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jhetley . The way to enter is to comment down below.So, how do I intro myself? Hmm, Lucienne Diver has been a literary agent for over fifteen years and a writer for even longer. She's written stories and a novel under her pseudonym Kit Daniels and is just finally coming out of the authorial closet with the publication of her young adult novel Vamped in May 2009 (cover to come soon, stay tuned!). More information is available on her </lj>website and through her newsletter. Yada yada yada.
"Books" by Lucienne Diver
I know, quite the shock, a literary agent/writer blogging on books, but I've found that one very interesting fact about writing books is that it tends to generate…wait for it…more books! (Yes, for those of the copyediting persuasion out there, that's three uses of the word in one sentence, which I'd usually abhor, but here it just seems appropriate.)
For example, looking over at my bookshelf, I have books on mythology, osteology, psychology, forensic anthropology, crime scene detection, schizophrenia, archaeology, poisons, magic, writing, crypto-zoology…. You name it, I've got it. And vampires. Let's face it, I've always had a fascination for vampires.
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And the winner is...supertailz . E-mail me at Lucienne(dot)Diver@knightagency.net with your address for a copy of Laura Anne Gilman's novel!
Jennifer Skully/Jasmine Haynes/JB Skully</lj> is a long time fantasy and sf fan whose put her years of "study" on the genres to good use in her own paranormal stories (erotic and otherwise).... She also writes straight-up romantica and humorous romantic suspense. You have to figure that with that many personalities all vying for the same headspace that there's something a little preternatural about the woman herself.
I'll be closing out urban fantasy week tomorrow with my own blog. Paranormal Romance Week will begin November 17th, but there'll be some interesting stuff between now and then, so stay tuned. Also, if you haven't done so, I'd love you to sign up for my newsletter here. As soon as my cover for Vamped is finalized, probably by the end of the week, my main character, Gina, will be taking over my headspace and writing up her thoughts on Halloween and costume dos and don'ts. She's, um, mildly opinionated.
Paranormal Lite: Beyond Shapeshifters, Vampires, and Demons by Jennifer Skully...
I love vampires and werewolves and the fantastic worlds some of my favorite authors create where these creatures live and have totally human--or inhuman--attributes. I remember reading the back cover blurb of Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton, laughing hysterically (because really, Anita Blake can be quite funny at times), and I was hooked from that moment forward. I started thinking, breathing, living Anita Blake. She battles every legendary creature ever thought up by the human psyche, and then some.
Website: http://www.skullybuzz.com
Blog: http://www.jasminehaynes.blogspot.com/
Newsletter: skullybuzz-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
suricattus, and I have known each other for ages. We've run Disclave bars out of booze (okay, not all on our own) two nights running. So it's wonderful to see her "Retriever" series with LUNA take off! Spring 2010 will even see the publication of the first spin-off from the series, HARD MAGIC.</lj>
In
Here, she talks about the problems faced by a writer who wants to infuse the fantastic into the well-known....
Laura Anne Gilman:
My
There, I've said it. I admit it. And you know what? I did it deliberately.
Worldbuilding is an essential part of creating believable fantasy – and by 'believable' I mean that you are able to enter the world without hesitation, that the foundation of the society makes intuitive sense to the reader, even when the details are different from the 'real.' The writer has to do his/her homework, and sweat the details.
( Read more... )Urban fantasy week resumes Monday with a great blog from Laura Anne Gilman. In the meantime, here are some fantastic new releases. Check the glorious covers!
October
RANCHER'S REDEMPTION (Silhouette Romantic Suspense) by Beth Cornelison
GHOST WHISPERER: REVENGE (Pocket) by Doranna Durgin
COME THE NIGHT (HQN, paranormal romance) by Susan Krinard
Star Trek Destiny, Book I: GODS OF NIGHT (Pocket) by David Mack
November
THE BLACK SHIP (Roc, fantasy) by Diana Pharaoh Francis
HEART AND SOUL (Bantam Spectra, fantasy) by Sarah A. Hoyt
BLOODRING (Roc, mass market reissue) by
CARNAL DESIRES (Kensington Aphrodesia) by Crystal Jordan
Star Trek Destiny, Book II: MERE MORTALS (Pocket) by David Mack
GHOST WHISPERER: PLAGUE ROOM (Pocket) by Steven Piziks
Today we have an awesome blog on folklore and fantasy from Diana Pharaoh Francis, also known on LiveJournal as
difrancis . Her wonderful epic fantasy Path and Crosspointe series are already available from Roc. Next year will see the launch of her urban fantasy series The Horngate Witches, starting with BITTER NIGHT from Pocket Books.There will be at least one post over the weekend and then urban fantasy week will resume on Monday with a post and a giveaway from Laura Anne Gilman, author of the popular Retrievers series for LUNA.
