Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 23

5 Questions for Emerian Rich

[image error]Emerian Rich is a kindred soul, albeit with a much better fashion sense than mine. We’ve gone to conventions together, we’ve poked around graveyards together… This year we’re going to the Sinister Creature Con together!

I interviewed Emerian in 2017 about her book Dusk’s Warriors. She’s got a brand-new anthology out, so it was time to talk again.

Emerian Rich is the author of the vampire book series Night’s Knights and writes romance under the name Emmy Z. Madrigal. Her romance/horror cross over, Artistic License, is about a woman who inherits a house where anything she paints on the walls comes alive. She’s been published in a handful of anthologies by publishers such as Dragon Moon Press, Hidden Thoughts Press, Hazardous Press, and White Wolf Press. She is the podcast Horror Hostess of HorrorAddicts.net.

Her new book is Kill Switch: A Horror Anthology, edited with Dan Shaurette:

As technology takes over more of our lives, what will it mean to be human, and will we fear what we’ve created? What horrors will our technological hubris bring us in the future? Join us as we walk the line between progressive convenience and the nightmares these advancements can breed. From faulty medical nanos and AI gone berserk to ghost-attracting audio-tech and one very ambitious Mow-Bot, we bring you tech horror that will keep you up at night. Will you reach the Kill Switch in time? Edited by Dan Shaurette and Emerian Rich, with authors Chantal Boudreau, Garth von Buchholz, Bill Davidson, Jerry J. Davis, Dana Hammer, Laurel Anne Hill, Naching T. Kassa, Tim O’Neal, H.E. Roulo, Garrett Rowlan, Phillip T. Stephens, and Daphne Strasert.

[image error]

Did something in the real world inspire Kill Switch, A Horror Anthology?

Yes, actually: the scary prospect before us of wanting to create a technologically convenient world, but at the same time building machines that have the possibility of ruining, running, or destroying our lives. When Dan Shaurette brought the idea of tech horror to my attention, I was all in.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

There are so many terrifying scenarios in this book, it’s hard to choose, but one of my favorite stories in the book is called “Mow-Bot.” It’s about a guy who buys Roomba-like mower that will do his most hated chore for him so he can enjoy his weekend instead of spending it gardening. Everything is hunky dory until the neighbor’s cat disappears and he finds fur stuck in the Mow-Bot’s wheel. This story is so “right-now” you can imagine it really happening today.

My story in the book is called “SoulTaker 2.0” and is about a game programmer in the final stages of launching a new version of the MMORPG “SoulTaker,” who finds out his employer is actually REAPING souls digitally.

What was your editing process like as you put the book together?

At HorrorAddicts.net Press, we work as a team. We have a four-person submissions team. Once the top stories are chosen, we have two people edit in depth and connect with the authors. When we are ready to go to print, our whole press reads the work, which is about five people.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

This is going to sound a little sad, but the best thing hasn’t happened yet. Let me explain. Our previous Head of Publishing, Dan Shaurette, thought up this book theme a few years ago and was so enthusiastic about it. Last year, he suffered a medical trauma which made him unable to complete it. We decided to go ahead and complete his dream of publishing this book. The fact that we have finished it for him makes me sad that he was not able to be involved very much, but it also fills me with happiness that we could see it through. The best thing about this book promotion will be when I am able to hand him the print copy when I see him this summer and watch the elation in his face as he realizes his dream has come true.

What do you have planned next?

Our next submissions call is for Dark Divinations, which is a horror anthology involving Victorian-era divination stories. It closes Halloween 2019. All the submission requirements can be found here: https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/current-submission-calls/

Pick up a copy of Kill Switch from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Qzdgvv

Or check out HorrorAddicts.net Press: http://www.horroraddicts.net    

SF in SF

[image error]Join us this Sunday, June 9th, for a lively evening in celebration of Tales for the Camp Fire: A Charity Anthology Benefiting Wildfire Relief.

