You'll all be happy to know I've been keeping myself quite busy writing. And yes, so far it has been a productive year.
First of all, as announced on the COMPANION DRAGONS TALES blog, the third installment of the series, COPPER'S CHOICE, was just released. Isn't this a gorgeous cover?
Info over there will tell you where to get your copy. Just follow the link above to the blog.
Also, backing up a bit, I have a short story in the May 30th release of SINGULARITY: RISE OF THE POSTHUMANS.
This one is a mashup of steampunk/cyberpunk with superhero elements in a post apocalyptic setting. This is a multi-author anthology that I share with some very talented folks including comics legend Mr. David Michelinie. You can find this one, as you will all of my Pro Se releases, in all the usual places, including Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Smashwords.com too.
It's worth a mention here, that MONSTER ACES VOLUME TWO is now available as an audiobook. Yes, I have a story in that one.
Now, as far as what's possibly coming next for me in projects that have been completed...
I still have a Keener Eye short story due out from Pro Se as a SINGLE SHOT, which is their direct to E-format line of short pieces. I'll let you know if I hear anything about this one.
Airship 27 still has my Sinbad novella, but that has been such a popular series with both writers and readers, it fills up fast. I doubt we'll see it before next year. They also have the second pirate novel, JEZEBEL JOHNSTON—QUEEN OF ANARCHY, of which I have not heard anything about a release date. I'm busy finishing up the third book right now.
Likely slated for early next year, BY THE WAYSIDE TALES will be a debuting anthology from Pro Se in my Hansen's Way imprint. All the books in that imprint take place in the same overarching fantasy world, so you will see familiar settings and themes, and occasionally crossover characters. The two main characters along with their dependable mounts and a very big dog named Tagalong first appeared in the last story in TALES OF THE VAGABOND BARDS.
THE SONG OF HEROES was a series I started for the Pro Se magazines that has now been turned into an anthology. Two of the stories were published in different versions of the magazines, the third one never saw print, and to fill out the book I wrote a brand new fourth story. That got turned into Pro Se earlier this year and I hope to see that sometime in 2017.
And for the next installment of Companion Dragons Tales, earlier this year I turned in to Pro Se a four story Lazlo Dragon anthology that should be out sometime next year. Look for LAZLO AT HOME under Pro Se's Young Pulp imprint.
So what am I working on these days?
I've been picking away at the third pirate novel for Airship 27. I'm just writing the big climatic scene now. The tentative title of this one is JEZEBEL JOHNSTON—SEA WITCH. It was Air Chief Ron Fortier's idea to subtitle each of the Jezebel Johnston novels with whatever ship she is sailing on during the course of the novel. While it's been challenging because of the amount of research I've had to do for a historically accurate nautical tale set in a defined time and place, I've had a lot of fun with the series and I've learned a ton of things I never would have known.
For Pro Se, I just finished and turned in my next installment of what I'm now calling The Greenwood Cycle, which is the series of novels that began with FORTUNE'S PAWN back in 2011. THE DARK GLASS continues the story of everybody's favorite red haired barmaid Callie and her new baby as well as the rest of the world around them. As the child grows up, there are new dangers to face, and plenty of intrigue. The idea here is to shift the emphasis of the tales to the next generation, and so as the series goes on, you will be meeting all the junior contemporaries. You'll find familiar faces in this one as well. Hoping to see it come out sometime next year too, but I already have several books awaiting a publishing slot at Pro Se, and I'm far from their only author.
I am working on a horror short story for another publisher, but I am not going to say any more about that except that the first draft is done. I'll let them break the news first.
Have a bare start on what looks to be a Western Romance with plenty of action and adventure thrown in. It's an idea based on a song I like, in a genre I've barely scratched the surface of and want to revisit. Hope to get a little farther on that later in the year. Not sure yet where this one is going, but I'm hoping to wring a novel out of it.
Coming up late this year or possibly early next year, I plan to write a second anthology for the TALES OF THE VAGABOND BARDS series. I have a couple ideas for stories I'd like to include, and it's just a matter of clearing out the things I'm already working on before I get to this. I always have some project going.
Lee Houston Jr. and I have a couple projects we want to collaborate on. I can't say much about them right now, because we're still in the 'talking about it' stage. One is an idea we've had for a while that will expand his writing into a new direction, the other is just a thing we'd both like to do and decided to work together on. Lee is working hard to clear up some of his own writing obligations right now, so the earliest I expect to get down to work on one of these mystery projects is sometime next year.
Of course I never know what else is brewing in the back of my mind until something bubbles up to the surface, or someone else offers me an opportunity to write outside the box.
Until next time,
~NANCY
