S.D. Smith's Blog, page 20
November 10, 2020
Audiobook is Here as New Book is Officially Released!
It’s a big day for us as the new book, The Archer’s Cup, is officially releasing. It’s officially official, according to the officials who are shilling in their offices. You can get it at bookstores like Amazon and elsewhere, including the excellent audiobook version performed by stage actor Eric Fritzius. Available at Audible and Hoopla and lots of other audiobook retailers!
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New S. D. Smith Book and Awesome Christmas Deals LAUNCH TODAY!
So, anything happening in the world? Not much, huh. Well, I’m going to excuse myself from the crowded space of armchair experts on elections and epidemics and economics and give you what I’ve got. What do I have? Stories. Now, my stories involve real personalities, characters who face the same sorts of challenges and opportunities we face. That’s why we relate to them. They feel real. (To me, they kind of are real.) I care about the same things you care about, and I’m convinced that the most generous and hospitable thing I can do for you is share my stories.
What started out on my porch has made its way all over the world and into your homes. I can’t get over how strange and wonderful that is. Thanks for the welcome and thanks (x2!) for going on to share the stories with others. I’m genuinely grateful. 
We Are A SMALL Family Business
Not, like, Hobbits-small. (I’m 5′ 14″!) But I mean our business is small. On top of the important imagination/identity/soul work part of this, we also are a small family business. Christmas gift-giving season is where we navigate those waters between Barely Survive Bay and Really Thrive Cove. I’m so grateful for those of you who support us. Thank you!
Get Your Gift-Giving Sorted With Our Christmas Deals
We are also thrilled to begin our unbelievable Christmas deals today! (I know it feels early, but with shipping challenges persisting and online shopping booming, we want to make sure you get a chance to get out ahead of things.) Please give them a look!
Please consider sharing these adventurous gifts with those you love this Christmas. We even have a cool “Starter Pack” for new readers you love to help them get going with the books!
We also have heard the cries of women who want a v-neck shirt. It’s here, and it’s lovely. Soft and sporty, it’s another excellent option in our range of rad shirts. We have four excellent shirts now…and a onesie.
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October 28, 2020
#GreenEmberKidArt winners for Q3 of 2020
Nicole, age 10 – What a lovely piece of art!And Now…. Our Best #GreenEmberKidArt Winner for Q3 is…
Ellie, age 13 — “Brothers the time has come to fight, I call you brothers because today I am more than your princess, I am your sister. I appear to be only this feeble doe, but I have the heart of a a warrior king.” ~ Princess EmmaCongratulations to the winners!
Follow this tag: #GreenEmberKidArt to see the wonderful art by the kids (posted by parents) on Instagram.
And here for the same tag on Facebook.
#GreenEmberKidArt 2020 Official Rules
Official Rules: To enter, simply share your child’s Green Ember art (publicly) on Instagram or Facebook. Use the hashtag #GreenEmberKidArt (along with #RabbitsWithSwords and #TheGreenEmber if you would) and tag Sam’s author account in either Facebook or Instagram (both for more entries). Please indicate the child’s age. Use of child’s first name or picture is optional, and up to parents’ judgement. Parents are entering for kids. Kids may not enter on their own. Good luck!
Quarterly Winners
1) Randomly Selected Kid Artist!
EVERYONE who does the above is entered to win this! Any age. Any skill-level. Just have fun!Prize: Wild Glee, Contagious Joy, and $20 Gift Certificate at www.SDSmith.net/Store!
2) Best #GreenEmberKidArt of the Quarter
This will be the piece judged (by our secret, unscientific formulas) to be the “best.” Age will be considered, so each will be judged against expectations appropriate for the artist’s age. Come all ye diligent artists!Prize: Unimaginable Glory, Prodigious Esteem, and $25 Gift Certificate at www.SDSmith.net/Store!
Year-End Winners
A GRAND PRIZE will be awarded in both categories at the end of the year. All quarterly winners of the “Best” Category are entered for one Grand Prize.
Everyone who posts (according to the rules) is entered for the Random Grand Prize!
Grand Prizes will include an on-line Author Visit with S. D. Smith and a signed set of the The Green Ember Series.
Note: Q1 (Jan-March) Winners will be announced in April, Q2 (April-June) Winners will be announced in July, Q3 July-Sept) Winners will be announced in October, and Q4 (Oct-Dec) Winners will be announced in January. 2019 Grand Prize Winners will be announced in January as well.
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You Held My Heart
All an author asks for is a chance. A chance, and the worshipful adulation of millions and the affirmation of our stubborn fathers and skyrocketing sales and awards and parades and magnificent statues looming before grand institutions named in our honor.
