Lily Iona MacKenzie's Blog, page 45
May 29, 2017
For magical realism lovers, be sure to check out the novel Kasper Mützenmacher’s Cursed Hat!
[image error]Keith R. Fentonmiller will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please click here to enter to win $50 Amazon/BN GC: “http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f2276.
You can follow the tour and comment by clicking on this URL: http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2017/04/blurb-blitz-kasper-mutzenmachers-cursed.html. The more you comment, the better your chances are of winning.
Kasper Mützenmacher’s Cursed Hat, by Keith R. Fentonmiller
Berlin hatmakers threatened by a veil-wearing Nazi known as the “stealer of faces” must use the god Hermes’ “wishing hat” to teleport out of Germany during Kristallnacht. They won’t be safer in America, however, unless they break the curse that has trapped them in the hat business for sixteen centuries. Set in the Jazz Age, Nazi Germany, and World War II Detroit, Book One of the Life Indigo series is a family saga about the fluidity of tradition, faith, and identity. It will appeal to fans of Everything is Illuminated and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Excerpt:[image error]
Kasper plunged his hand into the safe’s darkness and retrieved the hat. When he put it on, the warm scaly leather conformed to his skull like a blanket of heated wax. He closed his eyes and recalled his father’s instructions: First, think of the place. Then make the wish. Not the other way around. Kasper breathed deeply and then exhaled as much air as he could, a precaution to stave off the overwhelming nausea that surely would follow. Before the next inhalation, he thought, Take me there. In an instant, he was compressed to a point, drained of all material substance. The world went dark and silent. He felt only a sensation of impossible acceleration and then nothing at all.
Kasper wished himself from cabarets to booze cellars, concert halls, and boxing venues all over Europe and North America. Although hat travel made him queasy and headachy, whiskey took the edge off. Then, after a week of around-the-clock hat travel, the nausea and head pain receded, and he began to enjoy the rush of compression, expansion, and acceleration.
Well, labeling the experience “enjoyable” would’ve been a vast understatement. The nascent drug addict doesn’t merely “enjoy” a shot of heroin or a puff of opium; he relishes it, embraces it, becomes one with it. Using feels like an act of self-creation—conception, gestation, and birth wrapped into a singular, lightning-strike moment.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
[image error]Keith is a consumer protection attorney for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. Before graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, he toured with a professional comedy troupe, writing and performing sketch comedy at colleges in the Mid-Atlantic States. His short story, Non Compos Mentis, was recently published in The Stonecoast Review and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His short story Exodus was just published in the Running Wild Anthology of Stories.
Find Keith Online:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Purchase At:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble
Filed under: guest authors, Links Tagged: Keith R. Fentonmiller, magical realism
May 28, 2017
I’m honored to host the award winning writers of BEHIND THE MASK, an anthology of superhero stories.
Behind the Mask [image error]
Behind the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Pinsker, Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large and others. It is partially, a prose nod to the comic world—the bombast, the larger-than-life, the save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the more intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The regrets and longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view of the world that can only be experienced from behind the mask.
Excerpt from Over an Embattled City by Adam R. Shannon
They say that every time you remember something, you open up the memory and repack it again, like viewing a painting and making a perfect copy of it, over and over. With time, the details smear and change, until the picture is something entirely different, not a transcription of the way the world was, but your own creation.
But my memory of the Outsider feels perfect, untouched.
Dust blew around me. Not like a sandstorm, but an unspeakable darkness, the pulverized remains of people, buildings, and dreams. Blocks of debris impacted nearby, like the footsteps of an approaching giant.
My mother, somewhere in the dust, was screaming my name.
Then he was there.
He never bothered with an extravagant costume, never indulged in theatrical capes or high collars. He wore the same simple shirt and pants he had on when he came back to our time. When his feet settled on the cracked sidewalk beside me, I felt the solid, reassuring thump through the bottoms of my shoes.
“And what are you doing here?” he asked. There was a faint accent, an endearing lilt he never quite shed when he learned our language.
I knew him by sight. Everyone did. I’d watched him in videos, on the news, and listened to my parents debate whether he was a hero or something else.
I stared.
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
I nodded. “Emma.”
A man ran out of the swirling dust, his face contorted in panic, and vanished back into the storm.
Outsider smiled. Caked dust cracked at the corners of his eyes. “Emma the Brave,” he said.
