Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 25
March 25, 2019
5 Questions for Nancy Jane Moore
[image error]I met Nancy Jane Moore originally at one of the readings for the sponsors of Borderlands Bookstore. Turns out, she is also one of my sisters in Broad Universe, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres.
In addition to The Weave, published by Aqueduct Press, Nancy Jane Moore is the author of a number of short stories and novellas. Her novella Changeling is available from Aqueduct and her collection Conscientious Inconsistencies was published by PS Publishing. Ebooks of her work are also available through Book View Café. She holds a fourth degree black belt in Aikido and teaches empowerment self defense. A native Texan who spent many years in Washington, DC, she now lives in Oakland, California, with her sweetheart and his cats.
The Weave brings us a first-contact story in which humans, seeking to exploit the much-needed resources of a system inhabited by creatures they assume are “primitive” and defenseless, discover their mistake the hard way. Human Caty Sanjuro, a seasoned marine and dedicated xenologist, and native Sundown, a determined astronomer, struggle to establish communication across the many barriers that divide their species: at first because they share a passionate interest in alien species, but finally because they know that only they can bridge the differences across species threatening catastrophe for both sides.
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Did something in the real world inspire The Weave?
In a sense, it goes back to a childhood experience at the planetarium at Texas Tech, when I asked a question about other life in the universe. The grad student who was running the show said, “There’s no such thing as aliens.” I was ten and even then I knew that was ridiculous. There must be all kinds of life in the universe, some of it with intelligence and consciousness. Whether we’ll ever meet other life is a different question, but one that’s fun to play with.
The other inspiration for this particular story was the invasion of the Americas by the Europeans and the ultimate destruction of many civilizations. My human explorers are as greedy in some ways as the conquistadores, but while they pride themselves on being more humane than that, they do not have much respect for the Cibolan (the aliens) civilization. However, while the Cibolans don’t have human technology, they have a system of telepathic communication which gives them the capacity to defend themselves and protect their world.
I was also tired of both stories about evil aliens and those about humans destroying alien cultures, so I wanted one where not only was neither side the bad guys. Neither side was all-powerful.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
In truth, it’s probably the prologue, in which both a human child and an alien one tell their respective parents, with great seriousness, that some day they’re going to meet aliens — and the epilogue, in which those two children, now adults, are taking steps to become true friends. There’s a lot of adventure in between, but while I love adventure, the sweetness of that connection gets me every time.
What was your writing process like as you wrote The Weave?
As with most everything I write, my process started with just writing until I figured out what was going on, and then revising a lot. I did go off for a week to a cabin in the country and worked on it all day every day, which got it to the point where there was enough book to work with. Another key experience came after I’d finished an early draft. I saw a call for short stories and realized that a back story for my main character, Caty Sanjuro, would fit that anthology. I wrote it and sold it, then realized it belonged in the novel, too.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
Two things: First, it got a good review from Locus and ended up on their recommended reading list for 2015. Secondly, it was included in SFWA’s science fiction story bundle, which got it to a lot more readers.
What do you have planned next?
I’ve just finished a novel that grew out of my short story “A Mere Scutcheon,” which itself came from wishing there were swordswomen in The Three Musketeers. It’s out at a publisher now and I have my fingers crossed. I’m working on a novel inspired by Joanna Russ’s “When It Changed” that includes a generation ship, artificial intelligence, and a certain amount of Aikido.
You can pick up a copy of The Weave on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PFawKM.
Check out Nancy’s Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2rAp0Sy.
Or read her blog: bookviewcafe.com/blog. She posts on Thursdays.
March 23, 2019
Horror Bites
My friend Emerian Rich has a new book out. It’s called Horror Bites and she has this to say about it:
HorrorAddicts.net is proud to present our top 14 contestants in the Next Great Horror Writer Contest. The included stories, scripts, and poems are the result of the hard work and dedication these fine writers put forth to win a book contract. Some learned they loved writing and want to pursue it as a career for the rest of their lives. Some discovered they should change careers either to a different genre of writing or to a new career entirely. Whatever lessons came along the way, they each learned something about themselves and grew as writers. We hope you enjoy the writing as much as we did.
[image error] HorrorAddicts.net continues our Horror Bites series with a bundle of new fiction by our Next Great Horror Writer Contestants.
