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Post-Weekend Update

3 Comments / Artsy, Blackwood, Books, The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 26, 2013

Time flies, my friends, and there is not enough of it. A few little things…

Blackwood's ebook is now on sale for the low, low, a-steal-really price of $.99p or $1.99 at Amazon and B&N. And if you buy from Amazon, you can add the audiobook for $3.49.

Handy links: Amazon US / Amazon UK / Nook

On to The Woken Gods, which releases in a week! Ack! I'll be at Joseph-Beth the evening of Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. to sign, read, and babble. Come out if you can.

If you participated in the preorder contest, your relic is winging its way to you as of today. I think these turned out pretty swell and they were lots of fun to do. I'm hoping you'll get them before you get your copies of the book, and do let me know if they don't show up in the next couple weeks. Here's a little peek at a handful as I took them to the mailbox:

(It ended up working out better to type the descriptions on labels and afix, because otherwise the postcards got destroyed on their way through the typewriter machine. You will also learn how you obtained said relics.)

Blog tourishness continues! I neglected to point to an interview with Red Reader Reviews last week that covered all sorts of topics, like how I'd spend my last day on Earth, my favorite quote, what animal I'd be (spoiler: a dragon!), etc. Check it out.
New review from Ashley at the A P Book Club. Snippet: "I'm always looking for a book where ancient mythologies are blended with contemporary settings. Take the Percy Jackson series. I loved those books, and I was kind of really excited to see that this was a book for fans of them. But honestly, I think Bond does it so much better. So I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for something along the lines of Percy Jackson, but maybe a little more complex and a lot darker." *beams*

And last, but definitely not least, I believe at least a little bit of book money should be spent on a frivolous splurge (whenever possible), and so I might have procured the most insanely great custom e-reader cover ever:

Yay, Etsy. More anon, lovely people.

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Cheap Alchemy! Blackwood’s On Sale!

BirthdayGras!, Blackwood, Books / By Gwenda / August 23, 2013

It's Strange Chemistry's first birthday and they're celebrating with an excellent e-book sale on a slew of their first titles, including…

Blackwood! $1.99 for the Kindle and the Nook here in the US and $.99p in the UK for Kindle. The Kindle prices already seem to be live, and the Nook should follow suit on Monday, if not before.

Handy links: Amazon US / Amazon UK / Nook

If you haven't read it yet, purchase away. If you have and enjoyed it, now's an excellent time to recommend it to someone else. Book sales like this are a fabulous way for lesser known authors — like yours truly — to get their books in front of new readerly eyeballs.

And if you haven't checked out the other Strange Chemistry titles included, well, get cracking. You can buy ALL OF OUR BOOKS for less than a hardback — for less than some trade paperbacks, even! Whatta a deal. It's only on for a while, so do not delay.

p.s. You could also add The Woken Gods to your cart while you're there and/or leave Blackwood a review if you enjoyed it and haven't. These things make authors happier than you know.

p.p.s. Psst…told by a friend that if you buy the kindle edition of Blackwood on sale, you can add the audiobook for $3.49 — a steal!

Cheap Alchemy! Blackwood’s On Sale! Read More »

The Continuing Saga…

The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 21, 2013

…otherwise known as the official unofficial blog tour for The Woken Gods stops over at Read My Breath Away for a Sophomore Spotlight interview, in which we discuss which of my characters I'd want by my side in a zombie apocalpyse and more. (Also, I'm serious about that bohemian utopia — or it could be a bohemian dystopia. Or the name of my next band: Bohemian Dystopia.)

My publisher is kicking in an international giveaway there, so go enter. AND the Pub Crawl giveaway (US-only, but for a signed copy) runs for another day or so. (Or, if you're lazy like me, you could just preorder. Even though the preorder contest is technically over, if a few more emails straggle in to the WokenGodsATgmailDOTcom, they'll almost certainly get relic postcards…I'm doing them this weekend.)

