Austin Worley's Blog: Writing, Reading, and Living with Austin Worley, page 9

“Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy” Vol. 2 Cover Reveal

More good news swallowed up in the morass that was the middle of my week: Worldstone Publishing has revealed the cover for Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy, Volume 2!

This spec-fic anthology features twenty-two stories, including a reprint of my very own “Lightning Between Your Fingers”. News on this one is moving fast, so expect a lot more updates about Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy later this month.

Publishers Weekly review of It Takes Two

I didn’t get the chance to share this news when it first arrived because of some business stuff that sucked up the middle of my week, but Publishers Weekly released their review of It Takes Two on Wednesday!

It Takes Two is a couples erotica anthology from Cleis Press featuring all kinds of couples and settings, including my fantasy erotic romance short “Rekindling”. I can’t wait to share this simultaneously tender and scorching tale with you when the anthology comes out in May!

You can read the full review here

“It Takes Two” Now Available for Preorder on Kindle!

Yet another bit of good news: It Takes Two is now available for pre-order on Kindle!

About It Takes Two:

It takes two to do more than just tango in Bussel’s sizzling new collection of short stories . . .

In It Takes Two, couples take their passion in new directions, giving free reign to their filthiest sexual fantasies. Sometimes, they pretend to be someone else, engaging in erotic role-playing that allows them to embody their most sensual side and say and do things they wouldn’t in their everyday life. From BDSM encounters at Kink Camp to trying out new sex toys to outrageously filthy fetishes, glorious exhibitionism and voyeurism and sex in space, these couples find inventive ways to go wild with the one they love. No matter how well you think you know your partner, there’s always something new to discover about what turns them on, as these characters find out. The erotic stories in It Takes Two are all about rekindling that intimacy and seeking out total ecstasy.

Edited by the award-winning Rachel Kramer Bussel, with contributions by popular authors including Rae Shawn, Christina Berry, and Katrina Jackson, It Takes Two is the perfect read alongside a special someone (or someones).

About “Rekindling”:

Despite living a world apart, selkie hunter Earc Mac Toghda has never felt far from Knight-Mother Arlise Dun. But parenthood changes everything. They’ll need a white-hot spark to rekindle their love, and Earc knows exactly how to light one…

If this scorching hot anthology or my little contribution to it sound enticing, you can pre-order the book here

Update: February 2023

Hope y’all had a happy Valentine’s Day!

February has been a great month, perhaps even the best in my writing career so far. First, I finished off my sci-fi flash fiction piece–now entitled “What Good Fathers Do”–and received an acceptance from Paperm!nd Press. This marks my first ever pro-rate sale, so it’s a huge milestone for me. Keep your eyes peeled for a future post about when it will release as part of “Sour Spaghetti and Other Stories”!

Worldbuilding occupied most of the month for me. I sketched out the setting behind Tales of the Watchers way back in 2015, but lately I’ve been wanting to expand some topics and rework others that haven’t appeared with much detail in my published stories. My focus for the past two weeks has been revamping the gods and goddesses worshipped in the Tyrian Dominion. Their demand for blood sacrifices and gifts of foul magic are a big reason why so many of the villains in these stories are Tyrian or linked to the pre-collapse Tyrian Dominion, so it’s a pretty important aspect of the world.

My original notes really emphasized the alienness and unsavoriness of the religion, which is why they took quite a bit of inspiration from the Aztec pantheon despite being in a medieval fantasy setting. This time around, I decided to dial those traits back so they’re somewhat relatable and you can see why somebody would worship them despite stuff like child sacrifice or the endorsement of slavery. This iteration of Tyrism draws much more heavily from Canaanite myth and the Greco-Roman gods at their worst, which fits better since the Tyrian Dominion is essentially a mashup of Rome and Carthage.

My new notes are much deeper, totaling somewhere around 9,400 words with extensive profiles for each of the nine major deities. Since I’m toying with some stories about Arlise set in Tyria during her early days as a death-seeking adventurer and sellsword (maybe even a gladiatrix?), this should really come in handy.

For the rest of this month, I’ll be plotting and writing a new superhero story targeting the Summer of Speculation anthology from Cloaked Press. The theme for this year is sidekicks, so I thought I’d try my hand at a story about Kingfisher instead of Whippoorwill. Feeling out a distinct character voice authentic to her previous appearances in “Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill”, “An Oath to the Sun”, and “A Helping Hand” promises to be my biggest challenge, but the story itself is straightforward enough I should be able to finish by the deadline on March 15th.

Outside of writing, I’m taking every clear night we get to go stargazing. These pics of the Moon and the Pleiades are easily my best astrophotographs yet. Alas, one of the knobs on my adapter snapped off a couple weeks ago. I really wish I could’ve captured some shots of the comet or Uranus, but at least I still have the memories of hunting them down. My new adapter arrived on Thursday, so hopefully I’ll have some new pictures to share in March.

Next month promises to be busy, with both “The Skull in the Tree” and “A Helping Hand” slated for release in the coming weeks, so expect more posts than just the usual monthly update. Take care, and I’ll see you then!