We are a modest bunch.
When I wrote The Green Ember, I genuinely just wanted a chance. I wanted a try-out, to use sports terminology (my go-to way of explaining/understanding the world). I wanted readers to give it a try. Also, I was terrified of this very thing. It turns out this is normal.
I am afraid it is only too likely to be true what you say about the critics and the public. I am dreading the publication for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at.”
—J. R. R. Tolkien (as publication of The Lord of the Rings neared)
Getting past the fear is not possible. It cannot be sneaked around. The fear must be assaulted like war on a sorcerer’s tower, again and again, until it becomes a habit. Fear and Intelligence are the great enemies. They must be both conquered and turned into a weapon we use to our own ends. Good ends. Crazy ends. The ends of sharing something with the world. The ends of getting a chance.
Give us a chance, and we will give you our hearts. We will expose our hearts to be shot at. It is a brave thing to stick your neck out in a world full of flashing swords. Few are brave enough to stick out their soft, supple necks, but everyone has a sword. Everyone loves to use their swords. Swords are easy to use. It’s easy to go around chop, chop, chopping.
When I was ready to share The Green Ember, the weapons were there. “Friendly fire” hit me from behind, from where I expected cover and succor. I reeled, wounded. But then help came, and it came, and it came. It has never stopped coming.
Allies, near and far, charged in. Surrounded me. Pushed me ahead. I was wounded (there are always wounds), but we were advancing. I was moving ahead and I didn’t even understand how it was happening. But nearly everywhere I looked there were friends, old and new, and I was on the march again.
You gave me a chance. You held my heart in your hands and you surprised me with your tenderness. Thank you.
Thank you for encouraging words, for kind reviews, for “giving me five,” and for giving my stories—and me—a chance.
I will never forget it.
Originally published 4.17.18. Updated. Still true.
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October 27, 2020
New Green Ember Merch is Here!
Thanks for buying my new book! Would you consider grabbing some merch?
I love our shirts. They really are super soft and high quality. We work hard to keep them lower priced for families like ours who need to get good deals on things. We have three options! My son Josiah (14) is the main designer of the new Fight Back shirt and logo, while Zach Franzen once again executed the characters!
Now we have hats as well. These look great!
We also have onesies for your littles. What about that beautiful model!
And mugs. Yes! We have two mug versions right now, but one is currently sold out. 
October 26, 2020
You Drink Your Coffee & You Go To War (Fight Back!)
I see you as heroic for the way you love and serve your children and I see myself as an ally in your work. Thank you for letting me in on the adventure that is serving your precious kids!
I wrote this Fight Back essay as an a encouragement to you. I hope it is inspiring! Consider sharing it with friends you are fighting back alongside!
Every day you show up. You drink your coffee and you go to war.
Imagination is a battlefield and you are there, fighting back against the darkness. You are fighting for their imaginations by giving your children room to be bored and explore, capacity to learn and grow, and a humble, hopeful vision of what is surely coming.
You choose timeless truths over hot takes, love and light over angry arson, and you inspire your kids to face fears and embrace faith.
You are fighting for their imaginations and actively aiming to align their hearts with the Good, the Truth, and the Beautiful.
You aren’t just raising warriors of light. You are a warrior of light.
The darkness is there every day.
But so are you. And you aren’t alone.
Fight back.
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October 23, 2020
Mountaineers Are Always Free Sometimes
Home, boy,
It’s just some soil and sky,
Strange that it can get,
Its hooks into my ribs.
And make me feel so,
Unfashionably loyal,
To mere sky and soil.
It’s just rocks and rivers,
It’s only an auburn autumn forest alive with dying fiery bursts of orange and gold, great swaths of spectacular hills and hollers nestled in gorges and (usually) green—green going on and on and on for miles and mountains, modest though they are.
They are ours and we are free,
We mountaineers.
And it’s the mountaineers, more than the mountains,
That binds me in this archaic, unspoken allegiance.
Kinship isn’t everything,
But neither is it nothing.
There is room in the world for loving,
Though scorn is heaped on sincerity,
And rural second-caste citizens,
Are denigrated daily and overlooked always,
While sophisticated cities with disconnected citizens influence us in inordinate and destructive independence and addictive selfishness,
Spurning what smacks of tradition,
Haughtily mocking what passes for devotion,
And we have let them lead us,
Let them show us how to lead hollow lives.
Ichabod, oh my God,
The glory, it has faded away.
It’s not that simple, no.
