Goals

Looking Back at 2019’s Goals

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Looking Back

Each year I set goals for myself and then at the end of that year (or the beginning of the next one) I look back to see how well I’ve done at achieving those goals.

One of these years I’m going to find that balance between ambitious goals and trying to do too much in a year. When that happens I will reach all my goals without feeling like I am phoning it in.

This is not that year LOL

Completed goals are in bold

2019 Goals

Stuff:

  • Finish playing Divinity 2
    • I love this game but I keep taking loooooong breaks from it because reasons. Well, mostly because work reasons. I’d like to finish it so I can finally begin playing Dragon Age: Inquision in earnest… ya know, so I can maybe finish it before the next one comes out LOL

I did not finish this game. In my defense it’s not because I forgot or was working too much or whatever. It’s because the game pissed me off. Because of the character I was playing it was trying to force me into making a choice I just wouldn’t make… in theory there might be away to avoid making that choice, but in reality I spent hours and hours trying to figure out a way to win a battle without doing what the game wanted me to and it quickly became not fun at all.

I may go back and play it again sometime… probably from the very beginning and making some different choices but I dunno. I had a lot of time invested in it before it pushed me away.

  • Get good at making chicken/chorizo gumbo
    • Like really good. I want to like, craft a master recipe for my ultimate chicken/chorizo gumbo. I’m starting by mastering stock. I’m not even joking. See? I can over-complicate anything. It’s a skill, really.

Nailed it. But then I stopped eating pork. So… that was kind of a useless skill in the end LOL It was a fun process though because I really got to indulge the over-thinking part of my brain as well as the ‘Cooking means flexibility’ part.

  • Have a successful ‘Depth Year’
    • Jo and I decided to have a ‘depth year‘ this year, which basically means we aren’t buying anything that isn’t consumable. There are a few additional exceptions — for example I’d really like to fix our broken-ass back fence so home maintenance things don’t count — but mostly we aren’t buying things. The idea is it will eliminate impulse buying, stop adding clutter to our home, save us some money and help us appreciate the things we already have.

This was awesome. Seriously. I highly recommend it. Jo and I still bought things, but the purchases were well thought-out and planned. Reducing our impulse buying not only saved us a lot of money (more than I ever would have guessed) but it helped reduce the amount of *stuff* coming into the house. And it was much easier than I thought it would be.

Even though Depth Year is technically over, I think it has permanently changed our buying behaviour. Which is not to say we didn’t go a bit crazy at Giftmas, because we did, but we were better able to afford that because of the changes we’d made over the eleven months that came before it.

  • Empty a box every month
    • We’ve spent the last couple years on a serious de-clutter and purge mission, and it’s gone very well. There are still little piles here and there, though, so Jo and I have each got a banker box in our offices and the goal of filling it with things we can get rid of and then actually getting rid of them. Every month. We’re both really good at putting things in the box, it’s the moving them from there to out of our house part that is going to be the most challenging.

This went well until it didn’t. It became harder and harder to find things to put in the boxes (to the point Jo and I were negotiating who got to put things in their box when we found stuff we could part with) and then around about June I just totally forgot about filling the boxes at all.

Oops.

  • Take a vacation
    • Every year I book the month of July off to vacation with my family, and every year I end up working… just less. This year I want the only work I even think about doing in July to be occasionally reading Swashbuckling Cats submissions. That’s it and that’s all.

I worked in July. According to my planner I didn’t work a lot — I didn’t plan things for every day and only put one task per day on the days I did work — but I did work.

I did take short (four day/three night) vacations in April and December though during which I didn’t even think about work. And they were lovely. So I took a vacation. It just wasn’t the one I planned. I’m counting this as a success 🙂

  • Set up a Patreon
    • Related — sit down and schedule which promo dice I’m going to commission and when.

I did it, and it’s amazing. My Patreon currently has 33 patrons who support me for a total of $154 a month. Even more than the money (which, don’t get me wrong, is a-maz-ing), I love the feeling that these people care about what I’m doing. Best decision ever.

