Mythos 1: Bride of Death has been released by Aspen Mountain Press!  This is the first book in my Mythos series, a collection of Greco-Roman myths retold with a modern narrative voice.  I remain true to the original classical sources, which means reinjecting these stories with the original sensual context of the stories.  Most mythologies are of a sexual nature, and despite centuries of vanilla-izing still have those erotic overtones.  The story behind Bride of Death is the myth of Hades, the god of the Underworld, and his wife, Persephone, the personification of the spring maiden.  The story of their relationship was meant to explain the changing of the seasons–while the spring maiden is on earth with her mother, the world thrives and bears fruit.  But, when she is in the Underworld with her husband, winter descends upon the planet as Demeter grieves for her daughter.  Persephone is an early personification of sexual power–in the end, her allure is intense enough to bring Death himself to his knees.

You can pick up a copy of Mythos 1: Bride of Death at http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/new-releases/bride-of-death/prod_304.html.  You can read an excerpt of the story either on that page or on my website Shoot The Muse! 

Synopsis:When the mischievous god of love targets Hades, the god of death falls hopelessly in love with the spring maiden Persephone, the one immortal most ill-suited for his dark domain. Her mother Demeter will never allow the Lord of the Underworld to court her beloved daughter. The king of the gods proposes an unconventional solution: Hades may kidnap Persephone and take her to the Underworld to woo her. If Persephone agrees to marry Hades, Zeus will support the match.

But neither god has reckoned on Demeter’s inconsolable grief at the loss of her daughter.  If Persephone is not returned to her, the goddess has vowed to destroy all life. Can Hades win Persephone’s heart before her mother discovers who has taken her? Or will Persephone make her own wishes known as the intended bride of death? Even in the world of immortals, time is not on Hades’ side.

Aspen Mountain Press will launch its new Aurora Regency imprint on July 21, 2010!  Aurora Regency at Aspen Mountain Press is a line devoted to Regency romance. Traditional Regency romances, as exemplified by Georgette Heyer’s work, are first and foremost historical fiction about a very specific (and short) era.  So what are we looking for? Hopefully, this will answer any questions you might have about Aurora Regency’s guidelines.

1)      We expect historical accuracy. This includes language, clothing, customs, etiquette, events and places.  Your book should have rich detail, the appropriate language and slang and an understanding of life in Regency England or, if set outside of England, according to the customs of the country.  That includes behavior appropriate to a character’s life, position and social situation. (For example: divorce was notan option in Regency England so no new divorcées gallivanting at Almack’s in competition with the Season’s loveliest debutantes.)  Historical accuracy will be a consideration in the acceptance of manuscripts and an integral part of the editing process. If your manuscript has several historical errors, you may be asked to revise and resubmit.

2)      We hope for novel plotlines or exciting new twists on old themes. We are open to paranormal or Gothic themes as long as these elements do not compromise the Regency romance genre. So if your impoverished but well-born governess falls in love with the lord of the manor that’s fine. Just make it interesting.

3)      We expect romance—oh, loads of it!  Every kind of hero is fair game in a Regency romance and our heroines should be head over heels in love with them.  But remember—this is a Regency romance.  Spice is okay; jalapeno salsa is not.   In an era were even the smallest infractions would lead to social ruin, well brought up young heroines were virgins on the wedding night. {However, if your Regency is about a member of the demimonde (a courtesan) and is erotic in nature, please indicate this in your query letter.} And, naturally, a HEA is the conclusion of choice.

4)      Great dialogue. In the Regency romance, conversation is well-crafted and engaging. Half of the process of falling in love occurs when the hero and heroine engage in a battle of wits.  Repartee is an art form; conversation is seduction. Anachronistic sayings or language are strongly discouraged.

5)      Society.  Society rules these characters’ lives.  The Season is capitalized for a reason.  As Jane Austen said in Pride and Prejudice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Society dictates that universal truth, and in a Regency romance Society is where the bridal hunt is carried out.  It can be London or Bath or Brighton or even a simple country parsonage involved in county society—but society (either capitalized or not) is as big a character as any human being.

6)      Fun.  Above all, Regency romances are fun—both to read and to write.  The more adventures your madcap heroine has, the better.  Paranormal Regencies are acceptable as are the more intricate Regency murder mysteries. Even the darker side of the Regency world is fun.

So, do you think your Regency romance fits the bill? Then submit to us!  The Aurora Regency line is published by Aspen Mountain Press, a royalty-paying e-publishing company.  We do not charge fees for set up or charge for editing your story once it has been accepted for publication. Our contracts request rights to the contracted work, including digital and print formats as we will provide some of our titles in print later this year.

Aurora Regency is looking for well-researched Regency romances between 35,000 and 70,000 words, although we will bend on the upper word limit if the story merits it.  Please submit exactly and only the following if you wish your manuscript to receive serious consideration:A query letter in the body of an email with:

Your legal name, pseudonym if applicable and contact email.

