I’m currently sitting outside, enjoying the cool air and the “silence” of my rural surroundings. You can always tell a writer who’s grown up in the suburbs or the city and hasn’t spent much time out in the woods or the country, because they’ll write about the characters experiencing the “silence of the night air” and remarking how “quiet the forest was.”
Unless it’s deep winter or the animals and bugs have gone to ground due to a perceived threat, there’s very little silent about the night air in the country or the woods. The night life is real here. You’ve got crickets doing their best to find a mate, mosquito hawks dogfighting swarms of mosquitoes before they can give us yellow fever or malaria or a bunch of itchy bite marks, literal night owls hooting and swooping through the air, and coyotes and other predators yipping and howling back and forth while they’re on the hunt. Just to name a few! It’s not quiet, and never has been, so don’t be fooled as I once was.
This is also a reminder for me not to do the same thing. I’m working on a fantasy short story about a group of paladins, clerics, and nobles on the hunt for a demon through first a wilderness and then an underground labyrinth, and I better get the ambient smells and sounds right!
Anyway, on to the upcoming anthologies!
Fires of Retribution, Volume 1 – March 24th, 2025
Apparently there’s so much retribution to go around there’s more than one volume of it! The first one is out on March 24th, and it’s got a stellar line-up of authors. If fantasy action is your thing, you’re gonna love it!
Cogs & Cutlasses – March 31st, 2025
I love a good Steampunk story. If you’re like me, we’re all in luck! Cogs & Cutlasses has twelve of them! We’ll all get to read them on March 31st, and sooner if you’re part of the early reader team!
HELP! Easter Bunny is in Trouble is an Amazon Bestseller!
A big thank you to all who’ve purchased Effin Older’s HELP! Easter Bunny is in Trouble during its opening weekend. It’s a bestseller on Amazon’s new release list! Number two, and on its way to number one!
Tomorrow is the big day — the Easter egg hunt!
Tulip and her little brother Washington can’t wait
to find lots of yummy chocolate eggs.
But wait!
Something is wrong. The eggs smell awful!
What’s going on? Is Mugsy Maldoom up to no-good? Again?
Tulip and Washington (and their basset hound Truffle) have to find out … before the Easter egg hunt is ruined.
Will they be in time to stop Mugsy and his devious scheme to become the new Easter Bunny?
