Hey lovelies! It gives me
great pleasure today to host these fabulous authors and their new book, “Behind
the Mask”! For other stops on their
Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of
the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the end
of this post to enter to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Not only is there this fabulous giveaway, but
there is a SECOND fabulous giveaway!!
This second giveaway is for an Ebook copy of the featured book!! See below for more details.
Also, come back daily to
interact with these wonderful authors and to increase your chances of winning!
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
Behind the Mask
by Kelly Link, Carrie
Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Cat Rambo, Lavie Tidhar and others
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Behind
the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors
Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Pinsker,
Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large and others. It is partially, a prose
nod to the comic world—the bombast, the larger-than-life, the save-the-worlds
and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the more intimate side
of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The regrets and
longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view of the world that
can only be experienced from behind the mask.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT ONE:
From Inheritance by Michael Milne
“Can
Dad come to my birthday?” Oliver asked a week before the party.
“You’d
like him to come?” Angie asked. Oliver knew he had some degree of
leverage—there was a new boyfriend, his name was Craig and he wore loafers and
already took the liberty of telling dad jokes. Angie spent the last week
seeming deeply apologetic. “It’s your birthday. We’ll see if he can make it.”
In
what Oliver hoped to be a carefully negotiated peace, Edward appeared at noon
that Saturday. He was out of breath, overdressed. And though this was the first
time Edward had entered the new house on Roxborough Street, it seemed totally
natural, like he could be walking in, covered in the scent of cut grass or
holding a greasy bag of take-out. Oliver moved to meet his father away from the
few other press-ganged partygoers, and Edward handed him a gift.
“Open
it,” Edward said. Under the poorly bound newspaper was a blue monster truck
toy, years too young for Oliver. A half-peeled price sticker stained the side,
and Oliver pretended not to notice.
“I
love it, Dad.”
Oliver
watched his parents perform a careful dance of evasion, two planets on opposite
ends of an orbital path. One in the kitchen, the other awkwardly holding court
outside; one leaning over the cake, the other repelled to the outer reaches of
the meager crowd. Oliver eyed the assembled middle schoolers, here mostly out
of parental decree and the promise of snacks, and was certain they were logging
this for gossip purposes.
“Can
you stay for dinner?” Oliver asked. He knew the answer, deliberately asking by
the fence and far away from prying eyes and ears. He knew that even if it had
been yes, it would have been awful. And yet he still wanted it, like the dogged
need to rip off a hangnail.
“I
don’t think I can, Oliver.” Edward Clark glanced up to the sky, listening to
something far away. “I need to go. Now. I’m sorry. I’ll see you soon.”
Soon
turned out to be nearly two months later, and each subsequent excuse began to
feel worn and ragged. Edward rarely told Oliver the truth about where he
was—Oliver knew this—but he grew to wish his father had a deeper reservoir of
alibis, that he didn’t simply cycle through the same two or three. Emergency at
work, left the stove on, looking after the neighbor’s dog.
Holidays
passed. At Halloween, Oliver, newly 13, said he felt too old to go out. In
truth, he worried that he would see people dressed up in too-familiar masks,
juvenile caped heroes shadowed by half-bored but devoted parents.
Edward
finally made a token Christmas appearance, taking Oliver to visit his
grandparents at the cemetery. They ate limp turkey sandwiches and talked
quietly, at the only table in the restaurant occupied by more than one person.
“I’m
sorry I’ve been so busy. You’ve seen the news,” Edward said. Oliver downloaded
four different news apps and habitually checked headlines. “I should call more,
visit more. I will call more.” As Edward spoke his eyes kept drifting to the
window, assessing every passerby for telltale bulges, aggressive postures.
Oliver began to feel like Edward Clark’s hobby, an electric guitar stashed in a
guest room closet, furtively taken up just seldom enough to lose all previous
progress.
“There
was an emergency,” his mother would always say, half-sincere. She said it
through gritted teeth at first—until after months, and then years, she seemed
to offer this genuinely. “You know he wishes he could be here.” Oliver tallied
the number of times he heard these lines from either parent. “You’re the most
important thing in the world to him.”
