It was perfect timing at Salt Lake Comic Con in September when I stepped on a hotel elevator with James Duckett, another writer I'd met a couple of times before. He looked at me, got a contemplative look on his face, and said, "I won't know unless I ask."  He told me about a writers' retreat he was participating in, one that would be held the first week of November near Park City. They were looking for a "writer in residence" who would come, give a few breakout sessions, and spend the rest of the time curled up writing or...
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If you're one of the millions of writers participating in National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, or just a writer interested in improving your craft, you might be interested in two writing books just released in print and eBook by WordFire Press. I have given many workshops on Worldbuilding at conventions and conferences. I've built gigantic galactic empires and steampunk worlds and gritty urban fantasy settings. I pulled together all the information I share in the workshop, as well as some additional material, and published it in WORLDBUILDING: FROM SMALL TOWNS TO ENTIRE UNIVERSES. I describe mytechniques in creating a rich fictional...
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Josh Vogt is a talented up-and-coming author, my former executive manager, and now an editor at Paizo Publishing. Here's his take on monsters The Monsters Bundle is available from StoryBundle.com, and includes up to a dozen monster stories for any price you want to pay (minimum $5). We all have different fears. Heights. Spiders. Clowns. Puppets. (So, in other words, don’t ever stick me on a clifftop facing a giant spider that has a clown puppet.) And they hide in all sorts of different places. Under the bed. In the closet. On dark back roads. In your office shared fridge. Or in a...
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The CLOCKWORK LIVES novel is a beautiful example of the bookmaking craft from ECW Press, a work of art with red leatherette stamped cover, endpapers, color printing, line illustrations. The unabridged audiobook is just out—and I think that's pretty special, too. CLOCKWORK LIVES is like a steampunk Canterbury Tales, the journey of Marinda Peake across the land of Albion, with airships, carnivals, the Watchmaker, the Anarchist, pirates, sea monsters, and more. Along the way, she collects the tales of others who have led interesting lives. The audiobook has as many unique narrators as there are stories. One reader does the...
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