Merry Shannon's Blog, page 7

Book Giveaway!!

In honor of National Coming Out Day, my friends, I am going to do my first EVER book giveaway. And since I’ve been so addicted to Twitter lately, what better place to do it?

 

The winner will receive one personally autographed copy of either Sword of the Guardian or Branded Ann (your choice!) I will even throw in one of my super-cool new magnetic bookmarks, and possibly a couple of other treats as well. ^~

To enter, just tweet me @merryshannon with the answer to this question: who was the first person in your life that you ever came out to? (And if you’re straight – who was the first gay person to ever come out to you?)

(Following me on Twitter is not a requisite to win the contest, but of course it’s always much appreciated, too! ^~)

I will run the contest until noon tomorrow, and then draw a winner randomly from the responses – good luck!!

EDIT::  And the winner, according to this , is… @krayzdreamr!!  Congratulations — and thank you to everybody who entered!  This was so much fun, you guys kept me seriously entertained for a good part of the day yesterday.  I might just have to do this again someday soon… ^~

Sirens 2011 – A Wrap Up

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Had the most amazing time at the 2011 Sirens Conference over the weekend! I tried to keep my Twitter as updated as I could with the goings-on, but there was just so much that it wasn't always easy to keep up with. The three guests of honor, Justine Larbalestier, Laini Taylor and Nnedi Okorafor, are such fantastic, creative women and it was so much fun listening to their keynote speeches and banter during the panels (and getting signed books, yay!!) I ran into other fantastic authors as well; Mette Ivie Harrison, Sarah Rees Brennan, Marie Brennan, and Clare Bell, just to name a few, and came away from the conference with a huge stack of new treats to read.

Want a KindleGraph?

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So this is incredibly cool! Let's say you own a copy of one of my books on Kindle. "How I wish I could have this wonderful novel autographed," you sigh. "With something personal and written by the author just for me… but alas, my book is digital and has no paper to write on!"

Weep no more, dear readers, because the brilliant folks at KindleGraph have come up with a solution.

I can now create personalized digital autographs for any reader, near or far, who would like to have one! Just go to my page on KindleGraph and let me know you want it, and I'll whip something up just for you. No expensive travel to see me (especially since I can so rarely travel to make appearances to begin with…) and no waiting in lines! KindleGraph turns the inscription into collectible file you can download onto your own e-reader.

And no, you don't have to own a copy of the books to request a KindleGraph. You don't even have to own a Kindle, for that matter.  ^~  Go check it out. It's pretty darned cool.  :)

Related articles

Sign My eBook Please! (darayoungwrites.com)
Video: Amazon's new Kindle e-book readers promise value (news.consumerreports.org)
To Kindle or not to Kindle (paperparcel.wordpress.com)

Moo!

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I have been waiting impatiently for what feels like forever (but was, in fact, less than a week) to get my new Moo Minicards in the mail. These things are SO AWESOME!! The print quality is amazing, you can see all the tiny tiny details of the images, and the cardstock is thicker than a regular business card. I'm in love. I haven't even given any of these out yet and I'm already plotting more!!

Anyway, I decided to try a little crafty project by using a bit of grosgrain ribbon and some sticky-back magnet strips to make magnetic bookmarks; just connected two minicards with a bit of ribbon and used the sticky side of the magnet to stick the ribbon to the cards. They're super cute, see?

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I only made a handful of them since I didn't have very many magnet strips, but they turned out so well that when Shasta got home from work tonight and caught sight of them, she immediately demanded I make one for her too. *grins*

Super fun!! Now I just need to find people to give them to, hehe…

Nell Stark on Girls Who Bite

Fellow Bold Strokes Books author Nell Stark wrote a great guest blog over at Girls Who Bite. Check it out – lesbian vampires and a discussion of the absolutely fantastic everafter trilogy that she co-wrote with Trinity Tam!

Straightening YA Fiction

[image error]Came across a livejournal post today from authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, originally posted here on Genreville, that makes me deeply, deeply sad.

Apparently these two excellent and accomplished YA authors were approached by an agent who offered to sign a book they had co-authored — provided that they make the one gay character in the story non-gay (or else remove him altogether.)

I won't repost the full details, as I'm encouraging you to check the post out for yourselves in all its maddening glory, but the bottom line is that it's so very, very sad to know that this type of thing is still going on in the world of literature. *sigh* I guess maybe I'm spoiled, since Bold Strokes Books is a LGBTQ publisher and I've never thought twice about the gay-ness of my characters. Heck, I wrote my first novel long before I even knew there was any such thing as gay and lesbian fiction out there. I wrote it for myself, and for my online friends, because I wanted to create a story that was something I'd want to read myself… and it wasn't until I'd actually finished the whole monstrous 180,000 word thing that it occurred to me that maybe I could try to get it published.

Honestly, I never even considered mainstream publishing. I'd never seen Harlequin or Tor put out a lesbian romance or fantasy novel — but I was over the moon to discover that there were smaller independent presses out there that actually did publish gay and lesbian romance. I sent my monster of a manuscript off and I've never looked back since.