Featuring work by:
Jonathan Fortin
Naching T. Kassa
Daphne Strasert
Jess Landry
Harry Husbands
Sumiko Saulson
Adele Marie Park
Feind Gottes
JC Martínez
Cat Voleur
Abi Kirk-Thomas
Timothy G. Huguenin
Riley Pierce
Quentin Norris
With introduction by Emerian Rich.
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A sneak peek inside…
A VAMPIRE AND A ZOMBIE
by Abi Kirk-Thomas
Submitted for the Poetry challenge, Episode #141
I shall tell you a tale of a romance most deluded,
Between a zombie and a vampire and nothing else included,
They once came together during the end of the world,
The vampire was a man and we think the zombie was a girl,
He tried to attack her, but all she did was groan,
He bit her rotten skin, all she did was moan,
He pulled back and frowned, looked at her dry-bloodied face,
Flicking the maggots off, she was the last of the human race,
She had no toes and half of a head,
She was the only body to keep him warm in his bed,
And although she craved no blood, nor food, or sleep,
He made up his mind, for her he would keep,
They went for long walks. Rotting corpses did they pass,
They played with dead dogs, birds, cats it was a blast!
Then every evening, they sat and stared,
At the crumbling city around them, which they could never compare,
During the day he did nothing but rest,
She watched over his body, she loved this the best,
Throughout the night they would stare in each other’s eyes,
And when she lay in his arms, they would watch the star-speckled skies.
On his three-hundredth birthday, she gave him a flower,
He asked her where she found it, and she showed him a tower,
And there within its dank and moldy beams,
Were a small carpet of forget-me-nots, he’d seen on old movie screens,
He told her that flower was part of his past.
“I will not forget you and our love even till the last,”
She wished she could tell him, how much of him she did adore
He kissed her soft lips and she prayed she could have more.
He knew the life of a zombie was dire,
They had no purpose like he had as a vampire,
He was to kill all humans and to suck them all dry,
But now it was the two of them, there was no one else to die…To read more, click here.
Author: Abi Kirk-Thomas: I’m Abi and I live in the UK and I studied as a theoretical archaeologist in Wales. I live with my husband and my 2-year old chocolate Lab called Adam. I’m currently studying massage therapy. I love reading horror and I dabble from time to time in poetry.
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[image error]HorrorAddicts.net
for Horror Addicts, by Horror Addicts
Listen to the HorrorAddicts.net podcast for the latest in horror news, reviews, music, and fiction.
March 19, 2019
Tales for the Camp Fire charity anthology
[image error]Coming this May from Tomes & Coffee press is Tales for the Camp Fire, a benefit anthology I edited which will raise money for survivors of last year’s devastating wildfire in Northern California.
The preorder link will be coming soon, but for now, here’s the cover image and Table of Contents!
In the Face of the Fire | Loren Rhoads
California’s Worst Natural Disaster | Chad Schimke
Cooking with Rodents | Nancy Etchemendy
The Ninth Skeleton | Clark Ashton Smith
The Wolf Who Never Was | John McCallum Swain
The Quarry | Ben Monroe
Seven Seconds | Erika Mailman
The White Stuff | Gerry Griffiths
Still Life with Shattered Glass | Loren Rhoads
Fable of the Box | Eric Esser
Ada, Awake | L.S. Johnson
Graffiti Sonata | Gene O’Neill
John Wilson | Clifford Brooks
River Twice | Ken Hueler
Leaving the #9 | E.M. Markoff
Folie à Deux | Ross E. Lockhart
Unheard Music in the Dank Underground | Sumiko Saulson
Mukden | Sean Patrick Hazlett
Little Pink Flowers | Roh Morgon
Road Kill | Jeff Seeman
The Relic | Crystal M. Romero
The Twins | G. O. Clark
Vivified | Chad Schimke
The Patron | Anthony De Rouen
My True Name | John Claude Smith
You’ll Never be Lunch in This Town Again | Dana Fredsti
March 18, 2019
5 Questions for Meriah Crawford
[image error]Meriah Crawford is another of my sisters in Broad Universe, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres.
