Z.A. Maxfield's Blog, page 32

A little ZAM update –

I fixed my Coming Soon page so it will accurately reflect the books that are going to be released this year. As anything comes up I’ll add it along with dates and links.

I’m working even as I write this. I’m delighted with the reception for Grime and Punishment and I’m glad people are taking the characters of story to their hearts. The “Brothers” of Grime are the three owners of the trauma scene cleaning company, Jack, Eddie, and Gabe. They’re each going to get their own story. I’m also thinking about a Grime Christmas tale and a couple of free stories featuring Skippy and Kim, and the rest of the Grime Gang.

 

To Find Grime and Punishment, go to Loose ID, All Romance Ebooks, or Amazon.

It’s also almost time to start looking dreaming of cowboys, because My Cowboy Heart is coming out at the end of August.  For some reason I don’t see the cover on the Amazon site but here it is — isn’t it cool?

You can take pre-order My Cowboy Heart, HERE

 

My Cowboy Heart has a sequel, already written, with a planned release in December, tentatively titled My Heartache Cowboy, so stay tuned!.

Last but not least, expect a very California-flavored ZAM Christmas tale, Lost And Found, coming from Riptide. Details on that will follow as soon as I have them.

 

RT 2013

 

It takes me about a week to get my legs back underneath me when I return home from RT. I flew into Kansas City on Tuesday, April 30th and met up with some of my dear friends, people I only see once or twice a year but who have become so close to me through email and Twitter and Facebook they feel like family.

Yes! That’s me in the middle, in the bronze colored skirt. And Yes! I will be having a word with my hairdresser about his love of the Asymmetrical Fringe. In fact, it’s possible that this characteristic, that defining flop of red hair over one eye that I sported in EVERY SINGLE picture of me taken at RT will become the title of my next standalone novel. 

You wait!

Oddly enough, when I’m looking through it, it’s in no way quite as daunting as when someone is looking at me. WHO KNEW???

Here’s a selfie of me and author Belinda McBride, (Belle Starr, Blacque /Bleu, and An Uncommon Whore) when we got there. Just off the plane, no makeup for me…

I miss Bel so much between conventions. We get together when we can, and since we both live in California, I get the opportunity more than I do, say, with Lynn Lorenz, who’s my sister from another mister  in Texas.

RT gives us the opportunity to catch up, talk to readers, dole out swag to the fans, and make trouble in cities where the local PD doesn’t (yet) know our names.

OH, who am I kidding. I was in bed by ten most nights. We started off with the PIMP Your Badge event again to kick off RT in style, a workshop with all kinds of bling to tart up your convention badge.

I was on several panels, like this one, the very first panel exclusively about m/m Romance at any RT, ever.

That’s left to right, (WRITE, haha, get it? Sorry.) Damon Suede, Me, Belinda McBride, Tara Lain, and Amy Lane. 

Yes, our panel got as irreverrant as you might imagine it did. I was so grateful to be included here, as well as on a different panel with Damon, Heidi and Marie Sexton called From Brutes To Suits about the evolution of the romantic hero in literature. It was priceless hearing Damon talk about Rapey McRapersteen, the classic alpha hero of the eighties, to whom no meant you are cordially invited, clothing optional. Thank heavens for evolution, huh?

I also participated in panels on craft and attended costume party hosted by the Rainbow Romance Writers chapter of RWA (Pic at the top. No, really. It was a costume party.) Check out these lovelies!

 

Seriously. That FRINGE. My next novel is going to be about a group of solidly left-handed libertines in an ambidextrous world…

One man, locked in a death spiral with society, drummed out of grade school for his inability to say the pledge of allegiance because his very heart lay within his left hand…

One man, whose career as a juggler was destroyed before it was even started…

One man, for whom the words righty tightly, lefty loosey formed the framework of a lifetime of sexual misconduct and despair…Assymetrical Fringe, coming soon…

Okay. Maybe not…

And finally, my best picture, where I wasn’t a writer at all, but a total, squeeing, out-of-control-and-probably-kinda-frightening fangirl:

 

That’s me with the inimitable, unbelievably brilliant and talented Laura Kinsale, who is my favorite romance writer ever.

I’ve read and reread her books for twenty-five years now. She never fails to delight me. NEVER. Every character she creates is so real they feel like they’re going to leap off the page. Every scene is so vivid it’s like watching a film. 

I never in a million years thought to find Laura Kinsale at this event. She’s been a little elusive lately. When I saw that she was signing, I practically hyperventilated. The fact that this is the first year I wasn’t signing at the Saturday event (because they couldn’t get my books) turned out to be a good thing.

