece be accepted and then sit so long before publication (though I admit I have another piece out there right now that’s approaching a similar timeline…) That being said… Yay! (Yeah, I know I said that already, but I’m too excited to keep it in.) My chapter is on finding and joining (or starting your own) critique group…but there is tons of nuts and bolts information about how to write anything paranormal. And there were so many contributions by authors, that there are two volumes planned. Yay! I’ll let you know when the book is available for sale. Monday, August 15th, 2011
A: This isn’t a joke. Apparently an aspiring screenplay writer left his script in a locked briefcase in an L.A. agent’s offices Friday. The agency called the police about the bag, and, following protocol, they blew it up. To make matters worse: he’d left his laptop in the briefcase, so that’s gone, too.
This poor guy broke a pile of rules related to finding an agent:
I have to wonder why he left his laptop along with the briefcase. It’s a new “thing not to do” on my radar. (Really, it’s common sense, isn’t it, to keep your laptop and offer an agent a copy of your manuscript?) In my book, this trumps sliding your manuscript to an agent underneath a bathroom stall door. I don’t think this guy is stupid, he’s probably desperate, and uninformed. He should have done his homework. There are tons of sites on the internet devoted to helping writers get published. Have you ever done anything — or known anyone else to do anything — so uninformed in a search for an agent? |
Writers - Maryland Writer's Assn. |
I’m so pleased to announce that the fourth book in the Charm City Darkness series has made the finalist list for the eFestival of Words contest!
My short story, “Any Kiss Would Do,” has been published at The Pale Leaves Magazine on line. If you like re-written fairy tales, you might like this very short story based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Just a quick note to say that I have a reprint published in Starward Tales II, a collection of short stories, poems, legends, myths, and fairy tales as science fiction. It contains my story, All for Beauty and Youth.
eSpec Books has posted an interview with me about my favorite fairy tales. It’s to promote the new “Gaslight and Grimm: Steampunk Fairie Tales” anthology coming out in the next few weeks.
I wrote a story a while back called Lies. It 
So…
Years ago, at family get-togethers, I used to hear my grandparent’s ask, “What were you doing when Kennedy was shot?” 
The cover is available for the how-to-write paranormal guide that I’ve written a chapter for!
Q: So have you heard about the writer who got his screenplay blown up with a bomb?