Meriah Lysistrata Crawford is an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as a writer, editor, and private investigator. Among her publications are short stories in several genres, essays, poems, a variety of scholarly work, and the co-written novel The Persistence of Dreams, released in 2018. Meriah has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program and a PhD in literature and criticism from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Her work as a PI, spanning over fifteen years, has included investigations of shootings, murders, burglaries, insurance fraud, auto accidents, backgrounds, counterfeit merchandise, patent infringement, and missing persons.
Her new book is The Persistence of Dreams:
It is 1636: five years after a West Virginia town from the year 2000 arrived in Germany in a flash of light, altering the course of history. Now, down-time master artist Daniel Block is troubled. No mention or proof of his name or lifework, of which he has long been proud, made it through the Ring of Fire; it’s as if he never existed. What can a talented and proud artist like him do, to make sure this new world remembers him long after he’s gone?
Daniel develops a plan to make himself one of the greatest artists the world has ever known, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to see his dreams fulfilled…even if it means risking himself, his wife, and his children.
Intent on changing his own history, Daniel journeys to Grantville to learn about these Americans and their wild and outrageous art forms. But while there, he runs afoul of the up-timers’ strange attitudes—and the law. What follows upends seventeenth-century art, threatens the emperor, and changes Daniel and his family forever.
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Did something in the real world inspire The Persistence of Dreams?
Yes! That’s one of the cool things about working with alternate history. You start with reality and then get creative. The reality my co-author Robert Waters started with is the world of the 1632 series started by Eric Flint. (The basic premise is that a section of West Virginia six miles in diameter is transported from 2000 to 1631 Germany, in the midst of the Thirty Years War.) Then we found a real artist from that era, Daniel Block, and asked ourselves, what happens when a truly talented and ambitious artist learns that even art historians don’t know his name? We were also inspired by a few tiny historical fragments indicating that Block had a difficult life involving drunken fights and fraud, and we added in modern art styles, a tragically fractured family, and political intrigue.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
The first section of the novel finds our artist, Daniel Block, accused of inappropriate behavior with a young woman whose portrait he’s been commissioned to paint. The police are involved after the teenager’s father sees Block’s painting and is horrified—not just by the apparent nudity, but by the bizarre mix of traditional and modern art styles, which he absolutely loathes. Block later sets the damaged painting out by the trash, feeling as though his efforts are failing. Then, through a window, Block sees a neighbor looking at the painting. To his amazement and great pleasure, she’s touched by it and takes it home with her. It’s a small moment, but a lovely one that gives Block much-needed hope that he’s on the right track with his art.
What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?
Co-writing can be anywhere from amazing to a total disaster. I’ve been so pleased at how well Robert and I write together. In some cases, we each take on specific characters who we come to know or like, but for the most part, we simply trade the manuscript back and forth, editing the other’s work and adding two thousand or so words each time. We also take time when we can (which is rarely, since we’re both busy and don’t live very close to each other) to sit down and hash out plot ideas and issues. We typically begin a project with at least some kind of outline. As we go, we sometimes do a bit of battle, but the work is completed faster and in better condition because there are two of us focusing on it. And of course, there’s a lot of research as we go to make sure we’re being as accurate as we can be in reproducing the world of the 1630s in Europe.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
Robert and I won a prize, which we were both very honored to receive, for one of the stories that makes up part of the novel!
What do you have planned next?
I recently submitted an alternate history story set in the late 17th century in England, about a lighthouse builder, a great storm, and the hat-making industry. That story should be out in Those in Peril from Theogony Press in early 2019. I’m also working on a mystery novel (in revisions now), as well as books about point of view and the second person.
You can get a copy of The Persistence of Dreams from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PIsvQQ.
Other places to learn more about Meriah’s work:
Website: http://www.meriahcrawford.com/
Blog: http://www.meriahcrawford.com/?page_id=9
Meriah’s Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2PGdmiO
March 11, 2019
5 Questions for Kaylie Lanshaw
[image error]Tiffanie Shaw — one half of Kaylie Lanshaw — is a member of the Flint Area Writers, the writers group that taught me to write when I lived in Michigan. I met her at a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Flint after we shared a table of contents in the writers group’s anthology Out of the Green.
Tiffanie has her degree in Mental Health, specializing in Child Development with a minor in Early Childhood Education. She puts her degrees to work in her young adult and new adult fantasy writings, though she has been known to venture off into other genres.
