Page 32 of posts by: montsamu

2012 Award Eligibility Post

Posted on 2013-01-07 at 19:32 by montsamu

On SFWA President (and NY Times bestselling sf author) John Scalzi's blog, he once again is running an open thread series on awards eligibility, starting with authors/creators/editors/publishers/etc. Since I scraped a comment together, I figured I may as well post it here as well. Here's what Bull Spec was up to last year, partitioned a bit for particular eligibility categories, for your consideration:

Hi, I’m Sam, and publish/edit the semiprozine Bull Spec, which is supposedly quarterly, but managed just

Posted in Uncategorized

January newsletter: illogiCon on Jan 11-13, a packed February, and the 2013 local and regional author book guide

Posted on 2013-01-06 at 15:26 by montsamu

Vol 3. No 1. January 6, 2013:

Did you ring in the New Year at Davenport and Winkleperry's Clockwork Ball? If so, have you found your way home? In any case, December had quite a lot going for it, from Geek Mom to Winter Tales [an hour video there!] and of course the RTSFS holiday party. We also had a good bit of fun in December raising $2500 in pledges toward the SFWA emergency medical fund to send John Kessel to watch The Hobbit ... dressed as Galadriel. Singing Leonard Nimoy's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

Posted in newsletter

Last call for advertisements for Bull Spec #8

Posted on 2013-01-05 at 12:59 by montsamu

Well, well. It's that time again, time to really really really print an issue and of course one of the last things I get to in this not-enough-time-to-get-to-things process is chasing down advertisements. I don't think I've officially sold anything, though we do have a couple of last-minute confirmations. Anyway, here's what's for sale:

FULL COLOR in both PRINT and PDF editions:

• Back Cover: $250
• Inside front cover (opposite table of contents): $150
• Inside back cover (opposite editorial): $125 -- NOTE

Posted in Uncategorized

2013 local and regional author preview

Posted on 2013-01-03 at 02:24 by montsamu

As we turn the page on 2012, and all of its local and regional books, it's time to take a look at 2013 in terms of local and regional authors. While there are always surprises -- particularly later in the year -- here's what I know about so far. Meanwhile, I'm going back on Carolina Book Beat on Monday, January 7th at 10 AM to talk about this list and whatever else comes up. So! On to 2013:

Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse #3) by James Maxey (Solaris, Dec 25) -- "Five hundred years ago, the famed

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2013, carniepunk, mur lafferty, witchbreaker

Tortilla Tuesday: Harry Tortilla "reviews" 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson

Posted on 2013-01-01 at 04:00 by montsamu

Posted in harry tortilla | Tagged 2312, harry tortilla, kim stanley robinson

The Hardest Part: James Maxey on Witchbreaker

Posted on 2012-12-28 at 01:51 by montsamu

I said about all I can say so far about Hillsborough, NC author James Maxey's latest novel, Witchbreaker, in my write-up for the book's Christmas Day release. Luckily for us, Maxey has a bit more to say about its writing. You might think that after his previous 5 fantasy novels from Solaris Books (The Dragon Age trilogy: Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed; and the first two books in the Dragon Apocalypse: Greatshadow and Hush) and his superhero novels Nobody Gets the Girl and Burn Baby Burn that he'd

Posted in The Hardest Part

Release day: Witchbreaker by James Maxey

Posted on 2012-12-25 at 23:17 by montsamu

James Maxey's Dragon Apocalypse series has been a lot of fun so far -- and yet every time I say that I feel remiss in focusing on the fun, and not enough on how creative these books are. Shapeshifters, incredible and bizarre powers, awesome relics, and of course mountain-sized primal dragons. The series started with Greatshadow in January -- of 2012, just 11 months ago -- and introduced our narrator, Stagger, briefly, before killing him. And then allowing him to continue to narrate the book, as well as the

Posted in local-author-release-day | Tagged james maxey, witchbreaker

Tonight! "Winter Tales" in Hillsborough!

Posted on 2012-12-13 at 16:31 by montsamu

This evening (Thursday, Dec 13) at 6 pm the Orange County Main Library in downtown Hillsborough will host the storytelling event of the winter season, "Winter Tales" [Facebook], featuring original stories, poetry, and songs composed for the event by five local authors. (Along with cookies and hot cider!)

"Join authors Mur Lafferty, Alex Granados, Gray Rinehart, Becca Gomez Farrell and James Maxey for an celebration of the holiday season with original stories, poetry, and song."

Posted in events | Tagged alex granados, becca gomez farrell, gray rinehart, james maxey, mur lafferty, winter tales

Raise money for the SFWA medical fund, send John Kessel to watch "The Hobbit"

Posted on 2012-12-12 at 17:44 by montsamu

Nebula Award winning author and NCSU professor John Kessel, who grew up enjoying picking up L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz books as they were published at the beginning of the last century and was of an, er, "advanced" age by the time Tolkien finally got to work, off-handedly quipped that "I know the world does not care, but nobody could pay me enough money to go see 'The Hobbit.' Well, maybe someone could, but nobody is going to." Well... Brent Winter suggested an eBay auction and Kij Johnson a Kickstarter

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged john kessel, KesselHobbit, peter jackson, sfwa, the hobbit

December newsletter: Cherie Priest on Nov. 30; Holiday Party, "Winter Tales", "Geek Mom" in December; new 2013 events; and more

Posted on 2012-11-29 at 23:59 by montsamu

Vol 2. No 9. November 29, 2012:

I'm sending this juuust a bit early this month, mainly to remind people of two things:

• Cherie Priest visits Flyleaf Books on Friday (tomorrow!), November 30 at 7 pm for her next Clockwork Century novel, The Inexplicables. More info: http://www.flyleafbooks.com/event/cherie-priest-reads-her-new-steampunk-adventure-inexplicables [Facebook event]
• The Teen Writing Contest deadline is December 1. Finally, submissions have been coming in this past week, but there's still time

Posted in newsletter