Phil Giunta's Blog, page 63

Susanna Reilly Sparks Young Romance in the Middle of Eternity

The good news is that our Kickstarter campaign to bring you volume two of our Middle of Eternity anthology series has managed to raise nearly $1,100! However, we have only 14 days left to raise  the remaining $1,400 to meet our goal. Otherwise, the project will not be funded at all. If you’re considering whether to back our project, please click here to check out the various donation levels and the rewards we’re offering on Kickstarter.  We deeply appreciate your support!

Let’s hit the beach with our next storyteller from Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity, Susanna Reilly!

Susanna Reilly has been enthusiastic about writing since she was named first runner up in a story-writing contest at the age of 11. For many years writing took a back seat to school, work and motherhood but the fire stayed alive. It was stoked in the late 1990s, early 2000’s when she joined a science fiction fan club that published an annual fanzine. Although the fanzine sold less than 30 copies per year (mostly to friends and family of the authors), the joy of writing stories in the Star Trek, Highlander and Stargate universes kept her going (some of those stories can still be found on www.fanfiction.net, author name SMR723). Susanna’s first professional publication came in 2013 when her short story, “To Protect and To Serve”, was included in the anthology, Unclaimed Baggage: Voices of The MainLine Writers. She subsequently published two stories (“Form and Substance” and “Perchance to Dream”) in the anthology Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity and, among other projects, has a story about to be published in the next anthology in that series, Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity.

It’s wonderful to have you back with us for another wild ride through the Middle of Eternity. This time, you’re giving readers a splash of romance and the paranormal in “The Tree of Love”. What inspired this lovely story?

Thanks for having me back. I’m thrilled to be a part of EIME! The inspiration for the story was an ad I saw for the Rehoboth Reads contest. The theme of the contest that year was the boardwalk, so I not only needed a story set in Rehoboth Beach but as much on the boardwalk as possible. Once I had the idea of the grandmother and granddaughter sitting on the beach, the story just flowed out of me. It was a joy to write, but I got a very late start (three days before the contest deadline) and there was a strict word count limit, so the submitted draft was not as good as it could have been and was not accepted for publication. Luckily our valiant editor was one of my beta readers and immediately said if they don’t want it, please let me have it for EIME. I was very glad to do so and was especially glad to have a few extra months to polish the story and add back some of the lovely stuff I had to cut from the contest version to make word count. I am very thrilled to be a contributor to EIME among all of these exceptionally talented writers.

Where else have you been published and what can readers expect next from you?

A long, long time ago, I was published in the Norman fanzine published by the Starfleet (science fiction club) chapter, USS Thagard. We published about 30 copies of the fanzine a year with all profits going to charity. It was a fun way to develop my writing skills and become a little more familiar with the writing process. More recent credits (and ones that are still available for purchase) include a story in “Unclaimed Baggage: Voices of the Main Line Writers” and two stories in EIME’s predecessor, “Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity.”

I’m currently working on a short story for submission to the next anthology being published by the Main Line Writers Group. I’m also bouncing around an idea that may become either a full-fledged novel or a series of short stories about a secret organization that knows approximately when the end of the world is coming and is exploring every scientific avenue for saving as much of the population as possible (including time travel, alternate realities, space travel, etc.). The first story involves an agent who helps move people to alternate timelines. It’s about 95% written in my head, but finding time to get it down on the page has been a problem – one I hope to remedy soon. If the idea pans out, I may invite some of the SIME/EIME kids to come play in my universe. I think that would be a kick ass anthology all on its own.

Are there any genres that you haven’t yet written, but would like to try?

If I feel like trying a genre, I generally do. I don’t always like the results, but I’m always willing to try. For example, I’ve written about 150 pages of a novel about a teenage boy who was kidnapped by a pedophile as an 8 year old and is now returning to the “normal” world after being rescued at age 13. It’s a story that haunts me and every so often I have to go back and write some more of it even though I have concerns that, as a 53 year old woman, I’m not going to be able to write convincingly about 21st century teenagers of either gender.

What does Susanna Reilly do when she isn’t writing?

I spend way too much time at work (legal assistant for a sole practitioner attorney). When I’m not there, I try to spend as much time as I can with my two adorable grandchildren, other family members or friends. I also spend way too much time in front of the TV (but in my defense there are so many good shows on these days). Thank goodness for DVRs and the fast forward button!