Tomorrow I promise another I Heart post here. It's been a busy bee kind of week, and though it appears the swarm of busy bees have settled in through next month, I'll do my best to post regularly here anyway.

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Elsewhere!

The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 19, 2013

Today is a mad-dashing-around kind of day for me, but…

I'm delighted to be interviewed about The Woken Gods today over at one of my favorite blogs in the constellation, Pub(lishing) Crawl, by the thoroughly wonderful Amie Kaufman (whose These Broken Stars, co-written with Meagan Spooner, you'll be wanting to read later this year). Go forth and discover the story of many drafts and which trio of the dearly departed I'd like to close down a pub with.

Oh, and there's a signed copy giveaway to boot.

Elsewhere! Read More »

Thursday Hangovers

Hangovers, The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 15, 2013

Real posts soon, promise, but for now some links.
Golden Retriever Festival in Scotland. These photos are my new happy place.
Great piece by Michael Erard at The Morning News, "Rumors of Tribes": "I collected high school names using Twitter and Survey Monkey and came across “crumbsters,” a label for the popular kids, and the “queer cult,” for the semi-populars, though if awards were given out for creative crowd labels, the kids at one New Jersey high school in the mid-2000s might win for naming their popular crowd in the aftermath of a food fight that happened in ninth grade, when one of the most popular girls shrieked and generally overreacted after she was hit in the face with a flying chicken patty. The popular kids became known as “chicken patties.” "
The super-fancy Robin Wasserman interviewed Ann Patty, the editor who pulled V.C. Andrews from the slush pile. See also: an essay from Patty and a piece by Sara Gran and Megan Abbott in the Believer.
The fab Kelly Braffet wrote a great piece about persevering in the face of naysayers: "After school, I drove to the mall. Soon enough, as always, I found myself in the bookstore. There, surrounded by all of those lovely shelves, row upon row of lovely books, I realized: They hadn’t written themselves. People had written them. Clearly, writing books was not impossible. I was a person; therefore I could write books. And also, Mrs. Smith could go to hell."
A micro-lesson on the importance of varying sentence lengths.
Stephen Blackmoore and Chuck Wendig tackle the kinds of questions that usually get posed only to ladies, over at Whack! The results are hilarious.

The Woken Gods release day continues its approach:

Quick reminder that today's the last day to send the preoder proof if you want a relic typed up and sent to you via the mail. I'm really looking forward to doing these. *twirls fingers evilly*
A happy-making new review at SF Signal by Paul Weimer. Snippet: "In addition to Kyra as a character, the other feature of Woken Gods that really stands out to the reader is its creative use of mythology. Before reading it, I had expected the usual suspects of Greco-Roman mythology, or perhaps, if I was fortunate, a Norse Goddess or two thrown into the mix. … To my surprise and delight, the Gods we see in the Woken Gods are none of the usual suspects."

And a new pretty image et quote:

More soon!

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Quote Unquote

The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 10, 2013

So, Christopher kindly helped me fill in some text on several of these neato graphics with quotes from the new book… I asked him when I should start sharing them, and he said, a little pitifully, “Maybe now, since I worked so hard on them?”*

You reblogging/sharing, if you so choose, will make him happy too—and me, obvs—if you’re so inclined. I'm putting these at tumblr and pinterest, one a week through release (note helpful buttons below post).

Number one… *makes tah-dah arms*

*The computer with all the design software died, so we have to recreate all but this one tomorrow. Ack!

