She’s also shared a neat spread of pages from a children’s book she recently finished designing and laying out.
Author Ann Curtin won an Honorable Mention at the San Francisco Book Festival for her ZP published Novel – Dreamcatcher. Congrats Ann!
Author Kate Dolan has joined the guys at the Jump Rope Jam as a guest on their podcast. Kate has recently published the novel “Roped In”, which deals with competitive jump roping.
Gloria oliver – recently received an Honorable Mention for her fantasy short story “The Queen Lorellai” for Q1 2016 from the Writers of the Future.
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.
We at Zumaya mourn deeply the loss of Roger Margason, better known as Dorien Grey, and Joan Blacher, two well-respected and talented mystery writers. Both were a joy to work with, I will miss being able to spend time with them, even if only virtually, more than I can say.
Award-winning author Dr. Joan Blacher, a licensed psychotherapist in private practice for the past twenty years, was a former university professor and director of a counseling and guidance graduate program. She was the author of the mystery novels Murder Canyon, Lethal Lake, and Death on the Run, and co-author of Difficult Teens: A Parents Guide for Coping.
Her works were published in counseling and educational journals, mystery publications, magazines, newspapers, and she was a former member of a counseling journal’s editorial board. In 2003, the California Association of Marriage Family Therapists awarded her its Carl Vincent Award for her literary contribution to mental health with the publication of Difficult Teens.
She is survived by her husband of 42 years, Norman, who has requested her mystery series featuring forensic psychologist Ardis Jensen remain available to readers.
When long-time book and magazine editor Roger Margason chose the pseudonym “Dorien Grey” for his first novel, it set off a chain of circumstances that led to a comfortable division of labor and responsibility. Roger had charge of day-to-day existence, freeing Dorien (with the help of Roger’s fingers) to write. Both Roger and Dorien died in November after a minor surgical procedure resulted in fatal complications.
Two years into college, Roger left to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Washing out after a year, he spent the rest of his brief military career on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean at the height of the Cold War. Returning to Northern Illinois University after service, he graduated with a BA in English and embarked on a series of jobs that worked him into the editing field.
While working for a Los Angeles publishing house, he was instrumental in establishing a division exclusively for the publication of gay paperbacks and magazines, of which he became editor. He moved on to edit a leading LA-based international gay men’s magazine. Then, tiring of earthquakes, brush fires, mud slides, and riots, he returned to the Midwest, where Dorien emerged, full-blown, like Venus from the sea. They were inseparable (and interchangeable) from that point on.
Roger—and Dorien, of course—moved back to Chicago in 2006, where they devoted time to writing and travel. Both Dorien’s excellent mystery series—Elliott Smith and John and Dick Hardest—will remain available to readers, as he requested. His popular blog will also remain available with the able assistance of his good friend Gary Brown.
Rajendra Kher’s non-fiction book Empire of the Gods has been released.
One of our artists, April Martinez, has just published a lovely coloring book called Patterns.
Gloria Oliver has received a contract for a historical/alternate-history novelette entitled Charity and Sacrifice which should see release in October 2016.
Appearances
Zumaya will have a table a ConDFW on February 12-14, 2016 in Dallas, TX. Come meet some of our writers and editors!
Author Gloria Oliver will also have a table and will participate in panels at ConDFW as well. Come on by and say “Howdy!”