 

“Working the System” by Phil Giunta

The good news is that our Kickstarter campaign to bring you volume two of our Middle of Eternity anthology series has managed to raise nearly $1,100! However, we have only 14 days left to raise  the remaining $1,400 to meet our goal. Otherwise, the project will not be funded at all. If you’re considering whether to back our project, please click here to check out the various donation levels and the rewards we’re offering on Kickstarter.  We deeply appreciate your support!

For now, I’m excited to offer you our second story sample. “Working the System” is a science fiction tale set in the same universe as “Water to Share”, a story I wrote for our first anthology, Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity. The events in this story are concurrent with those from the first tale about an interplanetary government that orders the destruction of all artificial intelligence…and the human casualties that result. I hope you enjoy the story and considering supporting us.  Thank you for reading!

 

 

WORKING THE SYSTEM

by Phil Giunta

The deck was littered with bodies.

At the captain’s orders, they’d been callously dumped in the cargo hold. Practically all were riddled with blaster burns. A few had been dismembered to varying degrees. The last one had lost a chunk of his head during the morning’s violent incursion in the Ghanzing Belt.

Drug lords are afforded the dignity of body bags, while our own casualties are tossed in here like garbage. As he weaved his way through the dead, Lieutenant Cameron Glazier clenched his jaw against the bile rising in his throat. He knew how the captain felt about them, but that didn’t justify this.

Wait until Michaud sees this. Glazier considered ordering body bags down here before—

“What the hell is this?”

Too late. Oliver Michaud stood in the doorway staring at the congeries of corpses. A biomechanical engineer for the Geary Corporation, Michaud had been assigned to the Kindred as a civilian contractor.

“Wasn’t my idea, Ollie,” Glazier said. “Captain’s orders.”

“This is not happening.” Michaud stormed into the hold, gaping at the scene. After brushing past Glazier, he crouched beside the last body. Delicately, he turned the man’s head to conceal the gaping wound that had been the right side of his face.

“His name was Vance. We used to play chess. Some of our games went on for weeks. He was fascinated by stories about even the most mundane things we take for granted.” Michaud looked across the hold at the others. “They’re programmed to appreciate kindness and friendship. Did you know that, Cam? In many ways, I’m more comfortable around androids than my own kind.”

“I know.” Glazier nodded solemnly. “They were good…people. They fought well. Sorry you had to see this, Ollie. How are the survivors?”

“Once the nanites finish repairing their injuries, they’ll be fine.” With a sigh, the engineer rose to his feet.

Microscopic robots administered through injection, nanites were capable of healing non-fatal wounds, both internal and external, and curing certain common diseases. Each of Michaud’s androids had been manufactured with nanites in its synthetic bloodstream. However, those that lay strewn across the deck had been damaged beyond even the nanites’ capability to restore.

Michaud sighed and shook his head. “Such a goddamn waste.”

“Better them than us,” a new voice said.

Both men turned as Sergeant Amira Ecklund approached, rounding the pile of bodies without so much as a glance. “Isn’t that the whole point of your androids, to spare human lives?”

Michaud pointed toward the bodies. “And this is how you express your gratitude?”

“They’re machines, Doc.”

“They’re biomechanical, with emphasis on bio! Don’t forget they’re also—”

“Property of the System,” Ecklund said.

Michaud let his arm drop to his side. “Look who’s talking.”

Ecklund opened her mouth to respond when Glazier’s commphone buzzed. Hoping to escape yet another debate between these two, he pulled it from his belt and peered at the screen. “It’s Commander Zamora.” Glazier pressed a button. “Glazier here.”

“Lieutenant, I need you and Ecklund in the main conference room immediately, and bring Dr. Michaud. This concerns him, too.”

***

In the conference room minutes later, Glazier, Ecklund, and Michaud took seats opposite Commander Elyen Zamora. As with most people indigenous to the continent of Lhaneshka, Zamora’s orange eyes were in striking contrast to his dark complexion. Even when seated, the commander cut an imposing figure in both height and physique. He greeted them with a solemn nod, thick hands folded atop the table.

“Lieutenant Glazier, Sergeant Ecklund,” Zamora began. “Congratulations on a flawlessly executed assault today. You managed to eliminate nearly seventy percent of the illegal drug trade in the System, especially yhezerin. Commendations are in order for both of you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Glazier and Ecklund replied in unison.

Zamora shifted his gaze to Michaud. “And you, Doctor. Your androids performed commendably. I think it’s safe to say that today’s expedition provided irrefutable proof of their value to the military. You must be proud.”