When she isn’t working or spending time with her two children and husband, she is jotting down what the voices in her head are saying. Those voices are plotting out Bound in Blood and Shadows, the dystopian series about the fall of the United States and the coming out of hidden species who have lived among us for years.
Here’s how she describes the first book in the series:
After a civil war twenty years earlier decimated the United States’ economy, the crumbling nation has enough to deal with. When the King of a hidden people steps into the light and the monsters of legend turn out to be more than myth, the disintegrating nation is presented with a whole new set of issues.
Prince Endymion wants to get away. Away from the father who abandoned him as a child. Away from the new Kingdom-State he thought could make everything better. So when his cousin Prince Aldis, heir to the throne, assigns him to a part of the Coexistence Project called the Human Transfer Program, it’s just one more obstacle to fleeing.
But peace is never as easy as war. One misstep could send the two nations spiraling into a conflict that the no-longer-United States might not survive.
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Did something in the real world inspire Double-Edged War?
There wasn’t one real thing that inspired the book, really. There was talk about places like Detroit needing to file bankruptcy and I wondered what would happen if some government official decided the best way to handle the United States losing money would be to sell states. From there, my fantasy-riddled mind wondered about the supernaturals buying said states.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
It’s hard to pick just one part of the book that is my favorite, moreso since it’s really two books and both are good. If I had to pick though…it would be the moment Endymion realized that he liked Kaelin. It’s a quick thought that sparks the whole thing. I know with that one little thought, Endymion can move toward a better life. Sure, not all at once and not instantly, but without that first thought, I know where he would have ended up.
What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?
This started out as a short story for a creative writing class. I thought of this idea about a human going to a vampire school to prove there could be peace and wanted to write it from the vampire’s point of view. My classmate, Kayla, liked the idea and said she would love to see it from the human’s side. After a lot of talking and convincing our teacher, she got the ok to do so. Having two different stories that are really one taking place in twenty pages is not easy. Trust me when I say we used up every inch of those pages. (I think some of our classmates were a little irritated with that too. LOL). But we made it work and we loved it.
It took us a few months after class was over to expand it, but once we got into the world, we were hooked. We wrote this book along with several side stories, even some stuff that will happen ten years after these books. It was loads of fun and the story has changed since the first twenty-page draft, but totally for the best.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
We didn’t have huge goals for sales. We heard stories of indie writers selling a handful here and there, but sales being hard. I don’t know about Kayla, but when our sales numbers started coming in… I was shocked. We sold out of the paperbacks that we ordered before the first shipment even arrived at the house. Kindle went even faster. It was an amazing feeling. I mean… that and our first review. That was awesome, too.
What do you have planned next?
I am working on the second book in the series Brink of War with my co-author, Kayla Langmaid. (We published under the name Kaylie Lanshaw.) I am also working on a collection of short stories called Knowing. And my own novel, Mine, which is a LGTB romance. You can find all the updates and information for upcoming books on our website: http://www.boundinbloodandshadows.com/blog.
You can get your own copy of Double-Edged War at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Qx3KMz.
You can check out all of Kaylie Lanshaw’s books at https://amzn.to/2EwMG2T.
March 4, 2019
5 Questions for Tanya Lisle
[image error]Tanya Lisle is another of my sisters in Broad Universe, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres.
Tanya is a novelist from Metro Vancouver, British Columbia who has series littered across genres from supernatural horror to young adult fantasy. She began writing in elementary school, when she started turning homework assignments into short stories and continued this trend well into university. While attending Simon Fraser University, she developed an appreciation for public domain crossovers and cross-platform narratives. She has a shelf full of notebooks with more story ideas than pens lost to the depths of her bag. Now she writes incessantly in hopes of finishing all of them.
Thankfully, her cat, Remy, has figured out how to shut off Tanya’s computer when she needs to take a break.
[image error]Tanya describes her book:
Return to Wonderland
Years after that fateful fall down the rabbit hole, Alice has moved on from the memories of Wonderland and is now attending the prestigious Lucena Academy to get a fresh start.
Unfortunately, a purple-haired boy appears at school and reveals himself to be the Cheshire Cat. He speaks in riddles about how Wonderland is a much different place than when Alice last visited and tempts her with a visit back. Alice must decide whether or not she will go back, or the Cheshire Cat will make the choice for her.
Did something in the real world inspire Return to Wonderland?