Doors and bar open at 6:00PM

Event begins at 6:30PM


Authors Nancy Etchemendy and E.M. Markoff join editor Loren Rhoads to read and discuss their new book, which is raising money for survivors of last year’s devastating wildfire in Butte County, California.

 

Nancy Etchemendy’s novels, short fiction, and poetry have appeared regularly for the past 40 years, both in the US and abroad. Her work has earned a number of awards, including three Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award. Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural, her collection of short dark fantasy, was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She lives and works in Northern California, where she leads a somewhat schizophrenic life, alternating between unkempt, introverted writer/photographer/gardener and gracious (she prays) wife of an eminent Stanford professor.

Award-winning Latinx author E.M. Markoff writes stories about damaged heroes and imperfect villains. Her novels include To Nurture & Kill and The Deadbringer, which Booklist described as “A fantastic action-adventure, tinged with Mexican folklore, that will appeal to fans of A Game of Thrones.”

Loren Rhoads served as editor for Bram Stoker Award-nominated Morbid Curiosity magazine as well as the books The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two, Death’s Garden: Relationship with Cemeteries, and Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Tales of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual. Her short stories have appeared in Best New Horror #27, Strange California, Sins of the Sirens: Fourteen Tales of Dark Desire, Fright Mare: Women Write Horror, and most recently in Weirdbook, Occult Detective Quarterly, and Space & Time.

 

[image error]For over a decade SF in SF has offered readings, films, and special events in the Bay Area for readers of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction. Hosted by Terry Bisson, past guests have included Connie Willis, Gene Wolfe, Laurie King, Nancy Kress, Lev Grossman, Patrick Rothfuss, Cory Doctorow, Peter S. Beagle, and many others. We hope you will join us!

$10 at the door (but no one is turned away for lack of funds). As always, Borderlands Books will be on hand with copies of all of the authors’ work.

The American Bookbinders Museum is located at 355 Clementina Street, San Francisco, California 94107.


For more information, email Rina Weisman at sfinsfevents@gmail.com.

5 Questions for Martha Allard

[image error]Martha Allard is my oldest friend.  We wrote together in high school.  We’ve written a couple of space opera short stories together, which you can find on Wattpad. I interviewed her here last year about her novel Black Light, which combines 1980s rock-n-roll with ghosts and psychic vampires. Trust me when I tell you that you would love it.

Over the years, I’ve been awed by the jewel-like precision of Martha’s short stories. I was thrilled when she put them together into a collection.  They are gorgeous, perfect, and sharp as icepicks.

Martha J Allard is a writer of contemporary and dark fantasy. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines like Talebones and Not One of Us. Her story “Dust” won an honorable mention in Year’s Best Science Fiction, 19th edition,  and her story “Phase” was nominated for a British Science Fiction Award. Her novel Black Light is a tale of love, sacrifice, and rock and roll in the 1980s. Her short story collection Psychic Surgery is about love and magic in unexpected places.

[image error]

Psychic Surgery is a collection of stories about being lost and being found. They are myths retold through the lens of a new century. Here you’ll find a koi-girl and her grandfather, living in a stream in the mountains of Tennessee, waiting to become more. There are a pair of bickering celestials in a dive bar that exists in any city in the world, at any given time. A guardian of the moon, out of a job, and trying to care for his daughter the best he can on the streets of Flint, Michigan. Angels, fairies, vampires, and junkies fill these pages, but most of all, you’ll find magic.

Did something in the real world inspire Psychic Surgery?

This is a collection of fifteen short stories. each of which contains a kernel of the real world. I am a true believer in the magic around us.

One story in particular, “End of An Era,” grew out of a conversation I had with a friend, while we were driving around LA one day in the late ’80s. He told me that everyone that lived there had an earthquake plan, you know, for when the Big One came. He told me that his was to go to Errol Flynn’s grave in Forest Lawn. There was scotch buried with Flynn, he told me. If the quake had opened the grave, my friend planned to drink a toast. And I thought, but what if you aren’t the first one to show up?