Michaud smiled thinly, his eyes downcast. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Commander, I get the feeling we were called here for more than a pat on the back,” Glazier said. “What is this about?”

Zamora shrugged. “It’s the captain’s meeting. He should be along shortly. All I can say is that he did not sound pleased.”

Ecklund frowned. “With our performance?”

She spoke just as the conference room door slid aside. “Not at all, Sergeant.” Captain Veikko Jorgen strode into the room and took a seat at the head of the conference table. Jorgen was a gaunt, middle-aged man with platinum hair trimmed close to his pale scalp. As he sat forward, his wide gray eyes locked onto Glazier in what had become known among the crew as the ‘stare of steel.’

More like ice. If the man’s eyes had ever held any compassion at all, two decades in the System military had robbed him of it. Glazier’s shoulders tensed as the captain began.

“Damn fine job out there, Lieutenant. In fact, I admit to a certain degree of personal gratification in your success.”

It was no secret that Jorgen had lost his daughter to an overdose of yhezerin eight months ago. When manufacture of the drug had been traced back to a laboratory in the Ghanzing Belt, a ring of asteroids orbiting the 11th planet in the Noltaq system, he had volunteered to lead the assault.

“I’ll get right to the point,” the captain continued. “In the fourteen months since we left port, we’ve all watched the political situation back home steadily deteriorate. Since the New Fundamentalists attained increased representation over the past two elections, they’ve exerted more influence over policy than the Progressives.

“Even as we decimated the Ghanzing drug cartel today with the assistance of Doctor Michaud’s androids, the Fundamentalists finally managed to pass their law banning the development of artificial intelligence and biomechanical technologies regardless of their purpose.”

“That’s impossible!” Michaud blurted. “The System can’t just stifle decades of scientific progress because some politicians hold a fairy-tale belief in a non-existent deity.”

“I sympathize, Doctor. I despise the idea of our government turning into a theocracy, but right now, the religious zealots have control.”

“What does this mean for us, Captain?” Zamora asked.

Jorgen looked at Michaud. “It means that Doctor Michaud is hereby ordered to deactivate his androids.”

The engineer stared at him for several seconds, his incredulous expression hardening to anger.

Shit… Glazier tensed. Here it comes.

“You mean kill them,” Michaud seethed. “They don’t have off switches, Captain. They’re not automatons.”

“I was trying to be delicate, Doctor.”

Michaud threw himself back in his seat and stared at the ceiling. “This is not happening.” The room fell silent, all eyes on Michaud. After several seconds, he held up both hands. “OK, wait. Captain, what if you let me have a shuttle? I could take the surviving androids into the Empty Quarter and disappear. No one would ever know.”

An expanse of unclaimed space stretching about 50 light years, the Empty Quarter separated Noltaq from the next populated system controlled by the Zhoreen Alliance. It contained few planets, most of them uninhabitable.

Zamora nodded in support of the idea. “We could turn over the androids from the cargo hold as evidence of their destruction.”

“You of all people should know the penalty of lying to the System, Commander.” Jorgen turned his scowl on Michaud. “Even if I could use your dead androids as a smokescreen, explain how I’m supposed to account for a missing shuttle.”

“Lost in battle.”

“That would require tampering with the ship’s logs. This hole you have me digging would become my grave. I’m sorry, Doctor, but the orders stand.”

Michaud shook his head. “I don’t think you’re sorry at all, Captain. I think you’re pleased. You never wanted my androids aboard your ship in the first place. You were probably hoping the Fundies would push their law through. You’re no better than they are.”

Glazier shot a sidelong glance at Ecklund. Both knew that Jorgen would maintain his composure only for so long. Insubordination, even from a civilian, was not tolerated.

“I’m far from a Fundamentalist, Doctor Michaud, but you’re right. I don’t trust androids. I don’t trust artificial intelligence at all, no matter how much it resembles a human. System High Command ordered me to test your products on this mission and now they’re ordering me to destroy them. I follow my orders. It’s that simple, Doctor.”

“Like Hell it is.” Michaud leapt to his feet. “I’m contacting my company.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find that conversation a bit one-sided. System police have already seized Geary Corporation’s A.I. facilities. Your fearless leader, Doctor Isaac Geary is currently missing, but a warrant has been issued for his arrest. If he refuses to cooperate, he’ll be tried and probably imprisoned, or exiled. I would hate to see the same thing happen to someone as young and promising as yourself, Doctor.”

