You know the feeling when you’re reading along on a book and you just know what’s going to happen. Like, yeah did I already read this?
But you know it’s a new book! Just came out.
You pop online and doublecheck. Even scramble around in the beginning pages to find that copyright page.
Yep. Brand new book.
But I swear I’ve read this before!
What just happened? OK, You either just:
Finished the book, got your noggin’ hit, selectively forgot your hours of previous new book interaction and just blissfully picked it up again (about as likely as beautiful toe fungus).
Or you have picked up a (bad) book where the author has committed one of these three heinous anti-reader crimes:
Gotcha! You’ve Just Been (Poorly) Troped
I Shall Trap You In A White Room and You Will Like It!
I Want to Be One of the Cool People, too!
I shall go into each of these is delicious depth, plus how to avoid bad books before you plunk down your money!
So come hang out with me on the MOTHERSHIP blog over the next couple weeks as I go into each of them.
In the meantime…
A Great Story Series for those who like the THE TWILIGHT ZONE…
Bryant Street Kickstarter
Do you like:
THE TWILIGHT ZONE?
TWIN PEAKS?
Dark and Strange Stories?
Then welcome to Bryant Street!
Where THE TWILIGHT ZONE and TWIN PEAKS meet…
Bryant Street, a standard subdivision street outside of any city. Well-kept lawns, paint and roofs up to HOA standards, two- or three-car garages.
Everything looks to any casual observer perfect and normal.
But inside those perfect-looking homes, the residents seem just a little off. A little twisted or confused or a half-turn out of reality.
Normal exists on other subdivision streets, but never on Bryant Street.
This is my 583rd blog. I’ve been writing these for almost 12 years. But this is my final one.
We are making some changes here at WMG. Great changes. Stephanie Writt will be taking over as the voice of WMG, and she’s brilliant and excited and offers a fresh voice. I can’t wait for you to see what she does with our reader communications!
Featuring the original story “What Remains of America” by Scott Edelman, Issue #25 also includes:
“An Infinite Number of Idiots” by Robert Jeschonek
“The Sleeping Agent” by Charlotte Munich
“Objects of Desire” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“City of Sin Strangler” by David H. Hendrickson
“A Willing Lad” by O’Neil De Noux
“The Remarkable Way She Died” by Karen Fonville
“The Spirit House” by Lisa S. Silverthorne
“Little City Blues” by Annie Reed
“Unity Con” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Minions at Work: Inflated Expectations” by J. Steven York
You can buy the book on the Pulphouse Store, here.
But before you go do that, I want to thank you all for reading what I’ve put down on the page all these years. Maybe this is your first or maybe your 583rd, but regardless, I appreciate your readership. Always.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
We’re back to our normal winter weather here on the Oregon Coast (cold and rainy) after the fun of ice storms from Winter Storm Heather. Thank goodness!
Our stores are stocking back up (it was grim here for a few days), and they look so festive with all the hearts for Valentine’s Day.
Every time I see them, I think about our Hearts Collide Kickstarter, and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Who wouldn’t love 100 strange romance stories?
If you haven’t checked it out yet, we’ve added a very special stretch goal to that Kickstarter.
If the campaign reaches 100 backers by the time we end on Tuesday evening at 7 p.m., every backer of any reward at $30.00 and above will get a free ebook copy of The Idanha Hotel: A Thunder Mountain Novel by Dean Wesley Smith.
And for writers, the full Classic Workshop WRITING ROMANCE FICTION, with over 40 videos and assignments you can do for yourself. This is a $150 value and if you’re not a writer, you can gift it to a writer friend. Maybe even as a Valentine’s Day gift <grin>.
And speaking of writing workshops, Dean Wesley Smith just announced two new in-person craft workshops (and a reminder for the anthology workshop). Here’s what he had to say:
Because Kris is just finishing up the in-person workshop here in Las Vegas, and she had a blast doing it with 14 really great writers at Resorts World, we decided to announce another two in-person craft workshops.
FANTASY DETECTIVES… May 6th through 9th… Resorts World in Las Vegas. Taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Cost is $750 for the class. Must be paid to hold your spot. Limited to only 14 writers.
SPACE OPERA… January 13th through 16th, 2025… Resorts World in Las Vegas. Taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Cost is $750 for the class. Must be paid to hold your spot. Limited to only 14 writers.
If you have never been to a WMG in-person workshop, contact me directly with information about your writing and publishing.
If you have been to one, contact me at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com and I will get you how to pay the fee through Paypal and get your name on the list.
Again only 14 spots total and as I write this to announce this, three spots are already gone to writers who are here at the moment. So basically 11 spots left at the moment.
Both these craft workshops will fill very quickly. They are really fun.
(Study Along classes are also up for both.)
ANTHOLOGY WORKSHOP…Reminder that it will happen at Resorts World in the middle of July (dates not yet announced). The cost is $900 to hold your spot and out of the 40 spots, only 9 spots left. So don’t miss this one. Got a hunch it will fill soon. Contact me at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com on how to pay and to get on the list if you have been to an in-person workshop before.