[image error]Adam R. Shannon is a career firefighter/paramedic, as well as a fiction writer, hiker, and cook. His work has been shortlisted for an Aeon award and appeared in Morpheus Tales and the SFFWorld anthology You Are Here: Tales of Cryptographic Wonders. He and his wife live in Virginia, where they care for an affable German Shepherd, occasional foster dogs, a free-range toad, and a colony of snails who live in an old apothecary jar. His website and blog are at AdamRShannon.com.
Adam’s Behind the Mask blog tour GUEST POST:
I’m going to talk about superheroes, but first I’m going to talk about that time you thought you were going to die.
They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’m not sure how that inane sentiment gained a foothold in our culture. Things that try to kill you also tend to leave you injured or traumatized. There’s a reason that this is the kind of platitude that coaches say to kids running wind sprints, and not something doctors routinely tell people starting chemo.
So believe me when I say that when I talk about telling near-death stories, I’m not trying to minimize the trauma many people carry within them. This isn’t easy stuff to talk about, and no one is under an obligation to do so. But sometimes you reach a point when you want to talk, and hear others talk about those moments they felt their mortality most acutely.
I have a few stories like that from my own life – the time I nearly died of Botulism in a hotel in Senegal, or someone put a gun to my head in a traffic stop gone wrong, or the first time I crawled into a burning apartment while fighting a high-rise fire. Usually by the time we’re swapping our tales over a dinner table, the terror of those moments has long since faded, and what was once a trauma has evolved – mostly – into something different.
Surviving trauma is the essence of many superhero backstories. We don’t just love heroes because they embody the part of us that wants to be special; we love them because they enrich our hope that suffering will be transformative. We want to believe that it really will make us into stronger, better people. I like hearing real examples of how an awful narrative transforms over time, how it’s digested and assimilated into the self, like food repurposed to heal living tissue.
Confronting death may temporarily grant us the power to act out, violate rules and conventions, and live as if every day is the last. It may make us feel like outsiders, marked by our experiences – different. But weren’t we always different? Weren’t we always waiting for the monster with our name on it, the lurking truth we know will destroy what we are and make us new again?
By the time we’re swapping those stories over a beer, the crisis is over. Normal life has reasserted itself, and the raw power of fear has been subdued. But there’s always the promise of disaster, the creature we sense slithering around the margin of our days, and the eager dread with which we anticipate its return.
All other author bios:
Kelly Link is the author of four short story collections: Get in Trouble, a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, Pretty Monsters, Magic for Beginners, and Stranger Things Happen. She lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Seanan McGuire lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest, in a large, creaky house with a questionable past. She shares her home with two enormous blue cats, a querulous calico, the world’s most hostile iguana, and an assortment of other oddities, including more horror movies than any one person has any business owning. It is her life goal to write for the X-Men, and she gets a little closer every day.
Seanan is the author of the October Daye and InCryptid urban fantasy series, both from DAW Books, and the Newsflesh and Parasitology trilogies, both from Orbit (published under the name “Mira Grant”). She writes a distressing a[image error]mount of short fiction, and has released three collections set in her superhero universe, starring Velma “Velveteen” Martinez and her allies. Seanan usually needs a nap. Keep up with her at http://www.seananmcguire.com, or on Twitter at @seananmcguire.
Carrie Vaughn is best known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty, who hosts a talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged, the fourteenth installment of which is Kitty Saves the World. She’s written several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of 80 short stories. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.
Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches atop a hill in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She is an Endeavour, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominee. Her second novel, Hearts of Tabat, appears in early 2017 from Wordfire Press. She is the current President of the Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of America. For more about her, as well as links to her fiction, see http://www.kittywumpus.net
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize winning and Premio Roma nominee A Man Lies Dreaming (2014), the World Fantasy Award winning Osama (2011) and of the critically-acclaimed The Violent Century (2013). His latest novel is Central Station (2016). He is the author of many other novels, novellas and short stories
Kate Marshall lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and several small agents of chaos disguised as a dog, cat, and child. She works as a cover designer and video game writer. Her fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Crossed Genres, and other venues, and her YA survival thriller I Am Still Alive is forthcoming from Viking. You can find her online at katemarshallwrites.com.
Chris Large writes regularly for Aurealis Magazine and has had fiction published in Australian speculative fiction magazines and anthologies. He’s a single parent who enjoys writing stories for middle-graders and young adults, and about family life in all its forms. He lives in Tasmania, a small island at the bottom of Australia, where everyone rides Kangaroos and says ‘G’day mate!’ to utter strangers.