Michaud leaned over the conference table. “I realize they’re mere chattel to you, Captain, but these androids have become friends to me and many of your crew. I created them. How can you expect me to murder them?”

“I take it that means you refuse to cooperate?”

Michaud’s smoldering gaze met Jorgen’s frigid stare. “There’s obviously nothing I can do to stop you. Their blood is on your hands, Captain. I’ll have no part of this.”

“I see.” Jorgen kept the civilian in his sights as he spoke. “Sergeant Ecklund, please escort Doctor Michaud to his quarters where he is to be confined until we’re planet side. At which point, we’ll turn him over to military police. Let the System deal with him.”

Ecklund rose from her seat and stood beside Michaud. She placed one hand on her firearm and the other on his shoulder.

“This isn’t over, Captain,” he said.

“It is for you, Doctor. Thank you for your service aboard the Kindred.” Jorgen nodded at Ecklund. She turned him toward the door. Michaud shot a final threatening glance at Jorgen before departing.

When they were out of earshot, Zamora looked to Glazier. “How many androids survived the raid, Lieutenant?”

“Seven, sir.”

Jorgen smirked as he looked from Glazier to Zamora. “That’s all? The good doctor made it seem as if there were more.”

The captain and first officer rose from their seats in unison. Glazier’s shoulders tensed as he did the same. Don’t even say it.

Jorgen smiled thinly. “We’ll leave the method of their disposal to your discretion, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

Dammit! Glazier felt the heat drain from his face. “Sir, if I—”

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant? You and Ecklund can handle seven androids, can’t you?”

Glazier clenched his jaw.

“As I understand it, Lieutenant, your tour aboard the Kindred will end in two weeks.”

Glazier held steady against the captain’s threatening scowl. “That’s correct, sir.”

“I’d hate to see such a loyal officer spend the remainder of this expedition in the brig, not to mention leaving the service with a dishonorable discharge for disobeying an order from System High Command. That would forfeit your benefits and make it difficult to find a civilian job. Now do we understand each other, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir.” Bastard.

***

The guards assigned to Michaud’s quarters snapped to attention as Glazier approached. Ignoring them, he pressed the button beside the door. A few seconds passed before the door slid aside.

Glazier entered into complete darkness. Across the cabin, a porthole encompassed almost the entire outer bulkhead, permitting a sweeping view of the Ghanzing Belt. Countless multicolored points of light studded even the smallest of the asteroids, marking various settlements and mining operations.

“What do you want?”

Michaud was somewhere to his left.

“I came by to apologize, Ollie.”

Finally, Glazier’s eyes adjusted and found the engineer hunched forward in his chair facing the porthole. He spoke in a strained whisper. “He ordered you to do it. You and Ecklund.”

Glazier lowered his head and sighed. “Yeah.”

“I bet she enjoyed it.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“I know.” Michaud lowered his head. “I still don’t get what you see in her, but I guess any port in a storm.”

Glazier let the comment go. His relationship with Ecklund was no secret among the lower decks. She was also part of the reason he was leaving the service, although he’d never reveal that to her.

“So how did you do it?” Michaud said. “How did you deactivate them?”

“Does it matter? It was fast and painless, I promise.”

Michaud sighed. “That’s more than I can say for myself right now. Political tides change and my life ends up in the shit can.”

“If it’s any consolation, I convinced Jorgen to dismiss what happened in the conference room. There will be no report of your refusal to cooperate. Once we’re back on Noltaq, you’ll be free to go.”

“Thanks, Cam. At least someone on this ship has a heart.”

“What will you do now?”

“I’ve been pondering that very question for the past few hours. I haven’t entirely decided, but one thing is certain. I’ll never forget what happened here today.”

To be continued in…

Daniel Patrick Corcoran Explores Distant Planets in the Middle of Eternity

The good news is that our Kickstarter campaign to bring you volume two of our Middle of Eternity anthology series has managed to raise $944! However, we have only 15 days left to raise $1,500 to meet our goal. Otherwise, the project will not be funded at all. If you’re considering whether to back our project, please click here to check out the various donation levels and the rewards we’re offering on Kickstarter.  We deeply appreciate your support!

The next featured author on our menu is Daniel Patrick “Renfield” Corcoran.

Renfield is a familiar face in the Baltimore convention scene, most notably having performed with the Usual Suspects and Cheap Treks comedy troupes, as well as sometimes lending his voice to Prometheus Radio Theatre. He has recently turned his energies to the printed page under the pen name Daniel Patrick Corcoran.

