Vicky Loebel's Blog, page 6

Speakeasy Dead: a P.G. Wodehouse-Inspired Romantic Zombie Comedy

What a difference a week makes. And what a whirlwind indy publishing can be. A week ago, I was struggling to edit the last chapter in my new book. Then voila! Thanks to a small army of test readers, proofreaders, and re-readers, it was done.

This one’s quite a bit lighter than “Keys to the Coven” – with a proportionately lighter romance and very little zombie gore. Enjoy!

Speakeasy manager Clara Woodsen will do anything to save her silent film idol from an untimely death. Even summon a demon. Even bet her soul she can teach his half-human/half-cheetah assistant to foxtrot. But Clara’s devotion is tested when the love of her life turns out to be one of the walking dead. What’s more, people around her are beginning to act strange.

Have Clara’s efforts unleashed a zombie plague? Or are her customers just really bad at dancing the Charleston?

And can Clara find true happiness with the man of her dreams if she uses her…brains?

The Countdown is On

So…the countdown is on for the release of my new P.G. Wodehouse Inspired Zombie-Comedy: “Speakeasy Dead.”

This is a prequel of sorts–No Max, alas–set in the same town, coven and warlock family (the Woodsens) as Keys to the Coven, backdated to the Roaring Twenties. (There’s a reason my facebook page VickyLoebelBooks and, less often, this blog, have gone historical).

I’m pretty tickled with the cover, which was a collaboration between two very talented graphic artists and myself.

Scheduled release date is October. 8th. But you know how unreliable publishers are, gosh they do all sorts of terrible things to poor authors, so if it’s a day or two late don’t blame me .

Keys to the Cover….

September 24-28th I’ll be offering a free period/relaunch for Keys to the Coven prior to the release of my new novel Speakeasy Dead (a P.G. Wodehouse inspired  zombie adventure set in the same location in 1924).

Anyhow, the question before us is to change the cover of Keys or not? People seem to be somewhat confused by my cherished bowling ball.

Anyone who  takes a gander at the two covers  and answers the poll will have my undying gratitude (and if I happen to bump into you, a lollipop).

 

Take Our Poll

This is My Rifle, This is My Gun; One is for Fighting…

This is my gun…

The other is apparently for concealing illegal flasks of booze.

The mind boggles at the idea that there was a decade in this country when it was considered perfectly reasonable to be openly lugging around a firearm…which therefore made it the perfect place to stash illegal alcohol or…say…those cigarettes that  get so rumpled in their cardboard box.

“People had learned to cope with [Prohibition],” PG Wodehouse and Gus Bolton write in Bring on the Girls, “at least to the extent of having their liquor analyzed or, in an emergency, of pouring some into a saucer in a darkened room, setting fire to it, and, if it burned with a reddish flame, changing their bootlegger.”

Those colors didn’t come from bathtub gin. They were because the government took otherwise safe alcohol and doctored it with formaldehyde and wood alcohol before it went on sale. The resulting spirits were not intended to be consumed, of course, until a proper bootlegger had cleaned them up again.

Thank goodness the US learned its lesson and never carried that practice forward to…say…the modern era.

Bring on the Girls

I’ve been reading Bring on the Girls - PG Wodehouse & Guy Bolton’s memoir of their Broadway musical comedy collaborations 1917-1920s – which is side-splittingly funny (not old-fashioned at all) even close to 100 years after the fact.

What nice fellows these gentlemen seem to have been, full of generous (if sly) commentary on the people they worked with. (Was it Marion Davies‘ loving mother that supplied penthouse suites full of orchids when she was on tour? Or possibly a devoted aunt?)

I hadn’t known until recently that one of my favorite show tunes  ”Just my Bill” to  which (shaky renditions thereof) my eldest son was rocked to sleep on many a night) – was written by Jerome Kern & PG Wodehouse for their second collaboration, “Oh Lady! Lady!!” way back in 1918 and then cut and set aside until they found a place to stick it in just any old *cough* Showboat of a musical.

And on that note…back to my nearly completed PG Wodehouse inspired zombie Work in Progress. If I could decide on a cover, I’d even do a reveal. : )

In Memorium Isidore Haiblum

When I was 16, I stumbled across “The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders” by Isidore Haiblum  in a local bookshop. The book was so delightful, I did something unheard of for me…swallowed extreme shyness and wrote a fan letter.

Not only did Izzy write back, but we maintained a correspondence for many years. In college, I visited New York with a friend and had dinner at Izzy’s apartment – one of my fondest memories from those years.

Izzy encouraged me to try writing and although I didn’t feel equal to it at the time, have since gone on to publish my own humorous indie fantasy (such as it is). He also instilled in me a love of Jewish humor that has been remarkably hard to explain in a WASP girl from the Milwaukee suburbs.

