interviews

Cover reveal, book release: Arkham Horror – To Fight the Black Wind. To be released on April 5.

Guest Blog: Rising Shadows. Why do I write horror? Let me count the reasons… 
 
Kickstarter: Broken Eye Books – good people. It’s funded. Welcome to Miskatonic University! One week to go. My story “The Librarian’s Handbook is in the second anthology. The first is funded!

In Print: Look what’s in print. My award winning #BattleTech YA novel, THE NELLUS ACADEMY INCIDENT! You asked for it to be in print, and Cat Labs heard you.

Interview: An interview with me on Andrea Dawn of the Dead: The Women of Horror Literature – Jennifer Brozek – The Author’s Own Words. I’m the final girl who will try to keep you alive.

Norwescon: Here is my forthcoming schedule for Norwescon. If I’m not in a panel, I’m probably at my dealer’s table in the dealer’s room. No shyness zone around me. Come and say hello.

THURSDAY
Dealers Table, 4:00pm to 8:00pm

FRIDAY
Dealers Table, 10:00am to 7:00pm
Whipping Out That First Draft, 11:00am – 12:00pm @ Cascade 12
Reading: Jennifer Brozek, 12:00pm – 12:30pm @ Cascade 4
Social Horror, 6:00pm – 7:00pm @ Cascade 11
Anthologies Joy, 7:00pm – 8:00pm @ Cascade 11

SATURDAY
Dealers Table, 10:00am to 6:00pm
Why Agent? 11:00am – 12:00pm @ Cascade 11
YA’s Role In Genre, 1:00pm – 2:00pm @ Evergreen 1 & 2
Autograph Session 1, 2:00pm – 3:00pm @ Grand 2
The Horror Of Being Twelve, 6:00pm – 7:00pm @ Cascade 10

SUNDAY
Dealers Table, 10:00am to 4:00pm

I’m working on revisions for the Sekrit Project Alex extras and the final tie-in story for 2016. They both have fiddly bits to get correct. So, here’s a Bubble & Squeek for you.

All I want for my Birthday (and Christmas for that matter). Please consider buying one of my books for yourself or as a gift for someone else. It helps keep my cats in kibble and me working on the fiction you know and love.

Article: On the Qwillery – The Perfect Line in the Sand on why zombies are the perfect kind of monster and why we used them so much.

ebook Release: The kindle version of THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMY is live! Here is the Barnes and Noble link.

Interview: On Wag the Fox focused around THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMY and YA fiction.

Interview: On Ginger Nuts of Horror. This was one long, meaty interview filled with intriguing questions I’ve never had to answer before.

Release: TEMPEST, All-New Tales of Valdemar. I’ve got my second story of Hadara and Kitha in here. This is the fourth Valdemar anthology I’ve written for. I’m still pinching myself at how lucky I am I get to play in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar world.

Review: Ginger Nuts of Horror reviewed THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMY – It doesn’t look like the reviewer liked it very much. But they are correct in saying the book was written for a different age group. (I much prefer these kinds of reviews. 🙂 )

And a picture of Mena being oh-so-dignified. I love this picture of her.

I am home from OryCon and SF Authorfest 9. I had a fabulous time. It was so much fun. In lieu of content, here is a Bubble and Squeek.

Article: Mind Meld: More Children’s Movies that Scared the Crap Out of Us.

Podcast: LIMETOWN. If you aren’t listening to this podcast, you are missing out. It reminds me of American Elsewhere and Night Vale.

Review: A Lovely review of Jazz Age Cthulhu and “Dreams of a Thousand Young” from Hauntology. I really am fond of this novelette.

For the Melissa Allen section of Bubble and Squeek…
Article: Over on Wag the Fox: Characters with a mind of their own. AKA why the sequel, Never Let Me Leave, exists.

Article: Why a Bat? Over on Damien Walter’s blog, I discuss why Melissa Allen use a baseball bat when fighting monsters.

Podcast: SF Spotlight Radio from 14 Nov 2015. I talk about a lot of things. Mostly the Melissa Allen series.

This is a big Bubble and Squeek today. A lot stuff came in all at once.

Article: For writers on the SFWA Blog. How do you ask for blurb?

Article: I talk about my love of gargoyles on My Favorite Things.

Article: SFSignal MIND MELD: Second Chances. I talk about why I gave Stephen R. Donaldson a second chance.

Article: Over at Ragnarok Publications, I talk about how I used my anger to fuel my writing career in Dreamer No More.