  • Establish and write down five and ten year goals

LoL I’ve been thinking about this. A lot. But I haven’t written anything down. I’m still having difficulties, especially with the ten year goals, though I think I’m getting closer to clarity every day.

  • Create, schedule and effectively host the anthology book club on my Facebook group.

I did this. It didn’t work out so well. And that’s okay. It was worth a try and not every project I start is going to go the way I’d like. Moving on, without any bitterness or regrets 🙂

  • Take two walks a day
    • They don’t need to be long, but I need to get up from my desk at least twice a day for at least twenty minutes and go for a walk. Inside on the treadmill, outside running errands or catching Pokemon, it doesn’t matter. I just need to do it. The idea is that it will break up my day and also get my blood moving a wee bit.
    • Note to self: Don’t even begin to pretend these little jaunts can take the place of actual workouts. They are in addition to, not instead of.

It’s funny how it’s always my resolutions to increase my physical activity that fall through. I don’t mean funny haha I mean funny curious. Because I enjoy these things while I’m doing them but actually stepping away from the desk to make them happen is a HUGE speed bump.

I’m going to have to find some strategies to deal with that.

  • Read 40 books
    • Books I begin in good faith but just can’t bring myself to finish totally count

I think, according to Goodreads, I read exactly 40 books this year. Plus a shit load of short stories LOL

  • Host another Giftmas Tour to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank

We raised $1,380 for the Edmonton Food Bank. Which is 4,140 meals. And that makes me feel good.

Releases:

  • Release Grimm, Grit and Gasoline
    • September.
    • I would like this anthology to have my best launch yet–beating all my other WWP anthology launch numbers. To pull that off I am going to need to come up with a great promo plan, and figure out how to give it an awesome launch outside of a convention setting.

Um… I’m not actually sure that this anthologies launch numbers beat Fae‘s (Fae is my bestselling book hands down ever so its numbers are tough to beat). However. It’s an amazing anthology which had a successful release and earned me my first ever starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.

True story — I didn’t even have to look hard for the link to that to share it, because I have never closed the browser tab with that review in it. Ever.

:-p

  • Release F is for Fairy
    • May 7th
    • I want to feel good about this release, to feel as though I’ve given the book the time and attention that it deserves and not just sort of thrown it to the wolves. I will need to assess and set some concrete, measurable goals for this and record them in my records for the book.

I did not assess or set concrete, measurable goals for this book’s launch. But I did launch it in a way that I feel good about and it is, by far, the best selling volume of the Alphabet Anthologies series. In part because it was part of a Story Bundle deal, but also, I think, because people just really like fairy stories 🙂

  • Release Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles
    • August.
    • The timeline for this anthology is a bit shorter than usual but I want to make it work and give it a great launch, matching the success that we found with Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinns

Earth had a really great launch (and I will never not drool over that cover) but it didn’t quite meet with the same success that Fire did. I’m fully willing to blame this on the sophomore curse (the second volume in all of my series seems to do worse than the first or third. I dunno what the cause is, but it’s a real thing LOL)

  • Release Shadows
    • Date TBD
    • Will be self-published and require production and promotion. This will need to be fitted in around other projects but I don’t want the results to feel like they’ve been fitted in around other projects.

I did not release Shadows because reasons. It’s a long, boring story but… the book is going to be serialized on my Patreon this spring and then released as an ebook and paperback toward the end of the year. So it’s not all bad news 😉

Submission Periods:

  • Have a successful submission period for Swashbuckling Cats
    • Submissions for this one end July 31st. I would like to have a Table of Contents decided by the end of August.

I don’t actually know when I had my ToC decided, and I’m too lazy to look it up in my planner LOL However, I did have a successful submission period for this anthology and I am looking forward to releasing it this spring 🙂

  • Have a successful submission period for Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles
    • Submissions close on February 28th. I would like to have a Table of Contents by the end of March. This may be unreasonable, but that’s my goal.

Not only did I had a successful submission period, but also a successful launch. So yay!

  • Have a successful submission period for Hear Me Roar
    • This anthology closes to submissions in September. I would like to have the Table of Contents decided by October.

