My name is Madeleine Holly-Rosing and I write the steampunk supernatural series, Boston Metaphysical Society. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s about an ex-Pinkerton detective, a spirit photographer, and a genius scientist who battle supernatural forces in late 1800s Boston.
The big news is that the first six issues, plus a bonus story, is now in trade paperback from Source Point Press! You can order it directly from them or through your local comic book store. (Order # #APR202042)
And here is my contribution to the fun! My award winning novel, Boston Metaphysical Society: A Storm of Secrets is 60% off over at Smashwords until APRIL 20.
It’s such a big world that I wrote three more graphic novels, a novel, an anthology, and more short stories. You can find my books here:
Boston Metaphysical Society: A Storm of Secrets- https://www.amazon.com/Boston-Metaphysical-Society-Storm-Secrets-ebook/dp/B07HCP9SW5/ OR at Smashwords (60%) off.
Good Morning! Happy Oestara!
My name is Stephen Palmer and I write various kinds of genre novels: steampunk, SF, fantasy, and what used to be called slipstream, by which most people mean unclassifiable… I’ve been professionally published since 1996, and have a reputation for following my muse. But I think that’s a good thing. My most recent work “Woodland Revolution” is about myth, death, landscape and revolution. A heady brew!
So, here in Steampunk’d Lancaster we’re enjoying the annual Aether Egg Hunt – a chance for authors to connect with their readers and give a little gift of thanks for all their support in the form of an Aether Egg, or Small Gift linked to the fictional world they have created. Here’s my contribution to the fun!
And connect to me on the internet here: https://stephenpalmersf.wordpress.com/
Wishing you a Springtime filled with Splendid Shenanigans! Do remember to keep an eye out this month and hunt down all the Aether Egg surprises that will be appearing each week until May!
Good Morning! Happy Chocolate Fest or whatever fabulous festival you happen to be celebrating at this time of the year!
My name is Karen J Carlisle and I write steampunk, Victorian mysteries, fantasy, and the occasional cosy mystery with a fantastical twist.
Here in Steampunk’d Lancaster we are enjoying the annual Aether Egg Hunt – a chance for authors to connect with their readers and give a little gift of thanks for all their support in the form of an Aether Egg or Small Gift linked to the fictional world they have created.
And here is my contribution to the fun! …
Need Quarantine Reads?
Even though we’re all stuck in isolation or quarantine, we can still have adventures, meet new friends and discover new worlds. It’s all there in books. This year, I’m sharing a few Aether eggs because, let’s face it, we all need a little pampering at the moment.
I’ve just finished a short story (actually a novelette) heralding the return of one of my most requested characters, Doctor Jack. You’ll be able to see what he’s up to later in the year… but why not introduce yourself to him now?
Aether egg #1: Download a free eBook copy of Doctor Jack (valid until 1st May, 2020) at Smashwords. Follow this link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/544203, and use the voucher code: WQ76W to get your preferred format copy.
I’m now working on the second book in the Aunt Enid Mysteries, A Fey Tale. This is a cosy fantasy mystery series (not steampunk).
This time, there’s a vague steampunk-ish connection: Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, meets the Protectors in this adventure. Current scheduled release is end of September, 2020. Aether egg #2: You can get the first book in the series, Aunt Enid: Protector Extraordinaire, for only 99c, until 1st May (Via Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/833068 Use the voucher code: NF83R)
Aether egg #3: When you sign up to my email list (https://karenjcarlisle.com/sign-up-email-list/ ) you get a free ebook copy of my short story collection, With a Twist of the Nib: A collection of ten speculative fiction short stories. Dwarves, vampires, time travel, detectives, steampunk adventures or supernatural events – take your pick. (and you get sneak peeks, info, video links and more, every month.)
I hope that keeps you pleasantly entertained for a while. Until next time, eat chocolate, drink tea, practice social distancing and stay safe.
You can find my books here:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/karenjcarlisle
For information on other places to buy my books (including paperbacks) and book related merchandise: http://www.karenjcarlisle.com/shop
Karen J Carlisle is a writer and illustrator of steampunk, Victorian mysteries and fantasy. She was short-listed in Australian Literature Review’s 2013 Murder/Mystery Short Story Competition. She is currently writing a cosy fantasy mystery set in Adelaide. Her short stories have featured in the 2016 Adelaide Fringe exhibition, ‘A Trail of Tales’, and the ‘Where’s Holmes’ and ‘Deadsteam’ anthologies.
Karen lives in Adelaide with her family and the ghost of her ancient Devon Rex cat.
She’s always loved dark chocolate and rarely refuses a cup of tea.
Aidan Headly never wanted to be the man giving orders. That’s fine with the Democratic State Force base he’s been assigned to command: they don’t like to take orders. Nicknamed the Wildcards, they used to be the most effective base against the seven Corporations owning the former United States in a war that has lasted over half a century. Now the Wildcards are known for creative insubordination, chaos, and commanders begging to be reassigned.
Aidan is their last chance. If he can pull off his assignment as Commander and yank his ragtag crew of dreamers and fighters together, maybe they can get back to doing what they came to do: fighting for a country worth living in.
So, I’m usually more of a Steampunk / Gothic / Fantasy chic but when I DO go for Sci Fi, THIS is the kind I go for – the 1984 / Banksish / Kafka-esque Distopian kind where corporate and governmental control make the lives of those who don’t or won’t ‘fit the mould’ unbearable and misfits are pushed to an almost liminal existence.
Despite this grim backdrop, the story told here is pervaded by warmth, tenderness and passion thanks to the gorgeous characters, their backstories and relationships, emotions, hopes, fears and insecurities which make them each so unique and lovable I found myself swiftly invested in their future, not only the main character, Aidan, but also the secondary characters as well.
This is the tale of a lovable, awkward little band of rogues just perfect for anyone who likes serious Sci Fi with a credible MM love story at its heart. It’s also the start of this series so if , like me, you finish this book and are dying for more you won’t be disappointed.
Albert Manlii has walked this earth for more than two thousand years, but survival on his own was never easy. Now he leads a faction of highly organized vampires who carefully guard the secret of their existence. Unlike the old days, potential recruits are carefully selected and presented with an offer.
Phillip Brewer has weeks to live — if he lets his disease run its course. He doesn’t want to die, but given a choice, will his desire to live outweigh his concerns about the vampires’ ethics?
When the new recruit’s missteps are cause for concern, can Albert control the fallout, or will Phillip’s life once again be torn apart?
I have to confess I actually came to this book having read snippets from the next book in the series via the Rainbow Snippets facebook group and so I had already fallen in love with the character of Albert and seen flashes and hints of how their story plays out in the future.
I’m a sucker for vampire stories but can’t stand the ‘Twilight flavour’ so many now seem to carry, so I delighted in the fresh feel of this series and loved the combination of appealing characters and engaging plot.
I fell more in love with Philip than I thought I would – he is a beautiful character without being at all delicate or whiny or precious which I think is over-done in vampire novels.
Overall, I loved the characters and their world, especially Albert, and I would recommend the series to anyone looking for a modern vampire series with lovable characters and a fresh, unique feel.
Born in the abandoned subway shafts beneath First City, Trina measures life in the coin she steals from her wealthy father’s people living above. She gives little weight to her dying mother’s fairy tales about how her father will rescue Trina and her twin sister, taking them away from this planet. Yet the stars catch her attention every time she goes to the surface.
Trina is the protector, a role she created more from heroic tales in books her father gave them than anything in a shafter’s life. When she sees drunken aristocrats harassing laborers, she can’t turn away even though attacking them carries a death sentence. Her paternal grandfather discovers Trina before the enforcers can and offers everything she has ever desired—safety for her family and a way off Ceric.
Can she trust their family connection, or will the price of her dreams be more than Trina is willing to pay?
I fell in love with Margaret’s wonderful story weaving skills through her Steampunk series The Steamship Chronicles. This was my first encounter with her Sci-fi series and, as someone who tends to steer away from space-based Sci-fi and more towards Fantasy and Steampunk I was taken aback at how instantly I was drawn into this world.
Once I had pulled my head out again at the final page and re-orientated myself to reality, I realised that what had pulled me in and held me there so firmly was the characters – not just the focal two, but even those who only featured in one or two scenes were so intricately and lovingly portrayed I cared deeply about all of them at once.
I won’t mention the plot because it is marvellous and can’t be mentioned without spoiling the marvellousness but there is a lot to chew over in here – darkness and light, love and bitter hatred, intention and risk and an overall sense of ‘the human condition’ as being well intentioned but sadly often painfully fallible.
There is great love here in many forms – some of them dangerous – there is pain, yes, but at the end, thankfully, there is immense hope.
A Hangover From Hell is exactly what greets rock star Callum Carter on the final morning of an ‘On the Road’ trip along Route 66, taken with his partner, artist Daniel Flynn. Theirs is a story of fame, lust, laughter and all-consuming love. They met five years ago, when the infamous ‘enfant terrible’ was commissioned to paint Callum’s portrait and have been together ever since. The latter remains a closely kept secret…until the morning they wake up in Las Vegas. Married. Dan has no memory of this miracle taking place, only one thing seems certain; he has somehow managed to pull off his masterpiece of mischief, and inveigled Cal down the aisle.
Zakarrie Clarke has an ineffable knack for infusing her stories with the perfect balance of humour and heart – Even in the first chapter of this book her writing broke my soul with pain and had me almost on the floor with peels of wicked laughter.