Stuart Suffel’s body of work includes stories published by Jurassic London, Evil Girlfriend Media, Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine, Kraxon Magazine, and Aurora Wolf among others. He exists in Ireland, lives in the Twilight Zone, and will work for Chocolate Sambuca Ice cream. Twitter: @suffelstuart
Michael Milne is a writer and teacher originally from Canada, who lived in Korea and China, and is now in Switzerland. Not being from anywhere anymore really helps when writing science fiction. His work has been published in The Sockdolager, Imminent Quarterly, and anthologies on Meerkat Press and Gray Whisper.
Jennifer Pullen received her doctorate from Ohio University and her MFA from Eastern Washington University. She originally hails from Washington State. Her fiction and poetry have appeared or are upcoming in journals including: Going Down Swinging (AU), Cleaver, Off the Coast, Phantom Drift Limited, and Clockhouse.
Stephanie Lai is a Chinese-Australian writer and occasional translator. She has published long meandering thinkpieces in Peril Magazine, the Toast, the Lifted Brow and Overland. Of recent, her short fiction has appeared in the Review of Australian Fiction, Cranky Ladies of History, and the In Your Face Anthology. Despite loathing time travel, her defense of Dr Who companion Perpugilliam Brown can be found in Companion Piece (2015). She is an amateur infrastructure nerd and a professional climate change adaptation educator (she’s helping you survive our oncoming climate change dystopia). You can find her on twitter @yiduiqie, at stephanielai.net, or talking about pop culture and drop bears at no-award.net.
Aimee Ogden is a former biologist, science teacher, and software tester. Now she writes stories about sad astronauts and angry princesses. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Baen.com, Persistent Visions, and The Sockdolager.
Nathan Crowder is a Seattle-based fan of little known musicians, unpopular candy, and just happens to write fantasy, horror, and superheroes. His other works include the fantasy novel Ink Calls to Ink, short fiction in anthologies such as Selfies from the End of the World, and Cthulhurotica, and his numerous Cobalt City superhero stories and novels. He is still processing the death of David Bowie.
Sarah Pinsker is the author of the 2015 Nebula Award winning novelette “Our Lady of the Open Road.” Her novelette “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” was the 2014 Sturgeon Award winner and a 2013 Nebula finalist. Her fiction has been published in magazines including Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny, among others, and numerous anthologies. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Galician. She is also a singer/songwriter with three albums on various independent labels and a fourth forthcoming. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her wife and dog. She can be found online at sarahpinsker.com and twitter.com/sarahpinsker.
Keith Frady writes weird short stories in a cluttered apartment in Atlanta. His work has appeared in Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology, Literally Stories, The Yellow Chair Review, and The Breakroom Stories.
Ziggy Schutz is a young queer writer living on the west coast of Canada. She’s been a fan of superheroes almost as long as she’s been writing, so she’s very excited this is the form her first published work took. When not writing, she can often be found stage managing local musicals and mouthing the words to all the songs. Ziggy can be found at @ziggytschutz, where she’s probably ranting about representation in fiction.
Matt Mikalatos is the author of four novels, the most recent of which is Capeville: Death of the Black Vulture, a YA superhero novel. You can connect with him online at Capeville.net or Facebook.com/mikalatosbooks.
Patrick Flanagan – For security reasons, Patrick Flanagan writes from one of several undisclosed locations; either—
1) A Top Secret-classified government laboratory which studies genetic aberrations and unexplained phenomena;
2) A sophisticated compound hidden in plain sight behind an electromagnetic cloaking shield;
3) A decaying Victorian mansion, long plagued by reports of terrifying paranormal activity; or
4) The subterranean ruins of a once-proud empire which ruled the Earth before recorded history, and whose inbred descendants linger on in clans of cannibalistic rabble—all of which are conveniently accessible from exits 106 or 108 of the Garden State Parkway. Our intelligence reports that his paranoid ravings have been previously documented by Grand Mal Press, Evil Jester Press, and Sam’s Dot Publishing. In our assessment he should be taken seriously, but not literally. (Note: Do NOT make any sudden movements within a 50′ radius.)
Keith Rosson is the author of the novels THE MERCY OF THE TIDE (2017, Meerkat) and SMOKE CITY (2018, Meerkat). His short fiction has appeared in Cream City Review, PANK, Redivider, December, and more. An advocate of both public libraries and non-ironic adulation of the cassette tape, he can be found at keithrosson.com.
