Irregular Chat with Irregular Authors

Hi there, Nicole Kimberling here with day two of the Blind Eye Books 2011 Round Up and Jamboree.

Today Astrid Amara and Josh Lanyon join Ginn and I to talk about writing our shared world anthology, Irregulars.

Nicole: For those of you unfamiliar with shared worlds, basically all the authors write their own stories but in the same setting, and allowing their characters to cross over. So all the authors have separate novellas – and obviously each of us bring a different tone and point of view – but the agency for which the characters work remains the same.

My story, Cherries Worth Getting, follows Agent Keith Curry, a former chef assigned to investigate cases of questionable culinary practices of extra-humans, who all-too-often put people on the menu. It also stars Gunther Heartman, another Irregular agent who I straight-up stole from Ginn Hale. And that’s the beauty of shared worlds. You read a side character in another author’s story and say, “I love that guy. I think I’m going to swipe him.”

Josh: My story is called Green Glass Beads. I got the idea from a poem called “Overheard on a Salmarsh” by Harold Monro, which I first read as a little kid. It’s a dialog between a nymph (which is a kind of fairy) and a goblin. They’re debating about these “green glass beads on a silver ring” the nymph has stolen out of the moon. It’s a poem about obsession -- well, as much as it’s about anything -- and that’s pretty much the theme of my story.

Astrid: My novella No Life But This is set in Mexico City and follows Deven Shaw, a consultant for the Irregulars who is being paid to assist Agent Silas August in his investigation into the murder of his partner. Deven spent most of his life as a hostage in a hellish demon world, living as an assassin, and has to re-learn what it means to be human. Which is hard because Agent August isn’t really the helpful, patient kind of mentor one would desire. But he IS sizzling hot.

Ginn: [not here]

Nicole: Ginn???

Ginn: Sorry, I was spaced out looking at the donuts on the cover of Astrid Amara’s upcoming title, Miracle of the Bellskis, which is being released December 13th from Loose Id. I can’t wait for this sequel of Carol of the Bellskis to come out… also, I need to eat something.

Astrid: Yeah. Yeah do that. And while you’re eating, I’ll be reading The Rifter Part 10 by Ginn Hale, which is by the way, the LAST episode of this serialized novel. So if you hate waiting, and want to read all ten amazing parts one after another, now’s your chance!

Ginn: Yeah. And Josh’s Lone Star came out on the 5th, in Men Under the Mistletoe from Carina Press. Read that too.

Josh: Cowboys. They’re almost as yummy as doughnuts. Cowboys and Indi…er…jaded ballet dancers. Hey, it’s a Christmas story. Magical things happen. Anyway, it’s part of the Men Under the Mistletoe anthology, and all the stories are magically delicious.

Nicole: Man, I love holiday stories. Hey, wait! Stop plugging other companies you guys. This is a Blind Eye Books post!

Ginn: Maybe you should put donuts on the covers of more of your books.

Astrid: Yeah. Hanukkah donuts, bitches.

Josh: And gingerbread reindeer cookies with silver balls. The tiny shiny candy kind, I mean. That you buy in bake shops.

Nicole: ANYWAY…. Back to Irregulars. Ginn?

Ginn: Things Unseen and Deadly does not feature a sizzling hot agent and/or assassin, though Josh’s wicked cool Agent Rake does make an appearance. But for the most part my story is about Jason Shamir, a young unemployed musician who discovers that he has not been suffering from psychosis but was born with other-worldly vision. Which makes him a target of extra-human interest. It also allows him to see Agent Falk –

Nicole: - A dirty old bum –

Ginn: Yeah, but not to Jason, who can see who he really is. A kick ASS dirty old bum!

Astrid: Who swills poison and wears filthy clothes.

Josh: So hawt.

Ginn: And kicks ASS! Though I should say that Agent Rake also kicks ass. Come to think of it, Deven kicks ass too. And so does Gunther. Damn it! They ALL kick ass! This is a great anthology.

Josh: This is a kick ass anthology!

Nicole: Irregulars is available for print pre-order from our website and for digital pre-order from Weightlessbooks.com. Buy a print copy before January 1st, you get the digital edition free!

