publications

August has been a busy travel month. My brain is mush, my body would like to stop sleeping in strange beds, and my cats cannot decide if they are more needy for attention or still pissed that I was gone. Here’s a Bubble and Squeek for you.

Awards: I did not win the Hugo award this year, but I’m not mad at who won in my category. Neil Clarke is incredibly talented and does good work. So, here’s my finalist certificate framed and hung. (I am seriously considering taking my two rocket pins to a local jeweler to see if he can turn them into really nice earrings.)

Blog: The end of a two year project. Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 is over and done with. Gotta admit, I don’t regret doing Dear Penpal, but I won’t do it this way again.

eBay and Signed Books: If you would like signed books from me, we have them up on eBay. This will remain on eBay until all of my books are gone. All money goes to me.

Interview: Lindsey Byrd in Writing is Hard podcast. How to edit a book? With Jennifer Brozek. This was a really fun interview. (YT link)

Podcast: The Skiffy and Fanty Show, 832. Shin Kamen Rider (2023) — Righteous Kicks #10. Bug hybrids, evil organizations, and intense vertical kicks, oh my! Brandon O’Brien and Iori Kusano are joined by Jennifer Brozek to discuss 2023’s Shin Kamen Rider! I have many opinions.

Publication: Augment 3, Autumn 2083. Available now! Look at that cover. It’s gorgeous! The universal buy link is here.

Publication: “Praise for the Honored Dead” is Catalyst Game Labs’ free BattleTech fiction for the month of August! Get it now before it disappears and another story replaces it! (New free Shadowrun and BattleTech fiction on the first of each month.)

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

It’s been five years since I stepped into the BattleTech arena as a writer. Over ten since I wrote my award winning YA BattleTech novel, The Nellus Academy Incident. I’ve never written a one-off BattleTech short story. Now I’ve written two…and one of them is currently available for free on the Catalyst Game Labs “free download” page.

For August only, “Praise for the Honored Dead” is available for free, and it takes place after about a week after the events of The Nellus Academy Incident, and thus will have many spoilers for the novel. Gotta admit, I’m in love with the cover of this short story.

“GET READY FOR THE WORST TIME OF YOUR LIVES.”

The press is calling it “The Nellus Academy Incident.” For the cadets that fought against and survived a brutal mercenary assault intended to spark a war between the Free Worlds League and the Lyran Alliance, it was only the beginning. 

Now, they must navigate the gauntlet of appearing in public…and dealing with what happened on Phobos. Barely days past risking their lives—and seeing their fellow classmates sacrifice themselves for the others—the four remaining cadets must come to terms with what has happened…and lay their friends to rest while under the pitiless glare of government cameras that record their every move…

Rereading The Nellus Academy Incident more than 10 years after I wrote it was interesting. I had some genuine moments of “Oh, that’s good” and “Damn, I don’t remember writing that. It really works.” Of course, I had a couple moments of “I could’ve written that better.” But not many.

It was like bumping into an old friend after a long absence and realizing, yeah, they were cool and you’re glad you know they and met up again. There is joy in realizing that, yeah, you do do good work. I hope you enjoy returning to the Nellus Academy for a brief dip back into the cadets’ lives.

Two years ago, I contacted Rem from Rem Alternis and asked her if we could meet at Gen Con to talk about having her company run the Kickstarter for a passion project I wanted to create. We met. We agreed to everything. And ran the Kickstarter in March of 2024. It funded and as of July 27, 2025, that Kickstarter is over, done, and things involving it mailed/fulfilled.

Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 was quite the endeavor—telling a MG horror story over a year in 24 physical letters. Yep. If I’m gonna do a Kickstarter, let’s do it on Hard Mode. Next time, if there is one, I’ll do something easy like a novella series. I don’t regret doing Dear Penpal, but I won’t do it this way again.

Here’s some fun facts the Husband put together for the celebration party. I thought they were too good not to share.

So, the final question that has been asked of me… “Will there be any more Dear Penpal stories?”