LINKS:
Book Page: http://meerkatpress.com/books/behind-the-mask-a-superhero-anthology/#mbt-book-purchase-anchor
Publisher: http://www.meerkatpress.com
BUY LINKS:
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/dp/0996626263?tag=meerkatpress-20
Powell’s – http://www.powells.com/book/behind-the-mask-9780996626262/68-627
NOTE: THE PUBLISHER IS OFFERING A SPECIAL CONTEST – ONE COPY OF THE BOOK (CHOICE OF Epub or Mobi) WILL BE GIVEN AWAY TO A RANDOMLY DRAWN COMMENTER AT EVERY STOP (Drawing will be held 5 days after the stop’s date and is separate from the rafflecopter drawing – to enter, the entrant must leave a comment at the stop). Thanks!
GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:
The authors will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f2278“>
Filed under: guest authors, Links Tagged: Carrie Vaughn, Cat Rambo, Chris Large, Kate Marshall, Keith Rosson, Kelly Link, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Pinsker, Seanan McGuire
May 22, 2017
I’m excited to host Michael McLellan, author of In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree—a strong reminder of our past!
[image error]Synopsis of In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree b y Michael McLellan:
Henry was born into slavery; his young life spent working in tobacco drying sheds on Missouri plantations. Freed at the onset of the Civil War, he’s alone, [image error]starving, and on the run from Confederate militiamen.
Five years later, Clara Hanfield, the daughter of a powerful New York shipping magnate, escapes her tyrannical father and travels west in pursuit of John Elliot, the man she loves. John, a U.S. Army lieutenant, was sent to the Dakota Territory
where he discovers a government conspiracy to incite an all-out war with the Indians; a war meant to finally eliminate them as an obstacle to the westward expansion.
Henry finds himself caught in the middle.
Aided by Clara, John, and his native ally, Standing Elk, Henry must battle hatred, greed, and the ghosts of his past during this turbulent and troubling time in American history.
Genre: Historical Fiction
About the Author
Michael’s love of books began with Beverly Cleary’s The Mouse and the Motorcycle when he was seven-years-old. Later influenced by the works of John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Stephen King, and Cormac McCarthy, Michael developed his style of [image error]storytelling. A self-proclaimed blue-collar writer, he draws on his experiences and observations to bring relevant and compelling topics to life.
Michael lives in Northern California, and when he’s not writing, he can usually be found wandering around the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges.
His body of work includes the 2014 novel After and Again, the 2015 novel American Flowers, and the shorts Joe Price and Anywhere But Here.
Author’s Website: http://michaelamclellan.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelAMcLellanOfficial
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9802085.Michael_A_McLellan
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2qbjDYa
Publisher: Sweet Candy Press http://www.sweetcandydistro.com/sweet-candy-press-books.html
The author is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card! Enter below:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/70954c79155/”; rel=”nofollow” data-raflid=”70954c79155″ data-theme=”classic” data-template=”” id=”rcwidget_q5bga1yu”>a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Excerpt from In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree:
“Of course it’s murder, you pampered little pup,” Picton hissed, his face only inches from John’s. “You’re even more naive than I first thought you to be. Did you really believe the seventy of us were going to roam the countryside engaging Indian war parties? Frank Picton’s seventy defeats five thousand bloodthirsty braves! How poetic. You are right about one thing: we’re not fighting a war, we are inciting one. Tell me something; do you have the slightest notion of how many Washington fortunes are invested in the western expansion?
In railroads and gold mines, and telegraphs, and cattle, and other ventures beyond counting?…No? Of course you don’t. We are going to finish what Colonel Chivington so ungracefully began. After we resupply we’re riding north into Sioux country to inflame the filthy savages even further. Then, soon, perhaps by this fall, when the heathens have lashed out sufficiently against more innocents, the public outrage will be such that they will be unable to decry the army for finally crushing the red vermin once and for all.”
He sighed and released John’s arm.
“The Indian and the white man will never be able to coexist. It’s been proven, time and again. Treaties fail and only delay the inevitable outcome. This land is ours now. It was ordained by God. Mark my words, John, ten years from now the Indian warrior will be nothing more than a fireside story told to frighten disobedient children.”