That first glimpse at Dan and Cal’s relationship was but a siren’s song that swiftly pulled me so deep into their beautiful / painful / hilarious / fragile / exhilarating but ultimately feel-good world, I never wanted to surface again and so I was over the moon to find there was a sequel to dive into and more of the series planned as well for the future.
This is an utterly entertaining – raw at times – thoroughly heart-warming read, filled with passion and mischief and that kind of Bohemian love that risks all and rises, on broken wings, victorious (and perhaps with a wicked two-fingered salute to those who said it couldn’t survive)
Good morrow, and well met! Welcome to the Annual Lancastrian Frost Fair on the frozen River Lune.
My name is Stephen Palmer and I write alternate history novels with a heady steampunk flavour. Sit down if you will… You can see my novels displayed here for your perusal, please feel free to browse at your leisure.
My work ranges from Tommy Catkins in the Great War, back through the Edwardian era in the clockwork, steampunk Factory Girl trilogy and The Conscientious Objector, to the surreal Dodgson-esque Hairy London, which ranges from Victorian times to WW1…
Good Morning! Welcome to the Annual Lancastrian Frost Fair on the frozen River Lune!
My name is Zakarrie and my stories are a rollercoaster ride of lust, laughter and all-consuming love. Even at their most contemporary, i should p’raps tag them #quirky #mmromance and (more often than not) #ownvoices.
You can see my wares displayed here for your perusal, please feel free to browse at your leisure…
I hope you enjoy your time on the ice today, thank you so much for stopping by.
*
If you’d like to read a free, full length shapeshifter novel, I’ve been serialising my latest story on my blog:
The Beast of Bodmin Moor
Two years ago, Jake McCain met an irresistible stranger at the Glastonbury festival. A few days later his life, as he knew it, was over. Enter Jack. The ‘two’ of them have…cohabited ever since. Much to Jack’s dismay, Jake is relentless in his bid to be the most bloody minded human a jackal ever had the misfortune to manage.
Phin Finley has set off on a magical mystery campervan tour of south-west England. Having flown the family nest for the first time, he is determined to prove to his parents that he can manage just fine, despite being a bit too…Phinnish for most folk’s comfort, his mum’s peace of mind and dad’s constitution.
This is the story of his misadventures. Of finding your (happy) place in the world, making (foxy) friends and the fabled Beast of Bodmin Moor.
Happy Sunday folks! I don’t usually do a Sunday post but I was fortunate enough to be invited to do a guest post on Stephen Palmer’s blog on the subject of Rromani representation in fiction so I thought I’d share it at the weekend so that it doesn’t get trampled by Collin and his Frost Fair shenanigans! XD
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Max and Collin’s rambunctiously raucous and chi-chi to the core parlour located high above it all on board our beautiful rainbow-sailed ship, The Harlequin Ladybird.Our tentacles are all of a quiver this morning and our china cups are chattering because we are honoured to have Stephen Palmer joining us for elevenses this morning.
Do please have a seat, (Max, get off the chaise and let him sit down … hm? … no he can’t sit on your lap, just move aside.)
Would you like tea? Earl Grey? Lapsang? Assam? Darjeeling? ( We are all out of Oolong Max so don’t even think about making that joke again)
Definitely Darjeeling. Nothing else will do! But I’ll just cross my legs and place this pocket abacus on my lap so that Max is stymied…
That is very kind and unnecessarily accommodating of you Stephen, here is your tea. Now then, do tell us more about yourself and your latest books.
Well… it’s a long story. Many years ago I was taken off the slush pile by Orbit Books, which started my time as a published author. Since then my career has scaled some heights and descended into some depths, though recently it’s been on a bit of a high. At the end of 2016, my steampunk/alternate history trilogy Factory Girl(The Girl With Two Souls / The Girl With One Friend / The Girl With No Soul) was published, to a very positive reception. Earlier this year we decided to relaunch it with covers designed by famed steampunk illustrator Tom Brown (he of Hopeless, Maine), with a fourth, supplementary novel – not published with the original trilogy – also set for publication. This latter novel is set in 1914-15 and is called The Conscientious Objector.
Oh that does sound like an intriguing series! We very much admire Tom Brown’s artwork too and did you hear that Max? That last book sounds like just your cup of tea! ( Many people find Max objectionable, I’m sure you can see why.) What inspired you to write the series?
The entire plot, characters and structure of Factory Girl came to me one evening during a two hour blitz of ideas. That this happened means it was waiting in my subconscious ready to appear. The overarching theme is whether or not souls exist, an area explored via Victorian-style automata, though also through the life stories of the main characters. Of these, the main ones are: Kora Blackmore, an illegitimate mulatto (used here for historical accuracy) girl imprisoned in Bedlam Mental Hospital; Erasmus Darwin, grandson of Charles; Dr Spellman, an entirely mysterious benefactor; other members of the Darwin family; an enigmatic automaton who can speak and understand; and Sir Tantalus Blackmore, Kora’s father, the greatest industrialist of his age and owner of the Factory in Sheffield, where all the Empire’s automata are manufactured. The story takes place over all three novels during 1910-11.
I see, it sounds most enticing… er, no Max we do not need to hear about your experiences in Bedlam thankyou… nor why there is a young lady there who swears you have tentacles… I’m so sorry Stephen I’m afraid he has been at the sugar again this morning. Moving swiftly on, what would you say most influences your writing in general?
I’m known in the genre world for rarely reading fiction. Most of my influences are non-fiction. For instance, I recently read: Mama’s Last Hug (the emotions of animals), Novacene (James Lovelock’s new one, celebrating his 100th birthday), and The Hare With The Amber Eyes (an extraordinary memoir about netsuke).
How interesting! But if not any fiction then are there any authors who have particularly inspired you?
In my earlier days I was influenced by authors such as Jack Vance, Gwyneth Jones and Gene Wolfe. These days there aren’t many authors of fiction who inspire me, but in the steampunk world I much enjoyed the YA novel Cogheart.
Hm. Excellent. (No he does not want to hear your poetry Max, that is not in least bit inspiring, stop interrupting) Battenburg?
Do you have any parkin? I understand they make it in Leeds.
We certainly do have some Parkin – left over from a tea party with the Brown’s in fact! – although this was made in Lancaster. You know, writing is something I’ve always fancied turning my talents to – having so many tentacles I imagine I could be quite productive as an author. Tell me, what was your own road into fiction writing like?
It was an extraordinary stroke of luck. I had been sending sample chapters and the like to various London publishers, but without much by way of reply. Then, mere days before I moved house (never to return for reasons best not mentioned), I received a letter from Orbit asking me to send the full MS of a novel I’d sent them over a year before. I was surprised! So I sent it off, but then, because of various life-events getting in the way for me and for them, I didn’t hear anything for a while, during which time I wrote a third version. This version was eventually accepted, to be published in 1996 as my debut Memory Seed.
I see, what marvellous good fortune! And do you have any plans for new projects in the near future?
When I do writing events or author appearances I usually mention writer’s volcano – the opposite of writer’s block. So, yes, I have lots of projects on the go! This winter I’ll be writing the final volume of a steampunk trilogy set in an alternate Shrewsbury (my home town) and in London. Set in 1899 and 1900, it follows the fortunes of a couple of orphans.
Ah, we are well acquainted with a small army of orphans so can easily see how that subject could provide ample plot-fodder – in fact Max often wishes he was an orphan. So, where can we get our tentacles on your work?
My novels are available in all the usual places online, both as paperback or ebooks. Infinity Plus have most of the ebooks of my back catalogue.
Wooooah! Dear me I do apologise, the airship must have slipped and I seem to have landed in your lap I hope I haven’t covered you in octopus slime?
It’s no problem! I’m wearing Dr Avebury’s Secret Trouser Improver, from which liquids dissipate.
What a marvellous invention, perhaps we should invest in some ourselves. But Are you sure you’re alright? Can I perhaps tempt you with another cup of the hot stuff?
If it’s my usual poison, yes indeed… but I must away. A Nigerian automaton has just leaped from my blazer pocket and told me the time. Farewell!
Oh dear, Max I do believe your menacing threats of mostly awful poetry and ill-concealed amorous advances have scared off yet another of our guests. You really must learn to behave yourself ‘In Company.’
Thankyou, friends for joining us this morning on board our beautiful rainbow sailed ship The Harlequin Ladybird and until we see you again, please remain always
Good evening and welcome to my awe inspiring athenaeum of praiseworthy pamphlets – or as that ridiculous octopus calls it, my ‘lovely library.’
I am the ghost of Perilous Wight and here in the bowels of the city of Lancaster, in the disused tunnels of an underground train system that never was, I have made it my mission to collect, catalogue and review every book that our self-proclaimed ‘supreme ruler of the universe’ and his mincing minions have banned from the bookshelves of the new world.
But I have not always been a bad tempered ghost in charge of an underground library. Once upon a time I was a bad tempered gentleman who had devoted his life to the collection of evidence which might perhaps one day bring about the downfall of our oppressive overlord, Wiz.
Not to be put off by death, I have struggled to find a way to continue my work and I have indeed found a method by which I can sporadically leave this library, to which I am otherwise bound, and travel abroad.
This method is known as The Opprobrious Pith Helmet.