Diana Pharaoh Francis:
I started writing Urban Fantasy with my short story “All Things Being Not Quite Equal.” It’s about a vampire. She’s ugly. She became a vampire to become pretty, but as it turns out, her genes were stronger than vampire magic and she’s still got zits and frizzy hair and has a hard time luring food with her vampirey seduction. Cause the food gets grossed out. But she has compensating factors that make her very unusual.
Anyhow, I started with that story and it grew out of me watching that T.V. show called The Kindred. I had started noticing how pretty all vampires are (okay, in The Kindred, there are Nosferatu vampires that are hideous, but the rest are pretty). What I was doing with the story was a bit of the not taking the vampire genre very seriously. I was poking fun at the genre in general.
( Read more... )Again today, anyone who comments will be entered into a giveaway, this time for a signed copy of THE IRON HUNT by Marjorie M. Liu. And tune in tomorrow for another wonderful blog from Diana Pharaoh Francis.
Today we have a great essay by fiction and non-fiction author Susan Wright. Her erotic fantasy duology TO SERVE AND SUBMIT and A POUND OF FLESH is already available from Roc Books. Next year will see publication of her urban fantasy novel CONFESSIONS OF A DEMON. Susan is also the spokesperson for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and so well-equipped to write about:
"Sex and Sookie Stackhouse" by Susan Wright
Who would think the South is so steamy when it comes to vampire sex? From the opening credits of writhing religious ecstatics and young women dirty dancing with older rednecks, to the speedy decomposition of a dead fox, I knew that HBO's Sookie Stackhouse was going to notch up the intensity.
I think Charlaine Harris's urban fantasy, Dead Until Dark, has been followed more or less faithfully in HBO's True Blood. But aside from the explicit sexual scenes, the subtext of vampires as minorities, in particular a sexual minority, has been brought out much stronger in the HBO television series. On the latest show, Sookie is vilified as the vampire's girlfriend when the bite marks are seen on her neck, a theme that also reflects the old South taboo against interracial couples, just as the vampires themselves are blamed for the killings of young women who like to have sex with them.
( Read more... )Giveaway! Commenting on this post will get you entered to win the trade paperback edition of Faith's first fantasy, BLOODRING! (If you've already run out for a copy, I'd be glad to make a substitution.) The winner will be announced in tomorrow morning's blog by Susan Wright.
Speaking of giveaways, JB Skully is giving out free downloads this week of her erotic paranormal Dead to the Max on her blog this week, so swing on by.
EARLY YEARS
Short Story by Faith Hunter
Careful of the big, gold-toned hoops that pierced my earlobes, I strapped on my helmet and straddled the beat-up Yamaha. It wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do until I could afford the one I really wanted. I glanced back to make sure my saddlebags were latched. The teal compartments were secure, held in place with leather straps tightened by Brian, who now stood to the side, his face long and eyes downcast.
Everything was in place and ready. A thrill of excitement raced along my skin, prickling like fur. Despite the heat, I pulled on my leather riding jacket and tucked my hip-length braid inside it, out of the way. I touched the gold necklace that I still wore like a talisman, and reached for the key to start the engine.
“You don’t have to go,” Brian blurted.
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Marjorie M. Liu, aka
webpetals , is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and a helluva talented writer. THE IRON HUNT and its precursor story in Berkley's WILD THING anthology are her first forays into urban fantasy. She's also well-known for her fantastic Dirk & Steele series of paranormal romances. Now here she is, writing about fantasy and reality and how to make them one and the same. "The Truth Will Set You Free" by Marjorie M. Liu
I was on the phone recently with a friend who works in law
enforcement, and he shared some details of a rather bizarre case he
helped solve. Mind-boggling circumstances, very strange people, the
makings of a Fargo-esque thriller – and yet, a true event. One small
desire, one not-so-small act, leading to a series of unfortunate
choices.
Truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. Which is what you need to
remember. The truth is strange. The truth is stranger
sometimes than we can imagine. But it’s still the truth.
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Over the weekend, Faith Hunter posted a teaser, a vignette of backstory from her fabulous Rogue Mage Series. Today I'm pleased to present another fantastic example of urban fantasy: a new short story from Rachel Caine from her Weather Warden's series! As the week (and next week) goes on, I'll have more articles and snippets, all on topic.
So, what is urban fantasy? To me, it's our world at a slant. What if vampires, werewolves and/or shifters were real? How would things change? How would we deal? What if magic was real? Would it take the place of technology or live alongside it? It doesn't have to be, as the name implies, urban. It can be set in rural areas, backwoods even. The important thing is that it be approximately now and recognizably our world if we turned it on its ear.
That's what Rachel Caine does with her Weather Warden series. What if (are you sensing a theme?) mother earth were not at all kind and nurturing, but would buck us all off in a second if she had the chance? What if the only way we were able to survive was due to the efforts of a shadowy organization of people, the Weather Wardens, who can control the weather, fire, earth? And what if something was rotten within that society, their Djinn helpers (a.k.a. slaves) were about to rebel, and mother earth was about to wake up from her long sleep to do something about the parasites picking away at her flesh? Well, first, you'd keep your sense of style and humor, as the series heroine Joanne Baldwin somehow manages to do. See for yourself.
OBSESSION
A Weather Wardens short story by Rachel Caine
October 2008
My best friend was in love with a fictional character, and that was really, really sad.
“But he’s going to be here,” she said, for the fifteenth time, with a tone in her voice that suggested him being here was the equivalent of Zeus descending from Olympus to do a little shopping at the corner store. “I mean, just look, Jo. Look!” Cherise held up the flyer and rattled it, or maybe she was just shaking badly enough that it rattled on its own. “Live and in person. Today only.”
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Faith Hunter has written an indescribably wonderful trilogy which will be coming out in mass market (already out in trade paperback) in November, December and January respectively. It's a fantastic example of urban fantasy and as a teaser for next week, she's given us a vignette of her heroine's early years.
Short Rogue Mage series blurb:
The appearance of winged seraphs heralded three plagues and a devastating war between the forces of good and evil throughout the earth. Humankind and their evolutionary progeny, the neomages, survived. When a unique battle-mage is bred and born, her gift nearly drives her insane, and into hiding. Thorn St.Croix lives disguised as a human--a fugitive, channeling her mage gifts for war into stone-magery, and the pacific tasks of jewelry making. But when the ultimate war comes to her, Thorn fights back in the Rogue Mage trilogy: BloodRing, Seraphs, and Host.
Early Years
Thorn in mineral city
Short Vignette by Faith Hunter
The blizzard had kept us locked in for two days, dark days when the sun was hidden behind black clouds and the wind howled through Upper Street like the voices of the damned. Snow piled up against the walls of the house to a height of four feet. The window glass on the ground floor and up in the loft where I slept was crusted over with blown snow, opaque and misty, further diffusing the little light that penetrated from the sun through the storm to the earth. And each time we had to leave the house to feed the mule, the icicles that depended from the eaves were longer, thicker, and more numerous.
The electricity was out. So was the phone. We were isolated from our nearest neighbors though they were only a few yards away.
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One a personal note, my son decided this morning that the fake phone he made out of Magnetix is a Ty-Phone (as opposed to an iPhone) and that for Internet he uses Ty-Fi. The world according to Ty.
Also, don't forget the chat with bestseller Nalini Singh on Thursday, October 16th at 9 p.m. ET on The Knight Agency blog!
Also in October: bestselling paranormal romance author Nalini Singh will be doing a chat on The Knight Agency site on October 16th at 9pm EST. And on Thursday, November 20, 2008 Jonathan Friesen will be chatting.
More as it happens.
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