Jessica Knauss's Blog, page 18

Awash in Talent: Get to Know Patricia the Psychic

Patricia is the narrator/heroine of the third and final novella in Awash in Talent (the novel YOU can bring to publication with the power of YOUR nomination!), Friendship Street.

You may know that in Providence, Friendship is literally a one-way street. Patricia understands this only too well. As a psychic, she has a deep understanding of everyone around her, and receives little to no reciprocation. It's lonely being a psychic because, in order to avoid the institutions and practices that may have killed her psychic father, Patricia has never revealed her Talent.

You might think being able to read your husband's mind is an advantage, but for Patricia, it's a burden. She realizes this too late and must figure out how to escape his controlling clutches, all while keeping the secret of her Talent and dealing with Emily, who is her most troublesome therapy client.

Like Emily, Patricia is a Californian. She came to Providence to do a post-doc and loved it so much that she stayed to set up her own therapy practice in a Victorian house she adores on the East Side, but which she can't afford without her new husband's help. Patricia takes on Emily's court-ordered case out of curiosity: she can't read Emily's thoughts, no matter how she tries. In contrast, everyone else assaults Patricia with a barrage of continual thought. She must solve this mystery without anyone finding out that she can read minds, and she must do this before Emily does something else drastic and illegal.

The cover for Friendship Street has an artist's conception of what thought might look like as it goes out into the world. To Patricia, I'm sorry to say, thoughts make more sense and are far less beautiful.

I'm proud to say  Awash in Talent  has made it into the podcast sphere. Have listen to the Big Gay Fiction Podcast, episode 19! My charming and talented (although not Talented) brother and brother-in-law do me the honor of explaining the Kindle Scout program and mentioning my dear Awash in Talent at 13:23 – 14:01.

Friendship Street, I'm told, is some of my best writing. In truth, I put my heart and soul into all of Awash in Talent , and it is my fondest hope that it will win a publishing contract with the Kindle Scout program. You, dear reader, can make all the difference in my publishing dreams. It's easy and fun to go to the link and click the "Nominate" button. Not only does it get you an exclusive, unique, free book, but also my sincere gratitude.

I'm sorry to say there's also a time limit on when you can do this wonderful, easy thing. It has to happen before February 29. Let's unite our forces before Leap Year Day! Thanks!

Awash in Talent: Get to Know Kelly the Firestarter

This, the day before Valentine's, is a great time to talk about WaterFire because, of the three novellas in Awash in Talent (the novel you can make sure gets published!), this one has the purest and most innocent concept of love.

Note, I didn't say it had a happy ending necessarily. It's just that the people in love are pretty new at it and are doing it without malice or manipulation, which can't be said about the other love stories in this novel.


WaterFire is the second novella and is narrated by Kelly, a pyrokinetic (firestarter) who's been placed in Providence's special school for her Talent after coming into her power in a surprising and destructive way. I imagine that's Kelly on the cover, sitting on the docks near the school and contemplating her fate as well as the beautiful city she loves but must escape from. The cover was created by Amygdala Designs and inspired the romantic scene in which Brian takes Kelly on a seemingly spontaneous date to WaterFire.

WaterFire is a real-life public art installation that Kelly appreciates and describes in detail in the novella. Check it out here.

Kelly's love, Brian, is another student at the school, which little by little is revealed to be nothing more than a lockdown facility to keep the frightening powers of the pyrokinetics out of the public arena. This is a problem because Kelly's mother is suffering in the burn ward at Mass General Hospital in Boston. Kelly finds out that Emily's sister might be able to heal her mother! How can she bring them together when no one trusts her to be able to control her Talent?

While the love story is a beautiful part of WaterFire, it doesn't define Kelly. She's too busy understanding her own power and trying to save her mother. I enjoyed writing about a teenager who has a lot of problems, but love isn't one.

You can read about Kelly's journey of emotional strength—and don't miss the underaged driving in the snow!—if Awash in Talent gets enough nominations in the Kindle Scout program to win publication. Everyone who nominates Awash in Talent  before February 29 will receive an exclusive free early reader copy! Help me make my dream come true. I'll thank you for it.

See even more about Awash in Talent here.

Awash in Talent: Get to Know Emily, Sister of a Telekinetic Healer

Awash in Talent is a YA/NA contemporary paranormal novel in three novellas. You can help it be published by clicking the "Nominate" button at this link. Easy, free, and fun! Learn even more here.

Each novella in Awash in Talent will have its own cover. Hope & Benevolent, the first, foundational novella, called for a cover that reflects the preoccupation of the narrator, Emily, with early hominids, such as Australopithecus ramidus, one of the oldest fossilized primates who is considered to have a relationship to modern humans. It also illustrates Emily's tendency to keep reaching for what she wants, even when it's obvious to everyone else that it isn't going to work out.