By securing the services of a less than reputable Wizard I have had my soul partially bound to an ancient piece of explorational headwear and am therefore able to possess the wearer for short periods of time, with their consent…hm? Did I have to drug them first? Well how very rude of you of course I did not have to drug them…I mean the very idea!
So, this evening I am most honoured to be occupying the form of authour Guy Donovan and I… no those are NOT blood stains on his shirt. It is red paint. I may have had a very minor altercation with a disgruntled barge woman who mistook my innocent enquiries about leather bound tomes for something else entirely, but I managed to set her straight in the end… after I’d clambered out of the canal and removed most of the pond weed.
Anyway I do not have time for an interrogation on the moral use of other people’s bodies, can you not see that I have just returned from a most important business trip? I have new books everywhere and I must review and catalogue them and… what’s that? What are you wittering about? Help? You’d like to help me transcribe? You’ve brought along some single malt to keep out the chills as we work?
Oh.
Well, I suppose that puts a very different slant on things doesn’t it? Very well then, I will dictate a short extract of each story and a review, and you can pour…I mean type… a-hem…
A WIZARD’S QUANDARY BY JAQ D HAWKINS
The story concerns the wizard Lesana, who is employed by her local king to keep him in potions that preserve his youth. She lives alone in her tower far from the capitol, unless of course you count the small, green dragon in her keeping that she found as a hatchling and named Khadri. No one but Lesana knows about Khadri, and they both intend to keep it that way. If the king found out about him…well, you can guess what would happen, right?
Then one day, a soldier comes from the capitol with orders to take Lesana to the king and teach him how to make her magic potions for himself. Naturally enough, Lesana isn’t very interested in doing anything of the sort, so she and Khadri abscond, with the soldier pursuing them into the mountains—the same mountains in which Lesana found Khadri. The mountains where the dragons live.
What I liked most about the story is the relationship between Lesana and Khadri. It’s very playful and touches on maternal without ever getting cloying. The below sample shows that very well, I think.
*****
Lesana peered carefully into the crucible, closely observing the swirling, black mass within.
“If that pops, you could lose an eye.” Khadri, Lesana’s miniature green dragon companion, hopped onto Lesana’s shoulder, causing her to brace herself against the weight of an animal the size of a full-grown wolverine. He glanced at the churning elixir.
Lesana pulled her head back a little, but continued frowning at the crucible.
“Your eyes see more colours than mine,” she stated aloud. “Can you see any hint of vermilion?”
Khadri danced around on his shoulder perch, pretending not to notice when Lesana steeled herself against the new claw punctures in her partially healed, damaged skin.
“I see the red glowing crystals forming rapidly, as always. You’ve never failed in your efforts to make the Philosopher’s Stone to my knowledge.”
Lesana smirked.
“You should have seen my early efforts, when you were just a hatchling,” she replied. “It’s more by luck than judgement that I never blew up the entire tower.”
“It’s a dangerous business,” Khadri acknowledged. “I don’t see why the king doesn’t just send you to Egypt to retrieve the cinnabar from mummy wrappings.”
Lesana guffawed, pushing herself away from the table where the crucible continued to send sulphuric vapour into the close space of the uppermost tower room where she kept her laboratory, just in case. Fire and explosions tended to travel upwards.
“I can just see the Egyptian Department of Antiquities allowing a foreign wizard to help herself to the preservatives in their precious national tourist industry. Last I heard they didn’t even know the nature of the red ochre. I’d rather not be the one to explain that they’ve had the key to immortality within their relics all this time.”
She wandered to the arched window that looked out over the dead forest to the north. The elevation provided by the fifth level tower room allowed Lesana to see the Crystal Mountains in the distance. A wistful note entered her voice.
“Besides, if I ever leave the king’s employ and travel somewhere, I’d like to go back to the Crystal Mountains.”
“Where you found me?” Khadri gasped. “The dragons would eat you!”
“Perhaps,” Lesana admitted. “But they didn’t before. I felt something while I was there. Something…magical.”
*****
Being a writer of dragon tales myself, (I grew up reading Anne McCaffrey’s fantastic Pern series and the influence shows) I think it’s very important that they be treated as characters in their own right, rather than simply bestial antagonists. Now that’s not to say that dragons can’t be the bad guy! I just think that they’re better storywise when they are presented as more than mere powerful animals. Besides, being that us humans are so good at being bad, I prefer stories where the dragons are more noble. Jaq D. Hawkins did that very well.
And I think we had better leave it there for this evening don’t you? The bottle is dry and I must be getting this body back to its rightful owner… hm? What’s that you say? You don’t think I should give it back in this state? Well we’ve only had a few haven’t we? It is hardly my fault if Guy can’t hold his liquor… hic…
MANY THANKS TO AUTHOUR GUY DONOVAN FOR BEING A FABULOUS SPORT AND SHARING HIS REVIEW IN PERIL’S LOVELY LIBRARY! YOU CAN FIND GUY HERE
A small, self-published poetry book written by Nimue Brown, with cover by Tom and Nimue Brown, printed by Stroud Print.
Poetry exploring landscape and the relationships between humans and place, inspired by life along the Cotswold Edge and the Severn Vale.
Human bodies are much like landscapes.
We have our contours and crevices,
Signs of weathering, history written
Into soil and skin alike.
Some of us are flat land formations
Others are complex, curving hillscapes
Verdant forested or marble smooth.
Clay and bone and watercourse.
The places we are inhabiting
Inhabit us in turn, as we move
These bodies through localities, as the
Shape of them shapes or motions.
To compensate for my lack of time to do long reviews just now, I’m using the #indiethursday hashtag to share the indie love and point at some fabulous indie books I’ve enjoyed reading 😀
So, what fab indie fiction are you reading / writing this month? Blessings on your brew and best of luck with all your indie endeavours, lets keep flying the flag for indie writing!
Happy MythpunkMonday! A while back in September, we looked at the mythology and folklore of trees and I shared an extract of some of my tree-based mythpunk Opre! I promised then that I would spend another post looking at working trees into our Mythpunk, so here we go…
As comfortably as trees sit within the heart of many world Mythologies, they don’t lend their image so readily to the realm of punk, at least not at first glance.
We tend to associate trees with the countryside, with high fantasy or historical settings, they might be used in writing to create the feel of tranquillity or terror but we seldom see trees being used to create a gritty urban backdrop for a dystopian situation, or being the catalyst for a postmodernist plot. Fictional trees that speak, tend to speak like old men and women, or very occasionally naive young girls. I would like very much to see a Mohawk sporting, forty-something, jaded Willow Tree hurling cans at litter louts in a psuedo-park in central New London…
That’s an extreme and slightly comical example of course, but I think it’s a good hammer with which to smash our preconceptions about trees in mythic fiction. Trees are, to my mind, too often portrayed as benign life givers, old fonts of wisdom and healing, sources of magic, resources to be used and abused. But they have other faces too ; they can poison, choke, harm, barb, wound, unbalance, tear down and destroy … I mentioned Tolkien’s Ents in the last post in relation to anthropomorphism, but I do very much like their verve!
Our historic abuse of trees and their land surely has enough fodder in it for gritty, feral, subversive voices to rise up from the asphalt and the concrete, the timber frames, furnace and cellulose packaging and bite back so, here is a little list of tree-mendous (had to be done) tree-punk to give us some inspiration, click on each title to follow the links and feel free to share your own ideas, examples and gawd-awful tree puns in the comments! XD
I very much like the trees described in Blades In The Dark ; Jayan Park in the Charterhall district is full of beautiful alchemical abominations in a sunless world, deadly to touch and utterly useless for supporting life, but still revered.
“The great alchemist for whom this park is named contrived to formulate soil and seeds that could produce real, growing trees, without sunlight or radiant energy. They are horrifically toxic to all living things and must not be touched but they still grow beautifully here, over 100 years later.” – Blades In The Dark P262.
In a world not so different from our own, a vigilante group of techies have shut down all the computer systems on the planet in an attempt to put an end to the war and destruction orchestrated by technology. But where there’s a will, there will always be a way and a new ‘cellulose tech’ has now been developed. But using living plant cells in communications technology leads to some disturbingly sentient systems… and then the people begin to vanish…
A POISON TREE
This poem by William Blake is, of course, not actually about a tree but I find the imagery and metaphor strongly evokes a punk sense of proactive subversion; the vengeful gardener, the poisoned fruit / the bright lure to death – in many ways the song of technology to the heart of human kind; the two fingered punk salute at the end…
Here’s a suckerpunch one for you, this one got me right in the windpipe when I saw it so I’m only going to post the link in the title and you can follow it to the picture. It’s inspiring my WIP at the moment!
This broke my heart, appalled and held me enthralled with grim fascination when I first saw it a few years back. The video gives one side of the coin, click the title link for the other…
And just as a fun note to end on – Yes they do exist!
I hope you enjoyed this #MythpunkMonday post, do feel free to join in and share your own work or that of others, using the hashtag and post your own thoughts and tree-punk wisdom in the comments 🙂
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this special “how to” edition of your favorite blog for all things steampunk! Gather ‘round the virtual fire — particularly those of you who’ve penned your masterpieces but have no idea what to do next — because today we’ll be talking about how to self-publish and sell your very own spectacular steampunk book on Amazon.