Other
than fires and bank robberies and bus crashes, Oliver would think but wouldn’t
say. It felt hard to compete with disasters. There were so many of them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GUEST POST:
My Evolving Writing Habits, or, Chronic Editors Anonymous
By Michael Milne
When
I pressed the period key, I felt an immediate frisson tangoing up my spine. The
sentence I had just rehashed was gold. It was perfect. Funny, astute, it really
got the human condition and expressed it through the mouth of a giant flapping
space robot. I was just so goddamn clever, and my words were so amazing. I
sipped my coffee, leaned back, and prepared to congratulate myself.
I had
only written about twenty words in an hour, and this was my fourth re-edit of
that same sentence. I seemed to spend a lot of time writing, but I never seemed
to actually write.
Certainly,
pace is not the only consideration when you settle down to write. Pure volume
is not laudable in-and-of itself. (Though how satisfying is it to check that
word count after a writing sessions, right? No? Just me.) But hacking back a
paragraph a dozen times or more just to make one particular sentence perfect
won’t mean anything if it’s part of a story that never seems to get written.
You can, in fact, polish a turd, but you can’t polish anything if you don’t
even have a turd to begin with.
The
start of my change was setting real, smart goals for myself. Sometimes this
meant large, grand word-count numbers, living like every month was NaNoWriMo,
finding scraps of time through the day to just think of some words and put them
down. I placed notebooks on the nightstand, knowing that inspiration might come
to me just as I closed my eyes, and that I could scribble in the dark,
satisfied I was approaching my daily count.
Other
times, it meant a more calculated approach, deciding how many stories or
chapters I could reasonably produce, then breaking that down on a day-by-day
basis. Tuesday’s word count is this, Wednesday’s word count needs to be this.
It was rigid, and sometimes unrelaxing, and despite my goals being arbitrary
and meaningless, I still felt beholden to them. I was committed. I would work
in my daily writing sessions, no matter the cost in cups of coffee, centimeters
of hairline recession, or time away from the internet and its multifarious
distractions.
Having
readers makes the word count goals a little more real, too. No matter how
crackerjack the idea behind a new short story is, no one is impressed by Word
document with a one-paragraph elevator pitch and three lines of snappy, non-sequitur
dialogue with a cool metaphor that maybe, probably could go somewhere. Now,
hunting for new readers can be harsh and unrewarding, and much like inviting
people to your one man show, a lot of people are busy that night, washing their
hair, taking their dog to the therapist. The closer people are to you, the more
you can harness their innate like of you into doing the favour of reading
something in beta, but their kindness only goes so far! Even my mom can only
tolerate so much science fiction, so if I’m forcing the old girl to read
something, it had better be good, and it had better be done. Quid pro quo can
push the tolerance for many of your would-be readers. Online writing
communities often have this part-and-parcel of work-shopping your pieces (show
me yours, I’ll show you mine, and then we’ll both take out red pens). But
people in real life often don’t always have cute little flash fics about space
mermaids for you to edit, so sometimes the bartering has to get creative. Maybe
this means being willing to help someone move, cleaning out some gutters, or
attending an actual one man show.
The
greatest change to my writing habits, to convincing me to let go and just
write, was teaching writing to young writers. We banned erasers from our
writing space, talked craft, read mentor authors, and shared tips and tricks.
We discussed what to do when writer’s block inevitably hit. We talked editing,
and how it could improve our work, but that the most important thing was to
write. And if a room full of seven-year-olds could commit and find their flow,
if they could spend a little bit of every day just writing, then I had better
be up to the task as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FEATURED AUTHOR
BIO & LINKS:
Michael Milne is a
writer and teacher originally from Canada, who lived in Korea and China, and is
now in Switzerland. Not being from anywhere anymore really helps when writing
science fiction. His work has been published in The Sockdolager, Imminent
Quarterly, and anthologies on Meerkat Press and Gray Whisper.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ALL OTHER
AUTHOR BIOS & LINKS:
Kelly Link is the
author of four short story collections: Get in Trouble, a finalist for the 2016
Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, Pretty Monsters, Magic for Beginners, and Stranger
Things Happen. She lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton,
Massachusetts.
