Free Short Story--a little September horror

I snagged this cover from Indie Author Services last year when they were having a blow-out on their pre-mades and I wrote the story around it. My heart still belongs to short fiction and I'm quite pleased with the way this dark little story came out. You can snag it free on Amazon for the next five days. Click here.

You'll Want to See Collateral Beauty

I read scripts for a living. Most of them aren't that good.  Some of them are so bad you despair for the movie industry. And some of them are so wonderful that when you read them, the hair on the back of your neck stands up because you know you're reading something that's going to make a great movie. I felt that way about The King's Speech.

Collateral Beauty is a lovely story. It will be out at Christmas. You should go to see it. The cast alone makes it worth the admission--Will Smith, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton.

I wish I drank coffee

Because I would be all over those pumpkin spice lattes. And also the chile mochas. I love Mexican chocolate. But alas, I am a failed adult in that I never acquired the taste for coffee. But I do love pumpkins. Aren't these little tiger-striped pumpkin-lets adorable?

My Next to Last Political Comment of the Cycle

I was reading the Dallas Morning News's lukewarm endorsement of Hillary Clinton this morning--they were much more impassioned in their anti-endorsement of Donald Trump yesterday--and thought, wow, Texas!  And then I read the comments.
Oh comments.

The poor editorial writer could not w. I suspect many subscriptions were cancelled in the wake of this endorsement. A conservative pundit immediately accused them of "becoming a liberal paper" because of their endorsement. One reader accused them of being too close to the Bush family. One reader slammed them for supporting a "criminal" for President. And that's when my head started to ache.

Seriously.SERIOUSLY, define "criminal" for me. Does it mean encouraging cyber-espionage? Does it mean donating money to an official who's considering bringing a lawsuit against you? Is it an allegation or rape?

Is it criminal to defraud students with a bogus university? Does "criminal" mean not paying contractors for their work? Does it mean encouraging employees to lie on immigration forms?

Now I know it's Autumn

Fall is my favorite season. I love sunny days that are cool. I love the colors the trees turn. I love Halloween and dark scudding clouds across huge full moons. And pumpkins. When the pumpkins come out, I know it's finally Fall.

100 for 99! Ninety-nine cent books for your Labor Day Reading

Patty Jansen's monthly promotion is here! Click for your favorite ereader platform and search for more than a hundred books available for 99 cents. Writers like Shay Roberts, Tommy Muncie, Carysa Locke, Alycia Linwood, Christine Pope, and H. Leighton Dickson are yours for less than a dollar!

Meet the Editor: Susan Schader of Story Services 4 Wrriters

photo by Michelle Seixas

Susan Schader has worked as a freelance Story Analyst/Story and Development Consultant/Editor on feature film and television projects for companies such as DreamWorks, New Regency Productions, Village Roadshow, DeLuca Productions, Donner-Shuler-Donner Productions, Icon Films, Jagged Films, Showtime, Lifetime, Turner Pictures, among others, including private clients and international film brokers and producers (covering such film festivals as Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, etc.). She was Assistant to filmmaker Albert Brooks on Defending Your Life, from project’s inception (scripting writing and editing), pre-production, and casting, to production and post-production, publicity and marketing research.

In the publishing industry in New York and San Francisco, she worked as a Developmental Editor, developing, co-authoring, editing major college textbooks, including all ancillary and audio-visual materials, from planning through publication) for Harper & Row (now Harper Collins) Publishers.  She also served as a Marketing Analyst, Research and Development, Harper College Division East. As a freelancer, she did developmental/substantive editing, copyediting, research, proofreading, redlining for such major publishing houses as Prentice-Hall, McGraw-Hill Book Company, and Abrams.

She has a background in graphic design and photography as well, and has loved “Words & Images,” which is also the title of her blog at sschader.blogspot.com. She is currently writing a Middle Grade novel  -- a new creative challenge. 

For information on Susan's rates and services, check out the Story Services 4 Writers gite here.

What is the last good book you read?

The debut novel of Brit Bennett, entitled The Mothers, which is due out this fall but I had the chance to read in advance. It’s a coming-of-age story about two young African-American teenagers and the book’s central question as Ms. Bennett describes it is, “how girls grow into women when the female figures who are supposed to usher you into womanhood aren’t there. How girls come of age with that absence. And it’s about how communities are shaped by loss… how in moments of grief, community can be both a source of comfort and a source of oppression.” It’s beautifully written, touching, and timely.

Who are your favorite writers? 

That question is hard to answer given that I read so much “professionally” that I rarely read for my own pleasure. When I can sneak in a read for “fun,” I tend gravitate toward crime/detective tales. I don’t know what that says about me, although I hope that instead of indicating I have a penchant for dark, dastardly deeds, it suggests that solving a crime or mystery is rather like solving the puzzle of what’s missing in a manuscript or screenplay, what needs to be there or needs to be removed to make the narrative soar. I do like the writing of the Scottish writer, Ian Rankin, who has penned the Detective Rankin novels. One of my all time favorite novels is Harper Lee’s, To Kill A Mockingbird, and my favorite children’s book is, Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White, which I’ve seen described as a nearly perfect book. I agree with that assessment.