I see you’ve suited up for another daring expedition into the Middle of Eternity! This time around, you come equipped with a brilliant story that harkens back to the days of the golden age of science fiction. Please tell us what inspired “The Hard Place”.

When the last Middle of Eternity anthology came out from Firebringer I heard a few people lamenting that among the various supernatural and fantasy stories included, there were very few science fiction stories. I therefore decided that my contribution to this volume would be science fiction, and I wanted to make sure it was as science fiction-y as possible.

So I set it in deep space, on a space station, near an alien planet. Got it. Why are they there? Aliens! Great! Problem? Asteroid! Ethical dilemma. But I didn’t want to tell an entire story about an ethical dilemma. Science fiction twist! Bigger dilemma. Great. There are a lot of different elements in there, because I did keep harkening back to the classic science fiction stories and remembering how much fun they were. I like to think I crafted a story that will keep the reader entertained.

What other writing projects are you working on now and are there any genres outside of SF and horror that you would like to explore as a storyteller?

A local game company recently approached me about writing a backstory and flavor text for a humorous fantasy strategy game they’re producing. It’s still in the early stages, but sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I really enjoy mysteries, and I have been wanting to explore that genre for a while now. I have ideas for a series with a sleuth character I’ve been kicking around, as well as a series of puzzle-solving stories that I’ve been wanting to develop.

Most people know you by one name: Renfield. Of course, we know this to be a main character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but how precisely did you come about this sobriquet?

Actually, that was just a fan name I picked up shortly after I started attending science fiction conventions regularly. When I first met my wife that was the only name she knew me by, and she told her family she was dating this guy named Renfield and, well, she has a pretty big family. Now I have one side of my family that knows me exclusively as Renfield.

When it came time to print my story in the previous Middle of Eternity volume, I asked my wife what name I should publish it under. She asked, “What’s wrong with Renfield?” I replied, “Honey, it’s a vampire story!”

What does Renfield do when he isn’t writing?

When I’m not herding house rabbits, I’m usually out exploring the food scene of Baltimore.

 

Michael Critzer Haunts and Inspires in the Middle of Eternity

The good news is that our Kickstarter campaign to bring you volume two of our Middle of Eternity anthology series has managed to raise $824! However, we have only 17 days left to raise $1,700 to meet our goal. Otherwise, the project will not be funded at all. If you’re considering whether to back our project, please click here to check out the various donation levels and the rewards we’re offering on Kickstarter.  We deeply appreciate your support!

Now, onto our next author interview…

As only he can do, Michael Critzer delivers a truly offbeat story to our upcoming anthology, Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. However, his love of superheroes is clearly evident in his second tale. Let’s chat with him about that.

As a fiction writer, Michael Critzer’s work appears in a growing number or literary magazines and genre anthologies. His first book, Heroic Inspirations, is due out from Hero House Publishing later this year. As a cultural studies scholar, he has presented at academic conferences on the cultural and psychological roles superheroes play in our society. To that end, he is founder of the buzz-generating Iconic superhero pages on Facebook and the Iconicast Podcast. When all of that play is done, he teaches writing, rhetoric and American literature in Central Virginia. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelCritzer and on Facebook at Facebook.com/AuthorMichaelCritzer

Welcome back for another escapade into the Middle of Eternity. Once again, you’ve submitted two remarkably diverse stories with “Unboxing Anna” and “An Early Fall”. What inspired each of these?

Thanks, Phil! It’s an honor to be asked back again. I’m proud of these two stories, and they do represent the range of my writing interest. I wrote the first draft of “Unboxing Anna” while working on my MA in English. I was fascinated with psychoanalytic literary theory and was reading up on Freud and Jung. The concept of the “anima” intrigued me. In a nutshell, it’s the idea of the female in the male mind, a projection. I began thinking of how we build up an illusion of the other person in a relationship and how when relationships end, it’s usually because the person has done something to shatter that illusion. We mourn the loss of who we thought a person was more than the loss of the actual person. The illusion lives on, morphing into other relationships and so on. So I created Carl (Karl Jung anyone?) and his ex-girlfriend Anna (anima), threw in some ghost story tropes, and the story wrote itself.