I had to extend the submission window for this anthology by a month because I told one person that the subs closed at the beginning of September and another that they closed at the end of September. Good job me!

Anyway, although it was longer than expected, the submission period was successful and resulted in a great Table of Contents. I’m working on edits for this anthology now and hope to be announcing the TOC and such next month.

Writing and Editing

  • Finish writing Eerie Edmonton

Worked my butt off to make it happen, and it did. The ebook became available earlier this month and the paperback will be released toward the end of it. I am very excited to have it out in the world 🙂

  • Complete edits on Hollow and hand those in to my publisher on time

Done and done. Hollow will be released this March. Don’t tell my other books but it’s my favourite release for this year 😉

  • Complete edits on Shadows

I did this. But now I have to do it again because I wrote a story that’s meant to come shortly before Shadows and it changes a couple tiny things.

  • Edit the next book in E. C. Bell’s Marie Jenner series

I had the pleasure of editing Haunting the Haunted by E.C. Bell

Done and done. This book finished off K’s Portland Hafu series wonderfully 🙂 I don’t actually know if I assisted in the promotion of the book all that much, but I sure did love it.

  • Copyedit and assist in the promotion of Book #3 in the Place in Time series by Wendy Nikel

Done! Again, I’m not sure that I actually assisted in the promotion, but I loved the book and enjoy telling people about it. There are actually four books out in this series now and I’m super proud to have worked on them all:

        • The Continuum (2018)
        • The Grandmother Paradox (2018)
        • The Cassandra Complex (2019)
        • The Causality Loop (2019)

I thought I should list them all because, as you can see, two of them actually came out last year. Not just the one I’d planned on 🙂

  • Outline the urban fantasy series I already have covers for
    • I don’t usually outline but for this project it just kinda feels right that I try it. So I’ll give it a whirl and we’ll see what happens.

I didn’t even get a chance to look at this in a serious way. But that’s okay, the covers aren’t going anywhere…

  • Finish the NovPad poem a day project I started and failed to finish last year

I also failed to finish it this year. I think I might need to accept that the subject matter I picked isn’t really inspiring me, abandon this and come up with a different topic.

  • Finish and begin querying Arcana

I’m currently in the process of querying this. Whoot!

Deadlines:

  • Submit Eerie Edmonton on schedule
    • The manuscript is due on April 15th. I want the first draft done by my birthday (March 15th) so there’s time for polish before I hand it in

Done and done.

  • Submit Grimm, Grit and Gasoline on schedule
    • The manuscript is due on April 15th. I would actually like to have it handed in by the end of February in order to free up space in my brain and on my desk for other projects. This means getting my butt in gear with regard to edits.

Also done and done 🙂

 

It was a good year.

In addition to meeting the goals I mentioned above I also successfully completed NaNoWriMo (which included finishing the first draft of a book I’m currently calling ‘The Anthropomorphic Dog Novel’), submitted a short story I really love to an anthology I was invited to (*fingers crossed*), had some poetry published and won the In Places Between short story contest.

All in all, I think I did pretty well 🙂

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2019 Wrap-up

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Together we raised $1,380 for the Edmonton Food Bank. Because of their incredible bulk buying power and the infrastructure they have built up over the years that money equates to 4, 140 meals.

4,140 meals!

Just take a second to breathe that in.

4,140 meals. Because of you.

Thank you!

Whatever role you played to help make this happen — blogger, donor, signal-booster, cheerleader — thank you.

Our best year yet.

Oh! And also? I have prizes to give away.

The first winner of the snowman drawing contest, as chosen by the bloggers is Megan Fennell for this lovely:

Snowman by Megan

And the randomly drawn winner from the contest is this one by Scarlett Van Goethem:

Snowman by Scarlett

I really enjoyed the snowman drawing contest and I may do it again next year with a couple small tweaks.

There is one more prize to give away. The winner of the Rafflecopter prize. That person is Elizabeth D.

I have contacted all the prize winners by email, so if you see your name up there and haven’t heard from me, please check your spam filters.