What is your favorite scene in the book?

My favorite story is “Phase,” the very last one. It’s a fairy tale about the daughter of the Moon living homeless on the streets of Flint, Michigan. Her father, who was the Moon’s guardian, tries to connect with her. They are both creatures lost in this world. This is how it starts out.

“The thing is, nobody remembers the real story. Each generation puts their own meaning to it. Truth gets lost in the swift current of human needs.

Once the moon was a beautiful woman. She lived in a land of starlight, isolated from the Earth, safe….”

What was your writing process as you wrote the book?

My writing process was… slow. Each of these stories were written at different points in my life. There are a few Clarion workshop stories here and when I read them, I can almost taste the beer and caffeine that fueled that six weeks. Some were written after I had moved back from Michigan away from my family of friends, and I can feel the loneliness in them. They have been published here and there over the years, but I thought it was time to put them all together.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

So far the best thing that’s happened is that you are interviewing me. I also really like to sell books face to face. I sold one last week during a crochet class I was giving. Yes, you heard me right.

What do you have planned next?

Barring act of gods, I will have the prequel to Black Light out by the end of June. It’s about Albrecht Christian and the first love of his life, the Loch Ness monster. After that, is “Speak My Name,” which is a romance about the space between heaven and hell. It features the characters from two stories in this collection, “Wings of Brothers” and “Ithuriel’s Kiss.”

[image error]

Follow Martha on Amazon to keep up with her new work:  Amazon author page

Her homepage is MarthaJAllard.com

Twitter: @Norabell and Facebook Martha Allard

Join my newsletter?

I’ve been reading for years about author newsletters, how they are the best way to get information out to readers in a timely fashion. I’ve resisted the notion for a long time, figuring I blogged and I’m easy to find on the web, for anyone who might need to know what I’m up to.  But Facebook algorithms being what they are and spam filters working the way they do, I finally decided to join the bandwagon.  I have a new monthly newsletter — and the first issue is coming in the next couple of days.

This is the email I sent out last week.  You may have already gotten a copy. If so, you’ve probably already made your choice about joining the newsletter.  Let me stress that whatever choice you made, it’s fine.

If you joined the mailing list, welcome.  If you figure you hear plenty about my work elsewhere, lovely.  Either way, I will not email you again unless you clicked the link and joined the newsletter list.

For those of you who didn’t get the email (either your spam filter caught it or you weren’t on my invitation list), this is what I sent out.  People who sign up for the newsletter are welcome to download a token of my appreciation:

[image error]

Just click the link in the letter below and it will walk you through the onboarding system.

Thanks for thinking about joining my newsletter!

[image error]

Dear friend,

You’re receiving this note because we’ve been in contact in the last several years, whether because of my space opera trilogy, the Alondra stories, 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die, my travel essays, or through one of my blogs.

I’m finally launching a monthly email newsletter for people who don’t want the commitment of following a blog. Look for quick updates on my speaking & reading schedule, morbid travel destinations (probably a cemetery or two), and book giveaways.

If you’d be interested in receiving the newsletter no more than once a month, please sign up here.

If you’re not interested, you don’t need to do anything. I know you’re busy and I don’t want to clutter up your inbox. This is the one and only time I’ll send you an email about my newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Loren Rhoads

Author & Editor

PS. Last year, Northern California was struck by the worst wildfire in the area’s history. Paradise, California was scoured from the map. Nearly 100 people died and thousands were left homeless. In order to raise money for the survivors, I’ve edited Tales for the Camp Fire: A Charity Anthology Benefiting Wildfire Relief, a collection of short stories by Northern Californian horror writers. The book came out last week. There will be more details in my newsletter — or you can order it directly from Amazon.

5 Questions for Jessica Meats

Jessica Meats is a British science fiction author with a master’s degree in mathematics and computer science. Her first book, Child of the Hive, was published in 2009. Since then, she has written a number of novels, novellas, and a technical manual. When she isn’t writing, she works in the IT industry as a consultant on Microsoft technology. She enjoys playing badminton, sewing, and making jewelery.