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Thursday Hangovers Et Things

2 Comments / Hangovers, The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 8, 2013

Could the moonshine cake be my new bourbon chocolates? I'm always looking for good regional cuisine mailing gifts for thank yous. (Via Cherie Priest.)
There have been lots of smart thoughts bopping around tumblr re:movies based on YA novels and movies featuring teen girls, generated by an excellent post by Ally Carter. One of my favorite responses so far is this one from Cassie: "What Twilight, City of Bones, the Hunger Games, and Divergent have in common is that they are about teenage girls, and to people who know about YA, about fiction, even just about stories, that’s really not that much, or even a notable similarity." Go read the whole thing, and go see City of Bones, obvs, because it is going to be AWESOME.
Would you like Boris Karloff's guacamole recipe? I would.
The delightful Myra McEntire speaks the truth about the importance of writer friends.
Genevieve did a wonderful post about eight notable silent films, focusing on the actresses at the heart of them. A great primer if you want to know more about the ladies of the silent era. I swooned. I love them so.
15 million-year-old whale skull found on banks of the Potomac. (You say whale, I say ancient god who looks like a whale. *g*)
The science of champers at Smithsonian: "The collapse of bubbles at the surface is Liger-Belair’s favorite thing about champagne. “Bubbles collapsing close to each other produce unexpected lovely flower-shaped structures unfortunately completely invisible by the naked eye,” he says. “This is a fantastic example of the beauty hidden right under our nose.” "
Photos of Shanghai 26 years apart. Astounding.
If you're into SoundCloud, you can get the whole first season of Radio Unbound here (including the ep with me reading from Blackwood).

And some The Woken Gods things:

The preorder contest is still going, of course, so watch video or read post! Then buy! Email! Get a postcard with a relic! Spread the word! Yay! (I'm really looking forward to writing these, and thanks SO MUCH to everyone who has already entered and who's signal boosted. Every book sold helps feed dogs et cat, so they thank you too.)
And soon I will be all everywhere guest posting and doing interviews and etc.; if you want to be a part of that, get in touch with me or the fabulous Caroline Lambe at Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry, and we'll do our best to accomodate.
Los Angeles area lovelies, I'm coming your way! My first-ever west coast event will be Oct. 13 at 2:30 p.m. at Mysterious Galaxy Redondo Beach. Calendarize and come out. And speaking of events, my Lexington ones for The Woken Gods are also now confirmed on the events page–so Kentucky peeps, come one and all.
A couple more happy-making advance reviews this week, including this lovely one from Torre de Babel, which you can read in English at GoodReads: "Behind an amazing cover lurks a well-crafted divine drama. If you like alternate realities and mythology turned true, you're guaranteed a heck of a good reading." Plus, Kyra and Anzu love. Yay.
Another nice one at the The Founding Fields: “A great, fast paced and fun novel that puts a new spin on the 'Gods Are Real' storyline that fans of the Percy Jackson series and other similar titles will love. … Kyra’s character is strong and awesome, and when this book hits shelves next month, you should certainly pick it up if you can. Young Adult readers will love this one.”
And Daphne at Winged Reviews put me among 'I'm seriously not worthy' company on her Tuesday top ten books she wants sequels to. *beam*

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(Nonphony) Preorder Mania!

2 Comments / Moving Pictures, The Woken Gods / By Gwenda / August 5, 2013

So, I think it's time for a little preorder contest for THE WOKEN GODS, which is out on September 3, less than a month! This is a contest where you win IF you preorder, basically. And I even made a video. If you are not the sort of person who delights in watching awkward author videos (or if you are!), the details are all below too.

The details…

Things to know about The Woken Gods relevant to the contest:

The book takes place in a world where the gods of ancient mythology awoke five years earlier, and is set in a transformed Washington, D.C. The magic of the gods has unpredictable effects on technology, which means more advanced forms of it often don't work in places like D.C.
For centuries, the Society of the Sun (no longer secret and headquartered in the Library of Congress) has been collecting relics, objects that hold divine magic and have specific effects. For instance, in the book there's a shoe owned by Vidarr from Norse mythology which bestows invisibility on the wearer and anyone they're touching.