One final note. Something weird happened late yesterday where the fundraiser was simultaneously open and closed:

I don’t actually know what happened there, but I DO know that a $25 donation was made directly to the food bank after that happened which was meant to go through our fundraiser. That is why our final total here is different than the final total on the fundraiser page.

Congratulations and thank you once again!

Can’t wait to see what we do next year! 😉

 

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

My Food Bank Story

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Every year I organise a fundraiser to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank. And every year I’m asked, “Why the food bank?”

The story I usually tell is about how the food bank helped make our Christmasses a bit more merry when I was kid and my mother was a single mother of three struggling to make end meet on a waitress’s salary. Because it’s a good story, and a true story, and I can add a little joke to it because of that one time we found caviar in the food hamper. Which, to  child-Rhonda, was the very epitome of ‘rich’ and also ‘gross’.

But the more I tell that story the less comfortable I am sharing it. Because though that is my story, it’s more my mother’s story. And I’m not sure she’d be 100% happy with me sharing it quite so widely.

My mother was a proud woman, and like it or not, there is still a stigma attached to receiving help from the food bank.  There shouldn’t be. But sometimes there is.

Unfortunately, my mother passed away some years ago so I can’t ask her permission to share her story.

But I can share mine.

When I was 22 or 23 and  my daughter, Dani, was very young, I was a single mother. We were living in small town Alberta where I was going to school full-time (thank you Athabasca University) and working full-time as a waitress to make ends meet. Money was tight (mostly because of the exorbitant costs of internet service in rural Alberta at that time) but we managed.

Then Christmas came.

Even though I was able to cover all our needs eleven months of the year, that twelfth one was a doozie. Not only because of the costs of putting presents under the tree, but also getting the tree, and the decorations, and the food to put a feast on the table, and, and, and…

So I applied for a Christmas hamper from Family and Community Support Services. And got approved.

And that meant I would have a turkey, and a whole bunch of trimmings, for Dani and I to feast on for the holidays. And beyond the holidays because that bird was huge and we were only two people — one of whom was like 2.

It meant I was able to buy her all four of the Teletubbie dolls secondhand off Ebay and not just one of them.

It meant one fewer thing I needed to stress over, and that is an amazing gift for a young, struggling, single mom. I promise you.

And I chose to support the food bank every year because I want to pass that gift along.

So far this year’s fundraiser has raised $1,180 (or 3,540 meals) but it’s open until the end of the day, so there’s still time to tick that number up a little bit.

Every dollar donated is equal to three meals, so every dollar counts. Every one.

If you can give a little, please do:

 

Donate to the 2019 Giftmas Fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank Here

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

Dear Santa (2019)

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Santa Magic

Each year since 2011 I have written a letter to Santa Claus and shared it on my blog. Please note that this is not an actual Wishlist that I want my friends to buy me things from, it’s just for fun.

Dear Santa,

I was really good this year, Santa.  Honestly. I tried to be kind and helpful. I worked really hard, and supported my friends and families the very best I could. It’s been a difficult year for so many people, including us, but I’ve done everything I can to make my corner of the world a better place.

Truly.

For Christmas this year I would really like:

  • A new Oilers jersey. Unfortunately, the one I have is Cam Talbot’s, and he doesn’t play for us anymore.

    I’ve spent a very long time thinking about this and I think I would like 4 — Kris Russell’s jersey. It wasn’t an easy choice… my original list included 97, 29, 44 and 4. But here’s the thing. Everyone is gonna have 97 and 29 — those two are no-brainers. In the sea of Oilers fans they aren’t even a blip on the radar. But while Kassian (44) and Russell(4) aren’t superstars in the way that McDavid and Draisaitl are, they are pretty stinking awesome. And not just because of how they play on the ice — though that too — but even though I’ve never met them I feel like I know something of their character, and I really admire them both.

    I eventually decided on 4 instead of 44 for a couple reasons, but one of them was that the game after taking a shot to the head that required him to have stitches to his ear, Russell was back on the ice blocking shots. And that kind of toughness is next level and deserves some appreciation.

