Hazard Yet Forward Releasing August 7th

Hazard Yet Forward is a  charity anthology to help a fellow writer and Seton Hill Writing Popular Fiction graduate, Donna Munro, as she kicks breast cancer’s ass. This is anthology is a huge effort, with over 70 authors and over 70 stories totaling over 700 hundred pages of fiction. They’re examples of all genres: from Romance to Horror to Mystery to Fantasy. So there is something for everyone.

As a charity anthology, all the stories were donated. We all care about Donna and hope this helps her with everything that is ahead of her. All money that the anthology makes will go directly to helping Donna with her medical expenses. Having a brother-in-law that passed away from brain cancer and my liver transplant, I know how fast those bills start to get out of hand, even with health insurance.

SHU WPF Spotlight Series: Many Genres, One Craft edited by Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller

Title: Many Genres, One Craft
Editor: Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller
Genre: Reference, Writing
Publisher: Headline Books
Pages: 384
ISBN: 978-0-938467-08-3

If you are a writer, new or seasoned, you know exactly how many different kinds of books are out there to help you with craft. Not only that, but then there are all the books by different authors telling you how they write.

“So, what is special about this book?” I hear you say.

There is a lot that is special about it. First, it is a primer for the experience of a MFA program. Which makes sense as it is a product of the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction program. Every essay is written by either published alums, current or former mentors and teachers of the program, and special guests that visited during a Residency. You can see a whole list of the contributors at the book’s website. As you read each of them, you realize that, while you have a succinct essay, the depth of knowledge and understanding in them can in many cases be deeper than whole books written on that same subject. I would almost consider them the teachers notes to a complete course.

Second, while it comes from a genre fiction background, it’s a book that any writer will find helpful. The title states this to the reader. The first section of the book is about the craft of writing. No matter what you write, this unifies writers of every ilk. Each essay always goes that small step further than any other on the subjects of style, characters, setting, plot, etc., if not completely original. One such essay of the later is “Don’t Be a Bobble-Head, and Other Bits of Guidance” by Timons Esaias. Just reading it over not only will strengthen your own writing, but see how frequently even the best writers of any field make simple mistakes.

The last section of the book is all about the life of the writer. I think this is the most important section of the book, because no one tells you it actually like to be a writer. What you have to do, what you have to think of each day. Most people see writing simply as an art. It is that, but it is also a profession. Just about every other field will teach you consciously or unconsciously teach you about that profession in conjunction with education in that field. A trade mark of the Seton Hill WPF program of teaching it studies about the publishing industry is branded into this book by doing the same for its reader. Tips for promotion, getting an agent, getting reviewed (and dealing with it), finding time to write, and more will help every kind of writer know how to make sure there work gets the attention it deserves in every stage: from idea to published text.

Finally, even it genre section is useful to even those who feel they write “literary” or “contemporary” fiction. Both informative and instructive, each essay explains conventions of all the genres. They are not “how-to write X genre” essays, but even deeper craft essays. Mary SanGiovanni’s essay, “Dark and Story Nights: Mood and Atmosphere in Horror,” while a terrific treatise on atmosphere key role in horror fiction, can be used in situations outside of horror. Albert Wendland’s “Description on the Edge: The Sublime in Science Fiction” can be a key text for any writer on understanding how to describe in a story that feels natural, like the reader feels like they are in the story. Even writers of contemporary fiction have to describe things, places, and more that their readers don’t know. They have to be just as effective a science fiction and fantasy writers describing what doesn’t exist.

At a time where not everyone can afford numerous books to help there writing, there is a need for an all purpose book. This is it and probably the best one out there. But it is also something else. It is a testament to the fact that no genre is better, more special, or more worthy than any other. Literature is literature and it’s practitioners must have all the same skills to be successful and entertaining to the world audience.

Anniversary Contest – Round 2

I first want to congratulate Danny Evarts for winning the first round of the contest. Found You has been shipped of to him, just in time for October. But as I said in the first round, there were two books to win. This round is for Play Dead by Michael A. Arnzen, a good friend and mentor, as well a multiple Bram Stoker Award winner. This is an Out of Print book signed by Mike Arnzen.

Same method for entry, just post a comment and then at the deadline I will pick a winner randomly. This time around, though, there is a new thing to add to you comment. Actually, two:

1.) What is something that frightens you about Halloween since you were a kid?
2.) Favorite Halloween costume you ever wore?

Just write those two things in your comment and you will have a chance to win. The deadline will be October 8th. Pass the word along.

The winner of Play Dead is Pia Veleno. Congratulations, Pia!

Cut Me Off When I Can’t Feel My Feet – Seton Hill Retreat Day 2

Thursday was a somewhat calm day. Started off with going the previously mentioned monster module. Since two people were running the class, it was two hours long and when over the various archetypes of monsters that have been used and are still used today in all fiction. It was a solid class. It was sort of like getting the cheat sheet version of those “Encyclopedia of [insert monster]” books. It was kind of weird at times during the Zombie, Vampire, and Werewolf sections I was called on to talk about ways to modernize and reinvent those creatures, because they deal with my thesis and the books after. And I’m one of those people who are super paranoid about people taking my ideas, so I always had a copyright preamble before I spoke. Silly? You bet, but I never said I was the sanest kid on the block.

The rest of the day was pretty dull until dinner. That was when I got to talk shop with Gary Braunbeck, Tim Waggoner, and Scott A. Johnson. I got as a lot of questions that I, as a aspiring horror writer, have been wondering about with what I have noticed in just the past year since venturing out into the publishing world and trying to start making a name for myself. And I got a lot of great advice from all three, a lot that put me at ease.

But everything picked up at the infamous WPF Wine Social. I have to say, writers love their spirits and not the ones they call muses (well, I take that back, some do). Most of the night was going around and talking to other students I hadn’t seen yet since getting there, but I was lucky enough to get introduced to both Jeff Strand for the first time and actually get to meet Gary Frank for more that just a few moments like the last time I met him last year. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. A lot of that time was spent with Mike Arnzen and I trading comic jabs (is clown fetish is an endless resource) at some point I was given a task of impersonating Gimli from the Lord of the Rings movies. I know have 17th nickname, Lil’ Gim (“It still only counts as one!”). I also got to talk some with Lawrence Connolly and persuaded him to tray to grab people to the “after wine social” wine social back at the dorm. By doing that, though, Larry went on a mini rant on how much he loved the name of it, Farrel Hall, or in his mind I think, Feral Hall.

Alas, no one that wasn’t a student or staying in the dorms made it, lost of excuses of “planning to and went to change and ended up falling asleep.” Old Fogies! I jest…really…no, seriously, I do…I didn’t say I was jesting now, or then rather, just a blanket “I jest.”

So the booze came out, people imbibed, and truths starts flying. Lots of them in fact. So many that I started getting a headache. But my good friend Jared, really stole the night with he recounting of his mentor meeting and how he was able to even take Mike Arnzen back with what he wrote (and if anyone has even spent a modicum of time with him or read any of his books, nows that is a pretty tall order) and said to everyone that he wasn’t to be cut of from the alcohol until he could feel his feet. I left where he was only at his toes.

Gradually I found my way to a smaller, and quieter, gathering of alum and retreat guests, where I unwound and got to know many people I knew of, but never really met, including Sally Bosco. It was a good day, over all. Lots of introductions, lots of fun and hilarity. All of which no one would let me get on camera (grrs around to the extroverted introverts). And it didn’t do anything at all to prepare me for the next day. Signing Day!

Dun Dun Dun