Now, though, with the advent of Malinda Lo's successful mainstream novels Ash and Huntress (both lesbian YA fantasy) and a steady increase in interest among YA readers and authors alike in increasing diversity in YA fiction, I'm starting to think more seriously about the accessibility of LGBTQ fiction in the mainstream.

Why shouldn't there be gay characters in YA fiction? In mainstream romance? In mainstream fantasy, and sci-fi, for that matter? Occasionally you might find some truly excellent LGBTQ fiction in the mainstream (Sarah Waters is a stellar example) but usually such novels are quite literary/weighty/artsy.  And the weighty-artsy stuff IS awesome, but what if you just want something that's pure and simple fun? Something you can devour easily right alongside the four hundred other equally devourable novels filling your e-reader?

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Bold Strokes Books (and Bella, and Intaglio, and all the other indie LGBTQ publishers out there) and I wouldn't trade my work with them for all the big-name publishing contracts in the world. But it irks me that said big-name publishers have discounted the market for gay and lesbian stories. And not are not only discounting, but actually attempting to SUPPRESS that market, if Rachel and Sherwood's story is any indication.

So I tip my hat to these two authors, who would turn down an agent contract for the sake of preserving the diversity of their stories. I tip my hat to all the other authors out there who have encountered this kind of ridiculous censoring in their own attempts to share their stories with the rest of the world. And I extend my deepest gratitude to all the readers who are *dying* to get their hands on such stories, and who snap up copies of every one that does manage to get put out there through the courage of writers, agents, editors and publishers who aren't cowed by the thought of a GAY BOOK.

Also, I've wanted to write a YA novel (or series, perhaps) for quite a long time now.  As of today I think this project has just significantly elevated itself in my list of priorities…

Hoping For Ithyrian Dreams…

I updated the blog a bit tonight… mostly small changes that will hopefully de-clutter some of the social sharing buttons I was using (and add Google+, since I'm pretty sure it's going to become as popular as Facebook relatively quickly) and made my little Facebook badge more functional. Also fixed some formatting issues that were causing links to render strangely in IE, etc., etc.

Mostly, I have to admit, I worked on blog formatting because I'm still not 100% decided on a lot of the details I'm going to need in order to write the next few scenes of Prayer of the Handmaiden. So… I'm procrastinating, until those details present themselves clearly enough to be turned into prose. :P

With all the hiking my wife and I did this weekend (my butt is going to be SORE tomorrow!!) I didn't get to finish any more DAZ projects either. But I'm sort of hoping the muse will return this week with the PotH details I need so I can move forward with the story. Wish me Ithyrian dreams tonight, folks! :) Usually that's where I end up with most of my answers…

Another New Violet Render

Wanted to do something a little different with Violet, so I put her on the Ice Queen's rigging… and got her smiling. Sadly I could not find any boots for her to wear that did not have ridiculous little heels on them. Please. No self-respecting pirate is going to prance around the slippery decks of a ship and climb rigging in HEELS. *sigh* But alas, I could not find a realistic approximation, and so we will just have to deal with the silly heeled boots…

You can view this along with other Branded Ann renders on the 3d Characters page, too!

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GoodLesbianBooks.com

The ladies over at Good Lesbian Books posted reviews for Sword of the Guardian and Branded Ann that I just came across today. Yay!!!! You guys should definitely check them out!

"Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon is fantastic. A fantasy set in a mythical kingdom with a weak king, a lot of political problems, and dark forces moving under the surface to take the throne, I loved this book. It's also far longer than I expected, was worth every penny, and I'd happily recommend to any reader of fantasy, whatever their personal sexual preferences. This book won an impressive sweep of awards and mentions, especially considering it's Merry Shannon's first published book (something that gave me a double take, as I would have sworn it was too good to be a first novel)…"

Go here to read the rest!

And,

"This isn't a book for starry eyed romance readers, apart from the frequent murder, rape (although this is the one thing Branded Ann draws the line at on her ship and in herself), foul mouths and living conditions, both main characters are more antihero than hero. [...] I'm impressed all over again by the believability of the writing, the ease one becomes immersed – the enormous amount of research the author has clearly done to create a natural seeming, accurate and mesmerising setting. The conflict between Ann and Violet is masterfully drawn, and I was constantly sympathising with each in turn against the other."

Go here for the rest of this one!

Also, I am in love with Good Lesbian Books' "The Muse of Lesbian Literature" poster:

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WANT!!!!!

Violet's "Ivory Silk" Gown

So after re-doing a Branded Ann-and-Violet-on-the-island render for the new Moo Minicards I just ordered (so excited to get them!!) I then went a little overboard with the Daz-ing and started working on some fresh renders of the Branded Ann characters. You can see them on the Branded Ann 3D Characters page, but I'm going to blog them too because I'm just so happy with how they turned out!

I started with some fun renders of Violet, and this one is probably my favorite; I wanted to see what she'd look like in an outfit similar to the ivory silk gown she's given by the Spanish merchants (somewhere in chapter four or five, I believe.) HOT.

Have others to share as well, and I'm hoping to get some more done for Ann this weekend, maybe… :)