“An Early Fall” was a real labor of love for me. My scholarly and creative nonfiction work focuses on superheroes and the importance of their inspiration. So I decided to put my fiction where my commentary was and see what I could write. The Blue Wonder is the epitome of an archetype I call the aspirational hero. He represents a standard to aspire to rather than the more cathartic heroes who often fail as we do. Aspirational heroes are a dying breed in superhero mythology. Characters like Superman and Wonder Woman are being written away from the archetype. Captain America is one of the very few holdouts. So it was important to me to really make the character believable and inspiring. And the best way to make a character inspiring is to show them inspire someone else. Enter Joselyn, a ten-year-old girl with autism and an out of control super power. She’s another character close to my heart as my own daughter, who is four, is autistic. I hope to be the kind of comfort and inspiration to her that the Blue Wonder is for Joselyn.

Since our last interview, you began a number of Facebook groups devoted to superheroes such as Iconic Superman, Iconic Wonder Woman, and Iconic Batman (did I miss any?). What attracts you to comic book heroes and how have you referenced this genre in pursuit of your MFA?

I’ve been obsessed with superheroes and comic books since the 1989 release of Tim Burton’s Batman. During my academic career, my interest developed onto a mythological level as well. I studied how superheroes function for our society in ways similar to the Greek or Norse gods for their respective societies and so on. I’ve presented at academic conferences on the subject. For my MFA degree, since you asked, I wrote my extended critical essay on how to write traditional heroes who always do the right thing while still making them three dimensional characters.

Preserving traditional heroes has become my platform of sorts. Around 2011, there was a shift in the character of many superheroes that favored a much darker and flawed personality and universe. Because of my research into how the characters can influence and reflect society, the change worried me. I began the Facebook pages as part of a cultural study, encouraging fans to celebrate the traditional, aspirational aspects of these characters and begin a demand for them to return to that format.

I met some great likeminded people and many came on board as page admins. Now we have pages for Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, The Brave and the Bold, Spider-Man, and even Optimus Prime. And I’m sure there’ll be more to come as people volunteer with an interest to promote a character through the pages. The movement eventually led to us starting a monthly podcast entitled Iconicast.

Tell us the “origin story” of Iconicast. Where else can we find you online (blog, website, etc.)?

One of my page admins, Sierra, was a cohost on a podcast by her local comic shop. I listened to it and realized that a podcast would be an even better format to discuss our views on superheroes and cultural mythology. I grabbed Sierra, and soon Al, and we started recording every month. Those first episodes are pretty awful in terms of sound quality, but I learned as I went along. We’ve been blessed to have a lot of great guests on the show as well, including artists Mauricio Abril and Des Taylor, Jim Bowers of CapedWonder.com, Brett Culp from Legends of the Knight, and the famous cosplayer and actress Valerie Perez.

The website for our podcast is IconicastPodcast.com. click past the welcome page to find a list of all our Facebook pages on the left. We’re also on iTunes for those Apple heads out there.

Where else have you been published and what are you working on next?

I’ve been published in a few online lit magazines, including The Rind and Golden Walkman. But other than some college publications, you were the first editor brave enough to put me in print! I’m excited about Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. I’m also excited about my first book due out at the end of this year from Hero House Publishing. It’s a nonfiction book on the inspiration of superheroes called, appropriately, Heroic Inspirations. You can follow the updates on my author page, facebook.com/AuthorMichaelCritzer or my twitter @MichaelCritzer. I also have a blog/website at MichaelCritzer.com which I’ll use to promote my new YouTube channel. I’ll be featuring superhero collectible reviews, film, and comic analyses every week. In some ways it will be like the college class I teach on American Heroes condensed into short video format.

What does Michael Critzer do when he isn’t writing?

Professionally, I teach writing and literature courses at James Madison University. And I’m a freelance ghost and copywriter on the side.

Outside of work, like any studious aspiring writer, I read. Whether novels, short stories, comics, or audio books, I try to read a good portion each day. Most of the time, though, I’m playing with my beautiful daughter Alyssa and engaging in some form of superhero related media.

Melissa Carta Miller Brings Timeless Romance to the Middle of Eternity

We’re less than two months away from the release of our new anthology, Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. If you have contributed to our Kickstarter campaign to help fund our publication, thank you so much!

If not, please click here for more information about our anthology and the various reward levels we’re offering. Thank you for supporting small presses and independent writers!

Over the next month, I’d like to take the time to introduce you to our storytellers through this semi-weekly author interview series, starting with Melissa Carta Miller.