Praise for In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree
“The book uniquely conveys a story about the time in history; and at the same time, it feels like it is of the time in history. Imbued with plain, straightforward language, the writing cuts to the bones of the plot. It is a pleasure to read clean prose such as McLellan’s.” – Sarah Margolis Pearce, author of The Promise of Fate
“The author sends out a strong reminder of our past. “ – Chitra Iyer
Interview with Michael:
1) Who are your literary influences or inspiration?
I feel I’ve been influenced in one way or another by every book I’ve ever read. As far as individual authors go, I’d have to lead off with Beverly Cleary because her books are wholly responsible for my love of reading. John Steinbeck and Harper Lee would be up there for both writing books I’ve read so many times that I’ve worn several copies out. Stephen King has an incredible knack for writing characters with amazing depth. Cormac McCarthy, Shirley Jackson, Dee Brown, Daniel Woodrell, and Larry McMurtry are a few more.
2) What does your writing space look like?… like do you have a crazy mess of a desk full of notes and post its? Or is it a quaint chair at a coffee shop?
(Laugh) my writing space looks like an HP laptop and whatever chair I decide to sit in. My favorite spot is a well-broken-in armchair in my front room that looks out at our fruit trees.
3) Where do your ideas come from for stories/books?
Mostly from whatever is in the forefront of my mind at the time. Writing fiction has become my way of examining and understanding (and sometimes coping or escaping) events in my life or the world around me. My mom suffered Alzheimer’s the last few years of her life. It was an extremely difficult time for our family. I wrote the short, Of Things Forgotten during that period. My new novel, In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree, although technically historical fiction, is inspired by the very current issues of racial and gender inequality and man’s seemingly insatiable penchant for greed, control, and violence.
This can seem like a lot of negative subject matter, but light so often comes from the darkness, and people’s strength through great adversity can be truly uplifting.
4) What’s the hardest part of writing or publishing?
Definitely everything that comes after the book is written. The actual writing part is easy compared to what comes next. The whole publishing process from the editing to the marketing and promo is a great deal of work, and it requires a completely different skill-set than writing. I’m lucky enough to have a really great publisher in Sweet Candy Press, so my current novel’s release has been worlds easier than my previously self-published releases.
5) What writing mistakes do you find yourself making most often?
I habitually forget to close quotations and spend hours looking for all the missed ones once a story is complete.
6) How would you like your books to change the world?
I’ve written contemporary adult fiction, young adult, post-apocalyptic, and historical fiction, There has been one common underlying theme in nearly all of my stories: how human beings treat each other. Hopefully, somewhere along the line I’ve inspired someone to give the matter some consideration.
7) If a movie was made of your book, who would the stars be?
I love film. Always have. It would be a dream come true to have one of my books adapted for the big screen. If In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree was made into a movie, this would be an awesome cast:
Henry: John Boyega
Clara: Hailee Steinfeld
Standing Elk: Steve Reevis, or maybe Rodney A. Grant
Picton: Gary Oldman
Ben Campbell: Domhall Gleeson
Eliza: Amandla Stenberg
Emmet Dawson: Hugo Weaving
Filed under: guest authors, Links Tagged: historical fiction, in the shadow of the hanging tree, michael mclellan
May 15, 2017
May 8, 2017
Meet Steve Schmale, author of On the Beach!
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On the Beach by Steve Schmale
Genre: Literary Fiction
[image error]Lenny Decker is fleeing the American Dream while trying to comprehend its reasons and rules after being rattled from an exposure to its possibilities. Set in the mid-1990’s in a quiet California beach town, populated with a cast of unforgettable characters, and replete with examples of some of life’s crueler—yet hilarious—ironies, ‘On the Beach’ is story of what happens when one young man’s dreams bump up against reality.
About the Author
Steve Schmale is the author of the book of stories ‘Nobody Bats a Thousand’ and the novel ‘On the Beach’. He is a native of California where he still resides.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onthebeachanovel/
Interview with Steve Schmale:
Why do you write ?
I think most people to some degree have a need or desire to express themselves. Art is a devoted commitment to expression. I was drawn to it, almost as a duty, I suppose because I was impressed that people are impressed by artists and what they do, but since I can’t draw, am a lousy musician, and the anxiety of performing on stage always exceeded the joy for me, I somehow ended up on the path to learn to become a literary artist. I don’t remember it being a conscious decision or a well-thought-out plan.
Where do your characters come from?
The world is full of great characters, one sees them every day, almost all my characters are composites as the medium of fiction allows one to use different traits from different people to create beings to use for whatever purpose you need.
How much time do you spend writing each day?