Laura Kinsale is so brilliant. And she turned out to be very kind! The Prince Of Midnight is getting released as an audiobook within the next couple of weeks. If you want to swoon, I mean really, really swoon, run, do not walk, to purchase it!!

I keep looking at the audible website, waiting. Now? *taps foot* Now? *taps foot*. That book is to this day, my favorite romance novel of all time and I’ve read thousands. 

To show how Laura Kinsale sticks out in a reader’s mind, I participated on a panel at RT (RT 2013, only days before I met Ms. Kinsale) with Belinda Mcbride, Amy Lane, and Kate Pearce called Broken Wings. The topic was why we love damaged heroes. One of the things we decided to do for this event was name our favorite broken hero — that one unforgettable character who broke our hearts and never left us.

I said S.T. Maitland, from the book The Prince of Midnight, and Kate Pearce said Jervaulx from Flowers From The Storm. That’s two readers-turned-writers, talking about their favorite characters of all time, who independently selected Laura Kinsale characters from two different books. Fifty percent of a panel of people who know damaged dudes when they see them. Who’ve gone on to write some damaged dudes of their own. Who cannot get these characters off their minds.

I can’t recommend Laura Kinsale’s work highly enough. I bow, bow, bow before the master.  I never dreamed I’d get to do it in person… Biggest thrill of my reading life. Wow. Fangirl moment. Rockstar moment. Best RT moment, ever.

Never mind that it took me a week to recover from all that hard work and travel. I had the best time. For my writer friends, thank you so much for including me in your panels and parties, I always try to bring a little something fun to the table.

To the readers and aspiring writers, I hope I left you with a little something to think about, a laugh or two, and some useful swag!

Thanks to everyone who made the trip and the conference possible!

I love you all, from the very bottom of my heart. 

 

~ZAM~

 

 

Huzzah, gentle readers! Grime has arrived!

 

The Brothers Grime is Jack Masterson’s way of helping people in crisis after disability ends his career as a firefighter. Jack’s people get to a scene long after the physical trauma ends. They don’t solve crime or rescue the victims. They help people move on. The new job is all Jack wants or needs, until he gets the call about old flame Nick Foasberg’s suicide.

Ryan Halloran’s cousin Nick has been on a downhill slide for a long time. Despite that, Ryan does everything he knows to help. Ryan only understands part of what happened between Nick and Jack in high school, but after Nick’s suicide, Ryan agrees both he and Jack need closure. They work together to clean the scene and despite the situation, heat flares between them.

Jack is keeping a painful secret and fighting his attraction Nick’s look-alike cousin, Ryan. Ryan calls himself a magnet for lost causes and worries Jack might be the next in a long line of losers. Despite his misgivings, despite the past and the mistakes they’ve both made, Jack gives Ryan something to look forward to, and Ryan gives Jack a reason to stop looking back, in Grime And Punishment.

Find Grime and Punsishment  HERE

And…You asked for it!

The Book Of Daniel is now in print for those of you who like to put your books on a real life shelf so you can actually touch (and sniff…or is that just me?) them.

Find The Book Of Daniel in print version, HERE

 

The Great Holiday ZAMfest

TUNE IN

to my blog

FOR

The GREAT HOLIDAY ZAMFEST!

His For The Holidays and I Heard Him Exclaim are available from Carina Press

Welcome!

The Great Holiday ZAMfest is my way of saying thanks so much to everyone who has been there for me this year. This has been a pretty tough year but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and things are looking pretty good!

For twelve days starting December 14th, I’m doing an ebook-a-day giveaway. All you have to do is comment at the blog to enter the daily drawing. I’ll pull a new name from the hat each night. The TWELFTH day will be Christmas, that’s when I’ll put the name of anyone who leaves me a comment on all twelve blogs into a drawing and one very lucky person will win the grand prize– a $50 dollar Amazon Gift Card.

So come EVERY DAY and comment on all twelve blogs to be entered for the GRAND PRIZE! (comments made after midnight EST will miss the daily drawing, but still be entered into the GRAND PRIZE drawing.)

You can find and subscribe to my blog at http://zamaxfield.blogspot.com and good LUCK!

Thanks for Albuquerque!

WELL! How much fun was GRL???

I signed books, took pictures, participated in a panel discussion of Romantic Comedy with the fabulous Ethan Day, Amy Lane, and Barry Brennessel. I shopped, I schmoozed, I lay in bed at the end of the day panting from all the fun we had…

I did a reading from e-Pistols At Dawn and it was so much fun to hear the laughter of a live audience like that! That gave me an idea for something fun to do with my pals…Get ready for something entirely new from some of your favorite m/m authors starting next year.

