Category Archives for News

The Game is Up! (In Belgium, At Least.)

As mentioned on the 1889 blog and Ergofiction, my fellow 1889 Labs author MCM will livewrite a novel in three days — or die trying.

MCM will sit before a live audience in the Vooruit Café for 44 hours, with the intention of writing an entire novel in that time, all the while incorporating audience suggestions into the story. This insane stunt will be performed at The Game Is Up! festival in Ghent, Belgium from March 24 until March 26.

(What, you say? You’ve no idea what livewriting is? Too bad. I totally didn’t write a post about it last November.)

And guess what? I’m travelling to Belgium so that I can be there the whole time, and get the chance to point and laugh to MCM’s face!

So if you’re in the area be sure to drop by and say hello. And if you’re not, remember that you’ll be able to follow all the insanity — as well as throw in your own suggestions — over on the 3D1D website.

Hungry for… PRINT!

It’s here! And it’s on sale from pretty much anywhere you can think of!

Author? Who, me?

Words cannot explain how odd it is to find my (print) book on sale around the web. In fact, since pictures are worth a thousand words, here’s an apt photo of me from Halloween a couple years back, looking as dazed and confused as I feel now.

(I was a zombie nurse; it was really cool.)

I want to thank everyone for their encouragement so far. Publishing Hungry For You has been an incredibly rewarding experience and it wouldn’t have been half as fun without you guys.

Insider info: the print version of Hungry For You contains some exciting new stuff not included in the ebook, including three extra short stories, an insightful author afterword, and a story by fellow 1889 Labs author MCM. Not to mention the really cool design tweaks!

Oh, yeah. The print version also contains a silly typo I was too late to correct. Oops? I hereby promise that anyone who finds said typo and emails me about it with their postal address, will get a rambling postcard from yours truly. I’ll even give you a hint: the typo is in one of the three new stories not included in the ebook version.

So what are you waiting for?

Grab YOUR print copy today to help keep that confused expression on my face: Amazon.com || Amazon.co.uk || Amazon.ca || Barnes & Nobles || Book Depository || Chapter’s || Powell’s… and many more.

Spalding’s Racket: Promoting Indie Authors

With the tagline “making a noise about indie authors on the internet”, the objective of Nick Spalding’s website couldn’t be clearer.

As a matter of fact, today is the day Nick is making a little racket about yours truly — he has kindly featured Hungry For You, so I thought I’d return the favour!

So what’s it all about?

Spalding’s Racket is a nifty little site which posts promos about indie books, including cover image, blurb, genre, and retailer links. I discovered the site through Kindle Boards and can testify that it’s quick and painless to submit your book. And the site is well worth a browse to see whether any indie titles catch your eye!

Read an Ebook Week!

“Read an E-Book Week educates and informs the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically. Authors, publishers, vendors, the media and readers world-wide are welcome to join in the effort.”
— from ebookweek.com.

As I mentioned over on quillsandzebras, this week (March 6 – 12) is Read an Ebook Week, the perfect time to promote electronic reading, along with your favourite indie authors.

To help support the event, I’m offering Hungry For You for FREE download from Smashwords for this week only — hurry on over by March 12 to grab your copy!

Hungry for more efiction? Here’s a couple more recommendations:

Go read some ebooks! Support Read an Ebook Week, and support us indie authors.

Tales for Canterbury: Writing for Relief

As a writer, all I have to offer are my words. It seems like such a silly thing to offer, insubstantial. What difference can a story make?

A big difference, I think. Words can lift and revitalize, can bring hope, bring dreams, fulfil wishes. If stories are what I have to offer, why not put them to good use?

You may have heard about the earthquakes which have hit New Zealand. Buildings have collapsed, power and water has been cut, the streets are strewn with bricks. The Prime Minister has called it the country’s darkest day, and I can only sit and watch the footage on the news with a sick feeling in my stomach.

Seeing these terrible scenes makes me want to help. And, thanks to a new anthology J.C. Hart is organizing, I can.

How? With my words. Here’s the initial announcement, from Cassie’s blog:

Christchurch, New Zealand, and the wider Canterbury region, was rocked yesterday (22.2.11) by another round of serious earthquakes. This time they struck during the middle of the day causing more devastation, and loss of life, to a city still trying to pick up the pieces from last September’s quakes.

In an attempt to do something, anything, to make a difference, we are putting together an anthology of short stories loosely themed around survival, hope and the future. All profits of this anthology will be donated to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal, or another registered charity aimed at aiding those in need in Canterbury.

The purpose of this Anthology is two-fold—to help financially, but also, we hope, to provide entertainment and alleviation in a time of crisis. We hope that our words will help make a difference.

We have already begun to approach authors, and the response is encouraging. Mainly due to time pressures, this anthology will be by invitation. However, if you are an established writer, and keen to contribute, please feel free to get in touch with us at just.cassie.hart@gmail.com. We are looking for stories between 1,500 and 5,000 words, of fairly upbeat nature in the general, literary, science fiction or fantasy genres.

Feel free to repost this and get the word out!

I am very honoured to be taking part in this anthology, and send my thoughts to all those affected by the earthquakes in New Zealand.