When I’m on a good writing schedule I’ll do 2-4 hours first thing in the morning before I can be distracted, but when I’m in the middle of a project some part of my brain is thinking about it all the time no matter what I’m doing, ideas can suddenly come out of nowhere, and some can be put to use so it’s always smart to write them down because whether you use them or not those thoughts may never come to you again.
What’s the hardest part of writing or publishing?
Finding the discipline to sit alone and focus, knowing you must go through the pain of creation to eventually find the joy from it.
Who is your favorite character from your book?
Jack Pierce, surfer, Vietnam Vet, middle-aged going on 18, he seems to truly enjoy life without worrying too much about it, just rolling with it, the essence of what today would be called Mindfullness.
When did you first write a story? What was it about?
When I was a teenager. No matter what took place in them, my first stories were about all I knew, which was youthful angst.
Tell an anecdote about an interaction between you and one of your more articulate fans?
When I first put OTB out as a Kindle book, the first review I got on Amazon was glowing, she really got it and said it should be on everyone’s bucket list. She contacted me through Facebook and, because of all the references in the book to sports and old TV shows, I was shocked to find out she was a woman from New Zealand. I’ve found that people from other parts of the world seem to understand and like the book’s view of America better than most Americans do
Who are your literary influences or inspirations?
I’m old school, so my first teachers were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the usual gang of suspects from that school. I hadn’t thought about Kerouac in years but recently someone asked me about him and it dawned on me I’d read all his books, many more than once. I love Bukowski, and am always offended that academics don’t take him seriously because he doesn’t fit their mold and wouldn’t do well at their cocktail parties, but the guy who came to me at the right time was Thomas McGuane. His book ‘Bushwhacked Piano’ comforted me in the realization that you could be a little off-the-wall and still be looked at as a serious writer if the quality of the writing was good enough.
What genres do you work in?
Literary Fiction, the school of realism, what Hemingway called “the recreation of life”. If someone offered me a fat check to write Sci-Fi, Romance, or a book about zombies or vampires I could probably pull it off, but since that’s not the case I do what I consider the most demanding type of fiction to do properly, something, if done correctly, is more than just a story, it’s something that hits people at more than one level, where the reader brings their life experiences into play to help create something that should be a different experience for the reader every time they go back to it after some passage of time. A type of writing that seems easy to do, until you give it try and realize it’s quite challenging.
How would you like to be similar to your protagonist?
Other than hitting a golf ball very well, I’ll pass, he’s quite a mess. He’s in his mid-20’s, I might like to be that again, but even that is debatable.
Filed under: guest authors, Links Tagged: california, literary fiction, on the beach, Steve Schmale
May 1, 2017
The Enigma of Fictional Characters
With four-plus novels under my belt, I’ve spent lots of time thinking about how writers create believable characters that readers want to hang out with. Not surprisingly, there isn’t any formula to follow. For me, characters start from a seed that might have had a previous life in someone I actually know in real life. But just as often, that seed started with a name or a vague idea and evolved from there.
In my novel Fling!, the two main characters, Feather and Bubbles, did originate in females in my family. Though I’m not a former hippie and visual artist as Feather is, I did clothe her with a few of my characteristics based on my relationship with my actual mother. And Bubbles, Feather’s mother in the novel, has definite roots in my own irrepressible mum. From there, though, these women took on lives apart from my experiences and drove the narrative in directions that completely surprised me.
[image error]In contrast, Curva Peligrosa, from the novel of the same name that will be published in August 2017, didn’t have any connection to an actual person I have known. I just wanted to create a larger than life female character totally unlike me in almost every way. She is over six feet tall, amoral, fearless, powerful, and yet fully feminine. But it wasn’t until I stumbled on her name that she fully took shape in my mind.
Early in the process of writing this novel, my husband and I visited Mexico City; Curva’s origins are in southern Mexico. When we landed, a driver was waiting to take us to a resort we had booked into in Cuernavaca, a small town a two-hour drive away. At each curve we approached, I noticed the words “Curva Peligrosa” and recognized the Spanish for dangerous curve. That’s when it hit me that this was my character’s name. Once I found it, her personality blossomed immediately. I could hear the sound of her voice and her laugh. I knew what she looked like (she resembles Katy Jurado, the once-famous Mexican actress that appeared in High Noon), and the book took off.