  • I also want a Marc-Andre Fleury jersey. Yeah, I know he plays for Vegas not Edmonton, but, well, Vegas is kinda my side team and I’m a pretty big Fleury fan-girl.
  • I realllly need a new whiteboard, please. The one I’ve been using for the past couple years is getting pretty stained. I mean, an alternative would be some sort of whiteboard cleaner that would clean these stains away but I have tried everything I can think of to no avail.
  • I still want to try this bourbon, and I still haven’t. So if you could sneak a bottle into my stocking that would be awesome.
  • You know those baseboard transition things I asked for in 2011? Well, they would be awesome. At this rate we’re going to re-do the floors again before we manage to get them installed.
  • Finally, I would really, really love to have a successful Giftmas Fundraiser. Our goal this year is $1000 and if you don’t think that’s terrifying me you don’t know me at all. If we can raise $1000 that will be 3,000 meals for struggling families and that would mean the world to me. If you could spare a little magic to help make it happen I would really appreciate it.

Thank you, Santa. Merry Giftmas!

Love,

Rhonda

 

If you would like to support our Giftmas Fundraiser and donate to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank  you can do that here:

http://bit.ly/Giftmas2019

And if this is the first time you’re hearing about it, here are some important links that will help you catch up to all the things that are going on, and why I hope you’ll want to help 🙂

Long update with all the details –> http://www.rhondaparrish.com/giftmas-2019-lets-do-this/

See how the fundraiser is currently doing –> http://bit.ly/Giftmas2019

Learn about or enter the snowman drawing contest –> https://www.patreon.com/posts/snowman-drawing-31876321

See all the snowmen currently entered into the contest –> http://www.rhondaparrish.com/so-many-snowmen/

Check out or enter the draw to win awesome stuff:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

So Many Snowmen

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Every year as part of putting together the blog tour and fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank, I get to make the blog graphics. Those graphics decide my colour scheme for the tour. I always try to make it not too Christmas specific because not everyone celebrates that holiday, so then what theme would I choose? Will it be green and fir-centric? Red and filled with bows?

This year I thought, “Why not snowmen?”

And then, as I was poking around through stock art to find some images to plop text onto, I was impressed by the great variety of styles of snowmen.

So then I thought, why not have a snowman drawing contest?

So I did.

The contest is open to entries until December 15th. All the details are here https://www.patreon.com/posts/snowman-drawing-31876321

But here are some of the entries that have come in so far. In no particular order:

And of course:

Please donate to help support our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

 

And then enter to win a whack of amazing prizes here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2019 — Let’s Do This!

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The Giftmas Blog Tour and fundraiser to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank is back, and with a fun new addition this year — a snowman drawing contest!

Every year some friends and I get together to participate in a blog tour and fundraiser for the food bank. It’s that second part that is the most important, so let’s focus on that for just a second.

The Edmonton Food Bank’s mission is to feed the people in our community and also to help find solutions to the causes of that hunger. That means not only do they work to fill the cupboards and bellies of the most vulnerable among us, they also work with them to offer “free employment assistance, English & math upgrading, budget advice, personal counselling and information on affordable housing.” [Source] as well.

But their resources are always strained, especially around the holidays, and while no one should ever go hungry, so many holiday traditions rotate around food and the dinner table, that food scarcity can be felt even more strongly at this time of year than others.

If you can manage it

Please donate to help support our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

 

Because of the Food Bank’s bulk buying power, every dollar you donate equals 3 meals for hungry people this year. So you know how people say ‘Every dollar counts?’. Every dollar really does count. So much.

And that is for every Canadian dollar, which means my American and British friends can get even more bang for their buck!

Can you spare 3 meals? How about 6?

Our goal this year is $1000. That’s our most ambitious goal ever and I’m more than a little bit nervous about it.

But wait! There’s more!

Here’s this week’s blog tour schedule. I will also be blogging every day, and including a link to each blog so if you check back here you won’t miss a thing.

I’ll also keep a running update on how we’re progressing toward our goal.

I’ll also be sharing some of the entries from the snowman drawing contest. Because, did I mention? There’s a snow man drawing contest!