Working Title

Manuscript Length

General story description in two paragraphs

Writing Credentials

Include the first chapter (or first twenty pages, whichever is shorter) embedded in the body of the email. We will not open attachments. If we like what we see, we will request the rest of the manuscript. 

If this is a simultaneous submission, please inform us of this in your query letter.  We will consider only COMPLETED manuscripts.  Aspen Mountain Press does not accept proposals from writers unknown to us. Aurora Regency at Aspen Mountain Press will open for submissions on February 15, 2010. Please send all questions and submissions to AuroraRegency@gmail.com.  We accept ONLY e-submissions.  Initial response times are anticipated to be no longer than 2 weeks. 

This came from a handout I got not too long ago.  I don’t know if they truly are Barbara Kingslover’s 10 Rules of Writing Fiction, but there is some good advice in them.

1. Your first sentence or paragraph makes a promise that the rest of the story or novel will keep.

2. Give your reader a reason to turn every page.

3. Keep a very large trash can beside your desk. (I follow these faithfully, though I’ve updated the wastebasket to a recycling box.)

4.  Show, don’t tell.  Everybody knows this rule, and most of us still break it in every first draft. Be ruthless. Throw out interior monologue.

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Aspen Mountain Press is excited to announce three releases this week:

Phlogiston by Jefferson Dane; Storykeeper by Jade Buchanan; and Julian’s Second Chance by Claire Thompson.

In Jefferson Dane’s debut fantasy, Phlogiston, someone wants to break the truce humans have had with the dragons by murdering a noblewoman.  Can an apprentice scholar and a merchant savant hiding a dark secret uncover the mystery in time to prevent a war?

While this is Jefferson Dane’s first fantasy with Aspen Mountain Press, it isn’t his first work.  If you enjoy horror you may also enjoy Dane’s Flyover.  What happens in the night in Afghanistan where there is more to worry about than the Taliban?

Storykeeper by Jade Buchanan features an immortal falling for a human.  The Storykeeper provides inspiration, gives dreams and acts as a muse to those who put words to paper whether they are singers or writers or storytellers.  Never before, has this storykeeper allowed himself to dream.  But that is about to change when Enitan meets Jason after hearing him read one of the stories Enitan had inspired.   Enitan has never dared to hope there could be something in the world such as love for him.  Never before has he known if the possibility existed to find happiness with a human.  Will Enitan be able to claim Jason’s heart and give his in return?  And if so, what will be the cost?  Pick up a copy of Storykeeper and find out what the future holds for Enitan and Jason.  

Our next story is a tale of self-denial and perhaps, love deferred.  In Julian’s Second Chance by Claire Thompson, one man, Julian denies the attraction he feels for a friend he’s met on a trip to Sri Lanka. 

Julian fears the cost of his attraction to Alex, including the repercussions from his family will be more than he can bear.  Yet, he can’t forget the time the two men spent together. 

When a meeting brings them together once more, six years later, Julian is older and wiser.  But Alex is no longer the same man he spurned and has moved on with his life, relegating Julian to the past.  Delve into the denial and self-deception two men use to protect themselves from emotional pain in this re-release by talented author, Claire Thompson.

Now that Bittersweet is out, I’ve had some questions about it and wanted to share what happened during the writing of Brand and David’s story. It taught me a few things, trust me.

When I signed up to write two stories for the Hot Comforts anthology from Manlove Romance Press, I pitched the ideas for Giving Thanks and Bittersweet. Several other authors also joined the anthology and it was scheduled for around Thanksgiving 2008. Aspen Mountain Press had agreed to release the stories as standalone ebooks as well.

Because these stories are part of an anthology, it means they really can’t be too long. 20,000 words is a LONG story to have in an anthology. So there’s a maximum reasonable size the editor and publisher expect.

Giving Thanks went pretty well and relatively quickly. I’m happy with it and it really told the whole story I wanted it to.

Bittersweet is a whole other case. I knew a bit about the conflict and the fact it’s very much based on not judging someone by their appearance or what you think they might be like. When I started writing the story, though, I really got into these characters. I sent the first chapter to my test readers and one of them immediately replied that this was NOT a short story.

But it had to be. It needed to be. I literally spent months fighting with this story and trying to force it into an appropriate size and structure. But it fought back. Every time I tried to force Brand and David to get in bed, it came out horribly. Every time I tried to gloss over their personalities and foibles, they seemed like plastic characters. I rewrote it so many times I delayed the whole damned anthology. My deadline was blown and I was so frustrated and in despair it was awful. There’s just no way these characters would behave that way.

Finally I had to step back for a bit from my attempts to force my will on the story and I wrote another chapter, letting myself write what was demanding to be written. There’s a lot of background. There’s a lot of detail and some scenes that don’t have to do with sex but let the readers learn more about who these two people are.