Interview: Permuted Press asked me some great questions about NEVER LET ME SLEEP. We touch on body image and mental illness.

Interview: Over at Eating Authors I get to talk about ramen. Really, really good ramen.

Review: I get a nice shout out in this review of NOT OUR KIND from the Eviscerating Pen (what a lovely name!).

Pre-Order: Remember, you can pre-order NEVER LET ME SLEEP and the hard copy Melissa Allen compilation NEVER LET ME.  Also, if you missed it, here’s a post that’s all about my fabulous covers.

SFSignal: I gotta say it. I love seeing my name on SFSignal and in such good company, too.

It’s been an amazing couple of weeks. Really amazing.

Awards: I’ve been nominated for two different Scribe Awards. One for best tie-in short story. One for best tie-in YA novel.

Conventions: I’ve been named one of Gen Con’s Industry Insider Featured Presenters. I’m really excited about this.

Election: I’ve been voted in as one of the new Directors-at-Large for SFWA along with Matthew Johnson. I will take office on July 1, 2015.

Interview: I’ve been interviewed by Katie Teller, focusing on my Dark Quest Books anthologies.

Review: Thomas Gondolfi of Scifimonkeys.com reviewed CALLER UNKNOWN and gave it an “Unexpected A-“. He had some interesting points to make.

I’m deep in the throes of writing NEVER LET ME DIE, Melissa Allen #3, so I’m not checking Twitter or Facebook right now. However, lots has happened. Here’s a Bubble & Squeek for you.

Award: I was nominated for a Hugo Award. This is both exciting and terrifying.

Convention: I’ve been added to OrcaCon’s Special Guest lineup. I’m also on their kickstarter with a custom game of Katanas & Trenchcoats for you and four of your friends.

Interview: I was interviewed by Douglas Hawk for his 7 Questions series. Want to know what my workspace looks like?

Publication Release: DocWagon 19 is out the door! Get it here:  Amazon | BattleShop | DriveThruRPG

Recommendation: Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix is one of the best, messed up horror books I’ve read in a long time. I will never look at a large home store the same ever again.

Recommendation: Science STYLE – Taylor Swift Acapella Parody. I just really liked this video.

Review: Goodreads review of Chimera Incarnate.

Review: Goodreads review of DocWagon 19.

Sale: I sold The Last Days of the Salton Academy to Ragnarok Publications! Yay!

I’m all edits all time. Between finishing up NEVER LET ME LEAVE and getting the final proof notes on CHIMERA INCARNATE and having edits come back on my Shadowrun story, all I can give you is some Bubble and Squeek.

Article: I popped over to Clarissa Johal’s journal to talk about how I put together the table of contents for APOCALYPSE GIRL DREAMING.

Book Release: Happy book release to me! APOCALYPSE GIRL DREAMING is available in ebook (physical copy coming soon). I’m so in love with this book. It’s getting some great reviews.

Interview: I had an interview with Vagabond Saint. We talks about all sorts of things. It was a fun interview.

Review: I got a review of APOCALYPSE GIRL DREAMING from the Fantastical Librarian. I love it when librarians review my work. I think the Fantastical Librarian had some great things to say.

Review: This is a review of the Valdemar anthology, NO TRUE WAY, and it has to have one of my favorite lines about any one of my stories to date. “This was one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read, I feel like I will be recovering from it days from now.” How can you not love that?

Review: The Exploding Spaceship reviews SHATTERED SHIELDS and had some great things to say.

The authors of Under an Enchanted Skyline box set ($0.99, available only until Dec 31st), participated in an urban fantasy roundtable.

Most Urban Fantasy stories focus on magical creatures and entities. Even so, ordinary people still play important roles within the story line. Do these “normals” have much of an impact in your story…and if so, in what ways?

Erik Scott de Bie: As a superhero adventure, Eye for an Eye is a bit of a black sheep: it features exactly one character with magical abilities—Lady Vengeance. In addition to her high-tech hero opposite, Stardust, the story features a series of mundane characters, including The Raven, who is the tech-based vigilante you’d get if you combined Iron Man and Batman, and Elizabeth Stevens, Stardust’s non-superhero wife, tech company tycoon, and the smartest person in the whole novella.

Phoebe Matthews: Always. It is the normals who have to solve the problems created by magic and by paranormals. Sorry, no superheroes here.