The gargantuan online retailer maintains a variety of reputations, from cutthroat marketplace and notorious Borders’ assassin, to a veritable land of milk and honey (if you know the right tricks). And though we as a self-respecting literary faction might want to turn our backs on Amazon, the fact is that it’s one of the easiest platforms for self-publishing authors to use, offering a simple upload process through its Kindle Direct Publishing unit and a range of exciting promotional options for authors.
On top of that, you simply can’t beat the consumer reach: Amazon controls roughly 80% of the ebook market in the US and UK, and significant portions in every other book-buying country too. Everyone knows Amazon, and most people use it, even if we may also shake our fists at the sky and scream “Damn you, Bezos!” whenever we hear about the latest Amazon travesty. Cognitive dissonance, economic convenience, willful ignorance — call it what you want, but Amazon’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
I mentioned “knowing the right tricks” in order to find success on Amazon, and it’s absolutely true that you can’t just waltz into the marketplace (metaphorically) and expect to make millions. Indeed, self-publishing a book is far from a glamorous business; you get more creative freedom and royalties than you would if you published traditionally, but you also have to put in about ten times the work. That said, if you’re courageous enough to put your book out into the world and you’re determined for it to succeed, you’re probably not the type to be dissuaded by hard work.
So with my slightly diatribical intro out of the way, let’s dive into the reason why all of us are here: presenting my most practical tips for self-publishing your book on Amazon and becoming the steampunk sensation you’ve always dreamed of being!
1. Build a devoted following
The most critical move toward successfully self-publishing almost anykind of book on Amazon is, unfortunately, the hardest. This is because it’s not about the publishing process itself, but what you do in the weeks, months, or even years leading up to your book launch: steadily building your following.
Imagine that each of your readers is a feral cat you are trying to tame; if you try to put a collar on it right away, it’ll claw and hiss at you. But if you leave some food out, coo at it, provide it a warm bed and maybe even a few toys, the cat will grow to trust you. By the time you go to slip a collar over its head, it won’t even notice — in fact, it’ll probably purr at the offer, happy to oblige. (This may be a little optimistic for a cat, but I digress.)
Basically, if you try to promote something to a new follower right away, they’ll unfollow you quicker than you can say elevenses. But if you ply them with interesting material, like interviews and reviews of other steampunk authors, they’ll stick around. You might get them to subscribe to a newsletter where you share your personal thoughts on the tropes and trends of the steampunk genre… and which you can eventually segue into talking about your own self-published book.
Alternatively, if you don’t have a steampunk blog or newsletter but you are active in relevant social media circles, try to capitalize on that! Engage in dialogue surrounding new releases and quintessential classics, squeal over fashion and fanart, and share cool and interesting images with your followers (I’ll talk more about this next). Maintain a friendly yet authoritative persona — this is helpful for any author, but especially in a niche like steampunk, where knowledge runs deep even among casual fans.
The point of all this is for other people to enjoy what you have to offer, trust that your content is high-quality, and believe that you are a talented person worthy of their support in the future. This method is known as “give, give, give, take,” and it’s highly effective in tight-knit communities like those of steampunk, where reputation is everything.
Speaking of ways to cultivate a strong reputation…
2. Create striking visuals
Steampunk has a very distinct aesthetic in both the literary genre and subculture as a whole. Even someone who knows very little about it can still hear the word and immediately envision clockwork and corsets. Of course, there’s often a difference between what people think of as “steampunk” and actual steampunk, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of popular perception to promote your book with some amazing art!
By far the most important aspect of this is your book cover design. In the publishing world, we like to joke about how “don’t judge a book by its cover” is totally backwards advice for authors; while it works as a philosophical adage, it’s simply untrue when it comes to actualbooks. Readers will inevitably judge a book by its cover, and decide whether to “look inside” or even buy based on the quality of the design. Which, to be fair, is sort of logical — if the author didn’t bother making an effort with the cover, why would the inner contents be any better?
This doesn’t mean you need to go to art school just to sell your book. However, you should put some serious thought and probably money toward your cover design, whether that means commissioning a friend or hiring a professional. As you’ll learn throughout this process, this is just one of many times when it’s helpful to have a community — you can ask other steampunk authors what level of quality they’ve gone for with their covers, as well as how they managed to afford it and/or if there’s a particular designer they’d recommend.
Don’t forget to look at other bestselling steampunk books on Amazon, too! Again, there’s a distinct dark-and-metallic aesthetic that universally indicates steampunk. But trends can change, and you want to ensure your book cover is clearly associated with this particular genre, both for your personal promotional purposes and on Amazon itself.
Finally, when it comes to visuals, don’t stop with your cover. If you have the budget for it (or some artistically inclined friends to help you out), you should absolutely get a few additional illustrations for your book. Steampunk is one of the most inventive genres out there, and while there’s something to be said for allowing your readers’ imaginations to run wild, it can also be incredibly powerful to provide some visual aids.
What’s more, you can tease these images alongside text previews from your book in order to give your followers a taste of what’s to come. Remember: give, give, give as much as you can before you take. Even something fairly simple (like, say, a tongue-in-cheek “wanted” poster) can make really fun bonus material for your fans.
3. Test out KDP Select
Now we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of self-publishing on Amazon. For those who don’t know, all self-publishing authors on the platform use Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP, to upload and publish their books.
However, within that all-encompassing process, you also have the option to enroll in KDP Select — a program that allows you to run various price promotions through Amazon, put your book on Kindle Unlimited, and earn higher royalties in certain territories. It’s free to enroll, but it requires 90 days of Amazon ebook exclusivity, meaning you cannot go through any other digital distributors for the first three months of your book’s release.
The best thing about KDP Select is how easy it is to use. You can start promotions (either free or discounted) with the touch of a button, and then simply direct your fans to your Amazon page. Plus your book will automatically be discoverable on Kindle Unlimited, where subscribers will read it and you’ll get a payout based on how many pages they get through.
The worst thing about KDP Select is, obviously, the fact that your book is restricted to Amazon — despite its far-reaching dominion, it can be unnerving to feel like you’re putting all your eggs in one basket. And if you live in one of those countries where Amazon isn’t quiteso totalitarian, you may even be missing out on significant distribution and marketing opportunities. While you will be able to digitally distribute to other places once the 90-day enrollment period is over, you’ll be staking most of your early-launch momentum on Amazon alone.
I can’t tell you outright whether KDP Select is the right choice for you. However, I can tell you which factors to consider: How much help do you want with implementing promotions? Do you have followers who are willing to pay for your book at full price, or will they need a promotion to entice them? How important is wide distribution to you personally? Are you writing a steampunk series? (Series tend to do well on Kindle Unlimited.)
The one aspect of KDP Select that probably appeals to almost all steampunk authors is that there aren’t too many steampunk books currently on Kindle Unlimited. Not only is this a unique selling point for your marketing, but the steampunk-starved SFF readers who subscribe to KU will rush to your book like flies to honey. Of course, there’s no way of knowing how many people will end up read ingyour book through KU, but at least it’s free to get into their library.
4. Experiment with more promotions
Whether or not you decide to enroll in KDP Select and run an Amazon-sanctioned price promotion, there’s still plenty more you can do to externally promote your self-published steampunk book! There are oodles of book review blogs and promotion services that you can explore, not to mention advertising on your own blog and social media — though with relative restraint, since you still don’t want to scare your followers away (remember the cat lesson).
One hot tip for steampunk authors is to aim for quality, not quantity, when reaching out to potential reviewers and third-party promoters. By that I mean: don’t click on those directories and then send a canned email to every single contact on the list! Take the time to comb through your options and select 3-5 reviewers who you think could really help out your book, then write a personalized inquiry to each of them. Off the top of my head, I’d recommend The Kindle Book Review and BookDoggy for first-time authors. And of course, you can always ask for a review or interview from a steampunk-specific blog like this one.
You can do so much more with your own personal connections, too: ask a popular mutual follower about a cross-promotion, encourage your newsletter subscribers to leave a review, and maybe even offer a larger giveaway to increase engagement. The prize doesn’t have to be your book; the giveaway could be for anything steampunk-related, and indeed your followers might be more excited by the prospect of a cool clothing item or small piece of furniture than a book.
Whatever path you take, I certainly hope you’re in a better position to succeed than you were about 2,000 words ago. Steampunk is such a singular genre with an incredible community behind it, and every author’s voice matters — so get out there and make yours heard.
Many thanks from all of us at Blake and Wight to Desiree for this fabulous guest post this morning! Here’s a little more about the author…
“Hello folks! My name is Desiree Villena and I’m a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace and resource hub for self-publishing authors. In the course of my work, I’ve become incredibly passionate about independent publishing and I hope to help as many aspiring writers as possible reach their dreams! I’ve also become a fan of steampunk over the past few months, which is what inspired me to write this particular post. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!”
Today I’m going to talk about trees! I find few things more inspiring than walking through a forest where the trees seem anthropomorphic. Coming from a spiritual tradition which taught me from the earliest age that all trees were living sentient beings with their own spirits and personalities, I find it interesting that people seem to be drawn more to commune with trees like oak and hawthorn who twist their trunks more readily into gnarled semblance of faces or limbs than, say, the linden, ash or birch who mostly grow straight up to the sky. Of course there are stories of slender-limbed, silver-skinned birch dryads; pretty young maidens dancing lithe and beautiful in wooded glades, but why do we only seem drawn to trees if we can view them as being in some way like ourselves? Even Tolkein’s Ents had a human-likeness about them…
The phenomenon of Pareidolia may be in some way to blame here – the inherent nature of the brain to seek familiar patterns (particularly those of faces) in dissociated stimuli ; fire, clouds, tree bark, wall paper, rock surfaces, waves … it is a natural survival mechanism developed even before we are born to help us seek out our care givers, our kin and our kind.
