Happy New Year's Eve! It's time to check in on if I met my reading and writing goals for 2024!
Reading Goals

1) Read my physical TBR
Achieved! I read my backlog of physical books and bought more, for a total of 25 physical books.

2) Read what my friends are gushing about
Achieved! I read 12 books with my friends, including the ACOTAR series and the Crescent City series.

3) Find comps for my next book
Achieved! I found three recently published books that are great comps to my book.

4) Keep track of reading stats, but don't sweat
Achieved! I read 59 books and 24,133 pages.

Writing Goals

1) See what working with a professional editor is like
Achieved! I had the opportunity to work with Jeni Chappelle and it was amazing. Read about my experience here!

2) Polish my manuscript and send my first query for my next book
Achieved! I finished in time to pitch at a conference in September and have sent queries since. Keep your fingers crossed!

3) Keep up with my writing groups
This one got difficult at the end of the year when work got pretty overwhelming. I had to let go of my highest-volume groups, but was able to keep up with a couple groups that have a lower volume of reading. 

The Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN) had their first annual Dark and Stormy short story contest this year with a theme of uncanny valley. I entered because I enjoy short horror writing, and I won! I'm so excited to share my story Waxing Fame at the BARN Dark and Stormy party later this month!

Hello blog readers and people visiting this site after meeting me at PNWA 2023!

I am exhausted after PNWA's wonderful conference, so this is the tiny little blog post I can wring from my brain this week. Next week I will talk about if the cost of the conference is worth it to help you decide if it's something you'd like to attend next year. (Or even if a conference more local to you is something you'd like to attend!)

Other upcoming posts I can currently tease: 
A review of Throne of Glass from a newbie to Sarah J. Maas: is the hype worth your time?
Lessons from a Classic: Asimov's iRobot
Lessons from my first (and so far only) DNF of 2023

I was also recommended some amazing writing resources at the conference, so I'll be reviewing those as well, including the one I'm most excited for, the Trope Thesaurus by Jennifer Hilt.

Don't forget the Judging More than Just the Cover Book Club podcast is currently reading Fourth Wing. Get ready for my hot takes on the Murder College trope!


See you here next week, readers! If you're here because we met at PNWA give a shout out in the comments!

If you missed it, my story "Please Don't be a Serial Killer" is one of the stories in Nightmare Sky: Stories of Astronomical Horror. It's an anthology from Death Knell Press edited by Red Lagoe, which published in November 2022. 

The Bram Stoker Awards announced its preliminary ballots for works published in 2022, and Nightmare Sky made the list for Superior Achievement in Anthology! Horror Writers Association members can vote on which of the ten anthologies make it to the final ballot, which will be five titles. Those five titles can officially say they are nominees. So we aren't there yet, but it's so exciting! Death Knell Press wrote a beautiful post about how much this means to Red. 

If you're not familiar with the Bram Stoker Awards, here's a little background. Bram Stoker famously wrote Dracula, among other horror titles. The award was created by the Horror Writer's Association and first presented in 1988. The preliminary list is made from recommendations of HWA members or by a jury. Either way, it means HWA members have been reading and enjoying Nightmare Sky enough to recommend it. It's such an honor! The winners are announced in the spring.

If you're a voting HWA member interested in Nightmare Sky, feel free to contact me for a copy. 

Wish us luck!

Looking to buy indie horror?
Nightmare Sky, and anthology of astronomical horror from Death Knell Press, is available as of November 4th, 2022! It's edited by Red Lagoe, and there's a foreword from Aurealis Award-winning author Alan Baxter and stories from 28 authors! The anthology is available in both e-book and paperback. There are all sorts of horror stories inside and they're all fantastic (yes, I got an early copy). 

Copies are available from: 
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Indie Bound (to buy it from your local bookstore)
Don't forget that you can always ask your local library to order a copy!

Authors: Tiffany Michelle Brown, Dino Parenti, Pauline Barmby, Zachary Rosenberg, Ziggy Schutz, Inara Enko, Jeremy Megargee, Vann Orcka, Patrick Barb, Justin Moritz, Matthew Condello, M. Richard Eley, Madison McSweeney, Bernard McGhee, Elizabeth Davis, Lindsey Ragsdale, Jacob Steven Mohr, Tony Logan, Kim Z. Dale, Ai Jiang, C.R. Beideman, Salvador Ayala, Kate Ota, Holly Rae Garcia, Avra Margariti, Grace R. Reynolds, Emerson Seipel, & Rose Strickman.


Want to learn more? Check out Death Knell Press's page about it.

I appreciate anyone who grabs a copy of this anthology!

 I'm so excited to announce that my short story "Please Don't be a Serial Killer" will be published in Nightmare Sky, a night sky themed anthology from Death Knell Press. My story is my first attempt at publishing horror rather than scifi, so I was surprised and thrilled! I will say that there's a lot of humor in my story compared to most horror, so it's still very me. 

You may recognize the name Red Lagoe, the editor, as someone who was on my 2021 reads post. She has two anthologies of horror out now, Lucid Screams and Dismal Dreams. She also recently released a stand alone short story, "Black Feathered Fury" and has many shorts published in other anthologies. 

Nightmare Sky will be published in January 2023!


Transparency note: I know Red Lagoe in real life, as we have been in the same writing group. She did not see my short story in advance. I did not think submitting to her was a guarantee for inclusion.

As 2021 was coming to a close, I thought time had run out for publishing news. Then I found out an anthology I was accepted to is officially published today! The Kitsap Writers Group Anthology was compiled by the very organized Emmett J Hall and has contributions from many members of our critique group. It covers sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and more. 

My story is science fiction and is titled "The Undoing of Maggie Jinkowski." This story won first place in the short fiction category at the  Hampton Roads Writers Conference in 2019, which I announced way back then. I've been shopping for a home for the story ever since and this anthology felt like the right place at last.

Currently only available as an ebook, a paperback should hit the market soon. 
I'm incredibly proud to be alongside so many great writers in this anthology, with stories that I've found gripping and well written. 
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Here's to many more pub credits in the future!