JILO Cover Reveal!

JILO cover reveal. Patrick Arrasmith outdid himself once again!

2015

Okay. So we're getting close to the end of the year. Normally, I don't go in for a lot of Auld Lang Syneing, but this has been an incredible year. I wrote two more books this year. Well, maybe it's more like 1.75 books, since SHIVAREE was about 30K words along when I realized it wanted to be a full novel and not just the novella I'd intended. A little known fact about my twisted little Southern Gothic vampire tale is that it is the product of writer's block. I'd committed to writing JILO, and then proceeded to choke. Jilo, the character, had been so easy to write when she was part of Mercy's world, but when it came time to place her in her own, I couldn't get the pieces to come together. I kept working on my novella, hoping that I'd be able to keep from freezing up entirely.   SHIVAREE  enjoyed the attention, and after going back to Savannah and the Coastal Islands to research the Lowcountry of yesteryear, Jilo's story finally came together. Looking forward to April 2016 for JILO's release.

I ended up taking a bit of time off after shipping JILO to my publisher. Rich and I got to spend almost a month in Israel, seeing it from top to bottom. Not sure how my experiences might work their way into any future tales--don't expect a Witching Tel Aviv series--but the trip was a long-time dream come true.

On the family front, BOTH of my stepdaughters started law school this year. And of course, the most wonderful part of the year for me came just a few days ago when we adopted our new Chihuahua, Quincy Liam. Rich saw a posting on Facebook for a rescue dog named Quinn that resembled our beloved Quentin who passed two years ago this week. He casually asked me if I saw the posting, and said we should adopt the little guy. I nearly broke the internet searching for the posting, and, long story short, I'm typing this with one hand while playing with Quinn, now Quincy, with the other.

Hope you all also had much happiness in 2015, and may even more good things be on your way in 2016.

PRETTY ENOUGH TO CATCH HER GIVEAWAY

To celebrate the relaunch of PRETTY ENOUGH TO CATCH HER, I'm giving away 5 FREE copies. 

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

NYC Comic Con Schedule

If you're attending Comic Con, please come say hello!

New York Comic Con

October 8th-11th at Javits Center

Making the Impossible Possible – Authors of Science Fiction & Fantasy
Fri. October 9| 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM | Room 1A05

Sat. October 10|2:00 PM |47North Booth

GET A SIGNED ADVANCED READ COPY (ARC) OR ACTUAL COPY OF SHIVAREE!

SHIVAREE Available Now on NetGalley

CLICK HERE TO REQUEST FREE REVIEW COPY FROM NETGALLEY

If you're a reviewer or book blogger, please click on the link above to request your free advance reader review copy of SHIVAREE. Free NetGalley membership required.

After you've finished reading, please leave your review on Amazon.com and Goodreads. Please include the following disclaimer at the end of your review. "“I received a free, advance copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.” 

Come Meet Me at Sasquan

Going to Sasquan/WorldCon? 

Come say hello & pick up an ARC of SHIVAREE. Meet the Authors of https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/sasquan/en/items/158/Meet%20the%20Authors%20of%2047North …

Author Insights on "Pitch"

My short story "Pitch" will be coming out in the PHANTASMA STORIES anthology on September 22nd. "Pitch" is, on the surface, a simple story about a boy, "Billy Goat" Gibbons, who sets out one morning with his grandfather's rifle to kill the devil. A lot of mental percolating went into the creation of this story, though, and I thought some of you might enjoy an early look at my insights that will accompany the story in the anthology. 


Thoughts on "Pitch"


An editor once pointed out to me that my leading characters are all loners, even a certain redheaded witch whom I saw as being deeply connected to her family and her community. I’ve come to realize that the creation of any character provides an invitation to make a Freudian slip, one that will perhaps reveal more about my own psychology than I might like to make publicly known, or sometimes even privately acknowledge. When creating “Billy Goat” Gibbons, though, I made a conscious decision to dig into those habitually shunned areas of my psyche that hold the memories of what it felt like to grow up the odd boy out in the rural south. I’ve set Billy’s hometown within an easy driving distance of my own, but rather than limit what makes him an outsider to an internal difference, it’s his physical appearance that marks him as an outcast.

So why a goat? Well of course there is the obvious occult connection as a symbol for the devil, but it goes a bit deeper.

The book of Leviticus contains a curious injunction regarding taking a pair of goats, sacrificing the one and driving the other off into the wilderness “for Azazel”. The Hebrew “for Azazel” is translated in some English versions, including the King James Version, as  “as a scapegoat”, a wording that neatly sidesteps any theological issues that an acknowledgement of an earlier form of worship might lead to. This command has needled at me over the years not only as it seems to contain a fragment of a pre-Biblical practice, but as the act of creating an outcast/scapegoat is clearly echoed in the stories of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, and to a lesser degree, Jacob and Esau.

Still, Billy Goat’s tale is a simple story, of the kind intended to be read around a campfire, or better yet, midwinter, when the days are short, and the nights as black as “Pitch”.