Katherine Villyard's Blog, page 9

Win a Paperback!

Do you want a free paperback of Love Stories? If you’re on Goodreads, you can enter the giveaway here. And if you’re not on Goodreads, why not? 😀 You can follow me on Goodreads, and I really do hang out there…

There are only five copies available because I have to mail them. 😀 Good luck!

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: inline-block; color: #181818; background-color: #F6F6EE; border: 1px solid #9D8A78; border-radius: 3px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-size: 13px; padding: 8px 12px; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { color: #181818; background-color: #F7F2ED; border: 1px solid #AFAFAF; text-decoration: none; } Goodreads Book Giveaway Love Stories by Katherine Villyard

Giveaway ends August 20, 2023.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Some of my Favorite Authors

In light of continued fun and games with social media, well. You know. BTW, still open to social media suggestions. Tell me where you hang out!

But I digress.

Some of my favorite authors! People ask me about my favorite authors a lot, and I usually have the same answers:

Neil Gaiman. I mean. Come on! My favorite is probably American Gods–okay, this is actually kind of embarrassing to admit, but I bought a television when I heard they were making an American Gods TV series–but I also really love Good Omens. Lyda Morehouse/Tate Hallaway. If you don’t know about Lyda, well. She wrote an amazing cyberpunk religion series–religion as mythology, not as proselytizing, with a dystopian theocracy–with fascinating AI characters, thrash polka, a hard-boiled lady detective, a brilliant and sneaky hacker, a female cyborg cop, and angels–literal angels. Also a lot of queer themes. Tate Halloway is her paranormal romance alter-ego who writes fun urban fantasy and paranormal romance books (many with vampires). Lyda’s books have been re-released by Wizard’s Tower Press and I highly recommend them!James Tiptree, Jr. “Tip” was one of the all-time great short story masters. She (yes, she) was the author of some of my favorites, “Love is the Plan the Plan is Death,” “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”, “The Screwfly Solution” (as Racoona Shelden), and the early cyberpunk story “The Girl Who Was Plugged In.” She’s also a study in the projections of others (if you know, you know). Anne Rice. I… have been coming to realize that I read Anne Rice at an impressionable age. I think I trailed off after Queen of the Damned, but… yeah. Ursula K. Le Guin. When my father was stationed at Hill AFB in Utah I basically lived in the Young Adult section of the Ogden Public Library, and I snarfed down every Le Guin book they had. My favorite is The Left Hand of Darkness, but I really love The Dispossessed, too.

Who are some of your favorites, and why?

Novel in Progress Query Draft

All Abraham has ever wanted is connection: connection to his family, connection to his Jewish faith and community, and connection to an audience with whom he can share his love for the violin. But almost two hundred years ago, his musical patron turned him into a vampire without his consent, despite the patron’s own sire being a former Inquisitor. Abraham has been running from his grand-sire ever since, and his grand-sire has been trying to kill him ever since. As for connection, vampirism is a significant barrier to Judaism, and hiding is bad for one’s musical career. And constantly picking up and moving is bad for one’s love life. At least pets are portable.

But now that Abraham is in love with a mortal woman, he’s stopped running to honor his wife’s family and community connections, despite his own growing fear of mortality in general and outliving his loved ones in particular. Will he convince his wife to become a vampire as well? If he does, she can’t have the children they’ve both always wanted, and if he doesn’t, he’ll only have half a century with her at best before the inevitable. And if he turns her without her consent, he loses her for certain.

And about those children… what will they be? Vampires are only created one way—even if they’re pets—but that doesn’t guarantee that his genetic children will be human.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Any volunteers to beta? 😀

Novel Update

Quick Aside: Locus briefly mentioned our reading at WisCon.

So! Novel update! According to Scrivener, it’s 99,000+ words; according to Word it’s over 100,000 words. NICE!

Where I am: So, I now have three POV characters, and the consistent feedback I’m getting is that one isn’t getting enough love, so I’m pondering expanding her bits. I’m percolating on that right now. I was a little distracted by GETTING A CEILING and assembling my new bed. Also my writer’s group has two more chapters to read, and then it’s probably beta reader time. After I expand Destiny’s bits, of course.