Melissa has been writing as far back as she can remember. Her childhood stories often included a dying princess and a unicorn or a dragon, eventually she moved on to poetry, short stories, and personal essays.  After receiving a degree in Art History from Moravian College, she lived in Alaska, learning to train sled dogs for distance races with her long-time hero, Susan Butcher.  When she returned to the Northeast, she worked for sprint musher, Rob Downey, for seven years, helping train racing teams, taking care of pups, and spoiling the elder dogs.  She retired from sled dog work when her daughter, Charlotte (yes, Melissa is a Brontë fan), was born, shifting her focus to parenting and writing, somehow managing to write a novel while nursing a newborn. She traveled to China to adopt her daughter, Iris, and can’t remember the first six months of keeping up with two smart, funny, mischievous little girls.  Melissa focuses on novels for adults now, though in the past she has written YA fiction. Two of her personal essays on international adoption were published with the highly popular online magazine Babble.com. Presently she is juggling two novels and a memoir-esque book about her dog sledding days, woven with the story of her mother, who is in the process of rapidly losing her memory. She is actively querying agents for her finished novel, Sycamore, which was inspired by her favorite artist Andrew Wyeth’s 200 pieces devoted to his model Helga Testorf.

It’s exciting to have a new player join our game! Between you and fellow scribe Sue Reilly, the Middle of Eternity has become a bit more romantic. What was the inspiration behind “Selchidh”?

First of all, thank you for asking me to join the group! I’m both honored and excited. You nailed it, I am an unapologetic romantic, so I tend to write about relationships, but I lean toward stories and characters that break your heart a bit. I love it when I get to the end of a book and I slam it shut because it hasn’t ended the way I wanted it to … or, like when I finished Cold Mountain, I am weeping. The stories of selkies, seals that can shed their skin and become human, are rich with the element of love lost or separation by time. If a man falls in love with a selkie woman and finds her hidden skin, she is bound to him (happily so, but always with a sense of slight melancholy). However, if the woman finds her skin, she immediately goes back to the sea, never to return. I have a strong tie to my Irish roots and, though selkies are more often a Scottish myth, there are selkie stories from Ireland as well. That’s where I see this story happening — on a cliff by the sea in Ireland.

Do you have any works-in-progress that you would like to tell us about?

I do … I actually have three books vying for my attention right now. Two novels, very different in nature, and a memoir-ish book about my time as a sled dog handler in Alaska, which has wound through it the story of my mother, who is rapidly losing her memory. We are very close and she has always been my biggest cheerleader, whatever I put my mind to. Losing her slowly is devastating. Writing about her and the things she taught me, has helped me work through some of the grief that comes with this sort of situation. So it’s a bit of beauty, laughter, fun, hard work, love, anger, and healing all in one. I’m also querying agents for a finished novel I have ready to go (fingers crossed). It was inspired by the over 200 paintings and drawings artist Andrew Wyeth created of his model, Helga Testorf. It is a very different story, however — the artist is Dutch, the model twenty years his junior, both fiery in their own temperaments. The intimacy of sitting as a model for a well-known painter eventually leads to a physical relationship, which is severely tested by the release of a body of work that exposes Erin, the main character, to an unwanted and unexpected spotlight. In addition, there’s a something devastating that Jacob, the artist, has been hiding from her.

Are there any genres that you have not yet explored as a storyteller, but have piqued your curiosity?

Hmm. I love science fiction, two of my absolute favorite books are the Sparrow and the Doomsday Book, and as a kid ate up Madeline L’Engle’s books, but I never have written in the genre. I see it as incredibly daunting to create worlds, planets, races, languages. I don’t know if I’d delve into sci-fi, but I am enticed to try my hand at the supernatural. I have a story I was working on for this anthology that is rather shivery-up-the-spine, but I didn’t get it quite tied up in time.

What does Melissa Carta Miller do when she isn’t writing?

Oh, my gosh. I’m kind of a whirlwind! I am the mother of two children, who suddenly have become young women, and I’m devoted to my dogs Alice and Nell. I love reading — there are literally 32 books beside my bed (I just counted). My special affinity is for classic literature, of all types, but especially American and British. I’m a knitter, particularly of socks, and a birdwatcher. I would travel far and wide, if ever one of my books hit it big time. I’ve been to Montreal, England, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and three provinces in China. Music is a huge part of my life and songs often help me write scenes in my head as I’m driving my car. I have a bad habit of literally writing and driving, despite admonishments from loved ones. The band I listen to most right now is the Avett Brothers. It becomes a bit of a thing, when you like the Avetts. Somewhere along the line, we became known as the Avett Nation. My taste in music runs wide, however. I also love movies (except silly comedies or unrealistic romantic comedies) and would be very hard pressed to pick a favorite. When I was little (it was 1976, so I was three) I saw tall ships for the first time and have been enamored with them ever since. One of the books I’m working on now has a main character who is building herself a sailboat and the research for it has been fascinating. If I can do anything to help someone, a group of people, or animals I will do it. Though I’m a serious introvert, who would prefer to hide in the woods, I have a beautiful group of tight-knit friends whom I love dearly and with whom I drink coffee, write, laugh, talk for hours, am inspired by, and am supported by. I try my best to support them as well. My husband and I are like the yin and yang of each other — it’s actually pretty comical. I knew the night we met that I would marry him. Told you I was a romantic.