Thanks ladies and gents for participating. Tomorrow, we’ll let Astrid loose to have her wicked way with the characters from the anthology.

Astrid: Heh. Probe.

Nicole: Ew.

Note: We’re giving away a free digital pre-order of the Irregulars to one lucky commentor today.

It ain't over till it's over... But just so you know, it's over on Tuesday

Hi there, Nicole Kimberling here with the Blind Eye Books 2011 Round Up and Jamboree. We will be here for three whole days answering questions and giving away prizes! Today, I’ll talk to Ginn Hale about the upcoming release, His Holy Bones, the tenth and final book of her ongoing novel serialization, The Rifter. Tomorrow, Josh Lanyon and Astrid Amara will be join Ginn and I to talk about our 2012 release, a shared-world anthology called Irregulars. And finally on Saturday, Astrid Amara brings her own wacky sense of humor to the island when she interviews the main characters from Irregulars about what it takes to be an agent in the super-secret Division of Irregular Affairs.

But first things first. Ginn Hale is known to most people as the author of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award winning novel Wicked Gentlemen. This year Blind Eye Books teamed up with online indie ebook wizards Weightless Books, to digitally serialize Ginn’s epic fantasy novel, The Rifter.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here’s the upshot:

When John opens a letter addressed to his missing roommate, Kyle, he expects to find a house key. Instead he is swept into a strange realm of magic, mysticism, revolutionaries and assassins. Though he struggles to escape, John is drawn steadily closer to a fate he shares with Kyle—to awaken the destroyer god, the Rifter, and shatter a world.

I adore this complex and amazing story so much that I could go on about it for days, but I thought that most readers here on the island would prefer to hear about The Rifter from Ginn Hale herself.

Nicole: When I suggested that The Rifter was a good candidate for reviving the 19th century practice of serializing fiction, did you think I was off my nut?

Ginn: Hmmm… how to answer tactfully… I was pretty surprised by the thought of releasing the book in ten segments. But after we talked a little I started to see how it could all work and I got excited about the whole idea. Soon I realized that you were right on your nut as always!

Nicole: Now that Rifter Book 10, His Holy Bones, is about to be released, how do you feel about the success of the project?

Ginn: I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to discover just how many people wanted to discuss the plot as it developed. It was really fun to hear all their ideas and answer their questions. It brought back the whole reason I love writing, which is to share stories.

Nicole: One of the fantastic things about this whole serialization experiment has been the response from the readers at Goodreads. I personally thought it was great to go chat with them and hear their theories as they all read along each month. But I was there as an editor and also a fan of your work. As an author, was it intimidating to participate in such a lively discussion of your work?

Ginn: I didn’t find it intimidating so much as slightly nerve-wracking because I had to be careful to keep my trap shut to avoid spoiling future releases.

The more I got to know the individual members of the Goodreads group the more I wanted to be able to re-assure them about their favorite characters or pass on “valuable” information. And once various delicious bribes began to be offered I really had to fight to clam up!

I’m feeling almost giddy about the release of book ten because I’ll finally be able to reply to people without having to edit myself for all potential spoilers.

Nicole: Did you have a favorite character in The Rifter?

Ginn: That’s a very tough question. It’s an epic inhabited by a good number of characters and I tried my best to make them all interesting. Though for me, as the author my enjoyment of the characters often differed depending on what I got to write about them.

For example I really enjoyed describing John’s experiences of geology and botany, particularly as the book went on and his awareness grew. Kyle was a joy for moody action; as an author I could always count on him for some cathartic butt-kicking. Ji was awesome for feeling wise and dangerous and Pesha almost bounded off the pages, she was so energetic, flirtatious and excited to fulfill her own potential. Of course, after a thousand pages certain characters actually started to give me a feeling of nostalgia. Both Alidas and Saimura were that way.


Nicole: Any last thoughts?

Just that I’m quite glad that you convinced me to serialize The Rifter. It’s been a pleasure and conversing with the Goodreads group not only allowed me to see my own work in an entirely different way but it also made me appreciate how involved, excited and clever readers really are.