The original inspiration for the series was actually a few years ago when Disney bought Marvel. I was a huge comic book nerd in the day and kept watching people arguing that they were going to put Mickey Mouse ears on Wolverine and getting mad about it, so I ended up writing a rather long series of articles putting a lot of the Disney characters into Marvel Universe roles. I put Alice in this Doctor Strange-esque sort of situation where Wonderland acted as the alternate universe she was meant to protect. When NaNoWriMo came around that year, I was still thinking about that one story in particular and brought in a few other characters into that universe. It’s a series now!
What is your favorite scene in the book?
I have two, but both of them for very different reasons.
First, there’s a scene with Alice trying to evade capture by the Red Knight, who is trying to get her to the Queen of Hearts. She eats a bite of the cake to grow a little and picks a fridge off of a tree to throw it at him. I swear it makes about that much sense in context! This scene marks the first time I have ever thrown a fridge in my novel. Since then, it’s become a staple of my first drafts.
There’s a second scene in the chapter right after that where Alice realizes that the Queen of Hearts has gone the bad kind of mad. She’s started taking the hearts out of the people of Wonderland and has them all on display. While they are still beating loudly around her, Alice is trapped. She sees the Queen actually rip a heart out of the chest of one of the other Wonderland inhabitants. The feeling of the scene was so much fun to write, especially with how it contrasted with the one from just before.
What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?
That book was largely pantsed — I didn’t have a very firm plan! I created a very loose outline, included a bunch of things that I wanted to have happen, and I sat down to write. I got it out during NaNoWriMo, so there was plenty of encouragement for me to just let the words flow and let whatever random idea I could manage end up on the page, so that I could get from one idea to the next.
It really didn’t start to come together until rewriting and editing, but I feel like that’s the way most of my books come together. When I went back to look at it almost a year later, the prose was awful but the story ideas were great. I managed to turn it into something I really enjoyed.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
The best part of a promotion is always when someone buys a book and then leaves a review saying that they enjoyed it. I don’t check my reviews often, but it’s always nice to see that people enjoy reading your work.
What do you have planned next?
A break! I just wrote three drafts during NaNoWriMo last year, including book nine of this series, so I’m going to try and take a little time off of everything to rest my wrists. Granted, my editor has just gotten book six of the series (Beauty Sleep) back to me, so I’m probably going to cut it short so that I can dive into revisions.
You can pick up a copy of Return to Wonderland on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2UDi2tg.
Check out Tanya’s other books at her Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2UuzwrQ.
Or follow her:
Blog: http://tanyalisle.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TanyaLisle
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanyalisle/
March 3, 2019
FogCon 2019
Next weekend is my first convention of the year! I’m looking forward to going back to FogCon in Walnut Creek, California.
Friday afternoon at 3 pm, I’ll be joining Vylar Kaftan, Tina LeCount Myers, and Tyler Hayes to talk about Debut Author Lessons. Here’s the description:
How do you sign books? What’s the etiquette when talking to bookstores? Join our panel of authors, some brand new, others with several books behind them, as they discuss the things every debut author needs to know, from signing contracts to signing books.
Friday evening is the Borderlands Books get-together. Very much looking forward to seeing all my favorite people at that.
Saturday morning at 9 am is going to be the most fascinating panel of the convention, I promise. With Maureen Kennedy moderating, E.M. Markoff, Terry Weyna, and I will talk about death! The panel is called Down to Earth: the Future of Green Burial. Here’s that description:
“We’re not detached from Earth. We turn *into* earth.” Inspired by Becky Chambers’ “Record of a Spaceborn Few,” this panel is a discussion of death customs in science fiction and an introduction to existing environmentally conscious burial methods. How can human decay be a catalyst for helping forests flourish, or repopulate coral reefs, or nurture a family garden? What resources exist for people like Kip, who want to care for the bodies of loved ones without prior formal education? Readers inspired by the work of Caretakers like Chambers’ Eyas may be interested to learn that several organizations in the Bay Area not only specialize in providing green burials, home funerals, and death midwifery, they actively seek to train volunteers to provide this care for their own communities.
Sunday afternoon at 1:30 is the annual Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading. Broad Universe is an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other speculative genres. Emceed by Rebecca Gomez Farrell, L.S. Johnson, Tina LeCount Myers, and I will read selections from our work.