I have a real-life friend whose name is Emily, and after she read "Unpredictable Factors in Human Obedience" in Unpredictable Worlds , she asked me, "Do you hate me?"

Simply because the narrator of that story is crazy or evil and has the same name she does? Not a chance.

When it came time to name the crazy and/or nefarious narrator of Hope & Benevolent, I made use of the name Emily again, for reasons lost to time (but probably related to author shorthand in character development!). I named her younger sister Beth, so in the end the sisters are named after the owner of Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

Emily's simple desire to be recognized for her own brilliance over her ridiculously Talented sister sends her across the country to Providence, Rhode Island, where she finds the love of her life. To be with him, and to spare herself a summer at home with her sister, Emily does a field study in Ethiopia. But even that's not far enough away to escape her sister. And that's when things really get complicated. You can read an excerpt that includes the astonishing incident in Ethiopia at the Kindle Scout campaign page.

Emily doesn't have the same limits to her ambition or her behavior we mere mortals do. Although at first she seems sassy and fun, in reality you probably wouldn't want her as your friend. She will obliterate anything that gets in her way, and she's not above committing what others would consider crimes. Imagining what Emily would do next, I thought about her goals and took possible actions far past their logical conclusions.

Emily is great fun to write. Far from hating my friend with the same name, I'm honoring her. Her name is now immortalized in a character who's so delightful to write, I can't imagine she'll be forgotten by readers any time soon.

At least that's my dearest authorial hope.

You'll be able to read Emily's incredible adventures in Hope & Benevolent and the third novella, Friendship Street, if enough readers nominate Awash in Talent for publication. Wish it luck!

Cover Reveal and the Beginnings of My YA Paranormal Adventure Set in Providence

It's the book with telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and psychic powers. Just as importantly, it's the novel with a field study in Ethiopia, a snowy trip to Boston, and the wonders of Waterfire in inimitable Providence, Rhode Island. It's Awash in Talent , and it's nearly ready to knock your literary socks off!

The amazing cover was created by Jasmine Green. It captures the female focus of the book and the way their Talents can make the characters feel, at the same time, invincible and about to drown.

I'm sharing the cover with you on the auspicious occasion of the beginning of Awash in Talent's Kindle Scout campaign. This is your opportunity to select Awash in Talent for publication by Kindle Press!

The link takes you a rather attractive page with the cover, the tag line (So much Talent can kill you.), an excerpt from the beginning through most of Chapter 2, a short bio, and three questions and answers about the book. It also shows a "Nominate" button. If you think Awash in Talent is worthy, all you have to do is click the "Nominate" button before February 29 (Leap Year Day!).

This simple act will get you three major benefits:

1. If Awash in Talent chosen for publication (because you nominated it!), you will receive an exclusive edition of the novel for free before anyone can buy it! You'll be under no obligation to read it or to leave a review, although that's what Amazon (and I) will be hoping for.

2. You will have helped an author's dreams come true. How great will that feel?

3. You will be the proud owner of my gratitude. I will remember you when my writing career takes off. The value of this benefit is incalculable.

Here's a little more about the novel. At the link, you can also read an excerpt that introduces Emily's world. More beautiful graphics and descriptions are to come in the following weeks.

Emily can’t escape her annoyingly Talented telekinetic healer sister by going to a university 3000 miles away, in Providence, or even by doing a field study in Ethiopia. Why don’t people give credit where credit is due?
Kelly is forced to attend a pyrokinesis school/lockdown facility, but she must escape and bring Emily’s healer sister to Boston—her mother’s life depends on it.
Appointments with Emily might drive psychic therapist Patricia insane. Meanwhile, Patricia falls ever deeper into her husband’s selfish, cruel trap. In Providence, Friendship is a one-way street.
Awash in Talent is a novel in three interrelated novellas, all set in Providence, Rhode Island, where telekinetics, firestarters, and psychics attempt to function in a largely un-Talented society unappreciative of what they have to offer. Love/hate between sisters, mother and daughter, scared teenagers, a mismatched married couple, adult female friends, and an obsessive and the object of her affection are all put to the test.
The Kindle Scout campaign runs from now until midnight EST February 29. It's easy—just one click brings so much joy! Thank you so much for your consideration.

Obscurest Scandals of a CMoS Independent Contractor

Here I am with a manuscript I don't have to edit. I first got into editing via fiction. I worked with authors on content—characterization, plot, and other lofty ideals—and then did another pass for usage and punctuation. As the years have gone by, I've gained a lot of acuity on the proofreading side. I now catch not only obvious typos, but also transgressions no one else would ever think about in daily life.