Her newest book is Wolf Unleashed:

Werewolves are kept as slaves. Exploited to perform dangerous labor, or kept as exotic pets by rich sadists who want a status symbol, werewolves have no rights.

When Crystal’s stepbrother is bitten by a rogue werewolf, her family is advised to think of him as dead. But she refuses to forget him.

Looking for news from within the werewolf community leads her to purchase Thomas, a rebellious werewolf with a string of abusive former owners. Crystal and Thomas must learn to trust each other enough to help solve each other’s problems. Together, they can work to build a movement aimed at bringing rights and justice to all.

This is an urban fantasy, a paranormal romance with a difference. It teems with intersectional issues of race, gender, and sexual identity. This is a story of injustice and anger, of love and compassion, of rebellion and hope.

[image error]

Did something in the real world inspire Wolf Unleashed?

Not for the story as a whole, but there are elements within the book that draw from the real world, especially around some of the social media activism and the way that messages can be spread over the internet. It’s a book that deals with prejudice; some of the events in the book touch on reality despite it being a fantasy story. In one of the most revised and edited scenes in the book, a Muslim character needs to become angry and he’s goaded into talking about some of the prejudice he’s witnessed. The book was going through editing as Trump announced his travel ban and I rewrote a section of the dialogue in this scene to include a reference to that as another thing that makes this character angry.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

That’s a tough one. I think I would have to go for the first meeting between Thomas and Crystal’s father. Ethan stops by unexpectedly while Crystal is out and sees that his daughter has just bought a werewolf slave. His reaction is absolute fury and Thomas asks him if he can get him anything: Tea? Coffee? A murder weapon?

It’s quite a lighthearted scene, with Thomas and Ethan joking about Crystal, which was a lot of fun to write, but it also sets up the dynamic between the characters. We get to see Ethan worrying about his daughter, even when he’s angry with her, we get a glimpse of how he feels about the werewolf situation, and we get to see Thomas talking to someone who treats him as a person right from the first instant and how that alters the way he behaves. We learn about all of the characters from watching the way these two act around each other.

What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?

I tend to write first drafts extremely quickly. I pour out words onto the page to get the plot down and then I go back and do a major rewrite in drafts. I try to write every day, so I can usually get a couple of hundred words done in the evening after work, but weekends are when I do most of my writing. I turn on the computer, browse the internet for a bit, and then start writing. When things are going really well, I get into a zone and then realize sometime around noon that I should probably have a shower and eat breakfast. I generally have a vague idea of where I’m going when I write a first draft, but not a detailed plan, so when I reach the end, there are usually a few plot threads that go nowhere or things that happen later that need more of a setup early on.

The first draft of Wolf Unleashed ran extremely long — about 175000 words. In the second draft — as well as fixing plot holes and making sure that character motivation was explained and my usual Draft Two tasks — I had to try and shorten it to a more publishable length, which involved trimming out anything I felt was unnecessary. Of course, when it was accepted by the publisher, my editor wanted me to find another 10,000 words to cut somewhere, which was painful.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

We did a book launch at a convention. As a conversation starter, I spent that convention carrying a stuffed toy wolf with a protest sign reading, “Werewolves are people, too!” Various people commented and we got into conversations about werewolves in general or my book in particular. There was one older lady who cuddled with my toy wolf a bit and talked to me about wolves and her experiences with a wolf sanctuary. We talked quite a while. The next day, she gave me a bracelet. She’d bought it in the dealer’s room for me because it had wolf heads on it and she thought I would like it.

I’d never met this woman before this convention and here she was buying me presents just because we’d had a long conversation about wolves. It was incredibly touching. I still wear the bracelet when I do events for Wolf Unleashed.

What do you have planned next?