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I plan to read a scene from Lost Angels, the first succubus novel, and a bit from the story that just sold to Space & Time, which features characters from my space opera novel The Dangerous Type.
Borderlands will have my books in the Dealers Room.
I’ll be wandering around, so please say hi.
February 25, 2019
5 Questions for Kathryn Sullivan
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I think I met Kathryn Sullivan at the Broad Universe Really Fast Reading in Kansas City, but I heard her work for the first time in Spokane at the 2015 WorldCon. She’s one of my sisters in Broad Universe, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres.
Kathryn writes young adult science fiction and fantasy. Her newest release is short story collection Agents, Adepts & Apprentices. Her Doctor Who-related works include the essay “The Fanzine Factor” in the Hugo-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords and essays in Children of Time: Companions of Doctor Who and Outside In: 160 New Perspectives on 160 Doctor Who Stories by 160 Writers. She also has reviews in the Star Trek-related Outside In Boldly Goes and Outside In Makes It So. She is owned by a large cockatoo, who graciously allows her to write about other animals, as well as birdlike aliens. Kathryn lives in Winona, Minnesota, where the river bluffs along the Mississippi River double as cliffs on alien planets or the deep mysterious forests in a magical world.
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From EPPIE Award-winner Kathryn Sullivan come stories of magic and off-world adventure sure to appeal to readers of all ages. Here are tales of wizards training apprentices and interstellar operatives protecting “primitive” worlds. How does one university cope with a student from very far away, and where do some wizards get their supplies? And what’s the deal with the cat whiskers?
Did something in the real world inspire Agents, Adepts & Apprentices ?
Several of the short stories were inspired by things in the real world. “The Demons’ Storeroom” resulted after I was at a garage sale and wondered how a wizard might view the items there. “Transfer Student” was written while I was in college in the days before ADA and was my take on how an alien might try to maneuver around my campus. “Goodbye, Jennie!” was inspired by a newspaper article about a meteor shower.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
“Communication Difficulties” has my agent talking with an alien in a swamp while a flock of flamingoes parade back and forth. I’m a bird person and I always find that display walk by flamingoes — all the heads moving from side to side at the same time — funny. (In case you want to see one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW8GX2n4qbY )
What was your writing process like as you wrote Agents, Adepts & Apprentices ?
The twenty-two short stories in the collection were written over several years. Some were written for themed anthologies. Others were written while I was looking for a publisher for my first book The Crystal Throne and thinking about how some of the characters in that book first met or where some of the magical artifacts came from. A lot of the stories were written when I could squeeze in time before work, during lunch hours, and late at night.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
The best thing was finding that short story collections seem to be popular again.
What do you have planned next?
I’m working on a middle grade/lower YA book set on a colony planet where my main character wants to be an explorer like her grandmother, who discovered the planet.
You can pick up a copy of Agents, Adepts & Apprentices at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PD15LP.
Check out Kathryn’s other books at her Amazon author page: https://amzn.to/2PEkPPt.
Or visit her webpage: http://kathrynsullivan.com .
February 18, 2019
5 Questions for Lana Ayers
[image error]Lana Ayers is another of my sisters in Broad Universe, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres.
Lana is a poet, novelist, managing editor at several poetry presses, and a time travel enthusiast. She facilitates Write Away
generative writing workshops, leads private salons for book groups, and teaches at writers’ conferences. She is obsessed with exotic flavors of ice cream, Little Red Riding Hood, and black & white animals. She holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, as well as degrees in Poetry, Psychology, and Mathematics. She’s published nine poetry collections to date, one of which was nominated for a National Book Award. In addition to thriving in the book-loving culture, she enjoys the Pacific Northwest’s bountiful rain and abundant coffee shops. Her favorite color is the swirl of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Her first novel is Time Flash: Another Me:
The Granola Diet promises to turn curvy Sara Rodríguez Bloom García into a svelte, new woman in no time. Once it does, her husband’s rekindled passions will be unstoppable—she hopes. But “Holy molé salsa!” When Sara reaches for the box of cereal, she travels back in time to a childhood trip to the grocery store with her beloved grandmother. Seeing her dead grandmother alive and well again is wonderful, but Sara may be losing her mind, or much, much more. What starts out as another fad diet leads Sara on a time travel journey of perilous twists and turns—fraught with double-agents, lusty redheads, and a deadly serum. Sara’s possibly-magical cat, a sexy former crush, tasty meals, and vivid music enliven the darker moments. Fans of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series will love Time Flash: Another Me.