So three in-person workshops in Las Vegas. Two fun craft classes taught by Kris and the Anthology Workshop returning for the first time since 2020.
Anyone who follows this blog knows we launch Kickstarters regularly. But one of our favorites every year is the Make 100 Kickstarter.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith have been writing professional short stories for four decades that have won awards and sold millions of copies, plus they have been acclaimed and enjoyed by fans over the entire world. So, we have lots of stories to pull from for these projects.
Those stories cover a lot of genres, including romance. But they write what they call “strange romances.” When they commit romance, it tends to be in just about any genre and on any topic, but always with that underlying feel of a romance.
So, for this year’s Make 100 Kickstarter we’re collecting their “strange romance” stories together into special volumes called Hearts Collide, just like we did with Fantasies Collide last year for the fantasy stories, Crimes Collide the year before for the mystery stories, and Colliding Worlds the first year for their science fiction.
These five Hearts Collide volumes contain 100 strange romance stories, half from Kris and half from Dean.
In addition to such fantastic rewards as the five Hearts Collide volumes in ebook, trade paperback, hardcover, and signed/limited hardcover, we also have lots of other romance book options, including past Make 100 volumes, as well as special workshops for writers and our Buy Everything subscription.
Click here to be notified as soon as the Kickstarter launches tomorrow.
It’s been a busy year for WMG Publishing! While we added to some of our most popular and familiar publications and series, we also launched a whole bunch of new ventures.
We ran eight Kickstarters, all of which funded, most of them within an hour of launch. And we published more than a dozen books as a result of those Kickstarters, including two books in award-winning author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s fan-favorite and bestselling Diving series. Those were The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades and Ivory Trees.
We had the annual subscription drive for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, which was not only successful but also marked the change from six issues a year to monthly! The first monthly issues featured new works from Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Pulphouse regular Annie Reed. Upcoming featured authors include Scott Edelman and Kevin J. Anderson. If you haven’t subscribed yet, it’s not too late! Click here.
In January we participated in Kickstarter’s Make 100 projects with our third Make 100. We started with Colliding Worlds, 120 sf stories in six volumes in 2021; followed that up with Crimes Collide, 100 mystery stories in 2022; and in 2023 we did Fantasies Collide, 100 fantasy stories. Each series has five volumes (with the exception of Colliding Worlds, which has six) and fifty stories each by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch in every volume.
And we’re planning a new Make 100 project this January! This time, it’s all about Romance…
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith curated five StoryBundles in 2023, everything from Fantasy/Steampunk, to Cattitude, to Halloween and finally Good Cheer this Christmas holiday season. In addition, in June Kris curated The Write Stuff StoryBundle, and out of that we published the 21st WMG Writer’s Guide, Kris’s How Writers Fail: Analysis and Solutions, the following month.
All of the above-mentioned books and magazines are now available in our new online stores. Designed and put together by our brilliant new Advertising & Accounts Executive, Stephanie Writt, these stores offer all of our publications plus some very cool new merchandise—direct to the reader with no vendors such as Amazon or Apple or Barnes & Noble involved. We can give our readers and subscribers all kinds of discounts and bargains!
In total the four stores have more than 1,000 items for sale, including ebooks and fun things such as mugs and calendars, sweatshirts and blankets, and much, much more. Paperbacks are coming soon!
The Mothership at wmgbooks.com has all things WMG. OK, we are still adding some of the hundreds of individual short stories we publish, but we’re nearly there. With the scores of stories by Kris and Dean, it’s been an exciting challenge to get everything listed!
Pulphouse Fiction Magazine has its own store now, too, with all of the issues of the current iteration of the magazine, plus all of the Pulphouse books and tons of fun merchandise.
Our fourth store to launch is the WMG Holiday Spectacular. It has all the themed anthologies from our very first Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories in 2019 through the 2022 anthologies, plus the mega-compilation volumes with every story from every year. There are lots of beautiful holiday items from cozy blankets to mugs for hot beverages to coasters and pillows, all with classic holiday art from the wonderful Giordano Studios. We just wrapped up the 2023 WMG Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories today, but if you missed it, you can preorder the annual compilation, which will release in July.
Dean and Kris continue to expand the workshop offerings for writers on Teachable. They started several new series in 2023 including Motivational Mondays, The Decade Ahead, a virtual course where participants could attend the Licensing Expo with Dean as guide, courses such as the Indie Writer’s Guide to Shopify that includes weekly Zoom meetings, courses on creating merchandise for your fans—and lots more.
Very exciting courses and challenges for writers, and there’s lots coming in 2024, including the return of the Anthology Workshop!
So, it’s been a super busy year at WMG Publishing, with lots of new books, products, stores, workshops and magazines!
We wish you all a Happy New Year, and we look forward to hearing from you in the days ahead!
