Blue Sludge Blues & Other Abominations

Morning everyone! I've got an announcement of my own tomorrow (those of you who follow me on the tweety box may have already seen it) but today I'm featuring a guest post from horror author Shannon Lawrence. Take it away, Shannon...
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Today's the day for the cover reveal of my horror short story collection, Blue Sludge Blues & Other Abominations!

A collection of frights, from the psychological to the monstrous. These tales are a reminder of how much we have to fear: a creature lurking in the blue, sludgy depths of a rest area toilet; a friendly neighbor with a dark secret hidden in his basement; a woman with nothing more to lose hellbent on vengeance; a hike gone terribly wrong for three friends; a man cursed to clean up the bodies left behind by an inhuman force. These and other stories prowl the pages of this short story collection.

Release Date: March 15, 2018

Available for Pre-Order in e-book now at the following locations:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Amazon Australia | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Will also be available in trade paperback from Amazon US and UK, Apple iBooks and everywhere else Smashwords distributes to, and Amazon in other countries.

Thank you to my husband, Jeff Lawrence, for the cover design, and to Jared Hagan for my author photos.

A fan of all things fantastical and frightening, Shannon Lawrence writes primarily horror and fantasy. Her stories can be found in magazines and anthologies, including Space and Time Magazine, Dark Moon Digest, and Spinetingler. Though she often misses the ocean, the majestic and rugged Rockies are a sight she could never part with. Besides, in Colorado there's always a place to hide a body or birth a monster. What more could she ask for?

You can find her at her website/blog, Facebook, Twitter, and at her author pages at Amazon and Smashwords.

Cover Reveal! and Neil Gaiman Retweeted Our Kickstarter!

Brief "Omg how is this my life" moment: One of the Love & Bubbles authors asked Neil Gaiman to tweet about our Kickstarter, and he did. https://twitter.com/InspectorSpectr/status/966016738964815872
 
Neil Gaiman. NEIL GAIMAN. WHAT.

(To my family who probably has no idea who I'm screaming about: Neil Gaiman is a LEGEND in the sci-fi/fantasy community. He wrote so many things you've never heard of but we nerds worship. This is a Big Deal.)
 

Want to back the anthology? Here the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candystar/love-and-bubbles-a-romance-anthology-under-the-sea?ref=project_tweet



Now to the actual news:
 Today, I’m revealing the cover and story line-up for BRAVE NEW GIRLS: TALES OF HEROINES WHO HACK, coming July 2018!

And I have a story in it!

This YA sci-fi anthology (edited by sci-fi authors Paige Daniels and Mary Fan) features stories about girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)… Girls who hack not just computers, but whatever puzzles come their way, using their smarts to save the day. It’s got sci-fi mysteries, cyberpunk, space adventures, and more! Proceeds from sales of the anthology will be donated to the Society of Women Engineers scholarship fund.

And without further ado, here’s the cover!

Stories in the anthology (in alphabetical order by title):

The Alchemist's Daughter by Selenia Paz

The Altered Avatar by Mary Fan

Attack on Aegis by Paige Daniels

Becoming a World Builder by Valerie Hunter

Data Recovery by Nicholas Jennings

Discord on Harmonia by M.L.D. Curelas

The Experiment Called Life by Halli Gomez

False Messiahs by Josh Pritchett

Impossible Odds by A.A. Jankiewicz

In Cyberia, Avatar Controls You by Jeremy Rodden

In the Shadow of Zyrcon by Joanna Schnurman

Inmate C87 by Kay Dominguez

Life Hack by Aaron Rosenberg

Login by Jennifer Lee Rossman

Moon Girl by Jennifer Chow

My Other Tree House Is a Rocket Ship by Russ Colchamiro

The Power of Five by Jenifer Purcell Rosenberg

Pyramid Scheme by Jamie Krakover

Sea-Stars and Sand Dollars by Lyssa Chiavari

Second Sun by Jorge Rustrian

ShockWired by Tash McAdam

Sword & Shield by Jelani Akin Parham

Twisted Brick by M.J. Moores

My story, Login, is a loose reteling of Rumplestiltskin, featuring a disabled protagonist. Each story gets its own illustration. Mine is being done by my friend's sister and I've seen the first sketch and omg you guys. I can't wait to show you!

ADD IT ON GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38621003-brave-new-girls

SIGN UP FOR THE RELEASE DAY MAILING LIST: http://eepurl.com/bgBmvD

VISIT THE BRAVE NEW GIRLS WEBSITE: http://bravenewgirls.weebly.com/

Brave New Girls: Stories of Tales of Heroines Who Hack is the third volume of the Brave New Girls anthology series. The first two, Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets (2015) and Brave New Girls: Stories of Girls Who Science and Scheme (2017) have so far raised thousands of dollars for the Society of Women Engineers Scholarship fund. Find them on Amazon.

 

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Paige Daniels is the pen name of Tina Closser. By day she works as an Electrical Engineer and Mom mushing her kids from gymnastics and violin practice. After the kids go to bed, she rocks out with her headphones turned to eleven and cranks out books. She is an uber science geek. If she wasn't married to the most terrific guy in the world, she would be a groupie for Adam Baldwin. Her books include Non-Compliance: The Sector, Non-Compliance: The Transition, and Non-Compliance: Equilibrium.