Another character that the novel Curva Peligrosa gave birth to is Billie One Eye, one half Blackfoot and one half Scottish (on his mother’s side). Billie totally surprised me. He walked off of a Canadian Blackfoot reservation, a place on the prairies I had visited once when I was around twelve years old. And he proceeded to take up a sizable role in the narrative, adding ballast and balance to Curva. He’s inherited his mother’s red hair, and eventually takes over his father’s role as tribal chief. Clearly, I have no Native Canadian heritage to draw on, but I can do extensive research and I did learn a good deal about the Blackfoot and Billie’s quest as a creator of totems, masks, and other indigenous art.
Where do you think characters come from?
Filed under: Links Tagged: Blackfoot, curva peligrosa, fictional characters, fling, mexico
April 23, 2017
Welcome to my guest Kate Brandes, author of THE PROMISE OF PIERSON ORCHARD
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Kate [image error]Brandes lives in the small river town of Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, with her husband and two sons. She’s worked as a geologist and environmental scientist for twenty years. Currently, she’s focused on improving local ecology using native plants in small public and residential gardens. Kate is also a fiction writer and artist and has recently published her debut novel The Promise of Pierson Orchard. Kate is visiting my blog today as part of an extended blog tour. If you’re interested in following Kate, you can find dates of future stops here: http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2017/02/vbt-promise-of-pierson-orchard-by-kate.html
Kate has taken time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions about writing and the writing life:
Who are your literary influences or inspiration?
I tend to prefer spare writing and I love stories about small towns. I also like nature themes. Kent Haruf, Richard Russo and Barbara Kingsolver are all writers I admire and hope to learn from by reading their work.
Why do you write?
I write primarily as a way to figure things out. Whenever I’ve been faced with a problem, I’ve journaled all my life. So writing is a way for me to naturally sort through things. Writing fiction has proved to be very interesting in that regard. With journaling, I know what I’m wrestling with—it’s a conscious effort to resolve a problem. But with fiction, it’s a more subconscious process. My conscious intention is to tell a story that seems completely independent of any anything personal, but I was surprised to find after years of writing my first novel that I was also trying to work things out in the story subconsciously.
As a result of publishing your book, what have you learned about yourself and/or the writing process?
Writing is a great big spiraling process, at least for me. I start out with one thing and after more drafts than I can count, I get to the final version, but only by wrapping back to the beginning and traveling to the end many, many times over. [image error]
Tell an anecdote about an interaction between you and one of your more articulate fans.
I’ve spent my career, not as a writer, but as an environmental scientist. Sometime in my mid-thirties I decided to try writing fiction. I’ve always loved reading and felt I had stories I wanted to tell, but I had a lot to learn. I wrote my first short story and had it published in a tiny literary journal. The whole process took two years. I have a friend from high school that I haven’t seen since in more than twenty years who read that first story and wrote me and said she wanted to read more. I wrote her back and mentioned that I was thinking about writing a novel, but it would probably take a long time since I didn’t know what I was doing. She said she couldn’t wait to read it when it was finished. Another seven years went by as I wrote that novel and then went through the process of getting it published. My friend kept cheering me along the whole time, believing in me for whatever reason. And that really meant a lot to me. Her enthusiasm and belief in my abilities surpassed my own for a long time. I’m truly grateful to her.
At what moment did you decide you were a writer?
It took a long time. Probably longer than it should have. I think because I’ve had this long-held identity as an environmental scientist, it was hard for me to start calling myself a writer too. It really wasn’t until I signed a publishing contract a year ago that I started to believe that I could call myself a writer.
What does your writing space look like? Like do you have a crazy mess of a desk full of notes and post-its? Or is it a quaint chair at a coffee shop?
My writing space serves multiple roles. It functions as my office for my environmental science work, my writing space, and also an art space (I like to dabble in painting and textile arts). It’s a relatively small room so I keep it pretty organized, so I can function. I love lists and have many post its.
What’s the hardest part of writing or publishing?
Learning to tell a story. Many people can write beautiful sentences, but learning to tell a story as a novel is an art form unto itself.
Who is your favorite character from your book(s)?
I’m drawn to my protagonist, Jack Pierson. He’s a broken person who has to face his greatest fears in order to find love and happiness.
Do you neglect personal hygiene or housekeeping to write? Or vice versa?
Um…yes. Life is very full. So priorities are a must. The time I have for writing is much less than I would like. So sometimes I do put off a shower or the dishes until after I have words on the page.
What writing mistakes do you find yourself making most often?
I use passive language too much in my first drafts. I’m forever editing that out.
