Kate Dolan (writing as K.D. Hays) will be featured in Southern Writers Magazine’s “What’s the Story” section explaining the inspiration for her latest book, Roped In. Since Kate was a jump rope coach for eight years and Roped In is a mystery surrounding a jump rope competition, the story behind the story could have easily stretched to novel length all by itself.
Stephen Tiano – who works as a book designer, Page Compositor and Layour Artist – has been quite busy recently. He’s currently working on three book interiors, one of which is a sort of retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with a transgender twist!
See some of what he’s been working on below.
Author Rajendra Kher has signed a contract with Leadstart Publishing Corp. for his upcoming non-fiction work Life After Life; Lifting the veil on Death. Congrats!
Rie Sheridan Rose has a short story titled “It’s…Complicated” in the anthology Lightships and Sabers which should see release 4/18/16.
Pennwriters – Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction with Barbara Mountjoy (AKA Alana Lorens and Lyndi Alexander)
WEEK ONE:
Discussion of different types of sci fi (hard sci fi, space opera, etc) and fantasy, high fantasy, urban fantasy, etc. Writing assignment will be to sketch out a rough outline of the piece students will be working on for the class, using the above guidelines, whether a short story or novel beginning.
WEEK TWO:
Discussion of tropes and how to avoid them. Drawing characters. Power Point presentation on world-building. Lessons from AVATAR on how to shortcut some world-building by using similar concepts that people already know. Writing assignment will be to continue to embellish the outline with interesting characters, situations and oddities of the world they are creating.
WEEK THREE:
Watching Firefly episode “Out of Gas,” an exercise in learning how to insert small details so that it doesn’t look like heroes are God-moding when they can suddenly do everything at the climax. Writing exercise will be to analyze piece for possible placement of such details.
WEEK FOUR:
Sharing the works we’ve done over the month, feedback offered, “pickles of praise” as well as whatever participants request. Discussion of what might be done to expand this piece into something longer, and encouragement offered!
Babs Mountjoy, who writes for Zumaya as Alana Lorens and Lyndi Alexander, will be teaching two seminars at the Flathead River Virtual Conference. The classes will be: Writing the Series: How to Keep Stories Alive and Building Real and Alien Worlds.
Babs Mountjoy, who writes for Zumaya as Alana Lorens and Lyndi Alexander, will be teaching two seminars at the Flathead River Virtual Conference. The classes will be: Writing the Series: How to Keep Stories Alive and Building Real and Alien Worlds.
Babs Mountjoy, who writes for Zumaya as Alana Lorens and Lyndi Alexander, will be teaching two seminars at the Flathead River Virtual Conference. The classes will be: Writing the Series: How to Keep Stories Alive and Building Real and Alien Worlds.
ALWAYS ALI!, the fourth book in the Ali Caldwell series, by Christine Marciniak will be released soon. Ali finally thinks she has her life together, when a new girl at school sends everything topsy-turvy.
If you prefer getting your ebooks from iTunes – some of our more recent titles can now be found there! If you check for your favorite title here at the ZP site, there’ll be a new iTunes/iBook icon on the book page.
Yet another way to find our titles for your enjoyment! 🙂
We keep adding more venues as ties go by and we’ll keep you informed of developments.
One of our artists, Tamian Wood, was chosen by the publisher of Pope Francis to do the cover for his Encyclical Letter Landato Si. How cool is that? Congrats, Tamian!
Rie Sheridan Rose will be celebrating the release of Bruce and Roxanne: From Start to Finnish from Yard Dog Press at FenCon in Sept 2015. Lyndi Alexander participated in the First Annual Book Sale on the Mercer County Courthouse grounds, July 25, 2015, sponsored by the West Pennsylvania authors. The event, held in conjunction with the Saturday Farmer’s Market, was well attended and very successful.
**This month we got some not so great news and our second loss to our roster**
“It’s with deep sadness that I report our fellow Zumayan, James Choron, died of pneumonia and complications of asthma in Moscow, Russia, on July 23 of this year. Jim and I were in the process of developing a new, updated version of his excellent collection of paranormal investigations, Footprints in the Snow: True Tales of Haunted Russia. He was a delightful person to talk with and will be very much missed.”
He will be missed.
Appearances
Sep 4-7, 2015 – Author Gloria Oliver is on the Emergency Waiting List for Animefest 2015 in Dallas, TX. What this means is if a table frees up at the last minute, she’ll have to drop everything that Friday and GO! Wish her luck! 🙂
Sep 25-27, 2015 – Will see several Zumayans at Fencon 12 in Dallas, TX. Attending will be Gloria OliverRie Sheridan Rose and Elizabeth K. Burton – This year they’ll be at a new venue, so should be exciting!
Book Trailers
This month is a book trailer is for K.D. Hays and Meg Weidman from the Thresholds Imprint called – Toto’s Tale
icon on the book page.
