Custom Cover art by John Donald Carlucci

Looking for original art to use for your cyber fairy series? Craving something out-of-the-ordinary for a fairytale retelling? Portland-based artist John Donald Carlucci has you covered. This fantastic painting filled with gorgeous detail--I'm particularly fond of the code inside the golden apple--can be yours for $250.  Interested parties can inquire here.

Another Great Cover from Laura Gordon of Book Cover Machine

I have been on a writing binge lately, mostly turning out short stories and novelettes. I find it's a great distraction from the political landscape and it's also nice to be crossing items off my "to do" list.

One of the projects I've just finished is a reworking of the story "Tiger Bone Wine" I originally wrote for John Donald Carlucci's Astonishing Adventures Magazine back in 2007 when I was first starting out as a fictionista.

I've always been fascinated/appalled by the trade in tiger parts, and every time I see that sobering statistic--less than 3,200 tigers remain in the wild--I want to weep. Three thousand two hundred was the size of my graduating class at Duke. We could all fit into the Duke Chapel. Granted, tigers are bigger than people, but factor in the parents and friends who were also squeezed in and I think that's a pretty good spatial representation of how many tigers are left. One large auditorium's worth if packed nose to tail. Sigh.

At any rate, the new version of the story is called "Tiger Bones" and I found this great cover from Laura Gordon of the Book Cover Machine. Check out her pre-made covers (which are very affordable) or hire her for custom work. Because as you know, people judge books by their covers.

Drunk on the Moon--Werewolf PI Roman Dalton is back

Roman Dalton, the werewolf PI created by Paul D. Brazill, first appeared on the pages of Dark Valentine Magazine, a orint and digital publication I published. We ran a second adventure of Roman's and soon after that, Paul invited me to join him and a group of other writers (Kate Laity, John Donald Carlucci, Allan Leverone) to contribute a story to his anthology of Roman Dalton stories, Drunk on the Moon.
It was a lot of fun playing in Paul's sandbox and I enjoyed writing my story, which included Persian fire demons, albanian gangster werewolves and a whole lot of weirdness.
There's a new eidtion of the anthology out now with a deliberately retro cover, and newly slicked up stories. Right now it's free on Kindle, so if you like urban fantasy and hard-boiled noir, you should check it out.

When characters take on a life of their own...

I have been speaking to an agent (squee) about my WIP Misbegotten and he strongly suggested I put together a biography of my main character--paracrimes journalist Kira Simkins. I had bits and pieces of her in folders and files and notebooks and sticky pads, but when I started pulling it all together, I realized that she had taken on a life of her own. I invented two true crime books for her and Joy Sillensen, my go-to-gal for covers, whipped up a couple of dummy covers for me.
I like the covers so much that at some point, I might actually write the books that go along with the covers. 
I never actually intended for my paranormal Los Angeles to be the setting of so much of my fiction. Kira was just a character I conjured up for a story I wrote for John Donald Carlucci's Astonishing Adventures Magazine.
There's a comfort zone there, though. I've lived in Los Angeles longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life--though for an Army brat who moved every year as a child, that's not much of a boast. My first job here was working at Los Angeles Magazine at the same time I was a cityside reporter for the now-defunct L.A. Weekly.  I know my adopted city and am inspired by it every time I leave the apartment. Putting the magical overlay on top of the city amuses me, and the settings I use the most often--Griffith Observatory, Hollywood, Malibu Creek Park--have a magic of their own even in their mundane state. 
When Patricia Cornwell first started writing her Kay Scarpetta stories, she disguised details of the Richmond, Virginia setting. (They were thinly disguised and it was easy to pick out the neighborhoods where the crimes were taking place.) By her second book, Cornwall's depiction of the city was so accurate a reader who found herself stranded in the city would not have needed a road map to get to downtown, where the Medical College of Virginia (location of the morgue) is located.
I can think of other writers who have picked a city and made it their own--from Matthew Funk's New Orleans stories to the adventures of Janet Evanovich's quintessential Jersey Girl Stephanie Plum.
I'm curious--how often do other writers return to a favorite city? Is it their own city or a place they consider their spiritual home town?  Do they ever set a story in a particular city but leave it anonymous?

It's Here--Drunk on the Moon!

Drunk on the Moon, the anthology of stories based on the werewolf/private investigator character created by Paul D. Brazill is now available at Amazon and OmniLit. (It'll soon be available in other stores, including B&N, but they take longer to publish.) This is the e-pub version. The print version will be out early in May.
There are 11 stories in all--including a prequel by Brazill, and the stories were gathered from an international group of writers--Julia Madeleine, John Donald Carlucci, Richard Godwin, K.A. Laity, B.R. Stateham, Paul D. Brazill, Jason Michel, Frank Duffry, Allan Leverone, and me!!
My story, "A Fire in the Blood" features Roman facing off against a Persian fire demoness with the help of another wolf and a mysterious freelance pharmacist.
The stories offer a little something for everyone, and shortly there will be blurbs, including a lovely review from Les Edgerton. The book is $2.99 and well worth it.

Free Download--Here Be Monsters

Just in time for Halloween, Here Be Monsters, eight tales of vampires, werewolves, demons, zombies and other horrors. The anthology includes the story "Figs" by Jeremy C. Shipp and you can find all the details on his blog.

Still bloodthirsty? Check out John Donald Carlucci's collection 11 Drops of Blood, eleven stories for 99 cents. That's nine cents a story--a bargain in any currency.

Patti Abbott has a new collection of fiction out from Snubnose Press called Monkey Justice. (The title story was originally printed in Dark Valentine with an illustration by Mark Satchwill.) You can find the book (only $2.99)  here.

And of course (shameless self-promotion), you can get my first collection, Just Another Day in Paradise free right now on Kindle and Smashwords.

Building a new vocabulary

Writing my urban fantasy stories has required putting together word lists of paranormal slang and names of objects that don't currently exist in the real world. Because the Misbegotten stories are set in Los Angeles, the epithets for para-creatures are often taken from the Spanish. (I use the Spanish word for "leech," which literally means "blood sucker." to describe vampires, for instance.)
New word of the day: faeblin. That's a mixed race character who has one goblin parent and one fairy parent.
The idea is that the fae blood counteracts the goblin genes in terms of physical appearance, so what you get is a creature with the size of a goblin and the physical beauty of a fairy. Think...Dwayne Johnson. (It's my world, I can cast the parts.)
I'm going to have to get something like Liquid Story Binder, the software John Donald Carlucci has been championing to keep all my notes in one place, though, because I've got scribbled notebook pages, post-it notes and all sorts of disorganized thoughts that need to be in one place.

More Free Fiction

This week's episode of NoHo Noir is a round-up of the characters we've met so far. If you haven't been following the series--now is a good time to catch up. Check out "Blockbuster" here.

Over at Dark Valentine Magazine, the Twelve Days of Christmas fiction series has begun with tales from Andrew Douglas and Kat Parrish. There are more tales to come from Paul David Brazill, Cormac Brown, Nigel Bird, John Donald Carlucci, Christine Pope, Kaye George and more...(and me). Catch up with the stories here.

The 600-700 word challenge continues over at A Twist of Noir. The excitement is building. I have number 668, which will appear some time in mid-January. Monday is going to be a bonanza day for readers so check it out.

Do Some Damage will be running Christmas Noir through the first week in January. The stories will cut through the Christmas calories. Go here.