But even as we grow older and are able to reason beyond our instinctive drives, wondering and questioning whether a tree spirit would or could or should look anything like us in order to be taken seriously and communed with… I know I am sometimes still guilty of being drawn to those tress who do.
Having said that, the tree spirit I have had the deepest relationship ever was a beautiful, strong, generous and resilient beech tree with little to no anthropomorphic qualities whatever – so perhaps there is a lesson for me eh?!
On the other hand, perhaps it depends on your tradition. Mine, as I say, teaches that trees are beings in their own right and unrelated to humans, although communion can and should be sought with them, but perhaps other pathways view things differently? Perhaps trees twist themselves into human like faces in order to try and communicate with us? Who knows? I’d be interested to hear other thoughts on this if you have them 🙂
What we do know and can say for certain is that we have worked trees into the heart of our mythologies and spiritual traditions since we first began imagining the beginning of ourselves and our world. Without trees we wouldn’t have the planet as we know it and we seem to have been aware of this long before it was scientifically proven.
Many religions incorporate the idea of a World Tree, stretching its branches into the heavens and its roots down into the underworld, for example égig érő fa in Hungarian Mythos, the Norse Yggdrasil, Ağaç Ana in Turkish Mythology, The Slavic oaks which even today form the Zapis tree-temples, the Hindu Ashvattha and the Chinese Jianmu.
Leaving aside the great and the grand of world religions and moving in to a more local level, trees have always played an important part in folklore too. Cloutie trees (as we call them here) can be found all over Europe ; trees where folk can leave a small offering in exchange for the tree’s protection, blessing, healing or as a sign of thanks or respect.
My family made a great thing of visiting one of these shrines and leaving a rag of clothing and the story went that an old man was resting one day in his cloak when a poor child came by with none. The man took of his cloak – his last scrap of clothing – and gave it to the child. The tree saw the kindness of the man and sheltered him from the elements that night so no harm came to him. Then in thanks the man returned next year and tied a piece of his cloak to the tree and now all folk thanks the tree for it’s kindness, but anyone who robs the tree will be cursed! I remember my little sister being too scared to go into the shrine in case she touched a rag and it fell!
Another tradition is to hammer pennies into the trunks of trees in exchange for wishes. This tradition has always rather angered and confused me as it must harm the tree, but a few years back, while visiting a fairy tree near Scar Fell, I was happy to learn the roots of one such tradition – it started some time around the 17th century during times of great famine when there wasn’t enough work and many poor people were going hungry. Rich people in the area were encouraged to hammer coins into felled tree logs and wish for better times to come, then after dark (to spare their pride) the poor were encouraged to come and take the coins. The rich either believed or (more likely) played along with the notion that the fairies and taken their offering and were granting their wish and so things began to slowly improve. Of course it wasn’t a solution to the problem but it is still a nice story about communities working together to help one another.
We’ve talked a lot of myth today, soon I’m going to have a good look at how we incorporate tree Mythos into Mythpunk, because at first glance it’s not an easy fit. But for now, I’ll leave you with a little extract from my own tree-punk endeavours…
This extract is from Opre! which means Arise! It was written for Romani Family History Month and the Opre Roma! movement and it draws parody between the Romani people, (caught and enslaved both literally throughout history as in our enslavement in Eastern Europe and almost complete annihilation during Baro Porajmos (in some cases still today such as Italy ) and metaphorically today where many of us are still unable to live full lives with basic human rights simply because of who we are) and the trees which our ancestors, and still many of us today, revere in a spiritual way (caught and butchered and poisoned and ‘put to use’ by humanity)
But there is a hopeful beauty here too – the roots which push up the paving stones, the seeds which find root in the cracks between tarmac, the branches and leaves which coil over boundaries and fences… so our people have not been destroyed because we shoulder what the world throws at us and we carry on, we find a way to survive, and one day I believe we will arise, not to conquer or steal or enslave others but just to stand on equal ground as all people should…
OPRE
Our splintered marrow guards your precious ground
Not bought in blood, but taken in the twilight
When ‘taking’ was a thing we did not understand
Now sentinels bound, subservient you think we stand
Down inside those ringlets blacked by damp
Not the wind—kin to your own cur breath—
But the jewels it carries, diamonds, our inheritance,
Or in my Mythpunk collection Mahrime: Mythpunk For Monsters
Thanks for joining me for another #MythpunkMonday! Feel free to leave me your own thoughts on trees, mythology and mythpunk in the comments and to join in and share your own Mythpunk, or someone else’s that you’ve enjoyed, using the hashtag or in the comments below 🙂
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Max and Collin’s rambunctiously raucous and chi-chi to the core parlour located high above it all on board our beautiful rainbow-sailed sky ship, The Harlequin Ladybird.
Our tentacles are all of a quiver this morning and our china cups are chattering because we are still taking part in the Dreamtime Damsels blog tour and we are honoured to have another of its contributors, Benjamin Towe, joining us for elevenses this morning!
Do please have a seat, Benjamin (Max, get off the chaise and let him sit down … hm? … no the floor does not do wonders for peoples posture, just move aside.)
Would you like tea? Earl Grey? Lapsang? Assam? Darjeeling? Oolong? (Max don’t be rude)
I brought my own. It’s Enhancing Root tea. The Teacher of the Drelves harvested the tubers in Green Vale during the Dark Period on Parallan, the World of the Three Suns. The circle of Thirttene Friends oversees affairs in the vale, one of the rare green places on Parallan. It’s quite good. Drelves use the tubers in many recipes. The most promising of each generation accompanies the Teacher on the annual quest to harvest the root tubers.
My goodness, how exotic! Do let us all try some! Now then , won’t you please tell us more about your contribution to this Dreamtime Damsels anthology we keep hearing about – the aether is buzzing with the hype but we still haven’t managed to cajole any of our associates into slipping us an illicit copy – sigh – what is the point of rubbing tentacles with the likes of smugglers and pirates if we cannot persuade them to part with their contraband fiction?
Lyana Rikmon, warrior of Donothor. Lyana is a character from my first trilogy, the Donothor series. She is sheriff of the hamlet Knottington and a loyal subject of the Kingdom of Donothor. I’ve written 12 novels, but I’m new to the short story. Damsels has been a learning experience for me. Lyana’s story was written in collaboration with Nils Visser. I’m very excited about it!
Oh did you hear that Max? I love the sound of those place names and we’re all big fans of Nils Visser’s books too. What inspired you to write it?
In 1982, I was Dungeon Master and created campaigns for a group of friends, who challenged me to put the campaign to prose. The result was my first novel Deathquest to Parallan. It was written as part one of a trilogy in 1982. I published it in 2005, after my children scanned the old manuscript to a data disc and presented me my first laptop. I rewrote the story. In the first version I killed almost everyone off. I beat George RR Martin to the punch. The rewrite was kinder and gentler. I then completed the second novel, the Orb of Chalar, and then the conclusion of the trilogy, Death of Magick. Lyana Rikmon is introduced in Death of Magick. The Chalice of Mystery followed, then a prequel Dawn of Magick. Since then I’ve written “prequels.” My Elfdreams series includes Lost Spellweaver, First Wandmaker, Wandmaker’s Burden, Emerald Islands, and Mender’s Tomb. Thirttene Friends is a prequel to both the Donothor and Elfdreams series. My most recent, Unwonted Spellweavers bridges the series. I’m currently working on a sequel to Orb of Chalar.
Marvellous! We are all avid players of D&D (although Penny did manage to fracture her hand a few weeks ago at the gaming table which has been the cause of much amusement) and we will certainly hunt out your series to add to our library! Now, what would you say most influences your writing in general?
My years as Dungeons and Dragons player and Dungeon Master. I enjoy creating worlds and filling them up with characters. I love all things Magick.
Ah, alas Magick is banned here in our world but we are fighting the revolution to try and win back our right to wield balls of fire in public. Any authours who have particularly inspired you? (Max put your poetry book away, no one wants to hear that drivel)
Certainly JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Piers Anthony, Damsels has given me the privilege of collaborating with one of my favourite authors, Nils Visser. I’ve become nigh a permanent resident of the Wyrde Woods. I’ve enjoyed Guy Donovan’s masterful Dragon Treasure series and WC Quick’s quirky elves.
Oh you’ve definately listed some of our favourites there as well (No he really doesn’t want to hear your poetry Max, stop interrupting) Battenburg?
I prefer “octameter” to iambic pentameter.
As do I! How nice to find someone who shares an appreciation for all things octical! But moving on from poetry (for sanity’s sake), you know, writing is something I’ve always fancied turning my talents to – having so many tentacles I imagine I could be quite productive as an authour. Tell me, what was your own road into fiction writing like?
As I mentioned, I wrote my first novel in 1982 and published it in 2005. Writing has been a great escape for me. I encourage young people to read and write… and persist.
Oh well you must meet some of Mrs Baker’s Lancastrian orphans then! Peril does his best to teach them to read and write and they are certainly persistent in many of their other occupations (although I recommend you hold onto your pocket watch if you do venture down there.) And do you have any plans for new projects in the near future?