I liked it. It flowed again.

So I finally accepted I could not shoehorn a Happily Ever After into this story. I took it to the point of a Happily For Now but there’s a lot more of this story to come. I’m going to write the rest of their story and see if I can sell it because I want to tell it. There’s pain, misunderstanding, assumptions, sex and love to go.

I know I’ve seen one opinion so far that there wasn’t enough sex and I spent time on things that didn’t matter. I hope that’s not the majority opinion because I love these two characters and the have a compelling and beautiful story to finish. But I did want to share what happened to me while I wrote this story

Bittersweet can be purchased from Aspen Mountain Press!
Giving Thanks can be purchased as a standalone ebook from Aspen Mountain Press as well.

July 21st, 2009 was the 3rd anniversary of the opening of Aspen Mountain Press and The Romance Studio helped us celebrate with a drawing.

RoxAnn won five downloads of her choice, downloads that will go far in alleviating the dog days of summer.  What did RoxAnn select from over 220 stories?  She chose the following: (more…)

Before I get distracted (again) by emails, promo, and my latest book, I thought I’d tell you about my new office away from home.
 
Ever since my DH lost his job, I lost my peace and quiet, not to mention time in my home office. He follows me everywhere out of boredom when he’s not actively looking for work. Needless to say, my writing has slowed to a crawl despite my ever-increasing “talks” with him about leaving me alone for a few hours.
 
Desperation began to seep into my brain. Crazy schemes like drugging him into somnolence, killing him and burying him under the vegetable garden, and booting him out of the house were hatched and discarded.
 
More viable plans like getting up early (my best bio-rhythm is for morning hours and working late at night is hopeless, trust me) failed. He’d awaken, feel the empty place next to him, and come find me!
 
I don’t know about anyone else, but my income has been affected by the sluggish economy. I have to work to pay some of the bills. I can’t just take time off. I have deadlines to make, but can’t afford a leased office space, not even a shared one. (more…)

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is a journey through the short stories of critically acclaimed author Celina Summers.  Every story deals with a transformation–from a world where the Church places the blame for original sin upon men to a New Orleans garden that brings a play to life. The collection culminates with a previously unpublished prequel to Summers’ best selling epic fantasy series The Asphodel Cycle. Sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying, Metamorphosis is a romp through the realms of speculative fiction–where anything can happen and nothing is quite as it seems.

Coming March 27, 2009 from Aspen Mountain Press

Edited by Lori Basiewicz

Cover art by Renee George

Metamorphosis is a collection of stories in the spirit of the original Metamorphoses, written by the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC — 17 or 18 AD). His Metamorphoses  serves as the primary source material for many of the transformation myths in Greco-Roman mythology. He also wrote the scandalous Ars Amatoria, a treatise on love and seduction, that eventually led to his exile from Rome by the emperor Augustus. My Metamorphosis explores the transformations of speculative fiction–not necessarily literal transformations like Ovid’s, but changes that make modern speculative fiction the new and exciting genre-bending world that it is. 

Metamorphosis’ stories range from humorous to dark, from fantasy to horror and I had a lot of fun putting them all together.  Look for it on March 27.  Also, in honor of Read an Ebook Week, I’m giving away a set of my series The Asphodel Cycle!  Go to my blog Elf Killing and Other Hobbies and leave a comment in the thread and you’ll be eligible to win.  Enter by midnight on Sunday and I’ll announce a winner on Monday.  That way you can be ready for the final installment of the series Apostle of Asphodel when it’s released in May. 

The Secret Service Agent went on sale this month and is already a bestseller at eReader! Click the banner above to check out the book or my picture below to stop by my official website.

Aspen Mountain Press and her authors garnered several awards from Love Romances Cafe this month.

We are pleased that we received an Honorable Mention as “Best Publisher” behind such companies as Loose Id and Samhain.

Author JM Snyder finished with top honors as 2008’s best GBLT writer, tied with AJ Llewellyn.

Sloane Taylor received an Honorable Mention for Teddi Turns On in the “Best All Around Book” category.

Jet Mykles (Del Fantasma: Unicorn) and Maura Anderson (Giving Thanks) tied for the “Runner Up” category for best Alternative Lifestyle Book and graphic artist and author Celia Kyle collected the same award for Best Cover Artist.

Lonnie Heats Up by Sloane Taylor received the Honorable Mention for 2008’s “Best Contemporary Book”.

We also had a tie in the Best Western category with two of our authors receiving Honorable Mentions; Brenda Williamson for Her Savage Lover and Terry O’Reilly for Walking in Two Worlds.

Aspen Mountain Press is especially thrilled to have WON the Best Series category for DEL FANTASMA!

We are thrilled and honored to have such talented people associated with Aspen Mountain Press.  Thank you so very much for your hard work, and thank you Love Romances Cafe for recognizing them.