February 26 is International Fairytale Day, so what better day for Craig and I to give you a pile of books and stories by a plethora of authors that cover the spectrum from horror to crime to magic realism to noir to mystery to comedy to love story, and everything else you can think of?
Click the link below to enter: the pile of books includes not only the only 3 hard copies of Serious Moonlight thus far in existence, but also The Sound of Loneliness signed by the author Craig Wallwork, Quintessence of Dust signed by the author Craig Wallwork, Radium Girls signed by the author Amanda Gowin, Gutted: Beautiful Horror signed by (one of) the author(s) Amanda Gowin, as well as the Booked. Anthology!
And, Serious Moonlight, our short story duet, will include brand new bonus flash stories from both of us in these print copies.
Escape. Make a bed of these books and roll around in other worlds, while on break from making this world a better one.
All of the things. ‘Gutted: Beautiful Horror‘ hit #1 in Hot New Releases and #2 in Horror Anthologies on its first day of pre-sale. Tomorrow night I guest on a Noir on the Air episode of ‘Dames in the Dark‘ at 9pm. We’ve got the stories selected for the Summer edition of Menacing Hedge, and go boldly into reading for Fall. Pantheon Magazine’s ‘Hestia’ issue My son has one more week of baseball. My nephew is nearly here. There’s only one more episode of ‘Game of Thrones.’
‘Daddy’s Dyin’ Who’s Got the Will?’ at the Portsmouth Little Theatre wrapped up in a sea of love, tears and Fireball. My husband got a motorcycle. We just got back from vacation, where I met Chewbacca – who is just as sweet in person as he is in the movies! Also, not to jinx her because the day is not done (and on this, the longest day of the year, I may be tempting fate), my favorite little red hen Lauren (Bacall) has successfully navigated back and forth to the neighbors’ hen house without an automobile collision.
Howl at the moon, my lovelies. Throw away your shoes. Jump in deep, dark water. Summer is upon us!
More articulate post later, it’s early in the day and plates are spinning (as Jaime -er, Craig Wallwork- would say). Here is a pictorial illustration of some of What I’ve Been Up To.
Noir at the Bar, St. Louis in April with Jon Ashley , Scott Phillips, Jed Ayres, Greg Barth, Tim L. Williams & Joe Schwartz (look at me, bein’ the Only Girl – REPRESENT!)
“Gutted: Beautiful Horror” from Crytal Lake Publishing drops June 24th!!
‘Daddy’s Dyin, Who’s Got the Will?’ opens at The Portsmouth Little Theatre on Friday May 20th. Go to www.pltlive.com for tickets!
Autumn goes fast!! Sometimes it’s too full to keep track in words and posts, so here’s a quick cram session of all the things wonderful and a bit unbelievable that happened along with crunching leaves, bonfires, trick-or-treat, PTO Vice Presidency (shut up), soccer season, Apple Festival, a NINE YEAR Wedding Anniversary, a new legit job at A.L. Terry Jewelers, Back to the Future Pt 2 celebrations, reading amazing stories at Menacing Hedge…. you get the idea, things are booming!! In the midst of all that, there’s also this:
MORE!! At Booked.
Halloween means the annual Spookedtacular, and this year was a two hour NyQuil and beer fest of The Final Girls, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, urban legends, serial killers, and sincere love and vitriol splattered in all directions between Robb Olson, Livius Nedin, Jesse Lawrence and myself. Is a Christmas special coming, with the four of us? You bet! AND! At the beginning of 2016 while Robb and Liv take a Disney Cruise (or whatever it is they do when they can’t record) Craig Clevenger and I will be holding down the Booked. fort and co-hosting an episode ourselves. It should be hot. But more on that later! Click HERE to be taken to the Spookedtacular 2015,
Pantheon Magazine Winter Edition
A little sad, sweet piece of mine has been accepted at the lovely Pantheon Magazine. “Orphans” will appear in the “Hestia” edition. It’s a beautiful publication and I’m honored I’ll be found in its pages!
UPDATES for ‘Gutted: Beautiful Horror’ Table of Contents
If you don’t know what the anthology is about, click HERE to find out a little more about the depths of darkness and beauty coming from Crystal Lake publishing in 2016. It was incredible enough when I learned Neil Gaiman was on the roster, along with authors John F.D. Taff, Brian Kirk, and (one of my own) Richard Thomas – who needs a shout-out and huge thanks for tossing my name their way – THEN editors extraordinaire Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward announced on Halloween that along with all of us, Clive Barker will be including a story. It’s a bit surreal at this point, and I can’t wait to hear who’s announced next! My story, “Cellar’s Dog,” is gangly and bizarre and pretty in its own way, and I’ll be forever grateful the editors could see what I saw when that black dog walked into those headlight beams.
So there you have it. The leaves are barely gone and already the Autumn is so full of goodness, I’m not sure where to go from here! Up? Or maybe I’ll just swim awhile. Float. Hug my lovelies and enjoy the laughter and the warmth. I think this is the top.