The contest:

Pre-order anytime by midnight August 15 (UK or US) and you will receive a shiny The Woken Gods postcard with a relic and its story typed by me on a typewriter and signed. The first 25 people (and maybe a few more if I go nuts) will get a custom relic and can even pick their pantheon, and I'll choose a god and type up the specific relic for them. Everyone else will get a shiny postcard with one of a few relic stories I'll create specifically for this. Old school! Typewritten! In the mail!
Email proof of purchase of book or e-book to WokenGodsATgmailDOTcom, snipping out any private details and including your snail mail address, and we're good. If you order from an indie or local bookstore, I'll take your word for it*, and if you send me a picture I'll tweet about them (yay bookstores). Ordering links**:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Powells

I wanted to do something a little bit different to reflect the book, and hopefully you guys are into it. And please do share the video and spread the word, if you're so inclined.

Also, hey, the book is starting to get some early reviews. Here's one from the weekend that made me happy:

Ink Scratchers: "I can't recommend The Woken Gods enough, the world, the writing, the action and the characters are all so awesome. This is a unique concept that you have to try even if you aren't a fan of the YA mythology genre. This book is political thriller mixed with mythology which doesn't sound like it should work… yet strangely they go together like cookies and cream."

*Unless you go out of your way to seem like a grifter…which seems unlikely, but just caveating.

**If you don't want the postal relic, but preorder anyway, well, that is just fine too, obviously. As is purchasing when it's out (or asking your library to order it). But I wanted to offer a fun thank you.

(Nonphony) Preorder Mania! Read More »

Thursday Hangovers

Hangovers / By Gwenda / August 1, 2013

It's August 1! My reaction to this news over at Facebook. *bats eyelashes while semi-panicking*

And now some hangovers; several of these are old, but hey, I stockpiled them for some reason and maybe you missed them. Closing ye olde tabs.

Chuck Wendig drops some truth about the season of crazy that goes with a book release.
The New Yorker on the decline and fall of the book cover.
I loved loved Linda Holmes' letter to the oddball kids we desperately need to make the future interesting: "The fact that nobody is doing what you imagine doing is the beginning of your idea, not the end. People want to read things that haven't been written, see things that haven't been made, and hear things that don't yet exist. Don't be discouraged when you don't see yourself reflected in what's being shown to you, let alone what's being heavily marketed to you." Good advice for all of us. Really, the whole piece is fab–and the distinction between criticism and feedback is particularly useful.
A wonderful interview at the Guardian with the divine Eduardo Galeano. Snippet: "Galeano talks like this a lot – not in riddles, exactly, but enigmatically and playfully, using time as his foil. When I ask him whether he is optimistic about the state of the world, he says: "It depends on when you ask me during the day. From 8am until noon I am pessimistic. Then from 1pm until 4 I feel optimistic." I met him in a hotel lobby in downtown Chicago at 5pm, sitting with a large glass of wine, looking quite happy."
Stephen King on openings (aka the toughest part for me, always and forever). Smart stuff, as always: "An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this."
This piece by Stephen Roxburgh on working with Roald Dahl on The Witches is a fabulous close-up look at the editing process: “This is not a cliché to children, it is a situation they will enjoy. I must keep reminding you that this is a book for children and I don’t give a bugger what grown-ups think about it. This has always been my attitude.”
Don't like talking in front of people? This might help, or in my parlance: Pretend to be a spy. It works, for nearly anything you hate doing–reading in front of people, giving a speech, talking on the phone.
Good stuff in this discussion about pirating and how it's lesser known authors it hurts the most. The sigh I make when a new pirate link turns up in google alerts or someone emails me about is one of the heaviest sighs I am capable of. Authors need you to buy their books or get them through legitimate means, as Sarah says–borrow from a friend or the library–in order to keep writing books. It's that simple.
A typically smart craft piece from Charlie Jane on tone: "You're trying to draw your reader into a particular mood, and if the reader isn't getting into it or feels like it's all over the map, then it's probably a good time to think about whether you're in control of your tone."
Loved this open letter to new writers from James Smythe about sales and receptions and etc. etc.
Also loved this piece from Kim Curran at SF Signal about how no one ever told her women aren't supposed to write SF, and her experience doing so. Snippet: "Society has tried, in various, pernicious ways, to divide the genders. To place men in the blue corner and women in the pink corner, and keep us fighting. But we’re starting to see through their schemes. To refuse to play by their rules. Women and men are joining forces to try and make SF a healthier place for everyone. It may take us time, but we’ll get there."
Lazy sloth being hilarious.

