Tag – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

July 2024 Newsletter

It is maddeningly hot here in central New England. We’re going on three straight weeks of official heat wave temps (90+°F). Aside from melting, I’m working on The Book of the Wounded Healers: A Study in Perception, a novel about communication and originally written in 1992 and reworked every few years since. My last posts on it are dated in late Spring-early Summer 2022. Each rewrite made it incrementally better and not enough. Thanks to some gifted reader-friends’ suggestions, I’m reworking with publication scheduled for late September-early October 2024. Leave a comment if you’d like to be a First Reader.

July-August 2024 Announcements

SideHustles and Sidegigs – What do you do to support your art when your art isn’t supporting you? That’s the core of our discussion at our next RoundTable 360° meetup. Come & join us on Thursday, July 25th, 10:30amPT, 1:30pmET, 6:30pmLondonTime, 19h30 CEST.
Reserve your space here.
I’m hosting a writer’s month long workshop discussing many if not all phases of craft and storytelling. The next class runs Wednesdays, 7-28 August 2024. Sign up here.
My Medieval mystery, Tag, is available at 99¢ Kindle, $12.99 Print now until 30 July 2024:

Eric and Julia seek tree grafts on the outskirts of their medieval eastern European village as a summer storm gathers. Sullya, a witch hiding among the trees, grabs Julia. Eric swings his axe and severs Sullya’s hand from her arm. The witch seeks refuge in the deep bole of an old oak. Her hand falls onto the same oak and crawls up the trunk to join her.
Eric wants to flee but Julia, believing they’re safe, torments the witch. Sullya curses them, their families, their crops, their livestock, and their village.
Soon crops wilt, livestock die, and much of village falls ill. The village priest, Father Baillot, seems ignorant of church ways and proves ineffective against the curse.
The village elders seek help elsewhere, specifically from a distant priest, Father Patreo, who knows the Old Ways as well as the New. Patreo is out of favor with the Church because he makes no effort to hide his belief that progress comes from exploring all paths, not just those the Church decrees acceptable.
He and Verduan, one of the village elders, investigate and encounter witchcraft, devil worship, murder, a coup d’etat, and the clashing of three great cultures. What they discover changes the face of Eastern Europe forever.
Last item – Have an announcement you’d like to include in my monthly newsletter? Leave a comment with details and we’ll see about getting it in the next one.

That’s it for July.

Want to sure you get future newsletters? Easy-peasy: join my blog. Most of it’s free and I’m told all of it’s fun.

Enjoy!

April 2024 Newsletter

You said you weren’t going to do a newsletter, Joseph

You said you weren’t going to do a newsletter, Joseph

Yes, I did.

I’ve fulltime-authored since 2016 and rejected newslettering because no newslettering authors I talk with have any evidence their newsletters led to increased sales or other authorial opportunities.

Fortunately, I don’t expect this one to, either.

I post irregular announcements and both the open and clickthrough numbers hover around 90%.

Amazing, if you know about such things.

I’m hybridizing newslettering with my irregular announcements because I found a reason to do so; some of my friends have things worth announcing and, on the whole, about once a month should cover them.

So there you go and here it is.

April-May 2024 Announcements

IPNE has an excellent and informative post entitled What to look for in a book awards program (downloadable PDF and definitely a worthy read (me thinks)). (bet you can’t guess what it’s about)
BizCatalyst 360° is now carried on Google News. Big Congrats to Dennis Pitocco and the BizCatalyst 360° gang
BeyondDesignBooks’ Tamian Wood offers Ten Tips For finding (and working with) your ideal cover designer! as a free download. Check it out.
A movie star returns to her hometown and doesn’t live to regret it.
Thriller author Donna Huston Murray’s new book, Farewell Performance (a Ginger Barnes Mystery) is available now on ebook and in print starting 4 June 2024. Pre-order is 99¢ You can also find it here.
My That Th!nk You Do is now available as an audiobook, and I have some promo codes available. Fair-Exchange, folks: Want a promo code for a free audio version? Promise to review the book on Amazon, Goodreads, Bookbub, … before the next newsletter goes out (last week of May or so)? Let me know.
Our March RoundTable 360 was sold out and many thanks to folks who attended and offered comment.
Our April RoundTable 360 discussion topic is How do creative people work together? exploring collaboration in the arts. Starting with a panel discussion and then welcoming participation by the audience; our hope is to help creatives see their world differently. This episode will be moderated by author, playwright, and poet, Kenneth Weene. Join us Thursday, April 25, 1:30 PM in the East, 10:30 AM in the west and 6:30 PM in London. For your reserved space, please sign up on Eventbrite. Eventbrite caps these sessions at twenty-five (25) audience members so reserve your seat soon.
Our May RoundTable 360 will be led by award-winning poet, publisher, and editor Clarabelle Miray Fields of Carmina Magazine.
Our June RoundTable 360 will be led by noted EU actress, model, and voice talent Sabine Rossbach discussing creating realistic characters.
Our July RoundTable 360 will be led by London based fantasy, horror, and scifi author Liz Tuckwell discussing rejection.
Want to be on our panel and/or lead a discussion? Let me know here.
I’m looking for first readers for my next release (schedule late June 2024), Tag. I’ll need your feedback/comments/edits/questions and definitely backcover copy and review material by 31 May 2024. Interested and willing to commit to that schedule? Let me know.
About Tag: Two teenagers, Eric and Julia, seek tree grafts on the outskirts of their medieval village as a summer storm clouds the sky. Sullya, a witch hiding among the trees, grabs Julia. Eric swings his axe and severs Sullya’s hand from her arm. Sullya seeks refuge in the deep bole of an old oak. Her hand falls onto the same oak and crawls up the trunk to join her.
Eric wants to flee but Julia, believing they are safe, torments the witch. Sullya curses them, their families, their crops, their livestock, and their eastern European village.
Crops wilt, livestock dies, and much of their village falls ill. The village priest, Father Baillot, is often ignorant of church ways and proves ineffective against the curse.
The elders seek help elsewhere, specifically from a distant priest,
Father Patreo, who knows the Old Ways as well as the New.
Patreo is out of favor with the Church because he makes no effort to hide his belief that progress comes from exploring all paths, not just those the Church decrees acceptable.
He and Verduan, one of the elders, investigate, and what they discover changes the face of Eastern Europe forever.