I have a tendency to have multiple projects ongoing at any given time. At the moment, I have two books of the Shadows of Tomorrow trilogy published and I’m just getting the final book in that series ready to send to the publisher. I’m also working on the first draft of the next book in the Codename Omega series. On top of that, I’ve been working on and off on a book with the working title of Ridiculously Long and Complicated Urban Fantasy Thing, but it will probably be a while before that one sees the light of day. Probably a good thing, because it gives me time to come up with a better title.

Pick up a copy of Wolf Unleashed from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2U55cXE.

You can follow Jessica’s blog at: http://plot-twister.co.uk.

She also has a YouTube channel with author interviews and writing advice: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTNkMHdRuYyUmucnVydGpvQ.

5 Questions for Elana Gomel

[image error]Elana Gomel is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at Tel-Aviv University. She has taught and researched at Princeton, Stanford, University of Hong Kong, and Venice International University. She is the author of six books and numerous articles on subjects such as narrative theory, posthumanism, science fiction, Dickens, and Victorian culture. Her latest books are Narrative Space and Time: Representing Impossible Topologies in Literature (Routledge, 2014) and Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism: Beyond the Golden Rule (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2014). As a fiction writer, she has published more than forty fantasy and science fiction stories and two novels. Her latest book is The Hungry Ones.

[image error]

A woman with no memory wakes up in a city with no history.

The city is alive. Among skyscrapers of flesh and bridges of bone, rogue trains consume their passengers, prophetic Buddhas grow out of sidewalks, and the night is lit up with walking neon signs.

The city is under siege from famine victims turned ravenous monsters, while the city’s own flesh begins to mutate.

Somehow, the woman named Kora is the key in an eternal struggle pitting city against country, corruption against starvation, a power-crazed madman against a dying infant.

Hunted as a pawn by several factions, Kora alone may have the power to end the conflict, if she dare unlock her terrible memories. But she has to choose: between the country and the city; between the lost boy-next-door and the man who is not human; between survival and self-sacrifice.

I invited her to tell me more about her book.  Did something in the real world inspire The Hungry Ones?

I lived in Hong Kong for a while. It is my favorite city, because it is so fantastic: a mixture of Blade Runner, Perdido Street Station, and a giant shopping mall. One day, I was standing on top of a high-rise looking at the forest of high-rises around me and I was struck by how alive they looked: like sea anemones or tube worms, clutching at the air, waiting for flying prey. This image stayed in my brain like a seed, but it only sprouted after I read a book called China’s Hungry Ghosts about the horrible famine instigated by Mao’s policies that killed millions. Superimposed upon each other, those two images unfolded into a story of a woman who wakes up in the living city besieged by dead men.

What is your favorite scene in The Hungry Ones?

My heroine Kora is searching for the truth about herself and about the city. The two are intertwined: in order to understand what is really happening around her, she has to unbury her hidden memories and understand the origin of her horrifying power. At some point, she finds herself in the belly of a living train. Such trains are the backbone of the transportation network, running through the city’s tunnels just like trains do in our world. But these are not machines: they are living beings, with their own minds — which occasionally snap. The train goes rogue. Imagine yourself on the underground, like the London Tube, and all the lights suddenly go out. Creepy, especially if you are claustrophobic. Now imagine that you are surrounded not by metal and plastic but by living tissue that is beginning to contract around you, releasing gastric juices… Yes, this happens to Kora and the man in the next seat, who she recognizes from her occluded past. They fight together against the rogue monster train that is trying to digest them.

To me, this is the pivotal scene, because this is the first time Kora fights for her life. Until this moment, she is a passive plaything of forces and people she does not understand, bewildered by the flying birdmen, animated houses, and the mysterious Chairman who claims to have created her. Here, she finally comes into her own as a flawed but decisive heroine, capable of using her own hunger as a weapon against the hunger of others.

What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?