I’m currently working on a story that will again bridge my brace of fantasy series. It expands on events in Orb of Chalar and will ultimately be a sequel to Death of Magick. It features a powerful red-haired elf named Ravenna, the daughter of a sorceress and assassin. Her father Tigarn Nocerre commissioned the Arch-Lich Achymm to create the cursed sword, the Death of Magick.
Marvellous! So, where and when can we get our tentacles on a copy?
I hope to have it finished by end of year.
And what about your other work, where can we find more of that?
My 12 fantasy novels are available at Amazon, Authorhouse, Barnes and Noble, and some at Kobo and Apple Books. I have signed copies available. My Facebook page is Benjamin Towe books. Benjamintowe.com has excedpts from my stories. I’m on Twitter @bftowe
Marvellous I…. Wooooah! Dear me I do apologise, the airship must have slipped and I seem to have landed in your lap I hope I haven’t covered you in octopus slime?
In Wandmaker’s Burden, the residents of Vydaelia battle a triskaidekapod. 13 tentacles and legs and a nasty disposition. Being hugged by eight arms isn’t so bad.
Well how very kind of you to say so, most people get a little skittish at octopoidal contact, it’s a terrible prejudice and makes for a very lonely life…. Hm, what’s that? Time you were going? Are you sure, why it feels as though you just got here!
My Dreamraiders have the power of Translocation, which enables them to traverse space and time. A bit of Whovian influence I suppose. Escape to an Elfdream…
Oh dear, Max I do believe your threats to commit poetical atrocities and your lack of appreciation for a man’s personal space have scared off yet another of our guests. We are doomed never to get our tentacles on a copy of this Dreamtime Damsels Anthology and it is all your fault. Besides which you have eaten all the french fancies again.
Thankyou, friends for joining us this morning on board our beautiful rainbow sailed sky ship The Harlequin Ladybird, you will find all the blog posts so far on the Dreamtime Damsels blog tour listed below and until we see you again, please remain always
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Max and Collin’s rambunctiously raucous and chi-chi to the core parlour located high above it all on board our beautiful rainbow-sailed ship, The Harlequin Ladybird. Yes that’s right we have escaped our dank cellar and our evil landlord (if you want to know how you will have to read our #RainbowSnippets posts on Saturdays and all will be revealed). So we are now heading the revolution in Ire from the skies – which turns out to be much safer and more fun than heading it from the ground! But never fear, we still have time to stop for elevenses!
Our tentacles are all of a quiver this morning and our china cups are chattering because we are still taking part in the #DreamtimeDamselsAnthology blog tour and are honoured to have A. M. Young joining us for elevenses today!
Do please have a seat, (Max, get off the chaise and let her sit down … hm? … no she can’t sit on the cats, cats are not cushions, Max, just move aside.)
Sorry about that, would you like tea? Earl Grey? Lapsang? Assam? Darjeeling? Oolong? (Max don’t be rude)
I’m really more of a coffee person myself, but anything dark and strong will do.
Coffee? I’m afraid we have had enough fiasco here with that wretched stuff to last a lifetime, I simply will not have it on board anymore! But if it’s something dark and strong you’re after, well, us octopuses are well known for our muscular physiques, as you can see, and my complexion is certainly on the shadier side of… oh, I see Max has poured you a strong, black cup of tea already… well… do tell us more about your contribution to this Dreamtime Damsels anthology we keep hearing about – the aether is alive with the gossip and although we have tried to coax more information out of several of our captives… er… VISITORS…. we still haven’t managed to get our tentacles on a black market copy…
So, my story is called “What They Do Not Tell You” and it’s a retelling of the Pygmalion myth from the statue’s perspective. Arguably, it’s a bit unconventional as it’s written in a kind of monologue from the main character, recounting her creation and the aftermath of becoming a living woman.
Oh did you hear that Max? Doesn’t it sound exciting – we simply adore a bit of mythpunk here on The Harlequin! What inspired you to write it?
I’ve always loved Roman and Greek mythology, and the Pygmalion myth has long been one of my favorites. What author hasn’t wished they could meet one of their characters, right?
Well, of course, or else I suppose I wouldn’t be here talking to you today!
One day a while back I was talking about the myth and I was trying to remember the name of the statue/woman. Resorting to the help of the internet when I failed to recall it, I found that she was known as Galatea. However, that name was actually provided by a scholar centuries after Rome fell; it had no factual basis in the myth at all. And that got me to thinking about how she was represented in the story, how she was so integral and key to Pygmalion’s myth but she never even had a name. The story just spiraled out from there.
Oh my goodness! I feel tears in my eyes! How moving, I can’t wait to read it! And what would you say most influences your writing in general?
I’m still pretty early into my writing career, but one theme that has emerged thus far is that I love examining people making ‘bad’ choices. What I mean by that is the question of “why would someone do that? how could they not see how stupid/pointless/unkind/short-sighted what they’re doing is?” is often key to my stories. I like to examine the emotions and circumstances that drive us to make decisions we often come to regret but also would make again in a heartbeat.
It sounds very interesting, are there any authours who have particularly inspired you?
I think my biggest influences are Stephen King, Tamora Pierce, and Neil Gaiman.
Oh we’re huge Neil Gaiman fans here as well, that is marvellous. Battenburg? Max stop feeding Battenburg to the cats you are getting it all hairy!
No, thank you. Not much of a sweets person.
Suit yourself, ‘all the more for me’ as Professor Elemental would say 😉 You know, writing is something I’ve always fancied turning my talents to – having so many tentacles I imagine I could be quite productive as an authour. Tell me, what was your own road
into fiction writing like?
A bit like a twisting path through a forest. You start down one branch, sure that you know where you’re going (which was writing poetry, in my case), you get lost for a while, decide to just give up and live by the quaint little pond you’ve found, and then one day while climbing a tree you realize you can see a path again just past that copse of spruce trees. When I went back to school to finish my undergrad degree, I decided to commit to fiction writing even though I had very little practice or experience in it because all of my ideas had just gotten far too large and detailed for poetry. I’ve been a storyteller ever since.
It sounds like quite an adventurous life indeed! And do you have any plans for new projects in the near future?
I have a novella draft that’s waiting for the revision process to begin. I also have an idea for a novel in my back pocket, but I’m not quite ready to start that one yet. And I have plenty of little ideas that may or may not unfurl into full-on short stories one day. We’ll just have to see what happens.
So, where can we get our tentacles on a copy of this delightful collection?
I believe Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble will be the most familiar to the general reader. There may be other, better sources that I am unaware of currently.
Ah yes, many is the time we have trekked into the Amazon on a search for treasure filled tomes. Never fear, friends, as soon as this book is published we will don our pith helmets post haste and return swiftly with a map (or perhaps even a link) to its whereabouts! 😉 And in the meantime, what about your own work, where can we find more of that?
I actually don’t post my own writings much. However, I did have a flash fiction story published last year by Underground Art and Literary Journal of Georgia State University. You can read that online at their website: undergroundjournal.org
Mavellous, we’ll be sure to have a look at…. Wooooah! Dear me I do apologise, the airship must have slipped and I seem to have landed in your lap I hope I haven’t covered you in octopus slime?
That’s quite all right! I’m sure it will wash out just fine.
Are you sure you’re alright? I’m sure Max can lend you a dress if you want to soak out the stain? Hm, what’s that? Time you were going? Are you sure I can’t tempt you with another cup?
Thank you, but I really must get back to ground. I think I see storm clouds rolling in, and I get terrible motion sickness when there’s turbulence. Thank you so much for the interview!
Oh dear, Max I do believe your awful tea-making skills and ill-concealed cat obsession has scared off yet another of our guests. You really must learn to behave yourself ‘In Company.’
Thankyou, friends for joining us this morning on board our beautiful rainbow sailed sky ship The Harlequin Ladybird, you will find all the blog posts so far on the Dreamtime Damsels blog tour listed below and until we meet again,
Hello! Mrs Albert Baker here, otherwise known as The Last Witch Of Pendle. Obviously there is no Pendle any more, since The Chronic Agronauts utterly destroyed it with treacle and sprats, but I’ve set myself up quite nicely here in Lancaster, running this little soup kitchen for the street urchins. There certainly are a lot of them and I’m always looking for helping hands to cook up and serve something delicious!
This morning I’m very excited to be taking part in the blog tour for the upcoming anthology ‘Dreamtime Damsels and Fatal Femmes’ and helping me this morning is one of the contributors to that anthology, Nav Logan. Thank you so much for coming to help me in my soup kitchen today, My Dear! May I take your hat and miscellaneous weaponry?
Just my hat today, and my trusty pen. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, especially if you are up close. A Bic in the eyeball usually does the trick in close combat.
Oh I most wholeheartedly concur! How was your trip from your own dimension? I hope you did not run into any hostile sugar-zombies or sky pirates on your way?
There were a lot of hostile Traffic Cones clustered menacingly on one section of the motorway, but I kept my throttle on max and didn’t look back.
Marvellous, I do the same thing on my steam powered hover-broom. And have you brought along some soup to share with us?
I’ve brought some of my speciality dish: Boxty, Random Road-kill Vittles, and freshly-plucked Stinging Nettle soup. (Always pick the top most leaves… they are the freshest, and the dogs can’t wee that high!)