To celebrate Ginn’s epic achievement, we’re giving away one complete Rifter subscription to one lucky commenter!

Got questions for Ginn? Ask away!

An Amazing New Book by Ginn Hale and A Giveaway

An envelope with an old key opens . . .

The Rifter 

a new serial novel by Ginn Hale, available on March 8th @ weightlessbooks.com 

“Hale is a master storyteller”

 —Jessewave Reviews 

“The true sorcery here is in Ginn Hale’s writing, which is by turns funny, fierce and lyrical. I can’t say enough good things about her work. Rifter is an astonishing story: terrifying and yet romantic. I was bewitched from the first sentence.” 

—JOSH LANYON 

Weightless Books is proud to present a favorite fiction format revitalized once more for the digital age by award winning author Ginn Hale. 

When John opens a letter addressed to his missing roommate, Kyle, he expects to find a house key. Instead he is swept into a strange realm of magic, mysticism, revolutionaries and assassins. Though he struggles to escape, John is drawn steadily closer to a fate he share with Kyle—to wake the destroyer god, the Rifter, and shatter a world. 

Written over five years, The Rifter is award-winning author Ginn Hale's new ten-part serialized novel that follows two men transported from modern America to a theocratic world in the throes of a revolution. 

The first episode, The Shattered Gates, will be released on March 8, 2011. New installments will be released on the second Tuesday of each month. Singles installments and subscriptions are available.

Praise for Ginn Hale 

“An intricate world, well-integrated social issues, believable sexual encounters, and an interesting mystery make this dense, languorous tale appealing for any fan of romantic fantasy.” 

—Publisher’s Weekly

“Lushly detailed, with believable, fully developed characters, this fantasy with homoerotic overtones is reminiscent of Mercedes Lackey’s Vanyel novels and should appeal to a similar readership.”

 —Library Journal 

“This ingenious fantasy romance continues to resonate in my imagination.”

 —Drewey Wayne Gunn, Lambda Literary Report

“Hale is a natural storyteller, and knows how to plot. It’s hard to believe that this is a first effort. I found both sections of the novel unputdownable.”

 —Craig Gidney, Fantasy Book Spot 

“Wicked Gentlemen... is so sharply observed, so uniquely constructed, so original, and so touching in places that I have to give it a high recommendation.”

 —Janine, Dear Author 

About the Author Ginn Hale lives in the Pacific Northwest, donates blood as a pastime, and tinkers with things. She is the author of The Lord of the White Hell (Blind Eye Books), Wicked Gentlemen (Spectrum Award Winner; Lambda Award Finalist; Blind Eye Books), “Feral Machines” in Tangle (Blind Eye Books), “Touching Sparks” in Hell Cop (Loose Id), “Such Heights” in Hell Cop 2 (Loose Id), and “Shy Hunter” in Queer Wolf (Queered Fiction). She is currently working on a sequel to Wicked Gentlemen. 

Visit the author’s web site: http://www.ginnhale.com 

About Weightless Books 

Weightless Books is a DRM-free ebookstore launched in 2010 to provide a new center of gravity for independent publishers. Weightless features a growing band of publishers such as Small Beer Press, Featherproof Books, Prime Books, Blind Eye Books, Lethe Press, Bull Spec, Damnation, Fairy Tale Review, Senses Five, and more every week. Weightless also offers online subscriptions to some of the most popular online and print journals including Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Bull Spec, and LCRW, with more journals being added each month. Weightless Books is run by Gavin J. Grant, who is also the publisher of Small Beer Press, and Chief Technical Officer, Michael J. DeLuca. · Contact: Gavin J. Grant · 857-540-6285 · weightlessbooks@gmail.com · 

Visit the site: http://www.weightlessbooks.com 

Ginn Hale 

The Rifter

 $3.99 per monthly installment; $29.95 subscription / ~100 pages per installment / PDF/mobi/epub/lit / March 8, 2011 

Published by Blind Eye Books: www.blindeyebooks.com 

Distributed by Weightless Books: www.weightlessbooks.com

Isn't this exciting news?  I adore Ginn Hale's work and can't wait to read what she has in store for us this time.  