To enter: 

  • Draw a snowman. Use whatever medium you like — pencils, crayons, computer programs, it’s up to you. Make it as simple or complicated as you’d like.
  • Write the words ‘Giftmas 2019’ or #Giftmas2019 on your snowman picture somewhere
  • Email a copy of your snowman drawing to rhonda.l.parrish@gmail.com
  • Use the subject line ‘Snowman Drawing’

In that email tell me if you’d like to be identified as the snowman’s artist when (not if) I share your entry on my blog and social media or if you’d prefer to remain anonymous. If you do want to be identified, also tell me if you have a website or social media link you would link me to include with your picture.

Parents are welcome to enter their children’s snowman art. Any entries from people under the age of 18 need to be sent via an adult because winners will need to provide a snail mail address to receive their prizes and, for obvious reasons, I don’t want to collect personal information from minors.

Entries must be in my inbox by midnight MST on December 15th.

Winners will be announced on December 17th.

The winners:

Two prizes will be awarded. The first will be chosen by the Giftmas blog tour bloggers by secret ballot. The second will be a random draw.

The prizes:

Winners will each receive a snow man plushie, a $10 Amazon gift card and a book.

If the winner is an adult the book will be a signed copy of Mrs. Claus. If the winner is not an adult the book will be a copy of The Snowman by Raymond Briggs.

I almost hesitate to say this, because this blog post has already been quite long but, uh…

Wait! There’s more! LOL

If drawing a snowman isn’t your thing (but c’mon, everyone can draw a snowman!) but winning prizes is, check this out:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can win a whole whack of prizes including:

  • signed copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas from Beth Cato
  • a free manuscript evaluation, up to 100k words from Stephanie Lorée
  • a physical copy of Painting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Fernandes
    a steeped in prayer mug
  • 4×4″ encaustic block painting by Cindy James
  • 100 plastic glow-in-the-dark alien toys from Jennifer Lee Rossman
  • a signed ARC of ICE by Candas Jane Dorsey
  • 5,000-word copy edit/proofread from JB Riley
  • e-book copies of the Storms in Amethir series and the two Circle City Magic books by Stephanie A. Cain
  • owl Mitts (hand crocheted wristlets with owl designs on the back) from Lizz Donnelly
  • tuckerization or query critique by Premee Mohamed
  • minimum 4 stanza poem about subject of your choice by Stephanie Weippert
  • 75% of Tammalee’s Patreon income for December
  • paperback of Haunting the Haunted by E.C. Bell

Possibly best of all, by entering the draw and using the social media options to earn extra entries you are helping signal boost the fundraiser and supporting it that way. So even if you can’t donate directly, perhaps your signal boost will put this on the radar of someone who can.

And you’ve got a shot at an awesome prize pack for doing it 🙂

That’s an awful lot of stuff for one blog post, so here is the tl;dr version —

Please donate to help support our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

 

And if you do donate to support the fundraiser, consider nicking one of these graphics to brag about it on your social media, blogs and mailing lists. Perhaps you’ll inspire someone else to donate as well?

 

Thank you!

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

Sign Up for the Giftmas 2019 Blog Tour

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Every year I host a blog tour in December to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank. I call it the Giftmas Blog Tour and I would like to invite you to join me this year 🙂

The blog tour will take place from December 9th through December 16th and it will include:

  • A fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank
  • A snowman drawing contest
  • A Rafflecopter giveaway
  • Stories
  • Recipes
  • and more!

In December I will be looking for monetary donations but for right now what I’m looking for are bloggers and prizes.

To donate a prize to the Rafflecopter (which we use to encourage donations to the food bank and sharing on social media to spread the word about the tour/fundraiser) or for the snowman drawing contest all you need to do is follow the link at the bottom of this post and tell me what you’re donating.

Once the tour is over and I have the winner’s contact information I will send it to you and you will send them the prize you’ve donated.

In previous years prizes have included books, critiques, Tuckerizations, bookmarks, crafts, artwork… I think there was even cookies one year? So, basically, anything you can think of.

To participate in the blog tour you need to have a blog* and a willingness to write a blog for the tour.