“What Good Fathers Do” Accepted for Publication in Sour Spaghetti and Other Stories

This week brought some of the best news in my entire writing career: my military science fiction story “What Good Fathers Do” is officially my first pro-rate sale! This little flash fic–just 745 words–will be appearing in Sour Spaghetti and Other Stories, an anthology from Paperm!nd Press.

Aside from being my first pro-rate sale, this will also be my first published story featuring my sprawling sci-fi setting and the Eleutherian League. “What Good Fathers Do” takes place in 3461, a few months before The Captain and the Crown and decades before A League of Honor. Flash fiction doesn’t leave much room for worldbuilding, but I hope readers enjoy this introduction to the world.

In honor of this huge milestone, I’ll go ahead and share an appetizer in the form of a blurb and star map.

The Eleutherian League and Neighboring Star Nations in 3461

For Captain Zamile Kani, the mission is simple: escort transports loaded with thousands of soldiers, civilian contractors, and their families (including his own) to reinforce the fleet base at Desolation. But when he arrives to find the base destroyed and a swarm of enemy gunships bearing down on his convoy, Zamile must reckon with what it means to be a good father.

A big thank you to Maria Cosenza and Paperm!nd Press for soliciting a sci-fi submission from me, because otherwise I might never have thought to write this story.

At the moment, I don’t have a release date for the anthology. But when I do, I’ll post an update as soon as possible!

Update: January 2023

The holidays are over, a new year has arrived, and I have a ton of news to share in this monthly update!

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On the writing front, I’ve been more occupied with the business of writing than actually writing. Stuff like prepping for tax season, updating the spreadsheets I use to keep track of my publications, backing up files on my new flash drives, expanding my social media presence, and general self-promotion. As anybody who follows this blog probably knows by now, I received release dates for Fantastic Detectives (March 31st) and It Takes Two (May 9th). Both of those anthologies are also available for preorder, though not in all formats. Only Kindle preorders are currently up for Fantastic Detectives, while only print preorders are live for It Takes Two.

If you missed the announcement posts for either of those books and would like to check them out, here are a couple links:

Fantastic DetectivesIt Takes Two

In other happy publishing news, I’ve returned my signed contract with Worldstone Publishing and received payment for the reprint of Lightning Between Your Fingers, so pretty much everything is on track at the moment. The only thing I’m waiting on is a paper contract from Adekon Publishing to follow up on the less detailed one made through Upwork, but this one isn’t super pressing given they’ve already paid me for A Helping Hand. Hopefully I’ll have a release date for you before long!

Given how much attention all this demanded, I haven’t written much in January. After finishing the first scene of “The Martyrdom of the Blessed”, I decided the plot needs a serious rework to maintain the proper tension throughout the story. Changing the main character from Arlise to another Watcher is also something I’m considering, as is changing when the story takes place.

While I weigh these changes, I’ve decided to dabble in some flash fiction. Iron Faerie Publishing has a flash fiction anthology that accepted a reprint of “Decisions” back in 2021 and still needs stories, so the piece I’m currently working on is a bit of weird fantasy delving into the fall of the Tyrian Dominion. Hitting exactly five hundred words is a challenge, but I’ll be happy to finish my first story of the year.

I’m also in talks with a client to write a sci-fi flash piece for her magazine. Depending on its final length and the contract we agree to, this could be my first pro-rate sale. This one will take place in the same world as A League of Honor and The Captain and the Crown, following a captain in the Eleutherian League Navy at the start of the war with the People’s Republic of Nebesa, so just a couple years before The Captain and the Crown.

Over the past week, I’ve also begun pondering whether I should adapt “The Gale at Quiet Cove” and “Enough” into a fantasy romance novel centered around Arlise and Earc. Ever since I first started writing her in 2015, I’ve wanted to feature Arlise in a novel, but I kept putting it off in the hopes of getting enough experience to “do it right” first. Perhaps it’s a good thing I did; those early ideas were a mess. But now seems like it might be a good time to make a serious attempt.

The only thing giving me pause is how to craft a satisfying HEA/HFN ending for them that fits with “Rekindling”, but I’m sure I’ll be able to untangle that knot whenever I get around to outlining the adaptation.

If you’re wondering what spurred me to start thinking about fantasy romance, well, look no further than T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series. I read Paladin’s Strength over the holidays, and it might just be my favorite romance novel ever. A perfect blend of romance, action, humor, and immersive worldbuilding. Paladin’s Hope has been pretty good as well–a good chunk of the book is basically a dungeon crawl, which is a pretty unique premise for fantasy romance–though I’m not quite finished yet. I cannot wait for the other books in this series!

One thing I’ve really enjoyed this month is astrophotography. Between my smartphone adapter and a new long-relief eyepiece, I’ve been able to take some really nice photos. On the left, you can see Venus (the little yellow dot). Notice the planet isn’t a perfect sphere; that’s because it has phases like our moon. This shot shows the waning gibbous phase.

Speaking of the Moon, there it is on the right. And with actual detail! This one was tricky because clouds were rolling in, so I had to wait for a gap to snap the picture, but it turned out almost perfectly. The only adjustment I needed was a filter to tone down the brightness because it was only a couple days out from being full.

