Page 25 of posts by: montsamu

Friday Quick Updates, Monday edition: James Dashner, Chris Hardwick, NC Comicon, and Gabriel Dunston's Kickstarter for Purgatory Pub

Posted on 2013-11-04 at 20:14 by montsamu

Monday, November 4, 2013: I'm late this month with the newsletter to be sure, and have at least one more thing to put the finishing touches on before I can click "send" -- that being the annual holiday gift guide to the year in NC speculative fiction. But until then, some quick updates to get to:

• As today was the first Monday of the month, I was on Carolina Book Beat again for the monthly focus on NC speculative fiction, this time with guests Diana Bastine and Debra Killeen. If you missed it live, look

Posted in Friday Quick Updates

The Hardest Part: Gail Z. Martin on Deadly Curiosities

Posted on 2013-10-30 at 15:56 by montsamu

Charlotte author Gail Z. Martin is no stranger to Bull Spec's ongoing guest column series The Hardest Part, as she wrote about launching a new epic fantasy universe with Ice Forged in January after six books in her Chronicles of the Necromancer oeuvre. Here, she writes about an interesting difficulty encountered when jumping between epic fantasy and urban fantasy for her forthcoming 2013 novel, Deadly Curiosities as part of her ongoing Days of the Dead blog tour. Read on past the end for more info on her

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged gail z. martin

The Hardest Part: Nathan Kotecki on Pull Down the Night

Posted on 2013-10-22 at 14:48 by montsamu

Durham author Nathan Kotecki's debut novel, 2012's The Suburban Strange, was an exercise in lengthy revision, as Kotecki wrote about in a The Hardest Part piece about its writing. When I got to talk to Kotecki about his new sequel, Pull Down the Night, on Carolina Book Beat, I started to get the impression that his second book had been an almost painless process. Not quite so, as the author writes here. Welcome back, Nathan Kotecki, to The Hardest Part:

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged nathan kotecki

Release Day: Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction

Posted on 2013-10-15 at 20:50 by montsamu

A very happy release day indeed to Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer and Jeremy Zerfoss!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="280"] Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction
by Jeff VanderMeer and Jeremy Zerfoss
Abrams Image (October 15, 2013)[/caption]

"This all-new definitive guide to writing imaginative fiction takes a completely novel approach and fully exploits the visual nature of fantasy through original drawings, maps

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged jeff vandermeer, jeremy zerfoss, wonderbook

Friday Quick Updates: News and links; a one-day reschedule for Wilton Barnhardt at Flyleaf; local sf author panels; and William Shakespeare's Land of the Dead

Posted on 2013-10-11 at 16:12 by montsamu

Friday, October 11, 2013: The "Quick Updates" come fast and furious indeed this week, so here we go:

• The Wilton Barnhardt reading and signing at Flyleaf Books which was originally set for tonight (Friday) has just been rescheduled to tomorrow (Saturday) -- take note! The old date was on the email newsletter and a few stacks of flyers that are out and about. If you show up tonight, there will be no whiskey tastings, no matter how much you ask. Come back tomorrow!
• Teen writers (and their parents and

Posted in Friday Quick Updates

Release Day: Pull Down the Night by Nathan Kotecki

Posted on 2013-10-08 at 19:10 by montsamu

Tuesday October 8, 2013: Durham author Nathan Kotecki's first novel, last year's The Suburban Strange, introduced Suburban High and its supernatural conflicts through the eyes of newcomer Celia. Today, Kotecki's standalone sequel, Pull Down the Night, is out and available in hardcover and ebook [Kobo|Nook|Kindle] from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers. Pull Down the Night welcomes a new newcomer, Bruno, to Suburban High, for the school year following the events of The Suburban Strange -- whi

Posted in local-author-release-day | Tagged nathan kotecki, the suburban strange

October Newsletter: Maile Meloy, Steven Brust, The Escapist Expo, Nathan Kotecki, Lemony Snicket, and the Wake County Libraries local sf author series

Posted on 2013-09-30 at 20:21 by montsamu

Vol 3. No 10. September 30, 2013:

Well, September brought readings from David Drake, Susan Cooper, Emily Croy Barker, Clay and Susan Griffith and Natania Barron, Jasper Fforde, and Robin Sloan, and October shows no signs of slowing with Maile Meloy, Steven Brust, Nathan Kotecki, Lemony Snicket, a month-long series of local sf author panels at the Wake County Libraries, The Escapist Expo, and, of course, more. The immediately upcoming events are:

• 1 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Science Fiction panel (one of six in an

Posted in newsletter

Coming to Town: Steven Brust for The Incrementalists, interviewed by Richard Dansky

Posted on 2013-09-30 at 01:40 by montsamu

By Richard Dansky:

26 novels (and 1 solo album) into his career, Steven Brust still isn’t afraid to take chances. Visiting Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill on October 2nd in support of his new novel, The Incrementalists -- co-written with Skyler White -- Brust is best known for his centuries-spanning Dragaera series. But with a bibliography that includes everything from a high fantasy retelling of Paradise Lost (To Reign In Hell) to an Ohio vampire story (Agyar) to a multiple volume tribute to the works of

Posted in Coming to Town, interviews | Tagged richard dansky, steven brust

Friday Quick Updates: Robin Sloan tonight, Maile Meloy on Tuesday, Steven Brust on Wednesday, The Escapist Expo next weekend, and more

Posted on 2013-09-27 at 18:10 by montsamu

Friday, September 27, 2013: Tonight, Chapel Hill's Flyleaf Books welcomes Robin Sloan, the bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. The novel started as a 6,000 word self-published short story of dataviz, cryptography, Google, and books. 3 years later, grown tenfold and then some, it would be published to wide acclaim by Farrar, Straus & Giroux before spending 6 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list. Now the book is out in paperback, along with a new prequel short story, Ajax Penumbra 1969, a

Posted in Friday Quick Updates

Friday Quick Updates: Readings from Daniel Wallace, Allan Gurganus, and Robin Sloan, and plenty of news

Posted on 2013-09-20 at 18:15 by montsamu

Friday, September 20, 2013: Whew! This past week was another packed week of readings, with Clay and Susan Griffith and Natania Barron, The Hinge's Writers' Day at Flyleaf Books, Ursula Vernon's latest "Dragonbreath" book, John Claude Bemis hosting Stephen Messer and other writers, Emily Croy Barker, and Jasper Fforde. (Not to mention a packed weekend of screenings at The Escapism Film Festival.)

And this weekend and the week ahead, there's every bit as much to do, whether James Maxey's ebook publishing

Posted in Friday Quick Updates