Django Wexler: Yes, definitely. Again, a common UF trope is that the protagonist is in some way special, somewhere between the monsters and the normals so he or she can serve as a guide to the fantastic for the readers. In the John Golden stories, this is literally true, since John’s only real power is to transport himself to the fairy burrows and back again. But since fairy burrows run on real-world computer systems, he has to deal with the “normals” who build and maintain them – system administrators, executives, users, and so on. He’s more or less an exterminator, since fairies are a nuisance!

Janine A. Southard: As the collection’s compiler, I don’t have a story in this boxed set. I have, however, had the chance to read them all. Each author in this bundle blends fantasy characters into the normal world, or vice versa. There couldn’t be a super-natural adventure without a familiar jumping off point. In some cases the protagonists are as magical as magical can be, making their way in our normal world. In others, simply touching the magical world transforms a normal person’s experience.

Cedar Blake: Well, Luke and Chalice provide the impetus for Rachel’s “transition,” and Rachel’s rotten manager Margie supplies the push that gets her going. Her pal Ashli (inspired by a real-life friend of mine back when I lived in the Bay Area) adds an essential (in)sanity check for Rachel, and Kim the Yoga Girl acts as sort of a benevolent archon figure, watching over the point of transition and providing a small yet significant test as the hero steps from one threshold to another. So yeah – Rachel’s story could not exist without these key figures. “Normal” or otherwise, they provide foundations and activities that make everything else possible.

Jennifer Brozek: Absolutely. The mundane people in a story become the “everyman” characters that the Reader can identify with. They are the normal people who have to face extraordinary circumstances. Many characters in my UF series are normal people just trying to get by as they are affected by the supernatural events going on around them. Many times, they show that the normal person can be just as effective as the supernatural creature.

—
Other questions and their roundtable answers are with: Phil, Erik, Phoebe, Doug, and Janine. This was a great roundtable. And I hope you all enjoyed it.

Article: An SFSignal Mind Meld on the Best Book Openings.
 
Interview: Wag the Fox interviewed me about Apocalypse Girl Dreaming

Podcast: Baen Books Podcast: BFRH 2014 11 21. Bryan and I talk about Shattered Shields.

Review: SF Crowsnest reviews Shattered Shields. It appears that the review, Kelly Jensen, really liked it. Awesome.

Review: Bookwraiths review of Shattered Shields. 3 out of 5 stars but really like it.

Sale: Apocalypse Ink Productions is running a Winter Special. Code: WINTER2014. 20% entire order. If you ever wanted my Karen Wilson Chronicles, or Industry Talk… or Jay Lake’s Process of Writing… or Ivan Ewert’s Gentlemen Ghouls series… or Peter M. Ball’s Flotsam series… or Dylan Birtolo’s Sheynan series… now is the time.

Writers: I am now open to edit your work. Here are my freelance editor rates.

Heads down on my novel, NEVER LET ME LEAVE. Have some links and podcasts and reviews and books!

Article: Writing Tips by Amanda Pillar. These are worth a read.

Article: Suvudu editor Matt Staggs asked for an article on anthologies. I decided to write about the little-discussed art of putting a Table of Contents together.

Interview: I was interviewed by Kindra Sowder for Horror Geeks magazine: Gamer Nerd and Wordslinger. Horror Geeks magazine is really neat. I like it.

Podcast Interview: Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing. Talking about Shattered Shields with Bryan Thomas Schmidt. The topics ranged from marketing to diversity to RPG books.

Podcast Review: Game on Girl by Regina and Rhonda reviews Chicks Dig Gaming. My Google alerts gave me this one. It’s really a fun look at the anthology. Especially when they refused to name author names but I recognized who and what they were talking about.

Review: Attack of the Books Reviews Shattered Shields. The reviewer, Daniel Burton, really enjoyed the anthology.

Review:  Paul Weimer of SF Signal reviews Chicks Dig Gaming. 4 out of 5 stars. He enjoyed the book and asked some of the questions I asked.

Pre-order: JAZZ AGE CTHULHU with my novelette, “Dreams of a Thousand Young.” Visit Assam, India, where a British dilettante wakes up one morning covered in bruises and welts, with a dead man in her bed and no memory of what happened in the last 24 hours. Her only clue is a trashed invitation to the exclusive Black Ram Club.

Publication: Short run boxed set: Under an Enchanted Skyline. Apocalypse Ink Productions has joined Martain Cantina’s boxed Urban Fantasy set. 8 novels and novellas. $0.99. From now until December 30th. Includes my mosaic novel Caller Unknown and fellow AIP author Peter M. Ball’s Exile.