Aidan Ryan and Sally Chetwynd won last month’s Little Game. Aidan suggested a prosthetic leg factory (and I laughed out loud), Sally asked “Was it you or the moon that was covered in chicken blood?”, and again I laughed out loud.
Thanks to both and both get a signed copy of Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires Volume 2. |
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| Brother Dave Duford’s Newsletter continues to impress with its information and his storytelling abilities. Give it a look, tell him I sent you, try the veal and remember to pay your waitress. |
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Brother CW Hawes KickStarts The Color That Fell From Space – I read the title and had a moment of confusion as my brain attempted to blend The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Colour Out of Space. Fortunately Brother CW clarifies with: The Color That Fell From Space — the ninth Pierce Mostyn paranormal investigation — launches on Kickstarter July 7th.
Special Agent in Charge Pierce Mostyn of the uber-secret Office of Unidentified Phenomena is dispatched to rural Nebraska, where a strange color has appeared and cattle have died under bizarre circumstances. The events eerily mirror a nearly identical outbreak in Arkham, Massachusetts, 140 years earlier. Is the same incomprehensible alien entity responsible — and has it returned to finish what it began?
Written in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft and classic weird fiction, this dark cosmic horror tale with sci-fi elements pits Mostyn against a threat that defies human understanding and threatens reality itself. Perfect for longtime Pierce Mostyn fans and readers who love cosmic dread and unknowable horrors.
The Kickstarter campaign begins July 7th. Join the pre-launch and click the “notify me” button to get notified when the campaign launches. The page also talloes how many backers CW has so viewers can see the number. For exact launch details, visit cwhawes.com or follow @cwhawes on X. Or sign up for the newsletter at https://BookHip.com/GRKLFT to stay updated on Pierce Mostyn and future releases. |
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Writers’ Month Long Workshop – July 2026’s writers’ workshop covers many if not all phases of craft and storytelling. The workshop is on Wednesdays, 1-29 July 2026, morning and evening openings available.
Note there’s an extra session this month! Go for it!
Sign up here.
You can an idea of what craziness (and learning!) will ensue on my Experiments in Writing posts. |
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Rick Barnes’s at Bound Together Books’ Authors’ Exchange – Rick is a computer programmer from New Hampshire where he lives with his family. He is the author of the children’s fantasy series The Outcast Club following the adventures of a group of school children who find a magical world through a passage way under their school.
Rick has been active in local politics and served as the national president of Alpha Phi Delta fraternity.
While we’re on the subject of Bound Together Books and Authors’ Exchange…
Bound Together owner Michelle Audet’s asked me to help her vet authors and host regular author events at her West Peart St, Nashua, store. I’m currently seeking authors willing to give up a Saturday night, 6-8pmET, to talk about their work, take part in a panel discussion, give a class/training, read, sign, et cetera.
Email me if all the following are true
- You have at least one (1) book published and available. The more recently published the better, or if your book has a regional or seasonal tie in, also good.
- You can get to Nashua to drop off 5-10 of your books two weeks prior to your scheduled event AND for your scheduled event.
- You can make time for a Zoom chat with me so I can put together a 5-10m promo material for your book/topic/presentation. This means a hi-res headshot, hi-res bookcover, blurb, writeup, pitchline, teaser, backcover copy, related hi-res artwork, basically material we can put together to get the word out.
- And this is the big one: You will actively promote ALL author events, not just your own. Actively means via your social media (FB, LI, IG, TikTok, BlueSky, Mastodon, Cameroon, Dingbat, Marzipan (and yes, I made the last three up), your blog, … and several times, not just once. Fail to do so and you’re event will be canceled. This also applies to authors after their event. Failure to promote other authors brings your videos down.
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Talk with the Editors – Wilderness House Literary Review EIC Steve Glines and I (Senior Fiction Editor) hold monthly open chats with authors interested in a) writing for us, b) improving their craft in general, and/or c) increasing their chances of being accepted by other markets.
Meetings are held via Zoom on the last Friday of each month from 9-10amET.
So, want to know how to write for us? Want to know what gets our attention? Want to know how to write better for whatever market you’re interested in? Join us for our next “Meet the Editors” Zoom session. Seats limited! Sign up and talk with us. We’re relatively easy going and fun to be with. |
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Brother Greg Hickey’s Books
Our Dried Voices (dystopian fiction): A future society about to collapse. A reluctant hero alone in the world. When he suspects sabotage, will he abandon his newfound friend to save humanity?
The Friar’s Lantern (choose your own path for grow-ups): You may win $1,000,000. You will judge a man of murder. Choose wisely—if you can.
Parabellum (crime fiction): Four high-achievers battling psychological demons. Any of them might snap. But which one will become a killer?
To Build a Dream> (psychological fiction): His disease should have killed him. His dreams might be keeping him alive. Can Timothy Smit discover a real life worth living before it’s too late?
The Event Horizon Murder (sci-fi crime): A battle-scarred detective. A dead-end case. In a future of omnipresent cameras and digital disguises, can he find an elusive killer?
Murder in Retrograde (sci-fi crime): A near-future private detective. A case that would cover all his debts. When the first body drops, can he catch a killer before he’s cashed out? |
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Crysalis is available as an eBook
Chrysalis is a story of personal recovery from childhood and adult trauma told in three parts:
The Echo
Welcome to My Sandbox
The Stone in God’s Sling
The Echo In a bizarre nightmare world, Gerrold is relentlessly attacked by groteques which thwart his every attempt at escape until an angelic being, Acquiesce, appears and offers him a way out. Acquiesce does not do the work of escape for Gerrold and instead guides him to make his own discoveries about escaping and what it means to be free. With Acquiesce’s help, Gerrold realizes escaping the nightmare means challenging the taking control of the nightmare and robbing it of its power over him.