Nicole Kimberling of Blind Eye Books has been incredibly generous with the Island once again and is offering to giveaway, to one lucky winner, a free subscription of The Rifter.  

That's 10 months of installments - free.  Woohoo!  

Leave your name and your email address in a comment to be entered.

Contest ends tonight at 11:59pm (pacific)

Blind Eye Books stumbles onto the island with e-books!

Nicole Kimberling: Hello – Nicole here, Editor at Blind Eye Books, talking with fellow author Astrid Amara.

Astrid Amara: Hello!

Nicole: Frequent visitors to our website already know this, but Blind Eye Books is partnering with Weightless Books to put out digital versions of Blind Eye Books titles. In March, Ginn Hale's Wicked Gentlemen was released.

Astrid: Woo-hoo!

Nicole: And in April my own book, Turnskin came out.

Astrid: Yee-haw!

Nicole: So you’re just going to yee-haw? No information to share?

Astrid: I work best as a support network.

Nicole: ...okay...

Astrid: But I will throw in that Turnskin was a Lamba Literary Award winner! And Wicked Gentlemen was a Lambda Literary finalist, and won the National Spectrum Award for best fantasy!

Nicole: Have you ever thought of joining the Booster Club? I think you'd make a great cheering section.

Astrid: Zing pow!

Nicole: "Zing pow!" does not qualify as a cheer. But I'll let you have it this time.

Astrid: Action cheering. The kind of cheer that punches you hard in the thyroid. So what’s coming out next?

Nicole: The next book to be released digitally through Weightless is your very own chariot-intensive fantastic epic, The Archer's Heart.

Astrid: All right! More cash!

Nicole: Is that all you care about?

Astrid: Yes! I’m only in this for the money.

Nicole: Yeah. That’s why you spent years writing this novel… for an independent publisher.

Astrid: … Okay. Maybe I also like writing hot stories where dudes fall in love with each other.

Nicole: Well, I personally think The Archer's Heart digital release is really cool because we're going to try our first experiment in serialization. We've divided the book into three sections and will be releasing them sequentially. I personally love serials. I like the idea of having the next part of a story to look forward to--especially when I know that the whole story is already finished.

I know a lot of people have been burned on serial novels because of huge waits between segments and the ultimate pain that occurs when an author simply doesn't finish writing the story for whatever reason. But fear not! The Archer's Heart is not only complete, but has a really cool ending.

Astrid: I LOVE serialized stories. There’s nothing quite like the anticipation of the next part of the series, and then when it arrives…. *sigh*. Perfect joy. Unless of course the author sucks.

Nicole: The Archer's Heart will not let people down. It too, I should point out, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

Astrid: Yeah, I’m pretty excited about the e-book version of The Archer's Heart as well. As much as I love the fact that, in print format, it is heavy enough to validate its status as “potential murder weapon” I think that the e-book version will make it more accessible to a lot of e-book-only readers. Plus, easier on the wrists!

Nicole: What, besides its convenient new format, should people know about your novel?

Astrid: Well, it’s my favorite novel that I wrote, and not just because it took freaking forever to write. I think epic fantasy allows for some really intriguing themes to be investigated, and this book has a lot of them. Plus I got to spend time developing the “bad guys” into real guys, i.e. no one is a cardboard cut-out of Evil. And I love blurring the line between hero and villain, and how a person can change direction based on what roadblocks life erects in one’s path. Heh. I used the word “erect.”

Nicole: When do you not use the word “erect”?

Astrid: I always use it. I also laugh at Lake Titicaca.

Nicole: Has anyone ever told you that you have the mind of a third grade boy?

Astrid: Is that why I liked the Transformers movie?

Nicole: I think that’s because you like robots.

Astrid: True. Although for the record, The Archer's Heart does NOT include robots. It does, however, have magical weapons, demigods, horses, archery, sex, men in gold vests, more sex, betrayal, violence, war, chariots, some sex, family conflict, moral uncertainty, and intriguing bad guys.

