Coffee Klatch News: July 22

coffee klatch noun
–an occasion when people meet socially to talk and drink coffee (Cambridge Dictionary)

Welcome to the Coffee Klatch. Join us each week for conversation and news in the Writer’s Life community and connect on Twitter (@Writers_Life) at #Writers_Life.

Today I am serving Croissants and Melon to cool us down after the heat wave in July. And, we always serve a full menu of drinks. Help yourself to iced coffee, iced tea or chai.

Writer’s Life Happenings

Thanks for your patience during my busy times the last couple weeks. I started a new job this week as a clinical supervisor in an agency that serves children and families. I only work two days a week right now, but that is a lot for me. I am hoping that I can adjust to the new environment with my chemical sensitivity condition. I have experienced a lot of fibromyalgia pain this week and am trying everything I can to manage it. I really like the people I work with – they are so kind, motivated, positive and professional. I already feel at home even though I have a lot to absorb.  I miss my time to chat online and my writing time, but I am trying to take it slow and not get overwhelmed.

Last week was my Writer’s Life post – Dealing With Mind Monkeys – which was part of the Peevish Penman blog tour about advice for beginning writers.

INTERVIEW. The Penny Dreadful (@TPDonline) will host an interview chat with me about #Writers_Life and @Writers_Life on Friday, July 23rd from 12:00 – 1:00 EST. Please join us and ask questions at #thepennydreadful.

Coffee Klatch News

#ZombieLuv. Congrats to all the winners of the #ZombieLuv contest that participated in Mari Juniper’s contest. Here are all the lucky winners:

Sam Adamson (@FutureNostalgic), honorable mention for – For the Love of Mike

Angel Zapata (@AngelZapata), second place for – Dead Flames

Nishida C. (@Cafe_Nirvana) was the grand prize winner for – The Tell-tale Beat. (BTW, Nishida just launched her website and this was her debut post!)

Congrats to all the participants in this contest, there were 37 wonderful entries!! Head over to Mari’s Randomities and read the zombie stories if you haven’t already.

Emma Newman. Congrats! How exciting. Check out the release of the front cover of Emma’s upcoming novel 20 Years Later (dystopian YA) and the Facebook page.

Currently, Miraculous Deception, Book Two of my Future Imperfect series is available now here,  as well as Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, Sony ebook store and Itunes/Apple.

I also have a novella included in a science fiction anthology to be released in October, 2010 also through Desert Breeze Publishing.

I will have a cozy mystery entitled: Button Hollow Chronicles #1: The Leaf Peeper Murders, which I co-authored with my sister, Loni Emmert which will be released August 1, 2010 through Mainly Murder Press and we will host the official book launch party August 2 at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, CA.

My sister will also have another mystery, “Lights! Camera! Murder!” through Hilliard and Harris publishing, date of release TBA.

And last but not least we will be attending the RWA convention at the end of this month in Orlando as well as signing books on September 26 at the West Hollywood Book Festival!

*** I have been offline a lot lately, so if you have some big news to announce, then I most likely missed it. Feel free to post it in the comments below!

Resources for Writers

I highly recommend that you follow and read the blog of one of my favorite non-fiction authors who is now writing fiction – Lisa Rivero (@lisa_rivero). Lisa has a great series in July about intensity at The Wild Thyme Unseen.

Emma Newman is trying out LibraryThing.com? She says, “I’ve just joined – it looks really interesting (and like it has high addictive potential)…”

Have you seen this? The New Yorker has The Fiction Podcast:

A monthly reading and conversation with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. This month, Salvatore Scibona reads Denis Johnson’s “Two Men.” Listen using the player, or browse below to listen or download.

Serial Fiction

I am beginning to list serial fiction stories each week to provide you with quality summer reading. It seems most everyone is giving serial fiction a try this year. Read these stories and check in each week for more serial fiction announcements (also keep sending announcements of your serial or those you read – see info below).

The Penny Dreadful. The Penny Dreadful is where you can find several serial fiction stories. The site was created by Angie Capozello (@techtigger) author of the Nox and Grimm series and features stories by:

Anne Tyler Lord (that’s me) (@AnneTylerLord & @Writers_Life) Frostbite: A Mafia Family Christmas and Twisted Family Bonds (Yeah, I know, I need to get going on this series, I left the mob bosses hanging & they may come after me soon.)

Cecilia Dominic (@RandomOenophile) Always a Bridesmaid

Donna Carrick (@Donna_Carrick) Two Good Hands

Emma Newman (@EmApocalyptic) Tales From The Split Worlds

Jack Roth (@jack_roth) THE PAGES

Jason Arnett (@ajasont) Soul Stripper and Reader

Jim Bronyaur (@jimbronyaur) Guns n’ Graves

Laura Eno (@lauraeno) The Immortals

Lily Mulholland (@LilyMulholland) The Taming of the Shrew and Betrayal, a Jo Carter Serial

Monica Marier (@lil_monmon) Skeleton Crew

Morbus Iff (@morbusiff) The Guardian of Aloons

Sam Adamson (@FutureNostalgic) UCF Stories

Tom Bruno (@oodja) Varonian Nights

Valerie Valdes (@valerievaldes) Broommates

Emma Newman (provided more info here) (@Emapocalyptic) at Post-Apocalyptic Publishing, Tales From the Split Worlds. Index page of all tales so far.

Tales From The Split Worlds: Where tea and good manners meet spiteful fairies and the political machinations of powerful dynastic families. Quirky urban fantasy from Emma Newman.