Seanan McGuire lives
and writes in the Pacific Northwest, in a large, creaky house with a
questionable past. She shares her home
with two enormous blue cats, a querulous calico, the world’s most hostile
iguana, and an assortment of other oddities, including more horror movies than
any one person has any business owning.
It is her life goal to write for the X-Men, and she gets a little closer
every day.
Seanan
is the author of the October Daye and InCryptid urban fantasy series, both from
DAW Books, and the Newsflesh and Parasitology trilogies, both from Orbit
(published under the name “Mira Grant”).
She writes a distressing amount of short fiction, and has released three
collections set in her superhero universe, starring Velma “Velveteen” Martinez
and her allies. Seanan usually needs a
nap. Keep up with her at
www.seananmcguire.com, or on Twitter at @seananmcguire.
Carrie Vaughn is
best known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf
named Kitty, who hosts a talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged,
the fourteenth installment of which is Kitty Saves the World. She's written several other contemporary
fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of 80 short stories. She's a contributor to the Wild Cards series
of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of
the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An
Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down
roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at
www.carrievaughn.com.
Cat Rambo lives,
writes, and teaches atop a hill in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction
publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She is an Endeavour, Nebula, and World
Fantasy Award nominee. Her second novel, Hearts of Tabat, appears in early 2017
from Wordfire Press. She is the current President of the Fantasy and Science
Fiction Writers of America. For more about her, as well as links to her
fiction, see http://www.kittywumpus.net.
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the
Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize winning and Premio Roma nominee A Man Lies
Dreaming (2014), the World Fantasy Award winning Osama (2011) and of the
critically-acclaimed The Violent Century (2013). His latest novel is Central
Station (2016). He is the author of many other novels, novellas and short
stories
Kate Marshall lives
in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and several small agents of chaos
disguised as a dog, cat, and child. She works as a cover designer and video
game writer. Her fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Crossed
Genres, and other venues, and her YA survival thriller I Am Still Alive is
forthcoming from Viking. You can find her online at katemarshallwrites.com.
Chris Large writes
regularly for Aurealis Magazine and has had fiction published in Australian
speculative fiction magazines and anthologies. He's a single parent who enjoys
writing stories for middle-graders and young adults, and about family life in
all its forms. He lives in Tasmania, a small island at the bottom of Australia,
where everyone rides Kangaroos and says 'G'day mate!' to utter strangers.
Stuart Suffel's body
of work includes stories published by Jurassic London, Evil Girlfriend Media,
Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine, Kraxon Magazine, and Aurora Wolf
among others. He exists in Ireland,
lives in the Twilight Zone, and will work for Chocolate Sambuca Ice cream.
Twitter: @suffelstuart.
Adam R. Shannon is a
career firefighter/paramedic, as well as a fiction writer, hiker, and cook. His
work has been shortlisted for an Aeon award and appeared in Morpheus Tales and
the SFFWorld anthology You Are Here: Tales of Cryptographic Wonders. He and his
wife live in Virginia, where they care for an affable German Shepherd,
occasional foster dogs, a free-range toad, and a colony of snails who live in
an old apothecary jar. His website and blog are at AdamRShannon.com.
Jennifer Pullen received
her doctorate from Ohio University and her MFA from Eastern Washington
University. She originally hails from Washington State. Her fiction and poetry
have appeared or are upcoming in journals including: Going Down Swinging (AU),
Cleaver, Off the Coast, Phantom Drift Limited, and Clockhouse.
Stephanie Lai is a
Chinese-Australian writer and occasional translator. She has published long
meandering thinkpieces in Peril Magazine, the Toast, the Lifted Brow and
Overland. Of recent, her short fiction has appeared in the Review of Australian
Fiction, Cranky Ladies of History, and the In Your Face Anthology. Despite
loathing time travel, her defence of Dr Who companion Perpugilliam Brown can be
found in Companion Piece (2015). She is an amateur infrastructure nerd and a
professional climate change adaptation educator (she's helping you survive our
oncoming climate change dystopia). You can find her on twitter @yiduiqie, at
stephanielai.net, or talking about pop culture and drop bears at no-award.net.