And that’s it for April.

Want to sign up for future newsletters? Easy-peasy: join my blog. Most of it’s free and I’m told all of it’s fun.

Enjoy!

any new and interesting wordages are the product of me. i’m an author. i can do things like that.

Rob and Joan Carter’s MEET THE AUTHOR interview Snippet 12 – The Shaman and more

I mentioned Rob and John Carter and I chatting on their MEET THE AUTHOR show in previous blog posts.

This is post #12 in a series of thirteen snippets taken from the full interview video. You can also listen to the interview via podcast

Today’s snippet deals with my upcoming novels beyond the science fantasy The Inheritors. These include the urban-fantasy The Shaman (September 2023 release), an urban fantasy follow up to The Shaman isolating one event in the protagonist’s life and entitled Search (December 2023 release), the medieval murder mystery Tag (March 2024 release), the science fantasy Wounded Healers (June 2024 release) and more.

Enjoy!

Tag – Part IV The Circus – Chapter 20

And so we begin a new section of Tag. Exciting, isn’t it? (God, I hope so!)

Continuing with Tag – Part IV The Circus – Chapter 20.

Previous chapters here

Tag – Part IV The Circus – Chapter 20

Haasel stilled her wheel to better hear the tinkling of harness bells moving down the street. The bells kept time to the steady clomp clomp clomp of horses’ hooves. Wagon wheels creaked. Another wagon followed with a smaller horse and a single bell, rougly palm size and bronze-cast from the sound. It jingled quietly until the wagon wheels clapped through a rut or over a rill in the road. Three more followed. Haasel picked up the mingled scents of bear and pony. “Not quite the lion and the lamb, and close.”

She grabbed her cane and opened her door. Bright sunlight warmed her face and arms. The jingling and tinkling stopped. The draft horse’s foreleg stomped a definitive clomp and shook itself of flies. Its rein and haress bells sounded came from quite high off the ground as if held in the hands of a musical giant. The second wagon’s bells sounded as its horses stopped but the sound was from someone deliberately plucking it, not from a movement of the wagon or horse.

“Hello, Good Lady!” A deep, bellowing voice called to her from the first wagon’s driver’s seat. It carried a slight echo from the cabin mounted on the wagon’s frame. The door between the cabin and the driver’s seat opened and Haasel heard a woman’s voice, old, harsh, gibbering as if in a delerium. The driver closed the door with a thud and the woman’s voice was gone.

The driver continued. “A circus, Good Lady! Acrobats! Jugglers! Strange tasties from distant lands made while you watch. The poetry of Homer read by none other than myself! And other plays of the ancient Greeks and Persians! Storytellers sharing our ancestors’ lore!”

Someone shifted on the third wagon’s driver’s seat but made no other noise. A servant, perhaps a slave.

“And news of the Mongol.” The voice tightened slightly, the words slightly rushed, the speaker’s tone betraying a hidden excitement. “They do brutal things to beautiful women.”

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Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 19

Continuing with Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 19.

Previous chapters here

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 19

Galos poked two opposing holes in his pile and watched thick, grey smoke rise. Two more holes, also opposite each other, and the smoke thinned and turned blue.

Galos nodded and smiled. He reached into a leather pouch on a woodpile, pulled out a thin strip of dried venison, and gnawed on until it softened enough to tear a piece off. Its juice glistened down his chin.

A bark came through the wood. The mice and chipmunks, their cheeping and squeaking serving as soprano accompaniment to his deep tenor as he worked, grew silent and burrowed deep in his wood stacks for protection. Galos reached for a solid piece of oak. It didn’t sound like a wolf but game had become as scarce as harvest and he didn’t want to be caught unawares.

A moment later Verduan’s dog, Buco, trotted up and sat beside him. Galos rubbed the big dog’s head. “Buco, does your master know where you are?”

He heard Verduan call from down the road. “Buco! Leave Galos be. He has no food for you.”

Galos winked. Half the venison remained in his hand. He took his axe and chopped off a thumb-wide piece.

The dog kept his eyes on the venison while Galos worked.

“Buco!”

The dog whined. Galos tossed the venison. Buco caught it in midair and took it behind the woodpile.

Verduan walked up with Patreo by his side. “Galos, have you seen my dog?”

Galos stared at Patreo and frowned for a moment. He looked down and shook his head before smiling at his friend. “Verduan, a dog? When did you get a dog?”

Patreo looked to the ground and walked behind the woodpile. He leaned over, momentarily hidden, and returned with Buco trotting beside him. The dog’s flues globbed mucousy saliva as he walked.

Galos put a hand over his chest and pulled back, eyes wide with alarm. “By all the saints! A dog! I’ll bet he’s a good dog, isn’t he?”

Buco snuffled Galos’ hand holding the venison.

Verduan put his fists on his hips and glowered at Galos. “Is that your smoked venison? Did you give him your smoked venison? Do you know the smells that dog makes when he eats your smoked venison? He sleeps in the barn and we’re not safe in the house. Even the goats and cows leave their stalls when you give him your smoked venison.”

“Who’s your friend?”