The next few weeks look to be pretty cloudy, so I don’t know if I’ll have any new astrophotographs to share in my update next month, but we’ll see!

Come say hello on Instagram!

With Twitter becoming especially unpredictable the past few months, I’ve decided it’s time to diversify my social media presence by creating an account on Instagram!

“Looking Up”, my very first haiga posted on Instagram

Being a writer on such a visual platform is a little odd, but it seems like the perfect place to share all the haiga and other visual poems I created in November with Canva Pro. I’ll also be posting book covers and promotional graphics on occasion, along with some of my amateur astrophotographs.

If any of those things sound interesting, you can find me here.

Release Date, Preorders, & Table of Contents for It Takes Two

More good news from the deluge last week: It Takes Two is coming out on May 9th!

The print version of the anthology is currently available for preorder on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, although there seems to be a bit of trouble with the listing on the latter at the moment. Links for the ebook version should be up before long; I’ll make another blog post once they go live.

Also, there will be an audiobook. All I know for sure is that it will release sometime after May 9th, but the news is super exciting! “Rekindling” will be only my second audio story, joining “Hanging at Crosbhothar” from last year’s audiobook version of Unsheathed: An Epic Fantasy Collection.

Some really big names in this anthology. Not only is it edited by the award-winning Rachel Kramer Bussel, but it also includes stories from authors like Rae Shawn, Christina Berry, and Katrina Jackson. I’m honored to share its pages with them, especially since “Rekindling” is only my second piece of erotica. Here’s the full table of contents:

Introduction: Lust for LifeAll is Fair by Rae ShawnGetaway from the Everyday by Christina BerryLittle Red Goes to Kink Camp by Jodie GriffinOvation by Lin DevonOnce More unto the Breach by Kelvin SparksOnly Prop Weapons Allowed by Melanie AntonSmall Change by D. FostaloveSinking in the Summer by Leah SageThe Pink Lady by Birch RosenSkin Deep by Angela AddamsEviction Notice by Vix HilleLavendar Tea Bread by SJ Sweet BreadOut of Orbit by R. MagdalenRekindling by Austin WorleyMiriam, Undone by Lou MorganWelcome Home by QuenbyDirndl Darling by Noel StevensThe Last Night by Katrina JacksonOn Display by Pandora Parker

In It Takes Two, couples take their passion in new directions, giving free reign to their filthiest sexual fantasies. Sometimes, they pretend to be someone else, engaging in erotic role-playing that allows them to embody their most sensual side and say and do things they wouldn’t in their everyday life. From BDSM encounters at Kink Camp to trying out new sex toys to outrageously filthy fetishes, glorious exhibitionism and voyeurism and sex in space, these couples find inventive ways to go wild with the one they love. No matter how well you think you know your partner, there’s always something new to discover about what turns them on, as these characters find out. The erotic stories in It Takes Two are all about rekindling that intimacy and seeking out total ecstasy. Edited by the award-winning Rachel Kramer Bussel, with contributions by popular authors including Rae Shawn, Christina Berry, and Katrina Jackson, It Takes Two is the perfect read alongside a special someone (or someones).

If your interest is piqued, you can find It Takes Two through the link below.

Amazon

Cover Reveal for It Takes Two

More good news: we finally have a cover for It Takes Two!

At first, I was a little worried about how this anthology might look next to the rest of my work on Amazon or Goodreads. Would the cover be raunchy? Lots of erotica anthologies have really raunchy covers. But this is perfect. Simultaneously sexy and tasteful, with a dash of romantic.

“Rekindling” is definitely a departure from the rest of my stories featuring Arlise, but I’m proud to say it’s part of It Takes Two.

Preorder and Release Date for Fantastic Detectives

After a long wait, I have some wonderful news: Fantastic Detectives is now available for preorder on Amazon!

Amazon

Fantastic Detectives includes my novelette “The Skull in the Tree”, which follows Knight-Mother Arlise Dun as she investigates strange curses carved into a human skull left in a tree outside the home of their victim. This might be my best story starring her so far; certainly my favorite one.

“The Skull in the Tree” is set after my novelette “The Gale at Quiet Cove” and my unpublished short story “Enough” but before “Rekindling” (which will be out in May as part of It Takes Two). A lot has changed for Arlise in the past year: she’s found love, given birth to a daughter, and hasn’t been on duty in months. But one thing that hasn’t changed is how steeped her world is in monsters and dark magic. Expect mystery and action in equal measure.

Unless something has changed without my knowledge, this is the table of contents:

The Skull in the Tree – Austin WorleyThe First Censor’s Statement – Donna RoystonJustice in the Mist – Martin WilseyPerchance to Dream – Reed BonadonnaThis Sword for Hire – Gregg ChamberlainThe Codicil – Shannon TaftTumbling the Lord – David TatumPenance – Emma MelvilleA Madness Most Discreet – Robert FinegoldWorshippers of Baser Stuff – Maria ProkopyevaOut Among the Pecan Trees – Daniel RobichaudThe Cleaner – David KeenerSister Autumn and the Angel’s Blade – Jeff Patterson

Fantastic Detectives is out on March 31st!