Mary Fan is a hopeless dreamer, whose mind insists on spinning tales of “what if.” As a music major in college, she told those stories through compositions. Now, she tells them through books—a habit she began as soon as she could pick up a pencil. And what stories she has! Currently, she has three series in progress and likes to think that she has even more in her bag. Her books include Starswept, the Jane Colt trilogy, the Firedragon novellas, and the Fated Stars novellas.

 

Glass and Gardens TOC Reveal

Just quick updates!

　
The table of contents for GLASS AND GARDENS: SOLARPUNK SUMMERS, a science fiction anthology edited by Sarena Ulibarri, was announced today: https://www.worldweaverpress.com/blog/table-of-contents-reveal-glass-and-gardens-solarpunk-summers



This is the second anthology by World Weaver Press that I'll be in, and I can't wait for the world to meet Kirra and Zeph!

　

And the Love & Bubbles Kickstarter is going well but we need your help to reach our goal! The cross stitch rewards are still available at the Narwhal level. Take home a cute piece of art and support some writers?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candystar/love-and-bubbles-a-romance-anthology-under-the-sea

So, what story title in Glass and Gardens are you most intrigued by? "A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine" sounds interesting...

The Love & Bubbles Kickstarter is Live!

[begin sales pitch]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candystar/love-and-bubbles-a-romance-anthology-under-the-sea


　

Love & Bubbles is an anthology of love under the sea, with stories by emerging and established authors.

　

By supporting this Kickstarter, you will be ensuring that we can pay authors a reasonable rate for their work. There are some straight pairings but it's a very queer book put together by some very queer writers and editors. And if we reach our stretch goals, we add even more stories (and mine is one of them, so I am very invested in this).

　

And on a personal note, everything I get paid for doing this will hopefully go towards me doing my own anthology one day.

　

But we don't get published without your help, and we've got some awesome donor rewards including cross stitch made by yours truly!


We have...

Lochlan and Vanessie the Loch Ness Monsters!

Lochlan and Vanessie's necks make a heart shape silhouetted against a Scottish sunset, and the water is accented with sparkly thread.

　

Narman and Whalter the gay narwhals!

Ah, narwhals. The majestic unicorns of the sea. With the aurora borealis in the background, Narman and Whalter leap out of the Arctic Ocean with a carved ice heart. Their spiraling horns are sparkly.

　

Phillip the squid!

Phillip the "cephillipod" is a jolly purple squid. He doesn't have a partner, but that's okay because he loves himself. He is hugging a nice big heart, and there are sparkly bubbles behind him.

　

Each image was lovingly custom designed and stitched for this project, is one of a kind, and is framed in a wooden hoop measuring 6 inches in diameter.

　
So here's the link again. Please support this project. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candystar/love-and-bubbles-a-romance-anthology-under-the-sea

Review: Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West

Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West by John Joseph Adams
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the stories I enjoyed. There are some really amazing stories in this. But they made up less than half the book. The rest ranged from "meh" to "ew, I'm not reading this."
I'll admit, I'm petty about reading. I see no reason to waste my time on something I am not enjoying, but these are some of the reasons I "noped" out of a story in this book.

-Bad things happen to a horse.
-Character willfully ignores suffering horse.
-Horse doesn't even have a name.
-Minority character has a name but he's just called "the Mexican."
-Most of these stories have very little diversity. Maybe I've been spoiled by amazing queer, women, and POC books, but there were times I just couldn't read another boring white dude.
-Orson Scott Card's name. (I didn't read a single word of his story so I can't comment on it specifically, but I try not to read things by people who are anti-queer.)

I get that these are westerns, and most westerns portray the West as a whitewashed fantasy of toxic masculinity. That's why, even though I love aspects of the drama, I can't force myself to watch western movies.
I just thought adding the speculative elements meant it would be... better. Modern. Inclusive and free of the tropes that limit the genre and relegate it to the category of "Things only my grandpa likes. No, not the cool grandpa. The one that thinks Linda and Gayle are just roommates."
And a handful of the stories were absolutely amazing. The ones by Liu, Bear, and Macguire come to mind. But the rest was... disappointing.

View all my reviews

Two Anthology Announcements!

Good morning, everyone!

I am pleased to have not one but TWO announcements today!

　
First, the ten authors whose stories will be in Love & Bubbles have been announced on Jaylee James's blog: http://jayleejames.com/love-bubbles/


I feel very protective and maternal towards these authors. They are my babies now and I will do anything for them.

And I may be fangirling about getting to work with one or two of them.

Depending on how the Kickstarter goes, we could add up to seven more authors to this list.

　

　

And second, I'm going to be in another World Weaver Press anthology!

　

Glass Gardens: Solarpunk Summers is edited by Sarena Ulibarri, and will feature hopeful stories set in an ecologically-minded future.

My story is Riot of the Wind and Sun, which is set in the same futuristic Australian town as Always, Always, my story in When You're Strange.

Always is super dark while Riot is bright and happy and set about a hundred years later. They both take place in my futuristic Coober Pedy, and while there are continuity issues that prevent me from truly calling them prequel and sequel, I like to think they could exist in the same world. Like Tress and Voltaire's struggles in Always somehow led to the opportunity and hope of Kirra in Riot.


Lots of projects! Looks like I'll be busy this year.

Do you like reading anthologies? What's your favorite?