Blame is the game of victims,
And responsibility is the act of the valiant.
If we can’t own what we’ve got,
We get owned.
And we can’t be owned,
Because mountaineers are always free.
Free to be happy?
Free to be hopeful?
Only if we’re free enough to be humble.
Only if we exchange victimhood for servanthood.
Only if we trade self-centered worship for Reality,
For Harmony,
With the Maker of the mountains,
The Shaper of the gorges,
The Lord of all the forests.
The Painter of sunsets,
The Poet of romance,
The Father to the fatherless.
Healer, Helper, Hopesource.
Lover, Lifter, Lifeforce.
Then God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
Ain’t a stranger to our place,
Won’t flinch at our deep pain,
But by his holy name,
Will welcome and restore us,
Will unmake all our horrors,
And give us life in him.
And true, good, and beautiful,
Brotherhood.
Real freedom.
Life.
Here.
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October 22, 2020
Why Read Rabbity Adventures During a Pandemic (and a Sickly Contentious Election)?
I wrote a book this year in the midst of a pandemic that has taken life and, adding injury to tragedy, divided friends and families. The book is being released at the height of an election that feels like the political equivalent of an infectious disease, once again dividing friends and family and laying bare our worst idols.
Why read about rabbits with swords at a time like this? C. S. Lewis spoke of the need to keep learning during war-time when he said this:
“You are not, in fact, going to read nothing…if you don’t read good books you will read bad ones.” —C. S. Lewis
Why read this new story with an old soul? I hope this and my other stories are an invitation to delight and adventure and—just maybe—an opportunity to catch a glimpse of something timeless and true, beautiful and brave, hopeful and happy. I hope it’s a hospitable gift and a generous joy. I hope it is, as Heidi Johnston says, not an escape from reality but an escape into Reality.
A month ago today we opened up preorders for The Archer’s Cup, and thousands of packages with “Bear the Flame” stickers on boxes are reaching homes right now.
True, lots of folks are stoked about the sweet shirts and hats and mugs and I am too. But it’s the story I’m most excited to share. It’s this unusual adventure, a mystery set in the sprawling warren of Blackstone Citadel, that excites me. A story about love. This is why we became friends. We shared a story between us. Then another. Then another. This is number nine! I hope you enjoy it. I hope it makes you happy and uncomfortable (it will) and finally glad again.
I hope it hits where I aimed it. Your heart.
Thanks for letting me do this. Thanks for giving me another chance to share an adventure with you. Thanks for letting me be a part of your kids’ lives. What an honor.
I hope experiencing this story is a happy memory of this strange and painful time for your family. And I hope it stacks up with many more memories of God’s goodness and grace and provision, standing out in stark contrast to the bleak lies of the Enemy, amplified, it seems from nearly every quarter. But that seemingly all-pervasive darkness is a dim thing in the end, and the Light has come and is coming to finish the victory. That will be the decisive political and healthcare triumph we truly long for.
Till then, let us tell one another true stories that seem as fantastic as a fable. And let us love one another.
I’m on your side.
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September 22, 2020
The Archer’s Cup Preorder is Open!
The Archer’s Cup is here! Book THREE of the Green Ember Archer trilogy is much longer, and takes a turn never explored before in my Green Ember adventures! I am so excited to share it with you.
Preorder yours today! The first 1,000 will be signed!
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September 15, 2020
New Green Ember Archer Adventure Announced! Cover Reveal!
Available for preorder only at SDSmith.com/store beginning on September 22, 2020.
Do you like the cover? Can you or your kids name the characters who are with Jo Shanks? Pop over to Facebook and/or Instagram and tell me. I’m going to pick some folks who get it right to win something! We’ll announce winners at our Facebook Live Online Author Event. Get in here.
And here’s a preview of what’s in The Archer’s Cup!
A Green Ember Archer story set in the midst of the buildup to the last battles for Natalia.
In this sequel to The Last Archer and The First Fowler, Jo Shanks is charged with aiding Emma on her mission to unite the secret citadels in their fight against the Preylord slavers. Alongside Cole and Heyna Blackstar, Jo and Emma must enter into the heart of a community in confusion.
Something is wrong at Blackstone Citadel. Can Jo and his friends solve the mystery and enlist Blackstone’s aid in time to rendezvous with their allies fighting for the Mended Wood?
A citadel on the edge. An insidious mystery to unravel.
Who will target the terror?
~
Note: The Archer’s Cup takes place during the events of Ember Rising. It is the third installment in the Green Ember Archer Series.
The Last ArcherThe First FowlerThe Archer’s Cup
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