Sam Adamson (@FutureNostalgic) has written a series called The UCF Stories. You can find the first episode here and links to all the episodes here. Synopsis:

Swazzle and Pogmorton are undercover operators for the Pixie Defence Force’s Special Operations Directorate.  Join them, along with Botchett the Gnome and Aveena the witch, for a rip-roaring romp through the Other World and the Mortal Realm as they battle to thwart the plans of Twinkle and the rest of the Urban Combat Fairies.  Mayhem is guaranteed to ensue.

Lyn Thorne-Alder (@LynThorneAlder) has written a serial called, Addergoole & at my livejournal.

My main serial is Addergoole, a contemporary fantasy story with erotic and dark-fantasy elements, a modern-day fairy tale of sorts, following three students as they fall down the hole into another world, slipping beneath the surface of the normal world. We enter the story as they enter a strange, new school and discover just how much they don’t know about themselves, their parents, or their world.

Gracie Motley (@gracecrone) has a fantasy serial called Fire and Water.

1st episode is The Old One and there is also an index page

Nancy Brauer and Vanessa Brooks (@tenaciousN) wrote a series called Strange Little Band.

Strange Little Band is the ongoing story of Addison and Shane, two
self-centered psychics who work for the cut-throat Triptych Corporation. Their insular, comfortable lives are disrupted when, due to Triptych’s machinations, they become unlikely parents. How can they raise a child when they can’t trust each other?

Nancy Brauer and MCM (@tenaciousN and @1889ca) have written Tori’s Row.

Tori McNulty has problems. As she’s putting her life back together,
she’s attacked in Boston’s South End. She doesn’t remember much: mostly blood-drenched pavement and the crumpled body of her assailant. The good news is that she’s uninjured and not a murder suspect. The bad news is the obnoxious young man in 18th century dress shadowing her and confusing, violent flashbacks. Tori must figure out what happened that night before her stalker gets to her or she goes completely mad.

Monica Marier (@lil_monmon) is featuring Madame Bluestocking’s Pennyhorrid

Part One: Any Landing You Can Walk Away From … A Hope/Crosby style buddy-comedy in a Steampunk/Fantasy World. Follow the hijinks of Wingaurd & Kelly in a mysterious underwater city.

Check out the interlocking work by Shirley Meier and Karen Wehrstein – their characters interact – how cool is that?:

Shirley Meier (@Vryka) is one of the Fifth Millennium writers. Her current project is Eclipse Court, you can find Chapter one here.

Karen Wehrstein (@Chevenga) is writing, The Philosopher In Arms, you can find chapter one here.

Claudia Hall Christian (@ClaudiaC) is writing a serial called, The Denver Cereal. Here is where you can find the first chapter. You can download the free ebook Denver Cereal, the beginning:

Denver Cereal is a serial romantic urban fiction set in Uptown Denver, Colorado.  Denver Cereal begins when Jillian Roper shows up to her ex-husband’s engagement party wearing thigh high leather boots.  Crunchy, sweet and always addicting, you deserve a little Denver Cereal in your life.

Clare K.R. Miller (@clarekrmiller) has a serial called, Chatoyant College.

Corrie, Edie, and Dawn are new students at the only institution in the United States that teaches magic: Chatoyant College. They’re looking forward to learning how to cast spells, curse their enemies, write essays, and learn foreign languages. But not everything is what it seems, and even less is what they expected. Dawn has memories no one else shares. Corrie finds things she thought she understood spiraling out of her grasp. Edie doesn’t even believe in magic when they arrive, but the line between fantasy and reality quickly blurs. They find themselves turning to fiction to answer the questions their professors won’t. Creatures out of folklore and legend lurk behind friendly facades as well as within forbidden places. The girls have a lot to learn. College leads you farther from home than geography can account for, and there’s no turning back now…

Mari Juniper. (@marirandomities). She has a new series –  The troll serial, episode one is called, The P Word.

Jodi MacArthur (@JodiMacArthur) is writing a series called, Wicked Woman’s Booty. This series was recommended by one of her readers.

Avast me hearties! Wicked Woman be a’sailin 0′ Pulp Metal Magazine. It be a pirate serial with adventures, treasure maps, the cave of ali baba, frog wenches, and Cap’n Viper.

Here are some of the hashtags mentioned to find more serial fiction (what do you use the most? Add in comments):

#thepennydreadful
#tuesdayserial
#FridayFlash
#weblit
#webfic
#serial
#webserial
#webfiction
#sff (what does this stand for? provided by Monica Marier)

genre-specific tags (#fantasy, #romance, #scifi)

Submissions to Coffee Klatch News

Request for fiction serials. Send me your info if you write serial fiction. I plan to start listing serials that are published online by the many wonderful writers who follow Writer’s Life. I am expecting many serials, so I will list them over a few weeks in the order I receive them. This includes sites that feature many fiction series.

I have one more request, please send me as many hashtags as you can that people use on Twitter for fictional series, such as #webfic, etc.

If you write a serial or want to recommend a serial that you read, send me the following information (this will help so I can list them easily and quickly) to Coffee@AnneTylerLord.com:

Your Name, Twitter name (with link), website (with link), title of your serial (with link to the first installment in the series), and brief description (one sentence to one paragraph long).

As always, if you have (or know of) a contest, challenge or publication (print, ebook or online) or interviews you would like to share with our writer’s life community, send them in? Have you discovered a great resource for writers online? If you have news or announcements for the weekly Coffee Klatch (posted each Thursday) send a DM on Twitter (@Writers_Life) or email to Coffee@AnneTylerLord.com.

Don’t worry kitty,  we can get you out of this dilemma (who put their rind on the cat?). What creative things can you do with melon or the rinds?