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Did something in the real world inspire Time Flash: Another Me?
My first novel is a time travel adventure. It could not be otherwise. Because I grew up in a one-television household, my brother Alan, being six years older, controlled the TV. We watched lots of science fiction movies and shows, including Time Tunnel, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and The Time Machine. Time travel had me in its hooks thanks to Alan, so this book is dedicated across space and time to him. As one of the volunteer rescuers that fateful day in lower Manhattan, Alan died of a 9/11-related illness before my book was published.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
My favorite scene is the very first time heroine Sara travels back in time as a result of the experimental serum she’s been given. Sara doesn’t yet know she really is time traveling and experiences the incident as a very vivid dream—complete with the smell of baking pizza and the summer sun on her bare arms. The best part is getting to spend the day with her beloved and quirky grandmother, who died twenty years earlier. Sara’s grandmother is inspired by my own zany and unconditionally loving grandma. Writing her character was a bit like time traveling to my own past.
What was your writing process like as you wrote Time Flash: Another Me?
The process surprised me quite a bit. Although I’ve written short stories, Time Flash is my first novel. I wasn’t sure whether I could write it the way I do short stories, just feeling my way through to the end without an outline. Once I began writing in Sara’s voice, her character showed me the way through. She even did some things that surprised and even troubled me a bit. It was like she was in control and I had to take a backseat. I’ve never had that experience before. It was both scary and exhilarating.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
I’d published nine collections of poetry prior to coming out with my novel. I wasn’t at all sure how my poetry colleagues would receive the news of my publishing a time travel book! However, my poetry friends and readers were very excited about me achieving my lifelong dream of completing a novel. Several even admitted that time travel had been a secret fascination for them as well.
What do you have planned next?
In addition to working on a couple of different poetry projects, I am beginning a Cozy Mystery series set in a small Oregon coastal town.
You can get a copy of Time Flash: Another Me from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EcmgCC.
Follow Lana at her website & blog at http://LanaAyers.com o r check out all her books at https://amzn.to/2PzNcyl.
February 11, 2019
5 Questions for LJ Cohen
[image error]LJ Cohen is another member of Broad Universe, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres.
LJ is a Boston-area novelist, poet, blogger, ceramics artist, geek, and relentless optimist. After almost twenty-five years as a physical therapist specializing in chronic pain management, LJ now uses her anatomical knowledge and myriad clinical skills to injure characters in her science fiction and fantasy novels. When not bringing home strays (canine and human), LJ can be found writing, which looks a lot like daydreaming.
She is active in SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) and Broad Universe, and blogs about publishing, general geekery, and other ephemera at http://www.ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com. A Star in the Void (book 5 of the SF/Space Opera series Halcyone Space) is her most recent novel. Derelict, the first novel in the series, was chosen as a Library Journal Self-e Select title and book of the year in 2016.
She stopped by to tell me about A Star in the Void:
Control the wormholes, control the galaxy.
For over fifty years, the Commonwealth’s lock on wormhole transit has enabled the military government to keep its grip on commerce, travel, and the community in diaspora off Earth. But everything changed once Ro Maldonado resurrected the damaged AI on a derelict spaceship. When she and her accidental passengers aboard Halcyone stumbled upon a hidden planet and Ada May, its brilliant but reclusive leader, they became entangled with her covert resistance.
Behind the scenes of the Commonwealth lurks an even bigger enemy: the Reaction Chamber, a powerful shadow organization of politicians, business moguls, and crime cartels that has co-opted and infiltrated all levels of the government. The Chamber knows Halcyone is the key to finding and eliminating the resistance. As people close to Ro and her companions disappear or die, it’s clear their enemies are closing in fast.
When May vanishes through an impossible wormhole, taking the leader of the Reaction Chamber with her, she abruptly shatters a decades-old stalemate. Now Halcyone and her crew must decode May’s revolutionary wormhole technology and locate the missing scientist before the Reaction Chamber obliterates the resistance and exploits its resources to seize complete control of the cosmos.