When you're a copyeditor, you have to make the text conform not to what you personally think is correct and would say in any circumstance, but to rules laid out by the smarties who wrote or added to the official style guides.

For example, when I started out—and long after—I had no idea when I was supposed to use "which" or "that." We didn't distinguish between them at all in the dialect of English I learned growing up. Reading the rule, it seems intolerably nit-picky. Once I realized I was having so much trouble because I spent twelve months in England trying to write in a manner as British as possible, and I do read some books printed in Great Britain, and it turns out that they don't have the same "which" versus "that" rule as we Americans do, it started to make sense. Now I see that the writing is better when the roles of those two words are clearly defined.

Another norm I had considerable issue with was comparatives and superlatives. I became aware of this rule when in "The Residents of the Inn," I used the phrase "more lush." The editor claimed the construction was wrong and could not stand: it must be "lusher." Well, "lusher" happens to rub me the wrong way. Like, the "Omigod, I would never use that word" wrong way. I checked the rule in the Chicago Manual of Style and was disappointed to find it to be true. Because I couldn't tolerate the correct comparative of "lush," I chose a different word. I also adapted my editing and writing from then on. To this day, when my husband reads over my cover letters (always have someone read your cover letters!), he asks, "Shouldn't it be 'most obscure'?" And I have to reply, "No. Unfortunately, 'obscurest' is the form I'm obliged to use as a faithful Chicago-style copyeditor."

The rule I still cannot believe is a rule is probably one everybody but me has mastered without even thinking about it. "Awhile" is a real word with an appropriate time and place to be used. This blows my mind. Why should "awhile" be allowed when "alot" is not? Should we also write, "Jonny stayed at Pat's house anhour"? Would a southerner ask me to "sit aspell"? Is there any other example of this kind of "a" being an acceptable prefix? This is incredible to me, and astounding in its smallness. I get an unreasonable pleasure when someone writes, "for awhile," because then I get to jam the cursor between the "a" and "w" and insert the space I feel should always be there.

My lucrative life is now based on these tiny rules almost exclusively, although I never asked or expected to learn them.

I imagine this post is full of errors in rules I'm still not familiar with. Perfection is impossible, but we must strive for it.

A Writer's Space

This is the view from my new study window. I love it because I can see a healthy green tree, stucco, and Spanish roof tiles against a bright blue sky, so it's as if I'm both in Andalusia and in the limitless wonder of the natural world. I look at the blue sky and hope my creativity responds.


The first piece of furniture we got in the new place was this desk, which we scoured the antique stores to find. We had money set aside from selling some furniture in Massachusetts, and as soon as we arrived, two urges—to wait for the best possible desk and to get a stinkin' desk right now!—battled it out. I fell in passionate love with some pieces, antique and new, that were just too big to get into the apartment. I considered for a few days getting one of those inexpensive desks you have to assemble yourself. It was quite the emotional journey. Then my husband and I were walking around a... fragrant... antique mall I had little hope for, going in circles, it seemed. I was busy dismissing another trumped-up table as a possibility when my husband said, "Here's a desk."

It's in better condition than the one I sold in Massachusetts to my unexpectedly sore regret. It has all the storage I was looking for and plenty of space without being so large we couldn't expect the delivery men to bring it up the stairs. It's eclectic. I think it's unique. I've never seen another desk with world maps and steamer trunk stamps on the drawer faces! There are also inspiring words on the top left and right drawers. A Francophile must have designed it, with the Eiffel Towers and the fleurs-de-lis, but I can forgive that, as an enlightened Hispanophile. I walked away from that antique mall with a deep knowing that I'd (my husband had) found what I was looking for.

When I shared the photo of the desk on Facebook, the responses confirmed that it will be impossible to do poor work at this desk.

As you can see in the second photo, I've got the magic desk right at the magic window, so they combine into a creative vortex I hope will also be useful for my editorial work (which is less about creativity than about rules, let's face it).

I've never had such a nice place to work. I've had larger and smaller, intimidating and nonexistent. I wrote the first chapters of Seven Noble Knights on a laptop that teetered atop a borrowed piece of furniture in a room intended for television-viewing. The last chapters were written in an enormous bedroom on a card table. For unknown reasons, in this space and at this time, I'm being honored with a place to work that I could never have dreamed would be so wonderful. I feel immense gratitude.

I've currently got editorial deadlines and need to finish revising Seven Noble Knights as well as strategize its launch, which includes making a real website. For all this, I may need more hours in a day, but at least I don't have excuses about where I'll be doing all this.

Grand Finale to the Rhino Audio Series

The grand finale of the rhino audio series, a reading of my Five Species Forever flash fiction series, is about the least "grand" rhino species: the smaller Sumatran. The Sumatran is the only hairy rhino, having descended directly from the now extinct wooly rhinoceros of millennia past. Now that Harapan has left the Cincinnati Zoo, all Sumatran rhinos live in their homeland.