Mmm, it smells …. er…. most interesting…. and of course delicious! I’m sure the little urchins will enjoy it immensely. Now while that is simmering away nicely, why don’t I open a window and you have a seat by the fire here and tell me a little about the types of fiction that you prefer to write?
My novels are all fantasy fiction, but when writing smaller works, I dip into a range of different fiction genres. It’s good for the brain to challenge yourself as a writer.
Indeed! And I hear you’ve recently made a contribution to the Dreamtime Damsels anthology I’ve heard so much about – would you like to tell us all a little about that?
My contribution to the Dreamtime Damsels compilation is Mulie the Bald. It’s about a young lass who refuses to be pegged, and pushes the boundaries of convention, refusing to accept her designated lot in life. She has her own plans, and may the Gods help anyone who gets in her way.
She sounds like just my sort of lass! And now I know that the release details are all very hush hush at the moment but could you perhaps give us a little teaser that we can get excited about?
Wonderful, I will keep my eye out for its release and be posting links on here when it is available! As an adventuress myself, I certainly think it is wonderful to see a fantasy collection where women take the centre stage isn’t it?
I totally agree, My own book of novels: The StormBringer Saga, centres around the life of one such young girl: Maerlin Stormbringer, and also has some other strong female characters too. Celtic Mythology depicts many such characters within the three figureheads of The Maiden, The Mother and The Crone. We have the likes of Queen Medb, a strong queen who demanded equality with her husband King Ailill as joint rulers of Connacht.
Oh your series sounds most intriguing I will have to have a look at those, I’m a great fan of Celtic Mythology myself and…. oh! now that’s the kettle boiling, what is your ‘poison’ Dear, and how do you take it?
I’ll take a Black coffee please, made from freshly ground mountain arabica beans, and seeped overnight in the tears of my defeated enemies, or a small dash of stevia… if you have it.
You are in luck! Being a witch, such things are merely a swirl of a magical spoon away – there you are. Now, why don’t you tell us all a little more about your own path into fiction writing?
I started writing as a child, mainly poems back then, but the odd short story. I got into writing novels quite by accident. Maerlin’s story started off as a poem, then grew into a short story which grew into a novel… and then a bunch of novels and is still unfinished as yet. Due to my health issues, the fourth book might never get finished, but was three quarters way through its first draught before I was diagnosed.
However, I never thought I’d finish book two, and I did in the end.
It sounds like you have a tenacious spirit, My Dear, and I very much hope you able to finish the fourth. Tell me, is there anything that particularly inspires you when you write?
Dreams. My dreams force me to get up and write down an idea, a concept, or a few chapters of my next book.
Ah, how marvellous, dreams have a magic all of their own don’t they? Now then, of course we love supporting independent writers, artists and small presses here in Ire; do you have any favourite indie authours who have inspired you or whose work you can recommend?
Having Parkinson’s Disease makes reading challenging … and finding the energy to write or focus on editing also, but there are many great independent writers I’ve worked with over the years. The authors involved in Dreamtime Damsels and Dreamtime Dragons would include some of them, and there are some others that deserve a mention: David Wailing, my editor, is a great writer. His books are worthy of a mention. I’ve worked on a few things with Rick Haynes also, and always enjoy reading his stories.
Splendid, I will be sure to hunt those out – I am always on the look out for a good fireside read to keep me company while I knit or bake. And where can we find more of your own work?
The Stormbringer Saga and my books of short stories are all out of print officially now, although I’m sure there are copies available. I’ve had a number of stories published in compilations, plus worked on some stories with other writers which are also still in print, and which help out various charities with their sales.
That’s a shame about the Strombringer Saga but we’ll be sure to look out your short stories in other compilations. Ah now that soup smells like it is about ready, would you be so kind as to help me serve it up to the orphans?
No problem… Having spent years living on the road myself, I’m always happy to pitch in and lend a helping hand when I can.
Splendid, thankyou Nav it has a been a pleasure having you help in the kitchen today!
Thank you all for joining us in the soup kitchen this morning. You will find all the blog posts so far on the Dreamtime Damsels blog tour listed below
Myself, and Max and Collin, will be interviewing more contributors to the anthology throughout August and we hope you will join us for those posts and share them around!
So, until we see you again, Blessings On Your Brew My Dears!
Good Morning! Happy Chocolate Fest or whatever fabulous festival you happen to be celebrating at this time of the year!
My name is Phoebe Darqueling and I write fiction that fans of Steampunk and Gaslamp fantasy love.
Here in Steampunk’d Lancaster we are enjoying the annual Aether Egg Hunt – a chance for authors to connect with their readers and give a little gift of thanks for all their support in the form of an Aether Egg or Small Gift linked to the fictional world they have created.
And here is my contribution to the fun!
You can do a digital jigsaw puzzle of the cover of my newest novel, No Rest for the Wicked. My record is 5 minutes. Think you got me beat? Leave a comment with your time. https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=0943fc60f199
You can find my fiction books like No Rest for the Wicked on my Amazon page (www.bit.ly/PhoebeD)
and pickup a FREE copy of The Steampunk Handbook by signing up for my e-news. Find out more
here: http://ow.ly/Uohw30mfCLN
And connect with on Twitter (@gearturns), Instagram (@phoebedarqueling), my Facebook fan group
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/PhoebeDarquelingFans/)
Have a “hoppy” day and come back next time to get your next author giftie.
My name is Madeleine Holly-Rosing and I write the steampunk supernatural series, Boston Metaphysical Society. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s about an ex-Pinkerton detective, a spirit photographer, and a genius scientist who battle supernatural forces in late 1800s Boston.
Here in Steampunk’d Lancaster we are enjoying the annual Aether Egg Hunt – a chance for authours to connect with their readers and give a little gift of thanks for all their support in the form of an Aether Egg or Small Gift linked to the fictional world they have created.
And here is my contribution to the fun! The entire first six issues of the graphic novel series can be read online for FREE! Just pop on over to Boston Metaphysical Society website and start reading whenever you like.
It’s such a big world that I wrote two more graphic novels, a novel, and anthology.
Greetings! Spring has sprung here in Steampunk’d Lancaster, the mechanical blossoms are opening, the drone pollinators are buzzing, the street corners are once again populated by pestilent urchins selling lemonade… what better way to celebrate spring in steampunk style than with an Aether Egg hunt?
An Aether Egg (similar to an Easter Egg in the world of Gaming) is a small gift to the reader in the form of a freebie / extract / lesser-known information or inside-joke as a way of saying thankyou for their support.
Throughout April, a host of fabulous steampunk authors will be sharing their Aether Eggs each week as part of our Awesome Steampunk Aether Egg Hunt – there are free book extracts, original artwork, online games and giveaways to look forward to and I really hope you’ll enjoy hunting them all down!
So, pop on a large pair of bunny ears, grab your basket and let’s begin! (Be warned though, many things can pop out of eggs besides cute fluffy spring chickies… perhaps pack that blunderbuss as well eh?)
Hello! Mrs Albert Baker here, otherwise known as The Last Witch Of Pendle. Obviously there is no Pendle any more, since The Chronic Agronauts utterly destroyed it with treacle and sprats, but I’ve set myself up quite nicely here in Lancaster, running this little soup kitchen for the street urchins. There certainly are a lot of them and I’m always looking for helping hands to cook up and serve something delicious!
Helping me this morning is Addison Albright! Thankyou so much for coming to help me in my soup kitchen today, My Dear! May I take your parasol, it’s unseasonably sunny today isn’t it?
Thank you! I’m thrilled to be here today. Yes, it is, but sunny days make it easier to be cheery, so I won’t complain.
How was your trip from your own dimension? I hope you did not run into any hostile vampires or space pirates on your way?
No space pirates, but I did run into a few vamps. Thankfully they weren’t particularly hostile, just a mite hungry. I might want to partake of a bit of this soup to help offset the blood loss.
And have you brought along some soup to share with us?
Yes, I have. I used to make this regularly back in the day, but I haven’t thought to do so since all the kids grew up and moved out. I thank you for reminding me of it.
I’d be happy to share my recipe, such as it is. I’m afraid that outside of baking, I’m not big on measuring ingredients, so folks will need to “wing it” right along with me.
Chicken (or Turkey) and Noodles
Regarding the poultry portion of the recipe, I was in the habit of making this recipe using leftover chicken or turkey, so I generally started with something like “Better than Bouillon” for the broth. But, if you’re making it completely from scratch, you can boil up some chicken pieces and go from there (use approx. a gallon of water, boil the chicken for a ½ hour, remove meat from bones, then continue to boil bones for added flavour while prepping the rest, removing the bones prior to adding the veggies).
Dice up however much you want of carrots, celery, and onion. Add them to the (now boneless) broth. Add back the diced up poultry now if you want, too (or wait until after adding the noodles…doesn’t much matter), and add spices like salt (unless you’re using purchased bouillon/stock, which is often very salty already), pepper, and thyme (if you use fresh, put in whole branches, then fish out the stalks before adding the noodles). Let all that simmer for 10-20 minutes or so.
Then add egg noodles. You can use the store-bought frozen noodles (like Reames), but it’s pretty easy to make your own. Basically use 1 cup of flour and 2 eggs per serving you wish to make. That’s it for ingredients. Mix together and knead the heck out of it, sprinkling flour as needed to your hard surface, until the dough is smooth and “pliable.” Then roll it out thin (sprinkle with more flour as needed) and cut it into strips about ¼” wide and 3-4” long. I usually do this first and store the bowl in the freezer while preparing the rest.
