Arg! No color, accept for that righteously horrible green.
*sigh*
The andro-coupling must have jimmied out from underneath the Barklavian fish-tank that caused the resonating…
Oh right, hi! That’s me…sort of.
I obviously need more time to hacksaw this configuration into shape.
And I am waaaaaay out here in…well, we’ll get to that later.
While I strain all my ample abilities into shaping up some sort of coherent transmission relay, please let me send you to some truly fine places to start!!
(…and that hopefully have a color variation a little more pleasant than the awkward side of gross.)
If you like it, you can get a lot more on the Bryant Street Kickstarter, coming real soon. There will be more stories and other fun rewards. If you like THE TWILIGHT ZONE and TWIN PEAKS, then this will surely entertain you.
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.
Well, I’m not where I thought I’d be this week. I was supposed to be in Las Vegas for the Science Fiction/Mystery Craft Workshop Kristine Kathryn Rusch is teaching this week. Instead, I’m coordinating it virtually from my office on the Oregon Coast.
Thanks, (Winter Storm) Heather.
I’m consoling my broken heart by focusing on other hearts instead. The hearts in our Hearts Collide Kickstarter, of course!
We’ve already funded, been named a Kickstarter Project We Love, and hit our first stretch goal. And there are so many great rewards on offer!
There’s the titular projects themselves, of course. One hundred strange romance stories by Kris and Dean Wesley Smith, available in five volumes in ebook, trade paperback or hardcover. (To see more about what we mean by “strange romance,” check out the Kickstarter video and read the story.)
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.
What a lovely way to kick off the new year!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
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!
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! We at WMG are home celebrating this joyful day with our families.
And so, instead of the usual blog, here is a gift from us to you. A delightful free story about Christmas and families by Kristine Kathryn Rusch called “Christopher’s Crummy Christmas.”
First, the2023 Good Cheer StoryBundle, curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and featuring 10 story collections perfect for the holiday season.
Here’s a quick overview about the bundle:
Make time for great fiction during the holidays: Read a holiday short story or two. Or three. Or a hundred. The Good Cheer StoryBundle gives you dozens and dozens of holiday stories, all to suit your mood. From mystery to science fiction, from Solstice stories to the traditional Christmas fare, the Good Cheer bundle has something for everyone—even people who only have a few minutes to read.
This bundle features three WMG titles (Jingle My Bells, Winter Holidays, and Stories for the Cold of Winter) as well as three StoryBundle exclusives (Uncommon Holidays, Unexpected Santas, and Holiday Hope).
Speaking of great holiday short stories, for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #24, editor Dean Wesley Smith gathered some of the best Pulphouse writers and their best fun and unexpected holiday season stories.
This issue also includes a special original holiday story by Annie Reed.
Here’s a look at the table of contents:
“First Chair” by Annie Reed
“Scrooge and Marley” by David H. Hendrickson
“Krampus and His Theoretical Heart” by Rob Vagle
“Santa Sata-ni-fied” by Stephannie Tallent
“Desperate Housewitches” by Dayle A. Dermatis
“The Pain” by O’Neil De Noux
“What Fits” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“Harsh Expectations” by R.W. Wallace
“It’s a Wonderful Death” by Robert Jeschonek
“Up On the Rooftop” by Kristine Grayson
“Minions at Work” by J. Steven York
Click here to buy this issue of Pulphouse. And click here to check out the holiday Pulphouse merchandise.
Happy reading, and from all of us here at WMG, we wish you a very merry and happy week full of fun and festivities, no matter what you happen to celebrate!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
These are the last few days for the very special Kickstarter called Never Before Seen: Six Original Mysteries by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This is the first time Kris has experimented with doing a Kickstarter for her work of this length, and we’re so pleased with the success it has already achieved.
But we’re not done yet. We’ve hit XX stretch goals so far, and we have at least one more special stretch goal up our sleeves.
These six mysteries come with any reward, and we’ve also put together rewards with some of Kris’ and WMG’s other mystery titles, so you have plenty of options to choose from.
Plus, there’s the special workshop— a brand-new DOWN IN THE DETAILS series of classes called HOW TO WRITE PERFECT CRIMES THROUGH THE AGES—and the special BUY EVERYTHING lifetime subscription to every ebook WMG publishes!
We’re launching a very special Kickstarter just in time for the holidays. This one is ebook only and will be fulfilled by Christmas, so if you’re shopping for mystery-lovers, we’ve got the gifts for you!
Kris is known for her award-winning mysteries, and getting six new stories at one time is really special!
Here’s a look at the new covers.
These six mysteries come with any reward, and we’ve also taken the opportunity to put together rewards with some of Kris’ and WMG’s other mystery titles, so you have plenty of options to choose from.
Add in the special workshops, which will be announced when the Kickstarter goes live, and the special BUY EVERYTHING lifetime subscription to every ebook WMG publishes, and it’s a mystery wonderland!
Happy Cyber Monday! I know that’s not a real holiday. It’s a made-up retail holiday. Just like Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. But still. Deals!
We celebrate all of those here at WMG because we are a small business with a series of online stores. And we’re celebrating all that this year with a huge sale and some brand-new holiday merchandise!
Now through midnight PST on Tuesday, Nov. 28, you can save 30% on books, 25% (plus free shipping) on merchandise (US only), and 50% on everything we offer on WMG’s Teachable site.
That 30% off on books goes for every ebook we have for sale (and we have many, from short stories to magazines to collections to novels) at the WMG Holiday Spectacular Store, the Diving Store, the Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Store and The Mothership (wmgbooks.com).
Plus, festive merchandise like blankets, mugs, puzzles, and the newly created holiday stockings and ornaments on all three specialty stores (Holiday, Diving, and Pulphouse) all at a 25% discount and free shipping (US only)!
And gift cards! You can buy gift cards on the Holiday the Diving stores and give them as gifts to be delivered at the date you choose!
And last but not least is an item that is NOT part of the sale but is a hell of a deal that we’re offering for the FIRST TIME EVER!
With the new WMG Books BUY EVERYTHING Lifetime Subscription, you can get access to every eBook on the WMG shelves. EVERY eBook. Now and published in the future. That’s already more than a thousand titles.