Gayromlit was HUGE this year. Packed with cool people, delicious excitement, thrills, chills, and so much fun I could hardly keep myself from exploding. It was so good to catch up with all my friends again, A special shout-out to my pals Lynn Lorenz, Belinda McBride, Lex Valentine, Cat Grant, Tara Lain, Amy Lane, Christopher Koehler, Louisa Baccio, Ethan Day, Heidi Cullinan, Damon Suede, K-lee Klein, Ralph/William/NJ/Emily (You know if you’d just kept your own namebadge it might have been a little easier), James Buchanan, Laura Baumbach, Kris Jacen, Ally Blue, Jet Mykkles J.P Bowie, Carol Lynne…

OH, my gosh, there are too many great people to name. It was a pleasure making new friends, and BRANDI !!! Did you see what I just did there? I remembered your name. Seriously. I cannot believe that in five days I could not learn names better.

I’m sorry to all the folks I mixed up with other folks and to those whose names I just plain forgot or had to double check.

Yes, that was me in the fairy wings. Just in case you were wondering. And NO, thanks to Ralph my favorite book schlepping minion and erstwhile pool boy, I did NOT forget to take those off before we went into Old Town Albuquerque!

And YES! I did lure two men to my room with the promise of cupcakes.

(So now we all know that works, anyway.)

I DID drop my laptop at the airport. Or rather, I was having lunch with friends and when I stood up to throw my trash out, my chair went over with my backpack in it, and my laptop was in that. It froze right there and did not boot up again! Thanks to my husband’s friend Tom, I now have almost everything I thought I’d lost PLUS, and new system for storing information so it’s possible I’ll never lose anything again!

I’m back home and hard at work on a new novel, a cowboy story for Loose Id, so stay tuned, and be well!

I’ll be right here,

ZAM

 

 

 

Really Briefly

Really Briefly!

Because today is not only the day before release day, it’s the day I move back into my house, (today we’re moving from the apartment, tomorrow they’re bringing back my stuff!) and tomorrow is also the first day of school, *pant, pant* I’m having a party over at my Goodreads Group, HERE

Several authors have joined me on the spur of the moment to add their own ebooks to the prize pile. There’s a giveaway thread — leave a to comment to win. I’ll be giving away three ebook copies of Gasp! as soon as I get them, and more lucky winners will be eligible to win prizes from other authors.

For More on Gasp!
Coming Sept. 4, 2012
click HERE

 

I See You Shiver

With anticip-p-p-ation.

Yes. I’m a wreck. There are few things more fraught than waiting until the day you can move back into your house after major re-construction. Add that to the fact that I have to replace everything (basically, anything soft like beds and bedding and window coverings or plastic like appliances and things that I stored food in) that might have absorbed the toxic smoke that flooded my house during the fire I’m a little bit overwrought.

And yes. That’s a first world problem, I know. I’m a woman who spends a lot of time on her knees being grateful that my life is good. It’s actually wonderful. I’ve been so lucky.

But I’m due to move home the weekend before my kids start back to school. Soccer season has already started, as has X-country. My four teenagers have all discovered a passion–an obsession–for Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons so it’s not at all uncommon to have six to eight teens in our apartment’s tiny combination family room/living room/kitchen shouting things like “Die, demon from the underworld!” at the top of their lungs.

The air conditioner works splendidly, thank heavens, as it’s been in the upper nineties here for weeks, and yet…one has to keep the windows closed all the time for it to function. See the above paragraph and then imagine the odor generated by eight over heated teens (and a labrador retriever) and you’ll know that keeping the windows closed has done nothing for the ambience around here. Still, I’m grateful we’re not living in our travel trailer.

I’m also grateful that we have this kind of abundance, and we’re not in a tent. I’m grateful we’re not living in a car. I’m not complaining as much as I’m full of nervous energy because I’m ready to dig in and roll up my sleeves and return my regularly scheduled life. It’s TIME to go back to normal. It’s past time.

But seriously, I’m an over fifty mother of four from a fairly conservative background, who writes gay romance novels. When was my life EVER normal???

On the work front, huzzah! I have finished all the housekeeping I needed to do. Here are the books I’ve re-released as Maxfield Books. These three are titles you may already have already read, but if you don’t, they’ve been re-edited and updated.

      

You can find all those books through the usual channels: Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, B&N.

Family Unit is currently Available in print through Amazon, Createspace, and All Romance Ebooks (through off site vendor Createspace.) The Long Way Home will be available in print beginning the first of September. (or sooner, if I can get it done.)

SOME IMPORTANT HOUSEKEEPING!

Because I didn’t get my print version completed (until my daughter was able to format it for me, because I’m a typing monkey) Here is the winner of the Family Unit Print Version Contest from way back in APRIL. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. (Sorry for the interminable delay. Prize winners should never, ever have to wait this long!)