I always start with an image, but then it has to unfold into a plot. This can get tricky, especially if you are trying to balance mystery and action. I knew from the beginning how I wanted Kora to discover her origin. But I had to sketch in the whole backstory of the city itself, the mysterious Grandfather who founded it, and the terrible crime that unleashed the plague of the Hungry Ones. It was hard to fit it all in; I decided to leave something for the sequel. So I had to revise whole sections multiple times, in order to make the narrative flow smoothly.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

Very early on, even before the book was published, I got an email from the artist who worked on the cover (which I think is superb). She said that she was totally engrossed by the book but could not imagine a suitable ending for such a complex story. And yet, when she got to the end, she found it perfect. I was incredibly touched by this. Sometimes a spontaneous response from an individual reader is all it takes to make you proud of what you do.

What do you have planned next?

I have several projects going on simultaneously. First, I want to write a sequel to The Hungry Ones that will go deeper into the history of the city and the origin of Grandfather. He comes from a different world altogether: the world in which sparkling machines run on human blood. Provisionally titled The Marching Blades, this sequel will have Kora as one of the main characters but there will be others: a new Mayor who is seduced by the dangerous intelligence animating the living city, a child who is not what he appears to be, a deadly Dancer who refuses to dance …

In addition, I am working on a novel, yet unnamed, set in the USSR that never was. Russian history is a rich field for fantasy and horror. I speak Russian and I know the country: its beauty and its heritage of violence; its imaginative splendor and its terrible reality. Some time ago I published a story called “Little Sister” (in Matador Review) that starts with a schoolgirl and a soldier in a city swarming with monsters. I want to expand it into a novella or preferably a novel.

And I have two already completed novels that are scheduled to be published this year: a dark fairy tale set in the redwoods of California and a sci-fi/horror hybrid. So I am keeping busy!

You can pick up a copy of The Hungry Ones on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2WkCXBB.

5 Questions for Tina LeCount Myers

[image error]I met Tina LeCount Myers at a convention — I’m not sure if it was a FogCon last year, at WorldCon in San Jose, or if it was even farther back than that. I was fascinated by her work, but I didn’t get a chance to sit down with her one on one until this past FogCon, when we spent an hour chatting about the pleasures and difficulties of writing a trilogy. Of course, I wanted to ask her to stop by my blog to answer my 5 Questions.

Tina LeCount Myers is a writer, surfer, and gluestick artist. Born in Mexico to expat-bohemian parents, she grew up on Southern California tennis courts with a prophecy hanging over her head; her parents hoped she’d one day be an author. Tina is the author of The Song of All and Dreams of the Dark Sky (Books 1 and 2 of The Legacy of the Heavens series). Her work has also appeared in Literary Hub and Tor.com. Tina lives in San Francisco with her adventurer husband and demanding Siamese cat.

Her newest book is Dreams of the Dark Sky:

The war between men and immortals that raged across the frozen Northland of Davvieana has ended. For men, the balance of power between Believer and Brethren, between honoring the gods and honoring the sword, has shifted to favor priests over Hunters. But it is the legacy of one man’s love for his son that shapes the lives of all who survived. While Irjan, the once-legendary immortal hunter, has saved his son’s life, he cannot save Marnej from the men who will make him a killer, nor can he save the immortal girl he’d promised to protect from the secret of her birth.

Raised by Irjan among the immortals, Dárja has been trained to fight by a man who once hunted her kind. Prisoner among the humans, her hatred for them is challenged by the chance to give Irjan what he has always wanted—his son, Marnej, returned to him. Together, Marnej and Dárja, human and immortal, must find a way to trust one another if they are to live long enough to learn the truth behind the secrets and lies that have forged their lives.

[image error]Did something in the real world inspire Dreams of the Dark Sky?

Like The Song of All, the first book in in The Legacy of the Heavens trilogy, Dreams of the Dark Sky is set in the arctic tundra of Scandinavia and is inspired by the Sami peoples of the region. The fairytales that my Finnish grandfather told me about Samiland captured my imagination as a child and those stories stayed with me into adulthood.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

One of my favorite scenes is a quiet one where a group of female friends are gathered, eating breakfast, and talking. It is an everyday moment, familiar. You can see the connection and also the differences among the friends. I like the contrast of this intimate scene in a plot that is heavy on action and sword fights.