By the way, do you want to beta read? I’m going to need probably more than one round, so stand by. My book has had a professional developmental edit, two rounds through the writer’s group, and lots of self-edits, but has not had line edits or proofreading. I’m going to start including non-spoilery snippets and drabbles in my newsletter, by the way.

I do still plan on querying agents, but am mildly alarmed by the agents that say “no vampires” or “I LOVE smoking hot sexy alpha vampires!” because neither really suits my book. 😉 I do have vampires; one is a nice Jewish boy and Crazy Cat Man and the other is prissy and straight-laced. (Also people are welcome to read him as anything from homoromantic ace to gay.) So… let’s just say that I’m weighing plans B and C.

What social media do you think I should be on?

This has been a vexed question for me for some time now! I asked a buddy who’s in marketing and she didn’t know, either.

So, as some of you know, I deleted my first Facebook a few years ago. I really enjoyed it, but I was also very angry about Cambridge Analytica, and in the wake of the 2016 election I was basically angry about everything. I really loved Facebook at one point, and I’m back and am really enjoying all the people that I’ve known since 1995 on Facebook, but… ???????

Twitter: I’m watching the Twitter Shenanigans with some dismay, since every “how to market for authors” says “If you are an author you NEED Twitter! the entire publishing industry is on Twitter! if you’re an author and aren’t on Twitter you were clearly dropped on your head as a child!!!” I’m not going to go into the long involved All About Twitter because Scalzi does it better.

I do not have a Hive, Bluesky, Threads, or… whatever else.

I have a Mastodon! but have a lot of trouble luring my friends there. I have Goodreads (because of course I do!). I have an Instagram and a Tiktok and a sporadic YouTube that are mostly for silly cat videos. I’m pondering Tumblr. If you want to know if I’m on the same social media site you are, check my contact page.

What social media do you think I should be on?

I suppose that any social media post is incomplete unless I acknowledge the universal truth that the best social media is the social media your friends are on, and that any social media that has a bazillion features and is secure and private and [fill in cool thing here] is pointless if no one is using it.

(I should probably also add that I have an RSS feed and a newsletter…)

AUDIOBOOK IS HERE

My audiobook is LIVE and available RIGHT NOW! You can get your copy here.

Would you like a review copy? You can apply for one here. I have codes for both the US and the UK.

I got the incredibly talented Kyle Akers from the No Sleep Podcast to read it, and he’s AMAZING. Long=time friends might remember him as the guy who originally read “Saving Alan Idle” on Escape Pod, back in the day. I was so excited to see him using it as a sample on ACX! So he was my first choice, and… YES HE IS PERFECT.

ANYWAY. AUDIOBOOK IS HERE. ENJOY!

Goodreads Giveaway!

Do you want a free Kindle copy of Love Stories? If you’re on Goodreads, you can enter the giveaway here. And if you’re not on Goodreads, why not? 😀 You can follow me on Goodreads, and I really do hang out there…

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: inline-block; color: #181818; background-color: #F6F6EE; border: 1px solid #9D8A78; border-radius: 3px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-size: 13px; padding: 8px 12px; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { color: #181818; background-color: #F7F2ED; border: 1px solid #AFAFAF; text-decoration: none; } Goodreads Book Giveaway Love Stories by Katherine Villyard

Giveaway ends June 30, 2023.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading

Meet the Broads of Broad Universe! The authors of Broad Universe will drop you into their fictional universes with short readings from multiple authors and works. Within the session you will hear a variety of writers in a variety of speculative fiction subgenres, like a variety box of chocolate! Broad Universe is an international organization dedicated to promoting women and traditionally underrepresented genders in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

AI Art for my Novel in Progress

The other night, my sister and I were goofing around on Zoom, like one does, and she showed me an AI art generator. Here are some of the characters:

Of course, since they’re AI art, the hands are cursed, but… <3

(If you crave more character images, you can always get them here!)

Audiobook!

Now that I’ve received the 15 minute checkpoint it feels real enough to talk about, so… I’m having an audiobook of Love Stories produced. I’m excited! as the 15 minute checkpoint was FIRE, man. FIRE!

Fans of Escape Pod will be pleased. Also fans of The No Sleep Podcast.

(SQUEE!!)