This story is called "Old Paintings." A whole world of fascination in less than five minutes!


Thanks for listening! I hope you enjoyed this series, which is close to my heart. More amazing 2016 news next week!

"Old Paintings" is available, with other great stories, a few with more rhinos, in the "delightfully off the beaten track" Unpredictable Worlds: Stories. Kindle • iBooks • Nook • Kobo • Smashwords• Inktera • Blio • Softcover • Softcover Indiebound • Softcover Amazon • Softcover Barnes and Noble  • Request it your local library or book store!

Javan Rhinos for the New Year

Welcome to the fourth story in the Five Species Forever series, about the Javan rhino. Have a listen. It's a fictional world of wonder in just over three minutes. You gotta love flash fiction.


In the nonfiction world, there are no Javan rhinos in captivity and no breeding programs underway. There are only about 40 Javan rhinos on the planet, all living on the volcano- and palm-oil-threatened Ujung Kulon Peninsula. They are rarely sighted, but photos show them to be the smaller, even more adorable cousins of the Indian rhino. They're the best rhino swimmers and spend a lot of time sloshing around in the jungle waters.

"The Last Ultrasound" was first published in Linguistic Erosion in 2014.

It's available, with other stories, a few with more rhinos, in the "delightfully off the beaten track" Unpredictable Worlds: Stories. Kindle • iBooks • Nook • Kobo • Smashwords• Inktera • Blio • Softcover • Softcover Indiebound • Softcover Amazon • Softcover Barnes and Noble  • Request it your local library or book store!

Happy New Year!

Best Books of the Year and What's to Come in 2016

It's been a great year. I won a prize for flash fiction, got seriously started on my editing business, released Unpredictable Worlds and received some recognition for it, released Tree/House in audiobook, spent ten gorgeous and hard-earned days in Spain, took part in Launch Lab, made it safely to my new home, and had Seven Noble Knights accepted for publication, to name just a few of the best events.

I also read quite a few good books. Which were the best?

That's really not a fair question in the year when the grand finale of a trilogy I have passionately, unreasonably adored came out.


The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma
Which book is best is hardly fair in light of another fact: this one is the manifestation of a historical novel I hoped would materialize some day to dramatize the life of Queen Emma for this Anglo-Saxon enthusiast.



The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell
So there you have it, the best novels (in my humble opinion) of 2015. The best nonfiction book was undoubtedly La nación inventada by Arsenio and Ignacio Escolar. I enjoyed this book more than I expected to (which is saying a lot) and will probably tell you more about it in future posts.


The year 2016 will see the debut of my darling Seven Noble Knights, so many of my resolutions have something to do with getting it into the limelight as much as possible. I also plan to draft the sequel this year. You didn't know Seven Noble Knights was going to have a sequel? It's a pleasant surprise for all of us! For those of you waiting patiently for more of my unusual contemporary work, I've resolved to get Awash in Talent published this year. More on that soon, for sure. In my personal life and "day job," I've got a lot to do to make this latest move make sense. In the meantime, if you need an editor for your awesome novel, call on me.

Vague as they seem, these are my professional resolutions, leaving room for the surprises that always seem to crop up.

What are your plans for 2016? Happy new year!

A selection of some of the other best books of 2015:

Eleanor & Park  by Rainbow Rowell
Along the Far Shores  by Kristin Gleeson
Station Eleven  by Emily St. John Mandel
Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet








Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson








Lucky Us  by Amy Bloom

The Gracekeepers  by Kirsty Logan


Love in Infant Monkeys  by Lydia Millet

Retracing Our Steps

As you'll note in the video above, it sounds better in Spanish: Volveré sobre mis pasos. I'm going to retrace my steps. 

Since I'm in my beloved New England now, you might think the next step would be Pennsylvania, where my husband and I moved from Massachusetts in 2010 to accept a job. No, we're skipping that formality and heading straight to the unavoidable: Arizona. 

The first time we went to Arizona, there was little purposeful about it. It was a desperate move to keep us from insolvency and to help my bereaved sister-in-law. 

Looking back, we actually liked quite a bit about living there, even though while we were there, we never tired of dreaming of getting out. This time, our move to Arizona is full of purpose. I intend to reconnect with people I still know there and get some of that desert mojo that was so productive for my writing before. 

Connecting with people is the most important thing, not location. 

Other things to look forward to in Arizona:
Great Mexican food
The Tucson Festival of Books
Coyote and bobcat sightings
Springtime
Et cetera...

I discovered long ago that there are no guarantees, especially where location is concerned. But here's to intentionality.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.         —T. S. Eliot