 

An “Unearthly” Kickstarter Update!

We’re nearly at the end of the first week of our Kickstarter campaign to fund our new anthology, Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. The project is 18% funded.

Our deepest gratitude to all who have contributed! As our first project update, we’d like to share one of the stories from the collection. Click here to read “The Gravest Show Unearthed” by Lance Woods. As the shortest of the tales in our anthology, it makes the perfect, shall we say, “bite-sized” sample. Muahaha…ahem…pardon me.

Future updates will include previews of some of Michael Riehl’s amazing artwork.

If you enjoy stories from the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal, please consider supporting our project. Click here to check out our Kickstarter campaign! If you already contributed, please help us spread the word. Thank you so much for supporting small presses!

Coming to You LIVE from the Middle of Eternity!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce volume two of the Middle of Eternity anthology series that began in 2014 with Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity. The idea behind this project is to introduce new writers in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal.

Volume Two will be called Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity and you can help us bring it to fruition. We have launched a Kickstarter to help fund the project and allow us to compensate the writers and artists and cover production costs.

This collection from Firebringer Press will bring you stories from Parsec and Mark Time award-winner Steven H. Wilson (publisher), Phil Giunta (editor), Daniel Patrick Corcoran, Michael Critzer, Melissa Carta Miller, Susanna Reilly, Stuart Roth, and Lance Woods.

Cover and interior art by Allentown artist, Michael Riehl.

Final book layout by Bethlehem artist, Christopher Winner.

Click here for more information, watch the video, and please consider supporting this small press publication. Thank you so much!

 

Return With Us to the Middle of Eternity!

May is here and that means our second voyage through the Middle of Eternity will soon begin! In 2014, I was proud to release Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity through Firebringer Press. I had pitched this collection of SF, Fantasy, and Paranormal tales as a way to introduce as-yet unpublished writers to the reading public.

We had an amazing book launch at Shore Leave 36 and the collection has since been well-received. So…we’re doing it again! Look for news about Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity by the end of the week including a Kickstarter to help fund the book’s publication. We plan to launch the anthology at Shore Leave 38.

Returning from volume one are Daniel Patrick Corcoran, Michael Critzer, Susanna Reilly, Stuart Roth, Steven H. Wilson, Lance Woods, and myself as editor and contributor.

Joining us for the first time will be Melissa Carta Miller and April Welles.

Click here to check out our first volume on Amazon.

Click here for info on the Shore Leave SF convention.

Please spread the word and thank you for supporting indie and small press writers!

Sacrifice Play is Fully Funded!

Congratulations to writer pal and publisher, Steven H. Wilson, on the success of his Kickstarter campaign to fund the publication and audio performance of his upcoming science fiction novel, Sacrifice Play: A Tale from the Arbiter Chronicles!

The novel will launch at Shore Leave 38 science fiction convention in July in Hunt Valley, MD.

Thank you to all who donated! Click here to read the update from Steve…

Con Recap: The Great Philadelphia Comic Con

I had the pleasure of attending The Great Philadelphia Comic Con as a writer guest for the past two days and I can honestly say that I will absolutely return next year.  The celebrity guests were fantastic, the convention was extremely organized and well-attended, the cosplayers were outstanding, and the table I shared with writer pal Joe Berenato was perfectly located.

Over the years of attending conventions and book events, I’ve noticed that my sales are vasty better in venues where I have the opportunity to speak, whether in a discussion panel with other writers or presenting solo. The Great Philadelphia Comic Con proved to be an exception. Though I had no discussion panels or presentations, my sales far exceeded expectations.

Check out the images below. I was honored to meet actors Julian Glover, Glenn Morshower, and John Paragon. The cosplayers pictured here were only a fraction of the amazing characters in attendance. Enjoy!