Be sure to stir well when adding the noodles so you don’t end up with big noodle clumps. Boil with the noodles for about 10 minutes or until they pass your taste test.
Enjoy!
Mmm, it smells delicious! I’m sure the little urchins will enjoy it immensely. Now while that is simmering away nicely, why don’t you have a seat by the fire here and tell me a little about the types of fiction that you write?
So far I’ve written romances or love stories featuring two men. Usually the stories are contemporary, but I’ve recently branched out into light fantasy and paranormal (a vampire series in progress and a Big Foot story in my WIP pile).
Heat levels vary, but even with the shorter and more erotic stories I try to make the story surrounding “the scene” be the primary focus. Especially with my longer works, I want the story itself to be the focus.
And have you brought some of your books with you today to show the orphans?
Hahaha…I’m not sure how appropriate my books would be for the young’uns. Even the stories without any onscreen sexy times usually have a reference or two that might be best glossed over if sharing with the kiddies. Even my short, Déjà Vu, which I don’t think has any sexual references at all, might give the kiddies nightmares with the dark humor scenes it contains. How about we share these with their caregivers, instead?
Oh of course! Yes, um… perhaps I’ll save these to share with Max and Collin then, I wouldn’t call them ‘care givers’ as such… more, ‘organisers of the troops’ I suppose. Although I must have a good look myself first you have a lovely stash there indeed!
For readers who like longer books with a nice dose of drama, I’d recommend trying my Vows Series, featuring 2 novels with a novelette and a very short story sandwiched in-between. These stories range from low to medium heat levels. The first book in the series, ’Til Death Do Us Part, is a novel featuring a couple who are torn apart when one is thought to have died in a plane crash. The second book, From This Day Forward, is a novelette featuring the same couple and gives them a small dose of drama to deal with together and solidifies their HEA. The short story, Okay, Then, also features that same couple and takes us back to their earliest days together, so it can be looked on as a prequel. It can be, but by no means needs to be read before the novel. It’s a bit of a bonus story. The last book in the series, To Love and To Cherish, is a novel featuring a different couple. One MC was an important side character in the first novel who deserved to find his own HEA.
For readers looking for short, fun stories to see how they like a new-to-them writer’s style might want to try Of Rats and Cats (comedic with zero heat, but still not entirely appropriate for young children), or Déjà Vu (holiday story with some dark comedy, zero heat, and HEA for all despite early indications to the contrary).
Marvellous! Ah, now that is the kettle boiling, what is your ‘poison’ dear and how do you take it?
I’ve never acquired a taste for tea, but that’s mostly from lack of interest in giving it much of a try. So I’ll drink whatever you recommend for a novice tea drinker. I’d like to try it straight up before modifying it with cream or sugar, please.
My goodness, not given tea a try? Well, here you are my dear a cup of my very best contraband Lady Grey unsullied by milk or sugar but do help yourself to a slice of fresh lemon or lime to go with it if you wish.
Now tell me, My Dear, what do you look for in a good story?
First off the writing itself (both style and editing) are important, because it’s not just about the destination, it’s about the journey getting there, and entertaining writing can make the difference between a bad, good, or great story. So I prefer an engaging style. I don’t object to the occasional grammatical slip up. There’s a meme I’ve seen that has fun joking about the odd tenacious error that makes it through all the read-throughs, beta readers, edit rounds, etc. Heck, we can pick them out in mainstream books. But it does bother me when a finished story is utterly riddled with bad wording choices and outright poor grammar.
I like good pacing (boo to filler), and especially if it’s a romance, I want characters I can like and/or relate to. Flawed is fine—good even—but justify it. Make me understand what’s driving their choices and actions. Otherwise I enjoy a wide variety of story genres and tropes. Sometimes I’m in the mood for total fantasy, other times for something real world. Regardless, I want the drama to be believable for that world and not obviously fabricated by unjustified eye-rolling character actions.
And do You have any favourite authors who inspire your writing?
Absolutely. A couple of my favorite M/M authors who are also popular in general are Josh Lanyon and JL Merrow. They both have engaging writing styles and write wonderfully entertaining stories. It doesn’t hurt that I’m a sucker for hurt/comfort and most of Josh’s have an element of that, and my favorite JL Merrow series (The Plumber’s Mate) does too.
A couple more authors that are recently new-to-me and have impressed me enough that I’ll be looking for more from them are C.H. Clepitt (I Wore Heels to the Apocalypse and the followup story Everything is Better with a Cape are hilarious), whom I discovered via the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook, and Zakarrie Clarke (I’m in the middle of reading Hangover from Hell, and look forward to enjoying Hangover and Out, too).
One of my favorite people, who’s also a fantastic M/M author is Nell Iris. I have the pleasure of getting to beta read her fabulously emotional stories. I’m inspired by the charm of their stories, whether it be the appealing characters/storylines, the comedic flair, or the high level of feelings they elicit.
And do you have any new publications, appearances or upcoming projects we can get excited about?
Heh. I wish I had something scheduled in the near future, but everything I’ve submitted is already published. The story I’m working on and hope to finish next is The Best-Laid Plans, which is a sequel to my fantasy novelette, The Contingency Plan. I was perfectly happy imagining the happy couple traipse without issue into their HEA after the intriguing story of how they got together, but the common refrain from readers was…but, but, it was too short, and I want more! And of course, I can’t just write nothing but happy times for them, so now I’m putting them through a little hell (political intrigue, murder, and kidnapping, oh my). I’m in the planning stages of a Big Foot shifter story, and a possible shared universe story with another writer where we each write our own stories, but they’re related and might have some scenes that intersect. I’m also working out the details of the projected third story in my vampire trilogy and thinking about what I might do for a third story for my fantasy couple.
As for recent publications, the past few months have seen several releases from me. Mostly short stories like the aforementioned Of Rats and Cats in November, and Déjà Vu in December. The super short in the Vows Series (Okay, Then) released as a “hot flash” single in February (although it had previously been included in several collections). I also had a novella, The Choice, come out in January. It’s the second book in my vampire trilogy, following The Recruit, which came out last June. I’m a detail-oriented and pedantic person, so my goal in writing my own vampire world was to address all the picky little things that I’m often left wondering about when I’ve read other paranormal stories. I love the world I’ve come up with, and I’m reluctant to let it go. After the currently planned third story, I might write more with another couple in the same world, but that might depend on whether or not sales for this series pick up enough to make it worth the effort.
I can be found around Facebook now and again participating in group takeover events with giveaways. I do have one a week from when I’m writing this, but I expect that might be in the past once this is posted. I don’t have any in-person events planned. I did my first GayRomLit in Denver a couple years ago, but the big in-person events are so expensive I don’t know when I’ll be able to do another.
Marvellous! Well thankyou so much for joining me in the kitchen this morning, Addison, that soup smells as if it is ready, would you give me a hand dishing it out to the orphans?
I’d be happy to. I hope they enjoy eating it as much as I did making it.
Thanks so much for having me. I’m delighted to have discovered this site and your sidekick Penny’s writing on Rainbow Snippets. Each week I look forward to getting my Jack & Marjory fix and anticipate the day when I can read their completed story.
Thankyou so much Addison, and thankyou all of you for joining us in the soup kitchen today! Penny will be back on Saturday with her Rainbow Snippets post and then at some point this month we will have her March Book Review slot to look forward to before our April Aether Egg Hunt kicks off.
Until I see you again, blessings on your brew my dears!
Greetings! Well our Lancastrian Frost Fair has come to an end, I really hope you enjoyed meeting all our lovely authors and discovered some fantastic new things to read 🙂
Here in Lancaster now the snow has melted, the sun is blazing, spring is in the air and so here is my February book review…
OF RATS AND CATS BY ADDISON ALBRIGHT
I met Addison Albright through the #RainbowSnippets facebook group and quickly fell in love with her Vampire series which I’m reading at the moment and will be reviewing in a few months time. Extracts from Of Rats And Cats were posted as snippets on her website and I found them heart warming and hilarious so when she asked if anyone would like a PDF in exchange for an honest review I immediately volunteered 🙂
Raymond just wants to enjoy his healthy breakfast, green tea and morning paper but his morning calm is shattered when a ‘rat’ dashes into his apartment and, with Pandemonium the cat in hot pursuit, takes refuge in his closet, amongst his lacy underwear!
Kevin is all set – his hearty breakfast casserole is in the oven, he’s just finished setting up the mouse-condominium in his new apartment and is ready to think about coffee and unpacking the rest of his things. But his mouse, Corky, has other plans and, when she decides to make a dash into his neighbor’s apartment, a hilarious and heart-warming cat and mouse game ensues!
This is a super-adorable quick-read e-book ; I was through it under and hour and I was smiling and chuckling all the way through. The characters (both human and non-human) are sweet, quirky and engaging and there was enough ‘meat’ in the background to make me wish I had longer to get to know them all.
If you’re a fan of sweet, MM romance and are looking for a quick read that’s tons of fun I think you’ll love this.
If you want to read more of Addison’s brilliant work you can find her here:
Through March I’ll be planning our new Aether Eggs feature for April, posting my March Review and working on my WIP Jack and Marjory which you can read snippets of every Saturday. If I can get other things done and posted I will but between house renovating and home schooling things are a little crazy this end!
Best wishes to you all for the madness that is March – blessings on your brew!
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