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I Heart Stuff (The First In An Occasional Series)

I Heart / By Gwenda / July 29, 2013

One of the things I used to be much better at using this space for was recommending things I've been loving of late — whether it was books, music, movies or TV — and that often also led to recommendations from you guys of other stuff I ended up loving. Of course, I do this in a piecemeal way on twitter and facebook and etc., like we all do, but it feels more scattered. So consider this the first in an occasional series of posts about great stuff I've been enjoying that's out or about to be out. Not, of course, comprehensive.

I spent the weekend deadlining on a couple of different nonfiction things by day, and marathoning the first season of Orphan Black (which just came out on DVD) by night. If you like smart science fiction TV–particularly with an actress's consistent tour de force performance at the center–you will want to check it out. And avoid spoilers beforehand, if you can and care about such things. All I knew was that it was a genre show and people I trust said it was realllly good. It doesn't hold onto the secret that is its premise for too long, but long enough that it's fun to watch the pilot without knowing. Fab characters. (Felix = j'adore!) There are playlists for Sarah and Felix's characters here that are fun, and obviously where I snitched that pic from. If you've already watched it, here's a second season preview-let (+ interview snippets with the cast by Charlie Jane at SDCC) at io9.

Books! Even though I've been insanely overrun lately, all I want to do is sit around and read and work on various novel projects. Magically, I have managed a decent amount of reading (if not nearly as much writing time as I want). You can also check out this page for more or less up to date reading recs, anytime.

So…I finally got around to reading the thoroughly excellent second installment of Leigh Bardugo's Grisha series, Siege and Storm. This is undoubtedly one of my favorite series at the moment, in YA or out of it. Epic sweep, great characters and world-building, witty banter, and a delicious romance that manages to complicate heroine Alina's story, rather than simplify it. LOVE.

Speaking of romances, as most of you know, they are my go-to stress reading of choice. And one of my favorite series is Julie Anne Long's Pennyroyal Green books. I believe I've now read all eight of them, since I discovered her earlier this year. The eighth in question is It Happened One Midnight, and just recently out. It became an instant favorite. Such a fun read. And if you haven't tried Elizabeth Essex yet, well, seriously, Almost a Scandal is waiting for you; girl dresses as boy to get on board ship, proves to be an excellent sailor, has exciting adventures and falls in love. Oh, and Courtney Milan has a new one as well, also FABULOUS: The Heiress Effect. There you go.

And for something completely different, I'm just finishing up Jincy Willett's latest, Amy Falls Down, a loose sequel (same characters–including protagonist Amy Gallup) to The Writing Class, which my love for is well-documented. Here's an interview I did with her when that book came out–something else I used to do more of here, but have fallen out of the habit of.

But I'm going to try to be better about these things, time permitting, especially since we're about to enter the season of The Woken Gods promo (I love you forever if you pre-order–and, if you do, save your receipt, because there might just be something in it for you; more details anon). Anyway, I shall endeavor to make it at least semi-fun for all of us. Karmically, I'm only happy if I'm recommending and talking about stuff by other people, in addition to promoing my own work. And, in fact, my wonderful pub sister Kim Curran will be dropping by at some point this month, and she and I are going to talk second books and the last year and etcetera. Speaking of which, run don't walk to get your copy of her follow-up to Shift, Control, the second book in her fabulous Shifter series, which is officially out next week.

That's probably more than enough for now, so ciao, bellas and fellas.

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