What was your writing process like as you wrote Dreams of the Dark Sky?

The first draft was written in 2013 in two sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo and then November’s NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000-word chunks in April, July, and November. Then the novel sat in a drawer until 2016 when I revised it while my agent shopped my trilogy to publishers. The major editing work happened between November 2017-June 2018. I think I did five complete revisions of the book in total. Each time I found something new that I wanted to expand upon. The resting periods were helpful for me to get perspective on the story.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

I had the great privilege to write a piece for John Scalzi’s blog about The Big Idea behind Dreams of the Dark Sky. It gave me the opportunity to discuss the tension between my conscious and unconscious mind in my writing. I am a fangirl of Scalzi, so it was an honor to be a part of his blog.

What do you have planned next?

I am currently working on the third book in the series. It’s called Breath of Gods. It has been a stop and start journey with this one. I originally wrote the rough draft in 2015. Since then, the story has grown, as have the characters. I feel like I am starting from scratch, but it’s been so interesting to see what new voices and ideas are popping up and demanding attention as I wind down the story. Breath of Gods is Rogue One meets Marco Polo and is the most quest-oriented of the three books. Plotting it out has taken me to the boards, but I think it’s worth it.

You can check out Tina’s books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2XOTGhj

You can follow her, too:

Instagram: tinalecountmyers

twitter: @tlecountmyers

Facebook:Tina LeCount Myers

Pinterest: tlecountmyers

 

Camp Fire Book Release Party Tomorrow

[image error]

Animation by Chad Schimke

Tomorrow, May 11, 3-5 pm: Join me, Anthony DeRouen, E. M. Markoff, Ben Monroe, and Gene O’Neill for a signing of their new horror anthology TALES FOR THE CAMP FIRE. The anthology will be available for purchase at the event. Thanks to Renee at Books on B, all profits will go to Camp Fire recovery funds administered by the North Valley Community Foundation!

Books on B is located at 1014 B Street in Hayward, California. Their website is http://booksonb.com/.

ABOUT TALES FOR THE CAMP FIRE:

In November 2018, fire broke out on Camp Creek Road and raced through Butte County, California. By the time the fire was extinguished, the town of Paradise had been scoured from the map. Nearly 100 people died. Damage ran to an estimated $16 billion. The disaster has been named the Camp Fire, in memory of its place of origin.

The horror writers of Northern California rallied to raise money for the survivors. TALES FOR THE CAMP FIRE ranges from fairytale to science fiction, from psychological terror to magical realism, from splatterpunk to black humor, all rounded out by a messed-up post-apocalyptic cookbook. Through these pages roam werewolves, serial killers, a handful of ghosts, plenty of zombies, Cthulhu cultists, mad scientists, and a pair of conjoined twins.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“[A] brilliant collection of truly creepy tales by horror’s hottest voices! Dark, funny, heartbreaking, and bizarre. Highly recommended!” — Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of V-Wars and Glimpse

“A brilliant editor and author, Rhoads skillfully weaves together a collection of new and old yarns to create an exemplary tapestry of horror literature that will spook fans of the genre for years to come.” — Moaner T. Lawrence, author of “The Great American Nightmare

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:

Clark Ashton Smith, Erika Mailman, Ross E. Lockhart, Roh Morgon, Clifford Brooks, Chad Schimke, Sumiko Saulson, Dana Fredsti, Crystal M. Romero, G. O. Clark, Anthony DeRouen, Eric Esser, Nancy Etchemendy, Gerry Griffiths, Sean Patrick Hazlett, Ken Hueler, L.S. Johnson, Ben Monroe, Gene O’Neill, Jeff Seeman, John Claude Smith, John McCallum Swain, and E.M. Markoff. Published by Tomes & Coffee Press.

Find more information about the book at http://www.ellderet.com/campfire.