I still treasure the letters and silly drawings Izzy sent me. My children now all know about Haiblum and his wonderful (under-appreciated) books. We quote the Tsaddik and the Wilk, and think the whole world ought to know more about this witty, sweet man who so enriched our lives.

Isidore Haiblum, Author of Humorous “Tough Guy” Detective SF & Fantasy (1935-2012)

My California month is coming to an end. This weekend, I...

My California month is coming to an end. This weekend, I load the fam  and hit the interstate at dawn, hoping to skedaddle through Yuma before the predicted high of 120-degrees melts our car. In the interests of keeping my spirits up, I present

Things I Will Not Miss in California:

Construction (a lot) & demolition noise (even more)
Trains 50 feet from my bedroom
Ants Ants Ants (So many ants)
Freeway interchanges seventeen lanes wide.
The fact no theater within twenty miles showed “Much Ado About Nothing”
Sand that follows you home and hides in your bed
Teenage son complaining about ants.

 Here are some wonderful things I will miss:

Cool, breezy weather
Organic grocery store in walking distance from our house
Ocean to walk beside
Sidewalks to walk on (it’s a theme!)
Trains 50 feet from my window (I like trains)
Teenage son speaking to me, even if it’s about ants.

It’s been a great month. I’ve gotten that close to finishing the draft of my zombie book. I’m looking forward to getting back home to my home, and dogs, and view of the mountains, and toasty-warm bubbling swimming pool.

I’ve always thought Europeans were crazy for taking a month off during the summer. Now I think Americans are nuts for not doing the same.

So get with it America – go see the seaside, by the beautiful sea!

Public domain images by Vicky Loebel & Bill Newman

Stumbling Around

I’m not a great researcher. As soon as I find something I’m interested in, I tend to bookmark it and then forget what it was, where it was, where I saved the bookmark, and possibly who did the bookmarking.

Bertha Baur, vice-president of Liquid Carbonic’s Federal Brass Works, Chicago, 1926

This week, stumbling around in search of (black and white) historic color, I found something to love: the Chicago Historical Museum’s collection of photographs from the long defunct Chicago Daily News.  Online,  indexed, and available free with citation.

Cool huh? As wonderful as it’s been to find photos of 1920s flapper dresses and amazing Style Guides, there’s nothing quite like browsing period pictures.

Of course, I have no idea who Bertha Baur was, but who could resist an independent,  professional woman with a smile like that?

Then there’s my other favorite, below. My brief investigation did not turn up any 1920s Logan Square Bank murders, but hopefully this lady didn’t suffer. If she winds up in mourning, I get dibs on the hat!

Clara Heilman, Associated with the Logan Square Bank/Popp murder case, 1923

Photo credits: DN-0080527, DN-0075620, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum

 

Egyptian Revival

I’ve become a Pinterest junkie during the last few months while researching various things for my upcoming book, Speakeasy Dead (A PG Wodehouse inspired zombie novel set in the Hellfire Universe in 1924 – and no, nothing I do ever turns out to be simple).

Anyway, what I love about Pinterest isn’t just the pictures, it’s the fact that the pictures link back to the great original articles and blogs, which is turning my collection of pictures into my own private mini-encyclopedia.

This, in turn, has hooked me up with more nifty blogs than any number of hastily added bookmarks or RSS feeds every did (stuck in a toolbar or mailbox and forgotten).

Here’s an Egyptian Revival blog I just found through Pinterest describing possibly the coolest bit of 1920s memorabilia I’ve come across yet. What a gem!

The Ripples Have It - Thanks to Dr. Sphinx for posting!

Vector Graphics by Vector Open Stock

A Blog Reborn (or…stuff I didn’t love)

I’ve decided I’m much too lazy to keep up a fitness blog. I mean, not only do you have to write the thing, but you have to actually get fit as well and neither one of those came exactly easy.

But I still feel like sharing things I like from time to time, especially cool internet finds and pithy quotes, so I’m hereby re-christening this “Whatever the heck I feel like saying” blog.

Which hopefully won’t be too much about writing, ’cause that gets old fast.

Anyhow, Saguaro Romance Writers, had a talk about (among other things) Goodreads today, and I decided I love my Goodreads book shelves.

I get a kick out of looking over the titles I’ve rated and saying “oh yeah, I forgot I read that book…it was great.”

This might be more effective if I’d put more 100 books to my “Finished Reading” shelf, so one of my long term goals is to go back and add every favorite book I’ve ever read.

Think of the hours I can spend doing that instead of writing my next book!

I can hardly wait to get started.