Nicole: I think you didn’t mention your favorite part enough.

Astrid: SEX! Actually I like character development more than anything else. And speaking of that…. What about your book that came out from Samhain Publishing, Ghost Star Night? I think that has one of my favorite blurrings of bad guy/good guy characters in any of your novels.

Nicole: Smooth transition! (LOL) But yeah, I liked Ghost Star Night too. It was a real challenge to write. Readers have probably figured out by now that you and I are friends in real life, (we are have been exchanging our stories for about fifteen years now) so I think it might be interesting for them to know a little bit about the creative exchanges that can take place between two authors.

Ghost Star Night is a great example of this. When I started writing it I had THE CRAZIEST POV EVER. Sort of first person omniscient. Really confusing to read, but in order to get the first draft of it written at all, I had to use this bizarre approach. I don't know why. Writing can be weird that way. As I recall you were supportive but firm. Supportive of the story and me as an author while definitely putting your foot down about using the crazy POV.

To me, telling one of your author friends that they've gone to far is, in my mind, the exact equivalent of telling a friend that she's not only put her shirt on inside out but also has toilet paper hanging off her shoe. Painful and awkward, but better for her in the long run.

Astrid: I guess my “toilet paper” moment would be the time I wanted to write an upbeat, cheerful holiday Chanukah story that involved an abusive ex-boyfriend, the mafia, torture, and a high-speed car chase in a mall. Thanks for stopping me on that one.

Nicole: No problem.

Astrid: So back to Ghost Star Night…

Nicole: It comes out in print this June. It costs $14 normally, but last time I checked www.amazon.com seemed to be discounted to around $9. I have no idea how long they're going to be discounting it, but if you'd like to pick up a copy of the book made of real paper you should head on over and get it while it's hot.

Astrid: Huzzah! Hazzoo!

Nicole: All this cheering is just compensation for the fact that you never made the cheerleading team, isn't it?

Astrid: I didn’t try out. I was too busy being the goth in the corner who wore a cape and a coffin around her neck, cursing the world for its inherent cruelty.

Nicole: So, really you haven't changed much at all since then, eh? *g*

Astrid: I’ve changed. Love of ponies makes you a happier person in general. You can’t be an angry-at-the-world-goth when you ride around on cute ponies all day.

Nicole: Don't tell me when I can't be angry! You're not the boss of me! As a side note: I was wondering how long an interview with you could continue without at least one mention of ponies.

Astrid: Ponies! *squeeeeeee*

Nicole: Can we try and focus here? We’re supposed to be talking about Blind Eye Books titles and the topic of speculative fiction and romance.

Astrid: Fine. I’ll focus. What do you like about speculative fiction?

Nicole: I’m most intrigued by the opportunity to look at common conflict points from an angle that is rarely (or never) seen in a person's real life and in that way bring a sort of freshness to the subject.

Astrid: Uh-huh. Like the time I had this dude in my story and he totally wanted to get down with this other dude? But he couldn't because he'd get in trouble?

Nicole: No. Not like that at all. That's a real conflict that people deal with every day. I mean if one of them is a psychic warrior and he can't get down with this other dude because the power imbalance between them is so great that he'll make the other dude's head explode. Psychically.

Astrid: Yeah, that’s cool an all. Exploding heads. But I’m more about exploding passion, and guy’s whose #$$%%$#...

Nicole: FOCUS!

Astrid: Fine.

Nicole: Do you have anything truly fresh or relevant to say about this dude-getting-down-with-other-dude topic?

Astrid: Uh…. I like it??

Nicole: *sigh.* I really wanted to bring substantive discussion about the valuable contributions of speculative fiction to the literary world. Or perhaps plumb the depths of how the exquisite creative-intellectual interaction between fellow writers that can result in tremendous frisson and excellence.

Astrid: And you thought you could do that with me here? Ti-ti-ca-ca.

Nicole: You’re right. What was I thinking? Blue-footed Booby.

Astrid: Heh.

Nicole: Heh.

Astrid: On a clear day I can see Uranus.

Nicole: And… I think we’re done here.