The answer is maybe. I’ve got an idea for a series of novellas around it. 3-4 more in the series, jumping years in-between each one. Each one would still be in letters. Probably 2 each month, but put together as a novella. This is a nascent idea, kicking around the different places I’ve moved to and interesting things that could’ve happened to fictional Jennifer who can see ghosts: Pennsylvania 1984 (teen), California 1989 (senior in HS), Oregon 1992 (college), Washington 2004 (adult).

Yeah. Maybe. If the idea still calls to me next year, I might chase it down. We’ll see.

Words cannot express how excited am that Augment magazine is a real thing! Augment, Spring 2083 done. You can pre-order it now and pre-orders are love. I’m so proud of this magazine. As the managing editor of it, I know how hard everyone has worked on it.

You don’t need to know a thing about Shadowrun to enjoy it. But, if you are a Shadowrun player, this is a prop, supplement, and fun reading all in one. It will be released on 14 Feb in ebook and physical POD as a digest magazine.

Augment your life with Augment magazine! 

Augment is Shadowrun’s official magazine. This is a fully in-universe publication, and can be used in Shadowrun games as well as enjoyed by the casual reader.

Augment, Spring 2083. Magic is in the air and within the pages of this issue. Learn words of wisdom in an exclusive one-on-one interview with VIP CEO Michael Bishop. Listen to DJ Smash and Will-o-Wisp as they share their insight into the combination of magic, machine, and music. Discover how runestorms are endangering the Caribbean. Enjoy reviews of new products, clothing, tech, and so much more!

—

Real world column authors include: Marie Bilodeau, Aaron Rosenberg, Bryan CP Steele, Brandon O’Brien, Bryan Young, Michael A. Stackpole, RJ Thomas, and Jennifer Brozek. SINless Secrets by Dylan Birtolo, Jason M Hardy, Jaym Gates, Bryan CP Steele, and Crystal Frasier.

Cover art by Ron Sanders.

Interior art by Jeff Porter, Bruno Balixa, Marco Pennacchietti, Jose-Luis Segura, Mia Steingräber, Andrew Lowry, Lukasz Matuszek, Brenton Smith, Lara Baron Ortega, Elizabeth Galindorf, and Kat Hardy.

Loren L. Coleman, Publisher; John Helfers, Executive Editor; Jennifer Brozek, Managing Editor; Art Direction, Kat Hardy; David A. Kerber, Layout and Graphic Design

(I am so very busy. I’m sorry. This is all I had time to do. At least they are pretty images and informative, too!)

Here’s the numbers. We all love numbers so much.

• Books published: 2, Shadowrun: Auditions and Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run
• Anthologies published: 3, 99 Fleeting Fantasies, Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem (co-edited with John Helfers), and Shadowrun: Through the Decades (co-edited with John Helfers)
• Short stories published: 4, “Eye of the Beholder” (co-written with Raven Oak), “Hella AFK”, “A Tale for Munchausen’s Merriment”, and “Dueling Minstrels” (co-written with Marie Bilodeau)

• New words written: 105,830
• Words edited: 441,00+

• Awards nominated for: 2 (both Scribe awards)
• Awards won: 1 (Won the Scribe award for Shadowrun: Auditions)

• Stories submitted: 12
• Stories sold: 6 (50%)
• Stories rejected: 4 (33%)
• Stories outstanding: 2 (17%)

Thoughts about the numbers:

• I’m pleased with the number of things that were published. It’s nice to have new novels and stories out in the wild.
• You’ll note that I did a LOT more editing this year. Gotta pay the bills. The Husband has retired from tech.
• The Scribe award nominations and win were very nice. I appreciate being acknowledged by my peers.
• As for the stories submitted and sold/rejected…I really am on target with that one. My acceptance rate hovers around 50%. This year I made my 100+ short story sale. That was cool.

I don’t really have a lot to say about the metrics for this year. I’m fine with them. They’re respectable for a full time publishing professional. With the Shadowrun magazine coming out next year and being an editor-at-large for CGL, my editing numbers will not be going down. That does cut into the writing schedule. But I’ve got my plans for next year—which I will talk about in the next blog. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of my cats.

I hope you have had a very good holiday season!

If I have done this correctly, this blog post will go live on Monday, December 9th. It’s my birthday and the Husband has whisked me away for a day trip to Leavenworth!

