Burning Bridges Anthology

My story, "The Importance of Blood," appears in the new Burning Bridges anthology, edited and compiled by Heath Lowrance.You can buy it on Amazon for 99 cents at http://amzn.to/JulkGb, with all proceeds going to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. It's also available for free in all eformats from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/155449.



Some of my regular readers here might remember that it appeared I had a publisher for Speaking of Murder at the end of 2011. It became clear to me that the publisher was not being honest with me on several accounts and I cancelled my contract (for example, two days before the reputed publication date I still had not seen edits of any kind, which had been promised for weeks). It soon turned out that he had not been honest with most of his authors and the majority quickly also withdrew from the press. 


In the "every cloud has a silver lining" department, many of the authors drew together to share information. We then agreed to publish a short story collection as a symbol of our having moved on. Burning Bridges is that collection.


I really like Heath's introduction to the collection and quote part of it here: 


"All the contributors DO have something in common, however—they’ve all been burned by a publishing experience that was unfortunate, but could have happened to anyone. Instead of compromising their integrity, though, each one of them lit a match, threw it over the shoulder, and shot away as the flames caught on the bridge behind them.


I had the honor of putting this thing together, more as a compiler than an editor, and I’m proud of the diversity and power of these stories. You’ll find that there’s no real theme to it; rather, it’s an object lesson about how writers who are truly committed to what they do can put the past behind them and  ontinue to put out solid, uncompromising work.


And not be afraid to burn bridges behind them."

My alter ego, Tace Baker, also has a story in the collection: "An Idea for Murder." 

So stop by Smashwords or Amazon and take a look. All the stories are a great read.

Another brief recess

Dear Readers, you will notice a pause in my regular postings. Life has intervened, as happens on occasion. I shall return.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out reports of the recent fantastic Donald Maass workshop on Writing the Breakout Novel that Sisters in Crime New England sponsored. Oh, so many inspirations on going forward and so many concrete suggestions for improving the work in progress!

Contract for Speaking of Murder!

I am delighted to announce that yesterday I signed a contract with Barking Rain Press to publish Speaking of Murder, featuring Quaker Linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau. I am so very excited. I am using the pen name Tace Baker (my Local Foods Mystery contract with Kensington Publishing stipulated that I couldn't publish a different book or series under my real name during the term of the contract). Tace is an old female Quaker name.

The print book will come out mid-September, with e-formats following in October. Although Barking Rain is a fairly new small press, I am impressed by their professionalism and response time. I'll be jumping into the editing phase shortly.

I started writing this book after I was laid off a job in the late fall of 2008, and finished the first draft in February of 2010. I started trying to sell it in January of 2011, so this has been a path requiring perseverance.

Now I totally have to get busy building my 'brand' of Tace Baker: URL, web site, Facebook author page, twitter (AND finish the first draft of the first book in the Local Foods series. AND work full time. And so on...). Makes my head spin a bit, but first I'm going to have some champagne and chocolate!