As the holiday festivities continue to ramp up, we’ve gone all-in here at WMG. We’ve even got our first-ever holiday issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine hitting the proverbial shelves later this week!
Now granted, this is Pulphouse, so the holiday stories here are not normal holiday stories. They are everything you’d expect from a Pulphouse story, but with a holiday twist.
Here’s the lineup: “An Ideal Husband” by Jerry and Kathy Oltion “Severed Ties” by R.W. Wallace “Virtching Merry” by Kent Patterson “Dead Drop” by Louisa Swann “Cover Nuns” by Barbara G. Tarn “Last Job” by Rebecca M. Senese “Blood of Heroes” by Ezekiel James Boston “The Magnolia Murders” by O’Neil De Noux “The Not-So-Scientific Research of Dragons” by Katharina Gerlach “Granny Law” by Jason A. Adams “Lucy and the Underworld” by Rob Vagle “The Ballad of Bob Dumpty” by Annie Reed “No Pity Party” by David H. Hendrickson “Emily Loves Christmas, Emily Loves Murder” by Robert J. McCarter “A Blood-Soaked Christmas Wish” by David Stier “Naughty Children” by Mary McKenna “Father Christmas” by J. Steven York “Spells for the Holidays” by Ray Vukcevich “Nutball Season” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Click here to read more about this latest issue or here to subscribe.
And if that’s not enough holiday celebrating for you, there’s still time to subscribe to the WMG Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories and/or the Holiday Collections StoryBundle.
Click here to sign up for the Calendar of Stories. And if you want to preview one of these fabulous stories, for free, click here.
Merry Christmas! I’m home celebrating the holiday with my wonderful little family, but I wanted to be sure to give you a gift, too. Without you, dear readers, my job wouldn’t exist and my wonderful life would look very different, indeed.
So, thank you for being part of it. And please enjoy this free holiday tale from the magical Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Click here for the link to “Nutball Season.” But be sure to do that soon, because the link expires on New Year’s Day.
A friend of mine sent me a link last week to an awesome Icelandic Christmas Eve tradition called Jolabokaflod, or the “Christmas Book Flood.”
It seems the best Christmas gift you can give in Iceland is a book. Gifts are exchanged on Christmas Eve and Icelanders spend the rest of the evening reading.
Iceland, as it happens, also publishes the most books per capita. And the majority of the book sales fall between September and November.
Hence, the Christmas Book Flood.
Now, maybe I’m biased, but this sounds like the best Christmas tradition I’ve ever heard of and one we should adopt here immediately. (You can read more about it here.)
So, in the spirit of Jolabokaflod, have I got the bundle for you.
The Christmas Cheer Bundle on Storybundle has ten books for one low price. But it’s even better than that, really, because one of those books is an anthology, one a three-story collection, and one is a 20-story bundle all its own.
Included in the bundle are five WMG products: Melody Ridge by Dean Wesley Smith, Dressed in Holiday Style by Kristine Grayson, Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts, and two holiday short stories in the Very Merry Christmas bundle: “Jukebox Gifts” by Dean Wesley Smith and “Nutball Season” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
For me, great stories and Christmas Holidays go hand-in-hand. I used to buy myself books for Christmas, and Christmas vacation was always a time I got to do the most reading when I was growing up. Then when I started writing, a friend and I challenged each other to write six Christmas short stories in seven days and put them in a little chapbook for our friends as gifts. We did that every year for years, cementing in my mind that Christmas meant stories.
So when I got a chance to put a bundle of Christmas stories together, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to bring stories back to Christmas for me. And bring in the fantasy of the season.
To read more about the bundle or for purchasing options, click here. Buy it for yourself or give it to a friend (or both).
Who knows, maybe you’ll start your own book flood.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
Mystery Holiday Stories Collections Available in: ebook, $5.99 Trade paperback, $12.99 ISBN 978-0615737256 Get the ebook! Get the trade paperback! Santa and Other Christmas Criminals Kristine Kathryn Rusch Think about it: Santa sneaks in during the dead of night. He...
Holiday Stories Collections Available in: ebook, $7.99 Trade paperback, $14.99 ISBN 978-0615733630 Get the ebook! Get the trade paperback! Silent Night: A Christmas Collection Kristine Kathryn Rusch The ten stories all appeared at Christmas time. Kristine Kathryn...
Browse more Books Search for: The WMG Newsletter Get advanced notice of new releases, bonus content, and so much more. Subscribe Now Contact Us Name Email Address Message 14 + 2 = Submit KLMNOP Karnikov Card, The (A Spade/Paladin Conundrum) Keeper of the Morals, The...
Although we have yet to don our Halloween costumes, already my thoughts have turned to the holidays. Maybe that’s because we’ve been so busy revising our holiday stories lately. We have a wide selection of holiday offerings here at WMG—from fantasy and sci-fi to mystery and literary.
We have a Thanksgiving cozy called Pudgygate to kick things off and Christopher’s Crummy Christmas, a story about how Santa’s son feels about Christmas Day.
We have stories about family and holiday traditions, such as The Last Christmas Letter and Stille Nacht. Of course, each has a bit of a twist <grin>.
We have stories with a bit of romance and magic, such as Nutball Season and Up on the Rooftop.
We have stories about Christmas Future, such as the sci-fi offerings of Boz, Loop and The Taste of Miracles.
Then there are the mysteries and urban fantasies, from the intriguing to the dark: Doubting Thomas, The Moorhead House, Rehabilitation, Substitutions and Snow Angels.
And as the holiday season comes to a close, we have the Hugo-award winning Millennium Babies to help you ring in the New Year.
And if you prefer to spread the love (or suspense) even further, we have three collections that include many of these stories: Five for the Winter Holidays, Silent Night: A Christmas Collection and Santa and Other Christmas Criminals.
I don’t know about you, but thanks to these stories, I’m way ahead on my Christmas shopping.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
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.
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.