From an email to a friend, and honestly how I feel about This Thing We Do…
“But what if no one ever recognizes your efforts? That’s a distinct possibility. It doesn’t make the things you do of less value, or the work you’ve done in vain. Fame and appreciation are just matters of timing and luck with sometimes-talent added, based on whatever the pop culture climate is into at the moment. Picasso was appreciated in his lifetime and Van Gogh was not. But that doesn’t make Van Gogh’s work less amazing. And there are thousands of Picassos and Van Goghs that we’ve never heard of, and just because their paintings only hang in someone’s house or the canvases are stacked in a closet somewhere, that doesn’t mean the work wasn’t worth making, or breaking themselves into pieces for. Because it’s still worth it, because we can’t help it. That’s all there is to us, making things. You’ll itch under your skin if you don’t write stories, and you’ll just take up cooking or buy a bedazzler and put sequins on things. And in a few years you’ll catch yourself with a notebook of half-scribbled stories. Because it’s just what you are. You make things. You have to shrug and accept it. Even if you give up the marketing side, and submitting side, and just do it because it’s what you do. That second part – the whore part – is really unimportant in the actual scheme of making things.
So there’s your lesson for the day. You don’t ever have to submit shit if you don’t want to, ever again. Buy a fireproof trunk and seal all your work, finished and printed and also on various types of hard drives, in the trunk. Let someone else sort it out later. Focus on making it. Or take a break and make things when you damned well feel like it. Compulsion can also be euphoria.”
In 2016, Crystal Lake Publishing is releasing an anthology called “Gutted: Beautiful Horror” that editors D. Alexander Ward and Doug Murano describe as “A series of stories that explores the tension between beauty and horror, wonder and terror, sorrow and transcendence. It’s a book of scars, regret and loneliness. But through it all, it’s a book where hope can still exist and beauty can still thrive.” They’ve only made a few Table of Contents announcements – four names thus far, to be exact, and they go as follows:
Neil Gaiman (you read that right)
Brian Kirk
John F. D. Taff
ME! YES, ME!!
The story they accepted is my much-labored-over, genre-crossing, over-long and painfully dear to me “Cellar’s Dog.” It clocks in at over 6k words and involves Appalachia, hounds, drugs, myth and the tiny glimmer of hope for redemption. I couldn’t be prouder that it’s this story out of everything I’ve written that will be included alongside these incredible people. And I can’t WAIT to find out who else will be in the book.
And! AND!
Artwork by Brian Despain
The beautiful people over at Menacing Hedge are bringing me on as a Fiction Editor to sift and slush with Craig Wallwork, which is kind of like being asked to come over to best friend’s house to play as your JOB. I love Kelly Boyker and I love Craig, and it’s incredible to be helping choose the short fiction for a journal I submitted to with crossed fingers!
I’ll begin reading now-to-soon-ish, so send us your best!! The Fall Issue will be up soon with more specifics…
So.
I guess I’ll go to sleep, and see if this is still true in the morning.
We have a lot of beautiful stories in here – the line-up is fabulous, and I know quite a few of the authors (myself included) had extra-special precious work that somehow found its way between these covers.
2. LOTS of people have Radium Girls marked on their “To Read” shelves.
So! The only thing to do is come up with a plan to gently shove Radium Girls over to allllll the “Currently Reading” shelves. Summer is coming. There’s no reason my glowing green baby shouldn’t be on your tablet or in your tote bag, ready and waiting when you reach for some good words.
In honor of so many well-intentioned readers, and the upcoming One Year Birthday of Radium Girls, I talked to my lovely friend and publisher Mike Gonzalez, and…
Here’s the Plan
From May 5th through June 5th we shall hand out e-books like candy. As a show of good faith and even better intentions, all you need to do is TAG ME in a photo of ANY OTHER copy of a paper publication I’ve been in that you already have in your possession. Doesn’t matter where – post in the comments here, or tag me or Thunderdome Press on Facebook, or Twitter: @mandajoon (me) or @monkeywright (Mike Gonzalez) or @ThunderDomeMag (the Press), or on Instagram:@mandajoon (me). I don’t care if it’s actually even a pic of you with RG, we’ll still collect your email address and give you an ebook to pass on to someone else!
Here’s the List
Post a pic of ANY of the following with a tag:
Exigencies
Burnt Tongues
Radium Girls
The Booked. Anthology
Cipher Sisters
LA1K
cutaway
Warmed and Bound
And! When that giveaway is over it’ll officially be my birthday and we’ll give away some paperbacks, too! And and! There will be a 4-day Free Radium Girls for Kindle weekend. I want these stories in your hands!
Last year when we were getting Radium Girls together I really didn’t want to do any…um, well, promotional work, so I didn’t blurb-hunt or really advertise or whatever, but since the release I’ve gotten a lot of cool reviews and whatnot, so I’ve collected that and shall put it here, in a “Don’t Take My Word for It” section:
Praise for Radium Girls:
“These stories glow in the dark.”
– Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria
“I loved it, that’s for damned sure. Radium Girls is a great book.”
– Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike and Cry Father
“Her work exists in the rarified air only found at high altitudes…Gowin unfolds a series of portraits of exquisitely flawed and powerful characters.”
– Kelly Boyker, author of Zoonosis, editor of Menacing Hedge
“Gowin is the tornado, lifting the flotsam of society and spinning it around and around until it lands just south of Kansas where magic and colour are just beyond reach.”
– Craig Wallwork, author of The Sound of Loneliness and Quintessence of Dust
“Radium Girls puts beauty in places you probably shouldn’t find it and makes the reader question the norms they’ve come to accept.”
– Livius Nedin and Robb Olson, The Booked. Podcast
May your Spring and Summer be be full of sunshine and words. Thanks for letting me be a part of it!
Add it to your ‘To Read’ shelf on Goodreads, pre-order it on Amazon! I can personally vouch for a lot of these other authors, both their work and as Good People, not to mention our lovely editor Richard Thomas whom I assume never sleeps… Chuck Wendig is doing the Foreword, that INCREDIBLE cover is by Daniele Serra, and there will be interior illustrations to go with stories by Luke Spooner. It’s a book and a half!
the story I have in here is actually one I feel really good about: based on a memory of the story I was told as a child about a distant relative. Almost thirty years later, after writing “The Owl and the Cigarette” I found out the memory and the story were basically myths created by my child-mind mashing together several details and people into one beautiful, false memory. So in this Anthology I contribute a fictional re-telling of a true story that never actually happened…
Happy Halloween! It may be rainy and damp, but the weak light and various colds have not dampened spirits this week. Below, see what happens when my son says “Star Wars” and then listen to what happens when Booked. says “What plan? It’s Halloween!” Thanks for a helluva week.
Also, ‘sexy’ Han Solo is just Han Solo – dig my lean….
Click the Booked. pumpkin to be transported to the SPOOKEDTACULAR!!
I can’t hand out fun size Snickers or Pixie Stix through the interwebs, so for Halloween I’ll hand out the best thing I’ve got to give cyber-wise, which is the Radium Girls ebook! Please, take one, and pass the link along to your friends. Think of it as sharing a Twix but the Twix magically regenerates so you still get the whole thing…
Click the picture of Sid Haig (HOLDING A COPY OF RADIUM GIRLS!!) to be magically transported to your free copy:
the video!!! took forever to get this mess uploaded. i realize it’s an hour long, but at least stick around long enough for the church fire anecdote… plus i read a story. mainly i ramble. but i think it turned out pretty well!
As in now. Today. Just have these stories, this book, little parts I cut off my body and brain, just take them! Because maybe you’ll read them and love them or maybe you’ll like one of them, take something beautiful from one sentence and it’ll stick in your brain forever, and that’s more than good enough for me ❤
There are two main reasons I like the Wellston library:
1. The Summer Reading Program – below is my kid, today, leaving the Pool Party with his sack of goodies – they gave them PRIZES. And a PARTY. Just for reading books and attending programs to see Mr. Molecule, The Turtle Lady, animals from The Columbus Zoo… Oh yeah, it was a real chore, let me tell ya. So first off, if you’ve got a kid in grades K-5, take them to the Summer Reading Program next summer. You want them to grow up thinking books and learning are cool, right? Because they ARE, right?
2. Sneaky Book Placement – I snapped the photo below while my son was watching magic tricks. DO YOU SEE THAT? That’s Victor Hugo, discreetly above Stephanie Meier (Meyer? Am I supposed to pretend to care?) in the Teen Paperback section. George Orwell was there, too. It was genius. One sneeze, and a lost tween could accidentally grab something worthwhile! These librarians impress me….
Alright, so let’s get to the point, to the scary part.
Karen Davis, whom I suspect may be the head honcho, asked if I’d like to do an event/reading at this here library. She “discovered” me AKA decided to be kind to me when I was embarassedly (I know that’s probably not a word) and rapidly emailing friends to look at their copies of Radium Girls to find the ISBN so someone could request the book be carried. I received an email from her not long after. I was both shocked and flattered. And terrified. So I was three things, not both things…
Anyway. I’ve never been in front of an audience for anything like this for longer than ten minutes. Always part of a group, part of a larger event. Always with the advantage of tossing back a couple drinks first. And I don’t even drink! It’s just, you know, exposing that little bit of your soul to people that makes a little alcohol helpful before sliding onto stage…
Karen, I promise not to drink before this event!
It’ll last about an hour. I’ll probably read a story, and talk about writers in the area, and storytelling in general -because face it, Appalachians are natural storytellers. We’ve all got stories. We’ve all got history. I just happen to write stuff down. There will be cookies, prizes for Q&A and discussion participants, three paperback copies of Radium Girls as door prizes just for showing up, and books to buy if anyone is so inclined.
I’m really excited about this, so come hang out for an hour.
Miss Ohio 