We don’t have a theme this year (aside from the snowman drawing contest) so you can write about anything you want. Share cookie recipes, a holiday story (fiction or otherwise), try your hand at drawing a snowman, talk about favourite December activities, share a holiday playlist — whatever you want.

Each post will be required to share a link to the fundraiser for the Edmonton food bank and will be encouraged (but not required) to post the Rafflecopter code and information about the snowman drawing contest.

Easy peasy.

To sign up to participate in the blog tour, simply follow the link to the form below and fill it out.

If you have a day you’d prefer to blog on, include that on the form. If you don’t just put ‘N/A’ and I’ll ask you to cover whatever day has the fewest participants.

Sign-ups will close November 23rd so sign up to blog and/or donate a prize before then so you don’t miss out.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

And thank you very much!

*however you define ‘blog’. Some people have used self-hosted elaborate blogs, some have used Goodreads and occasionally we’ve even had people use public Facebook posts

Just Stuff

2019 Eligibility

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I worked on some things this year which are eligible for awards.  Here is a quick and dirty list of those things 🙂

Short stories

  • “Blame it on the Bubble Gum”, In Places Between, IFWA, August 2019*
  • “Maxwell”, Kzine, September 2019

Poems

  • “Grampa Got Bit”, Horror Sleaze Trash, May 2019
  • “Avalanche”, Corvid Queen, August 2019
  • “Fulcrum Point”, Dreams & Nightmares, September 2019*
  • “No Affect”, Illumen, Autumn 2019

Anthologies

  • F is for Fairy, Poise and Pen Publishing, May 2019
  • Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles, Tyche Books, August 2019
  • Grimm, Grit and Gasoline, World Weaver Press, September 2019 *

Long Form Editor

  • Haunting the Haunted by E.C. Bell, Tyche Books
  • The Cassandra Complex by Wendy Nikel, World Weaver Press
  • The Causality Loop by Wendy Nikel, World Weaver Press

I am also eligible for short form editor for my work in the aforementioned anthologies.

If you are nominating for any major awards (and I count the Auroras among those) and would like to read and consider any of my eligible works, get in touch and we’ll make it happen.

Thank you.

Books, Editing

Release: The Causality Loop

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I love this book.

I love this series.

The Causality Loop, which is out today, is the fourth and final installment in Wendy Nikel’s A Place in Time series. Like the three books that came before it, it’s a fun quick read. Super tight, super awesome.

I’ve been privileged to call myself the editor of these books and it’s bittersweet to watch the final one head out into the world.

Dodge Greenley is tired of being the go-between for his time-traveling family. All he wants is for them all to be able to live together peacefully in one era—is that too much to ask? But after breaking all the Rules of time travel in a desperate attempt to retroactively free his parents from the threat of the secret organization his father worked for a hundred years earlier, Dodge makes a startling discovery. It turns out there’s someone else stalking his family up and down the timeline, and this time, the menace may be coming from within the Place in Time Travel Agency itself.
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Enlisting the help of his 22nd century coworker, Dodge sets off to the year 1915 to rescue his sister from a threat that might have originated at any point in their past, present, or future, proving once again that the greatest threat to time travelers is other time travelers.

Find it Online:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Goodreads
​Independent Bookstores
iTunes/Apple iBooks
Kobo

 

Get the first three books too if you’ve missed them 🙂

Grimm Grit and Gasoline, Published, Reviews

Grimm, Grit and Gasoline Release Day!

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It’s here! It’s here! Release day is here!

I have been infatuated with this book since its conception and I continue to be in a love affair with it even now that it’s a reality. And that’s not nothing. Often, for me, the new, shiny, perfect thing which exists only in my imagination is far more beloved than the imperfect reality ever is, but not this time. This anthology continues to shine as brightly for me in reality as it did in my imagination, and I’m so incredibly pleased to finally be able to share it with you!

Dieselpunk and decopunk are alternative history re-imaginings of (roughly) the WWI and WWII eras: tales with the grit of roaring bombers and rumbling tanks, of ‘We Can Do It’ and old time gangsters, or with the glamour of flappers and Hollywood starlets, smoky jazz and speakeasies. The stories in this volume add fairy tales to the mix, transporting classic tales to this rich historical setting.