5 Questions for Chad Schimke

[image error]Chad Schimke is a member of my local Horror Writers Association chapter. His story “Vivified” will appear in Tales for the Camp Fire, a charity anthology put together by the HWA group to raise money for victims of the deadliest wildfire in California history.

Chad’s newest short story “Behind the Walls,” was released via TANSTAAFL Press in their Enter the Rebirth anthology. Other stories include “Picker,” “Weirder,” “Hallowseve,” and “Midwinter”: a quirky gaggle of grotesque, bizarre, and unsettling tales for your reading pleasure.

Check out his blog, Facebook, and Twitter. His blog has gathered 3 million page views, his Facebook likes have soared above 6,500, and he has entertained 50,000 Twitter followers. All of this by the end of 2018.

Previously, Chad read at San Francisco’s Lit Crawl, interviewed on a number of radio shows, published short stories via Artifice Comics, self-published stories, and founded the Alabama Street Writers Group. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Horror Writers Association.

[image error]In addition to the Camp Fire anthology, Chad’s story Vivified is available as a free download at the following link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/g6sj4wj7ve

When a young father doesn’t have access to his car, he decides to take a train ride. No biggie, he’s a successful businessman, used to making hard decisions. But a deadly incident will force him to reexamine what’s truly important. Living his best life, and then…dead. Find out what happens next in this weird short story.

Did something in the real world inspire Vivified?

My stories are inspired by a “what if?” scenario. In this instance, I wondered what it would be like to die and come back to life. In other words, a near-death experience.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

My favorite scene is the opening, which portrays the protagonist as overconfident/selfish. The NDE experience completely transforms his outlook. I imagine he lives a more balanced existence going forward.

What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?

I spent time thinking prior to drafting, working out the initial concept. I always develop handwritten notes before typing any text. For novels, I use Schmidt’s Book In a Month outline, which relies heavily on three-act structure, and Vogler’s Hero’s Journey. I tend to be more experimental in shorter works and take risks playing with form. My themes are always dark, regardless whether it’s dark fantasy, horror, scifi/dystopian, or weird.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

I am working on a mailing list. The book is getting lots of downloads, which is encouraging.

What do you have planned next?

I plan on releasing a novel series with a rapid-release strategy.  Book 1 is essentially already written. It’s about an alien race that crash lands on Earth. They must hide until a rescue ship (hopefully) arrives. It’s very dark with some gore, but that’s essential to the plot.

Check out Chad’s website: http://www.chadschimke.com/

Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2Gm30Ua

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/authorchadschimke/

Bay Area Book Festival 2019

This weekend, May 4 and 5, [image error]the Bay Area Book Festival returns to Berkeley, California.

I’ll be hanging out again with the Bay Area chapter of the Horror Writers Association at booth #154 on Allston Way, conveniently near the La Cocina food court. Here’s the Festival map: https://bit.ly/2ViX1Yj

We will have paperback copies of Tales for the Camp Fire: A Charity Anthology Benefiting Wildfire Relief hot off the presses. Come by, pick up a copy, and do some good. All profits from sales of the book go to support recovery from last year’s terrible wildfires.

[image error]Contributors to the book will be hanging around throughout the weekend, so you can get your books signed, if you like.

Beyond that, though, the book festival brings together authors, writers organizations, publishers, booksellers, and — most importantly — readers.  There’s nothing I love more than seeing the streets filled with people who love books. You can check out all the goings-on here: https://www.baybookfest.org/

Last year, booths ranged from kids books to travel to history to every flavor of fiction, from self-published to small presses to local indies like RE/Search Press to the university presses. So many books! It was much like I imagine heaven to be.

Please stop by and talk to me about your favorite scary stories.  I’ll have some copies of 199 Cemeteries, as well Lost Angels, The Dangerous Type — and I may throw in Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Stories of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual. Whether you like dark space opera or horror erotica or historic cemeteries or true confessions, I’ll be glad to set you up.