Aimee Ogden is a
former biologist, science teacher, and software tester. Now she writes stories
about sad astronauts and angry princesses. Her poems and short stories have
appeared in Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction,
Baen.com, Persistent Visions, and The Sockdolager.
Nathan Crowder is a
Seattle-based fan of little known musicians, unpopular candy, and just happens
to write fantasy, horror, and superheroes. His other works include the fantasy
novel Ink Calls to Ink, short fiction in anthologies such as Selfies from the
End of the World, and Cthulhurotica, and his numerous Cobalt City superhero
stories and novels. He is still processing the death of David Bowie.
Sarah Pinsker is
the author of the 2015 Nebula Award winning novelette "Our Lady of the
Open Road." Her novelette "In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind" was
the 2014 Sturgeon Award winner and a 2013 Nebula finalist. Her fiction has been
published in magazines including Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed,
Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny, among others, and numerous
anthologies. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, Spanish,
Italian, and Galician. She is also a singer/songwriter with three albums on
various independent labels and a fourth forthcoming. She lives in Baltimore,
Maryland with her wife and dog. She can be found online at sarahpinsker.com and
twitter.com/sarahpinsker.
Keith Frady writes
weird short stories in a cluttered apartment in Atlanta. His work has appeared
in Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology, Literally Stories, The Yellow
Chair Review, and The Breakroom Stories.
Ziggy Schutz is a
young queer writer living on the west coast of Canada. She's been a fan of
superheroes almost as long as she's been writing, so she's very excited this is
the form her first published work took. When not writing, she can often be
found stage managing local musicals and mouthing the words to all the songs.
Ziggy can be found at @ziggytschutz, where she's probably ranting about
representation in fiction.
Matt Mikalatos is
the author of four novels, the most recent of which is Capeville: Death of the
Black Vulture, a YA superhero novel. You can connect with him online at
Capeville.net or Facebook.com/mikalatosbooks.
Patrick Flanagan - For
security reasons, Patrick Flanagan writes from one of several undisclosed
locations; either—
1) A
Top Secret-classified government laboratory which studies genetic aberrations
and unexplained phenomena;
2) A
sophisticated compound hidden in plain sight behind an electromagnetic cloaking
shield;
3) A
decaying Victorian mansion, long plagued by reports of terrifying paranormal
activity; or
4)
The subterranean ruins of a once-proud empire which ruled the Earth before
recorded history, and whose inbred descendants linger on in clans of
cannibalistic rabble
—all
of which are conveniently accessible from exits 106 or 108 of the Garden State
Parkway. Our intelligence reports that his paranoid ravings have been
previously documented by Grand Mal Press, Evil Jester Press, and Sam's Dot
Publishing. In our assessment he should be taken seriously, but not literally.
(Note: Do NOT make any sudden movements within a 50' radius.)
Keith Rosson is
the author of the novels THE MERCY OF THE TIDE (2017, Meerkat) and SMOKE CITY
(2018, Meerkat). His short fiction has appeared in Cream City Review, PANK,
Redivider, December, and more. An advocate of both public libraries and
non-ironic adulation of the cassette tape, he can be found at keithrosson.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONNECT WITH
THE PUBLISHER:
Website:
Book Page:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon Kindle:
Amazon Paperback:
Barnes and Noble:
Kobo:
Powell’s:
Goodreads Book Page:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY #1 INFO:
The publisher is offering a special
contest! Leave a comment on this post to
enter to win a copy of the featured book in the winner’s choice of book format –
either Epub or Mobi. Be sure to leave your email address so we know how to notify you if you are the lucky winner!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY #2 INFO:
The authors will be awarding a $20 Amazon or
Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the
tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase made I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just
helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure :)
DeleteFabulous Authors ~ It is great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the tour and thanks for the chance to win :)
ReplyDeleteGreat post - thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteI love your post/writing advice. It made me laugh both as a writer and an editor, and I'm happy that you were able to find the golden sentence of perfection.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your favorite movie based on a book. Thanks for the giveaway. I hope that I win. Bernie W BWallace1980(at)hotmail(d0t)com
ReplyDeleteMy question is open to any of the authors: What would your superhero name be provided you had a superpower?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
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