If a movie was made of your book, who would the stars be?
This is a fun question!
Jack – Patrick Dempsey, Wade – James Norton, LeeAnn – Angelina Jolie, and Stella – Meryl Streep
Filed under: Excerpt from Curva Peligrosa, guest authors, Links Tagged: debut novel, Kate Brandes, The Promise of Pierson Orchard
April 17, 2017
No, Virginia, There Is No Santa Claus
Before I committed myself to writing and became part of that world, I had no idea what was involved in constructing a novel. I assumed the narrative flowed easily from the writer’s pen to paper (and in those days, a lot of writing was done with a pen or pencil, though typewriters also were used). The finished product looked so pristine that I couldn’t imagine it ever being anything but perfect. Not only did narratives read as if they had come fully formed from Zeus himself, but they also were error free.
Ha Ha Ha!
Now that I have another novel almost ready to find its place on bookshelves everywhere, I have a more realistic picture of what’s involved, and it’s a great illustration of publishing sleight of hand. What appears easy to a reader is anything but for the writer and her editors.
[image error]If you are the kind of person who continued believing in Santa Claus after your parents said he didn’t exist, you may not want to read on. I hate to disillusion anyone! But the only thing magical about creating fiction is what takes place between pen and paper—the imagination. Without it, our work would languish. Otherwise, the process is messy and, largely, trial and error.
For Curva Peligrosa, my novel that will be published this summer, I spent many years learning about my characters as they revealed themselves to me and discovering their stories. I’m not the kind of writer who outlines a plot in advance and then proceeds to write. Some can do this successfully, and maybe it’s not as chaotic. I can’t. I like surprises as a reader and as a writer. Planning in advance would eliminate much of the fun for me of inventing the novel’s world.
Once I discovered Curva’s center of gravity, I was able to get close enough to its finished form that I could ask fellow writers to read and comment on its chapters, giving me a sense of what was working and what wasn’t. When I felt I had a complete draft, I asked a trusted published colleague to critique it. Her feedback started me off on numerous rounds of revisions (we’re talking about over 300 double-spaced pages!) that included two professional editors I hired before I submitted the manuscript to Regal House Publishing and the publisher sent me a contract.
But that was only the beginning of several more rounds of content revising and close line editing. I’ve recently gone through yet another proofreading of the text, and I’ll need to go through it again after my publisher has also reviewed the manuscript.
I don’t mean to discourage any beginning writers, but you should have a realistic picture of what’s involved in giving birth to a novel, especially if you have literary ambitions and aren’t just writing pot-boilers. No, Virginia, there isn’t a Santa Claus, but writing a well-constructed novel can be even better.
Filed under: Links Tagged: curva peligrosa, editing, publishing, regal house publishing, revising, Santa Claus, writing
April 10, 2017
The Art of Book Reviewing
As an author, I eagerly await each new review of my novel Fling!, even ones that are less enthusiastic. Today I received my 42nd review of Fling! and I love how the reader framed her observations. She not only briefly summarized what happens in the novel, but she also explained why the narrative is important. In other words, she looked at the work both on its entertainment level as well as exploring what’s happening under the surface, showing the book’s depth as well, a valuable perspective not just for prospective readers but also for me the author.
[image error]Most writers will admit that they are learning all the time from their readers, who actually are co-authors of any work. It takes an attentive reader’s perspective to help us to see more clearly the various levels in our fictions. While I know that family relationships are a central component of Fling!, my latest reviewer helped me to see another aspect to these associations. She said, “…the part of the novel that has stuck with me most is its message about the endurance of family relationships. Are we ever really alone?”
It’s a great question, and an important one. It didn’t propel me when I first started writing about Feather, Bubbles, and their family. But as I delved deeper into these connections, I learned how complex our ties are to current and previous generations. We are constantly being visited, either in dreams or in memory, by mothers, fathers, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. And these contacts aren’t just happening in a vacuum. To answer my reviewers question “are we ever really alone?” I would have to say no. We’re surrounded by family, whether we acknowledge it or not, in so many ways, including gestures, habits, thoughts. My husband regularly tells me that I look just like my mother or sister when I say certain things.
So thanks to all of those readers out there who help us writers to understand what we’re attempting in our narratives. There really is an art to reviewing, and that’s to enter fully into these stories and show the impact they are having on you. And that’s one reason why your reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites have so much value. Each is another window into our work.
Filed under: Links
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