Tony Russo's Blog, page 2
September 14, 2016
Put Away Chekhov’s Gun And Other Writing Crutches
So I’m watching Disney’s The Jungle Book as a rental on my television. It’s an enjoyable movie, considering all the...
May 24, 2016
A Review for DARKEST HOUR and Engaging Young Readers in History
Received greate news from Peter Schweighofer, my editor from West End Games’ The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal. He posted a review of DARKEST HOUR on his own website, Hobby Games Recce. Peter publishes his own games and dabbles writing source material that deals with cool historical subjects, including World War II. Some of the […]
May 18, 2016
Briley Takes The Heroine’s Journey
***Warning: This article contains some plot spoilers for DARKEST HOUR.*** Although the post is almost two years old, I was forwarded an amazing article by Chris Winkle called Using the Heroine’s Journey. My stumbling about the Internet also coincided with “The Hero’s Journey”, a story structure that references Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of a Thousand […]
April 25, 2016
The Reviews For DARKEST HOUR Are Coming In!
Readers are reading and reviewing DARKEST HOUR. They are definitely liking! Wow. Four stars and Five stars! I regret having to drop a screen capture, but Goodreads’ pages are pretty much XML and Javascript. So it’s almost impossible to carve out the text. So I took a picture instead. Click on the picture to run […]
April 5, 2016
DARKEST HOUR, The Unboxing!
It’s always fun to get a box in the mail. Hmm, let’s see what’s inside? Well, it looks like it’s full of paper. Oh my, George Takei. Lookee here. Presents from the publisher!! As it so happens, I was in the middle of this when the UPS guy showed up. So there you have it, […]
March 23, 2016
Writer Beware: Paying to Play Author
In the course of doing my taxes this week, I ambled over to the folder where I store my past receipts for writing. Yes even a broke author has expenses, as I quickly learned while creating an Excel worksheet of my various expenditures on this habit I call writing. After…
February 16, 2016
DARKEST HOUR Goodreads Giveaway Ends Soon
Some important news coming your way. 1) It snowed here and then the rain washed away the snow. So that happened. 2) I bought toilet paper, eggs, milk and 8 cans of soup (okay it was a special) in anticipation of said Snowpocalypse. Oh well, week’s not over yet. 3)…
February 3, 2016
DARKEST HOUR Release News
Just to keep you clever readers in the loop, here’s the lowdown on DARKEST HOUR’s road to print and electronic pixelation: The DARKEST HOUR giveaway on Goodreads is now officially active (as though it was sleeping). Click the Enter Giveaway button to add your name to the amazing jumbletron to win one of 10 signed […]
January 18, 2016
The Coming Storm
In this short story based on events that occur after DARKEST HOUR, young pilot Briley Bannatyne is tasked with leading a section of biplanes on what’s supposed to be an observation patrol–but she, the enemy and the weather have other plans. August, 1940 Somewhere off the coast of England. There was a storm staring […]
January 13, 2016
Giving Women The Trousers Role — Changing History in Fiction
My first blog post for the New Year. Happy New Year to All! Alternate history is not a new genre for fiction. There have always been stories that propose alternate outcomes to historical moments. Harry Turtledove has, for years, dominated shelves with his takes on the Civil War, World War II and even further back. We’ve […]