Event: It’s my birthday! I like to celebrate all week. Buy yourself or a friend one of my books and leave me a review. If you’ve got all of them and would rather get me something else, I have a ko-fi account, an amazon wishlist, and a kindle wishlist.

Event: I will be reading at A Midwinter Haunting! 8pm at the Kirkland Arts Center. Readings from HWA Seattle Chapter members. Free event. I will be reading a spooky holiday story. On a mid-winter’s night, everyone is hungry.

Interview: With Epic Realms. I enjoyed the heck out of this interview. YouTube link.

Release: My 25th edited anthology is live! Shadowrun: Through the Decades celebrates 35 years of Shadowrun through 7 novelettes and novellas from new authors and old favorites!

Release: Valdemar short story, co-written with the fabulous Marie Bilodeau in the Feuds: All-New Tales of Valdemar anthology. “Dueling Minstrels” – a story of two small town minstrels and their battle of wits exploding beyond verbal showmanship…

Writing Contest: Worldcon Seattle Writing Contest 2025 – Submissions open Jan 5-20 (do not send anything in before this time).

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem, co-edited with John Helfers, is my 24th edited anthology. The pre-order link for the anthology is live. (Released on 20 Sep 2024.) This anthology is also my first official edited thing as an Editor-at-Large for Catalyst Game Labs. What a beautiful cover and just look at that Table of Contents!

Introduction by John Helfers
“An Apple a Day” by Bryan CP Steele
“Beer and Waffles” by R. L. King
“Licensed to Die” by Bryan Young
“Night Shades” by Jason M. Hardy
“To Fix a Broken Heart” by Marie Bilodeau
“The Price of Art” by Andrew Peregrine
“A Tale for Munchausen’s Merriment” by Jennifer Brozek
“Life at 9000 RPM” by RJ Thomas
“Out of Dodge and Into the Fire” by Ken’ Horner
“A Casual Glance” by Dylan Birtolo
“Dog Days” by Aaron Rosenberg
“One Night in Bellevue” by Crystal Frasier
“Can’t Trust a Trickster” by Alina Pete
“The Wastelands Speak” by Jaym Gates
“Where the Heart Is” by Michael A. Stackpole
“Incidents, Accidents, and Consequences” by Russell Zimmerman

I will note that I am not usually in the ToC of an anthology I’ve edited but I wrote the story and got it accepted before John brought me on as an official co-editor.

Awards: This year, I have two Scribe Award nominations. The first is for short story: Valdemar – “Needs Must When Evil Bides.” The second is for Shadowrun: Auditions, the first novel in The Mosaic Run duology. I am particularly chuffed about the short story nom. It’s been a donkey’s age since that’s happened. Also, it’s always a thrill to be mentioned in Locus magazine.

GoFundMe: One Booth to Record Them All. Pretty Please. Tren is on tap to record the Shadowrun: Elfin Black audiobook. Help him get to it faster! (Also, help his sleep schedule and his health and to future proof his career.)

MailerLite: I have a new newsletter group that I will be transitioning to over the next few months. You can check it out directly from my new website (look at the top of this page). Get a free story when you sign up!

Publication: Raven Oak and I have a co-written story in the Gen Con anthology, Interdimensions. It is called “Eye of the Beholder.” I really like this story. It’s crime story with a hint of magical realism.

Publication: My fourth Shadowrun novel, Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run, has been released! While it is the sequel to Shadowrun: Auditions, it can be read as a standalone novel.

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

We’re down to the FINAL 24 hours of the Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 campaign, and what an incredible journey it has been! Thanks to your amazing support, we’ve reached $7200+ surpassing our initial goals and unlocking one stretch goal so far. I’m really happy we reached the coloring book goal.

Tomorrow, Thursday, April 25th from 11am – 12pm Eastern / 8am – 9am Pacific, I will be live on Twitch with Rem to celebrate and countdown to the final moments of my first Kickstarter campaign. Come join us at there: twitch.tv/masterofrem

Last Chance to Back Dear Penpal
With less than 24 hours left, now’s the perfect time to back Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 or increase your pledge. Don’t miss out on some of our unique rewards and the chance to be part of the Dear Penpal community.

I am grateful for each and every one of you who has backed, shared, and cheered us on throughout this campaign.