This is the culmination of the series that began with Derelict, a kindle bestseller and award-winning science fiction novel.
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Did something in the real world inspire the Halcyone Space series and, in particular, A Star in the Void?
There were a lot of elements from both current and historical events that inspired the entire series. One of the foundational elements of the series was my musing about how the colonies might have developed had England won the Revolutionary War. Not that the novels are anywhere near an allegory of that, but thinking about how central control of distant colonies creates political strife helped inform my world-building.
Climate change also became a critical component to the politics of the series —particularly beginning with book 2 (Dreadnought and Shuttle) — and the relationship between the wealthy who were able to buy their way into the new cities and the climate refugees forceably resettled and contained in shanty-towns.
The shadow government in the series (the Reaction Chamber) was inspired by the real-life Boston based “Vault” — a secret group of politicians, businessmen, and crime bosses who met in a restaurant built in an old bank vault. They essentially controlled the direction of the city’s development for decades until the mid 20th century.
What is your favorite scene A Star in the Void?
About midway through the book, there’s a quiet scene with Dr. Leta Durban and Dev Morningstar, where Leta reveals what had happened to Dev’s parents after they disappeared when she was a child. Dev’s parents had gone off-planet to a mining colony to earn money to support their family, leaving Dev and her brothers with their grandmother on the refugee settlement on Earth. No money ever came and they never heard from their parents again.
Leta Durban was the mining colony’s physician. She’d tried to make the company pay attention to the terrible and unsafe work conditions, to no avail. After dozens of miners died through the company’s negligence, she thought things would change. But the mine operators were fined a pittance and she was fired for whistleblowing.
It’s a small scene, but it acts as closure for both women, as well as catalyst for each of them to fight for what they know is right, regardless of the personal risk.
From the time Dev shows up in Dreadnought and Shuttle (book 2), I had been anticipating having these two women meet. The scene is as powerful as I had hoped.
What was your writing process like as you wrote A Star in the Void?
Because this was the 5th and final book of a series, it was a lot more difficult to draft than any of my prior books. Every open plot thread from the prior volumes needed some sort of resolution. And the 5th book needed to have its own complete and satisfying arc.
I started by listing all the open plot threads and all the characters’ goals and problems. I sketched out what I thought the endgame should be for all of that, paying particular attention to where things had ended with book 4.
I think A Star in the Void is the most intense of the 5 books, because if you look at the entire series as one large story, this final book was like the final act of a massive novel. But it also needed to function as a standalone story with appropriate pacing.
Some of my process was similar to any book I write: I do a very loose outline — more like a broad-brush model of the story — then set a goal of a thousand words a day. I do read back to what I’ve already written and do some structural editing as I go, but always with a sense of forward movement.
I use y-Writer to draft my stories, as it has tools to allow me to keep track of each character and/or individual threads of the story.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
Getting emails from readers who were simultaneously mad at some of the outcomes, but who also thought it had to be the way I wrote it. And the fact that many readers confessed to crying at the end!
What do you have planned next?
I’m in the process of putting together the big picture view of a whole new story. New characters, new universe. It doesn’t have a title yet, but its broad themes are inspired from this verse by Rabbi Tarfon: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.”
I start nearly every project with an overview. It tends to change some as I discover the story, but having this “ten thousand foot view” helps me stay close to the heart of it.
Multiple worlds are connected in the quantum realm. Most are safely sealed off. Most have no knowledge that they are but one in an infinite multitude.
A few people on a few scattered worlds can see though the multiverse. Most of those go mad. Fewer still are able to bear the burden of so many possibilities. Those are seers and are either considered cursed or blessed. The reality is some of both.
Perhaps one in a billion has the ability to slip from world to world and becomes a Traveler. Always, there is balance. A Traveler comes, a Traveler goes, never more than any world can bear, treading lightly to encourage balance. Until now.
Three individuals from three different worlds are drawn to one another through the thinning walls between the worlds. None of these three are Travelers in truth, but they are all that is left. They discover something is hunting Travelers and obliterating them and the balance they bring from the multiverse.
Together they must rescue each other and fight a foe they cannot name to heal the worlds before the walls dissolve for good.
For more about LJ and her books, visit http://www.ljcohen.net or her Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2UuMIgm.
You can pick up a copy of A Star in the Void: https://amzn.to/2QKn8VO.
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