Two young women defy the devil with the power of friendship. The pilot of a talking plane discovers a woman who transforms into a swan every night and is pulled into a much more personal conflict than the war he’s already fighting. A pair of twins with special powers find themselves in Eva Braun’s custody and wrapped up in a nefarious plan. A team of female special agents must destroy a secret weapon–the spindle–before it can be deployed. Retellings of The Little Mermaid, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Monkey King, Swan Lake, Pinocchio and more are all showcased alongside some original fairy tale-like stories.

Featuring stories by Zannier Alejandra, Alicia K. Anderson, Jack Bates, Patrick Bollivar, Sara Cleto, Amanda C. Davis, Jennifer R. Donohue, Juliet Harper, Blake Jessop, A.A. Medina, Lizz Donnelly, Nellie Neves, Wendy Nikel, Brian Trent, Alena Van Arendonk, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, Sarah Van Goethem, and Robert E. Vardeman.

Buy Your Copy Now:

Amazon
BN
Kobo
Apple

Although I didn’t get to share it with the world until today, I did get to share Grimm, Grit and Gasoline with some reviewers prior to its release. Here’s just a little sample of what they are saying:

“These unfailingly clever tales are impressive and page-turning, helping to correct the dearth of speculative fiction set in the interwar era. There is also a frequent and welcome spotlight on heroic women. Any reader who enjoys early-20th-century history or retold fairy tales will find these familiar but new, with well-played wonder in every story.”
—Publishers Weekly  (starred review)

“Magic mixes with grease and jazz in this fantastic new anthology that brims with strong heroines, diverse settings, and a heaping helping of Nazi-punching.”
—Nebula Award-nominated Beth Cato, author of Breath of Earth

“Get lost in the industrial and gritty world of this dieselpunk fairyland, filled with planes and tanks, intense emotion, and plenty of high-stakes action.”
—Reese Hogan, author of Shrouded Loyalties

“Grimm, Grit and Gasoline is proof positive that fairy tales are flexible and resilient… This anthology is more than a fresh coat of paint on an old body of literature. In the hands of its storytellers, fairy tales are subverted, remade, and offered up again as entertainment, inspiration, and counsel. A must-read for any folklore and fantasy enthusiast.”
—Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran, PhD Candidate in Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland

Cover Reveal, Eerie Edmonton

Cover Reveal: Eerie Edmonton

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Full of ghosts and strange sights, Edmonton is a place rich in the paranormal. Or is it? Are there really spirits that lurk around Fort Edmonton and the provincial legislature? Do ghosts really haunt the halls of the University of Alberta, rushing off to classes that have long finished? Can paranormal echoes of the dark history of Charles Camsell Hospital still be felt within its walls today? What about the stories of the phantoms that loiter around the graveyards, bars, schools, and pools of the city?

In this collection of more than forty stories, Eerie Edmonton reveals the truth in the tales people tell and shines a spotlight on the city’s dark shadows and colourful past. Join Rhonda Parrish and Rona Anderson as they compare personal accounts of hauntings and paranormal activity with documented history and their own on-the-ground investigations.

I wasn’t actually sure how to handle this cover reveal, because the cover has been sort of unofficially revealed for a while now, but I official got the thumb’s up to share it just this week. And this week I have a lot of stuff going on on my blog and social media and I didn’t want this reveal to feel like an after thought, so I figured I should probably wait until after Grimm, Grit and Gasoline was out and not taking up so much space in my life.

But I’m also really impatient and I love this cover and didn’t want to sit on it.

So this morning when I woke up and stumbled, bleary-eyed to my desk I thought, “Why not?”

So here it is.

I love it.

The colours, the fonts, the Legislative Building right there front and centre. Love it 🙂

The book doesn’t come out until January, but you can add it to your Goodreads shelves right now.

It’s also available for pre-order:

Amazon

B&N

Kobo

In a couple months you should also be able to request it at your local library 🙂

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.

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