Congratulations to: Lisa Lisa! I’ve sent you an email.

How can you “Like” me?

…Let Me Count The Ways

I spent the weekend re-evaluating my promotional situation, and I came up with some good ideas, so if you’re a ZAM fan, and you would like all the news that’s fit to print, I thought I’d let you know know a couple ways you can be “in the loop.”

First off, you can add this banner to your blog or webpage with a link to mine at www.zamaxfield.com

 

Okay, I know that’s asking a lot. But if you’d like to exchange banners with me, I’ll add yours to my links page. Just email me.

Also, I have a Yahoo Group, which used to be really busy (when I had more time to be talkative.) Hundreds of people have come and gone, some are talk a lot and some lurk. I really do read each and every message on that loop, though, so if you want to see my news or share your own, if you want to talk about books or writers, or share your favorite recipes that’s where you can do that. I really like it when people read a great book and they let me know so I can read it too.

I want to get back to book chat. I miss it, especially when I’m writing. The funny thing is, a lot of the readers who were on that group became writers and established groups of their own. You GO Zammers! There’s plenty of room at ZAM’s Cybercafe. Here’s the addy:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZAMaxfieldsCyberCafe/

You can “Like” me on Facebook, on my author page at Facebook, on my author page at Amazon, on any one (or all) of my individual books at Amazon or anywhere else. You can follow my blog here at blogger, just push that little orange button, I think. The mysteries of RSS feeds and things are just that to me still. Mysterious. You can follow me at LiveJournal, or you can just drop me a line at zamaxfield at zamaxfield dot com.

A gentle plea, dear readers: Please, oh, please “like” me anywhere you can. That means finding that little “Like” button and pushing it. It does make a difference, each and every time. Plus, it’s the only way I can convince my children that I’m not making all this shit up. Also, if you can, agree with the book tags on my books, or add your own, at Amazon. Find out more about tags here. That’s a sure and certain way for readers to help authors get more readers.

And I’m sure we all want that, don’t we?

I have a Newsletter, which you can subscribe to, HERE.

You can rate me, review me, or “fan” me at Goodreads. One note about that: I never feel I can review books on Goodreads. Part of that stems from the facts that I think authors reviewing books is like political pork, somehow. Or it’s a little incestuous. You can follow my reviews but I don’t review much, if ever. I started out rating books with the best of intentions, but then I stopped. I thought, what do I know? I just write ‘em. I don’t even play a literary critic on TV.

Goodreads thinks I’ve been reading Shoeless Joe for a couple years. Of COURSE that book gets a 5-star rating, but I never reviewed it. I’ll be sharing what I’m reading more at Goodreads and on my Yahoo Group, and I hope to hear what you’re reading too. I won’t share about books that weren’t my cup of tea, and I don’t really want to encourage criticizing books or authors. I just want to know what folks are reading out there so I can read good books too.

And finally, you can follow my tweets or tweet me at @zamaxfield. Don’t worry about having to listen to endless blasts about my day or my lunch or my traffic problems. I’m not very loquacious on Twitter. I mostly use it to announce new books and to point out that I’m standing next to other, more important people at conferences and on trips. (LOVED RWA’s literacy book signing by the way. So exciting to stalk meet my long time idols.)

So that’s it, And hopefully, as they say: That’s more than enough about me… how do YOU like me?

Through The Years

My latest project, a retooled, re-edited ebook version of the short story serial I wrote about Ethan Holmes and Barry Moffit, is available at Amazon for the low, LOW price of .99. The book includes all the short stories I’ve been offering for free on my website. 1978, 1988, 1998, 2008, and The Cursed Noel.

For several years, I’ve shared these stories in an unedited web only version, and it finally occurred to me that it was some of my favorite work, so it deserved professional editing and a nice cover so people could load the entire series onto their ebook readers at one go.

For those of you who have read the stories, they really are a piece of my heart and it might be like a visit with old friends. For those of you who haven’t, at this price point it’s an excellent way to dip a toe into the Mind Of Maxfield, as it were. Part of the proceeds will benefit the folks working toward marriage equality at HRC, for whom I wrote the stories in the first place. You can find the book at Amazon, HERE

 

Just For Fun…

Last year, a group of authors decided to play together, creating a serialized story that readers could follow once a week for free. The result has been The Lords of Aether, A Gay Steampunk serial story that follows a number of characters and one very, very evil villain through an alternate Victorian England where steam is money and airships rule the sky. Each week on Friday one of us produces a post. I’ve been participating as Shelley Jefferson (and his sidekick, the Mute Calfiglio).

Tune in each week to find out more… HERE, At LordsofAether.com