Welcome to My Sandbox Freed from his personal hell, Gerrold realizes freedom comes with a price, and the price is to help others escape their personal hells. This means realizing some people would rather remain in their hells, meaning he is powerless to help him. But this confuses him; how can someone recognize they’re in hell and not want to escape?
Acquiesce explains freedom is a choice, that every moment of a person’s life is a matter of choice, and freedom’s responsibilities can be frightening to those not willing to do the work of healing and compassion.
This revelation causes Gerrold to realize some responsibilities are obvious, some are hidden, and now he wonders if he’s fully paid the price of his freedom. He decides to confront the source of his nightmare to learn the truth of it.
The Stone in God’s Sling Gerrold travels to his nightmare’s source and faces its creator only to discover he has constructed the nightmare himself. Can Gerrold destroy the part of himself which has imprisoned him, set himself free, and heal from the things he’s let happen?
Fans of Guillermo del Toro’s and M. Night Shyamalan’s work will appreciate this dark psychological fantasy which forces the reader to recognize their own hells and offers paths out of them. |
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Sister Donna Huston Murray’s PROOF POSITIVE – A heart-pounding mystery crime thriller you won’t want to end
By Donna Huston Murray
Here’s a taste:
Chapter 1
A blonde walks into a bar …
Sounds like a lame joke—on me—right? Except my hair doesn’t waft over my shoulders like a woman looking for action. It’s bound into a low ponytail for driving diagonally across the country, mostly with the windows of my orange Jeep open to keep me awake.
Whenever I do enter a bar—which is often—my reception is ninety-five percent predictable. Lookee here from the drunks. Deliberate indifference from women. Heightened attentiveness by management, depending on how many corners they’ve cut. Now and then, a welcoming smile from an interesting guy, although not as often as you might think. I am former police, after all, and common knowledge claims that aura telegraphs where you stand for months, maybe even years, after you quit. It’s truthful, and it saves time, so I live with it.
My name is Lauren Beck. I’m single, thirty-two, and a perpetually grateful cancer survivor. I run five miles at least twice a week, which allows me to wear whatever I want. No makeup or jewelry for me, thank you. Just tight jeans, and a white, long-sleeved T-shirt today. It’s a beautiful October afternoon here. Here being rural Ohio.
About fifteen wooden tables dot the entire expanse of this particular bar, with a half-booth for eight in the corner to my right. Simple wooden chairs are mostly upside down on the tables, indicating the area yet to be mopped. Left to right, the actual bar fills two-thirds of the back wall, the rest a kitchen door, then stairs leading up. Neon beer signs adorn the room, along with a few dusty cowboy hats on pegs. At the moment, “Sid’s Saloon” smells of hops, mop soap, and male sweat.
It is mid-afternoon, so only two men are present.
The young guy giving his mop a rest slips me a sly smile.
The big guy behind the bar stands still as a photograph. A beer-keg belly tests the tensile strength of his short-sleeved shirt, and his folded arms are hairier than his head. Almost certainly management, his stubbled face expresses irritation and foreboding, so I decide to hold off asking if he needs a bartender.
Instead, I take a step forward, press my palms together in that hopeful, begging gesture, and announce that I’m trying to locate a woman named Nina.
“Nina Claire Stoddard?” I finish with a grimace, as if I’m expecting bad news.
Which I half am. The last cell-phone ping I got told me Nina was recently in this area. Probably not at this establishment, but somewhere in the nearly invisible little town someone optimistically named Worthy, Ohio.
Silence.
“Or maybe it’s Nina something else?”
The men glance at each other, communicating something.
The moment lasts long enough to suggest they might know her, and the tension I’ve been carrying for so many days and miles morphs into breath-holding hope.
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Graphic Artist Needed!!! The metahuman anthology Tales of the Northern Clan is a graphic novel in search of a artist(s).
Right now the big challenge to that plan is finding a graphic artist, so please send any graphic artists familiar with that format to us. Thanks. |
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Cicatrix needs first readers Initial comments are both strong and good (whew!) and I can always take more.
Synopsis: Paul is a mathematical genius. Nobody doubts that. His thesis demonstrates a way to mathematically bridge realities, to bring what’s “over there” to “here” and vice-versa.
The problem is nobody really knows what’s “over there,” and people can only imagine based on their experiences. You can describe the ocean to someone but until they experience it first hand, they really don’t understand it. Similarly, committees shouldn’t be allowed to design horses. Paul experiments with his reality engines, but much of what he conceives of being “over there” is based on childhood trauma. There are monsters over there, and Paul’s equations bring one “here,” to finish the work his parents began years ago.
Cicatrix is ~20k words, novella length. Email me if you’d like to be a first reader, let me know what needs fixing, and how to fix it. |
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Sister Vineeta Kommineni’s Zen Citizen reports Something has shifted
This month, Zen Citizen got the opportunity to walk into a room of people we had been building up to reach for months. And I dare say they bought into the vision. I also dare say that from this point on, access to people/data/systems will no longer be a significant challenge. I expect fewer unanswered messages, fewer dead ends and less waiting in Govt office corridors.
It started with a cold email to the top bureaucratic brass of the State and culminated into a strong agreement to work together. I’ll write in more detail soon. For now, still absorbing this moment – we crossed a threshold after a year and a half of painstakingly creating tangible value/ earning trust of bureaucrats/and demonstrating that we are serious about being a constructive force in improving citizen access to Govt services. Read more on Zen Citizen’s website. |
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A Little Game – A question.
What is the oldest known domesticated animal?
The first five people to get back to me with a correct answer get a signed Chrysalis ebook. The first person to get back to me with answers that make me laugh gets a signed print copy of Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires Volume 2 (and no looking it up on the internet, folks!). |
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That’s it for June. See you next month!
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