The WMG Newsletter
Get advanced notice of new releases, bonus content, and so much more.
About WMG Publishing
The Latest News
Publisher’s Note: The Price We Pay for Learning
My daughter had her first volleyball game over the weekend (well, her first two games, actually, because they double up on some of the weekends). It was awesome to see her playing again. She hasn’t been on a court since the world shut down in March 2020, right after basketball season ended.
She also just finished her fourth full week of school. Which has been crazy and chaotic but well worth it so far for her. She’s loving it.
Not that any of this has been easy. Covid has seen to that, of course. Every time we drop her off at school or volleyball practice comes with fear. Will this be the day she’s exposed to Covid?
I do my best to keep my fears to myself.
She, on the other hand, has this stuff down. She wears her mask all day long without complaining. She washes her hands on a regular basis at school, even though many of her peers don’t. She even has to wear a mask to play volleyball because of state mandates, but she rolls with that, too.
If she can do it, so can I. It’s the price we must pay right now for her to learn the things she wants to learn and the way she wants to learn them.
She knows there are risks, but she knows that we’ve given her all the tools at our disposal to minimize those risks.
We’ve done the cost/benefit analysis. And this is the best we can do given the circumstances.
When you’re passionate about learning, you do what you need to do.
We feel that way about learning at WMG. And about teaching.
Which is why we keep the costs of what we teach as low as possible.
And sometimes, we make those costs even lower when we can.
Like right now.
This week, until Oct. 10, we’re offering 50% off on everything on Teachable for our Fall Special Workshop Sale. Every WMG Publishing Workshop, Lecture, Pop-Up, Class, or Subscription on Teachable is half price.
Some of the new offerings available for this sale are: Power Words, Making a Living with Novels, and a Holiday Collections Class.
Go to the WMG Teachable page and click on “see all courses.” Then find the course you would like to buy and hit purchase. On the top of the next page there is a place to put in the code:
FALLSPECIAL
Click here to learn more.
Isn’t it wonderful that, as adults, we have so many Covid-safe ways to continue learning?
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: Full of Fall Frivolity
It’s officially autumn, my favorite season. And although I miss the crisp weather and fall colors of New Jersey (where I grew up), I make up for it with fall treats: pumpkin cream cheese muffins, apple pie, apple cider, pumpkin cream cold brew coffee, and my new favorite: a hot Caramel Pumpkin Brûlée Breve from Dutch Bros.
This weekend, we’ll go get our pumpkins and gourds for the front porch and put up the Halloween decorations.
I love Halloween. It’s really the most fun holiday. Even during the pandemic. I mean, think about it: an activity that already involved being outdoors no matter the weather with everyone wearing masks!
Although Christmas is my favorite holiday, Halloween is my second favorite. And not just because of its pandemic versatility.
So this year, we’ve taken our popular Winter Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories concept and applied a Halloween take on it.
So, if the idea of getting a daily dose of spooky fun in your inbox appeals to you, you’ll want to check out this literary equivalent of trick-or-treating.
Here’s how it works:
Every day, starting on October 25, 2021, and running through November 2, 2021, you will get an original short story sent to you (or the recipient of your choice) via email.
Each seasonally themed tale is accompanied by an introduction by the editor of the Halloween Calendar of Stories, Mark Leslie.
You will get each story in ebook format (epub and mobi), so you can read them daily on your own device, anywhere, anytime you choose. Or you can store them up and binge on a weekend.
Your choice.
As an added bonus, all subscribers will receive the Halloween Harvest anthology, which includes all nine stories, plus two bonus stories! Halloween Harvest will be released just two days after the calendar ends, on November 4.
Online ordering for this magical virtual harvest hayride of reading pleasures and treats opens on Wednesday, and can be found at this link: https://wmgpublishinginc.com/project/halloween-spectacula-2021/
Get yourself one or give one or more as a gift or both! If ever we needed to have fun, it’s 2021.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: The Chase is On!
It feels like we’ve been fighting threats from all sides since the beginning of last year. The pandemic, climate change, political turmoil…the list goes on. Our fight or flight response is constantly activated. And we are fatigued. There’s no doubt about it.
Acknowledging that is important. So is finding ways to cope.
Fortunately, you are all readers or you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now. And we readers know how to take those much-needed breaks from reality.
Our fiction friends Boss and Coop know all about fight or flight. The main characters in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s bestselling Diving series, Boss and Coop return this week with a brand-new, pulse-pounding adventure.
If you supported our Kickstarter earlier this year, you already know I speak truth. But if you didn’t, The Chase will be available in ebook, trade paperback, and hardcover on Tuesday.
Here’s the synopsis:
On the run.
After fleeing pursuers from two different missions, Boss and Coop reconvene at the Lost Souls Corporation headquarters. Both share exciting but troublesome news.
And a whole lot of questions.
But before they begin to even scratch the surface of the new information, they face threats from all quarters.
And when an old adversary of Coop’s gets involved, Boss questions who to trust to survive and find some long-awaited answers.
A nonstop new adventure, The Chase provides thrilling new details about Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s award-winning Diving series.
Click here for all the links.
And if you have Kickstarter FOMO, never fear. You still have time to back our latest Kickstarter project featuring Kris’ Spade/Paladin Conundrums.
We’ve already hit five stretch goals, which means all backers at the $5 level above get an advance ebook copy of Kris’ new Spade/Paladin novel Ten Little Fen, plus five bonus ebooks and four pop-up workshops for writers (or to gift to writers). That’s a helluva lot of value for $5!
Check out the Kickstarter here, but do hurry. It ends Thursday.
And so, I hope your coming week is filled with mystery and adventure, but mostly of the fictional kind.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: A Time for Reminiscence
With the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I’ve been taken back in time a lot lately to what the world was like in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. So many things have changed since then.
I didn’t get a text alert or push notification that the first tower was hit, I got a phone call from my then-husband.
He couldn’t even talk, he could only tell me to turn on the TV, because that’s how we got news immediately back then. But when I turned it on, there was nothing but static. It was tuned to ABC.
I lived in northern New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001. Our television stations (the big three: ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast from giant antennae on the top of 1 World Trade Center, the North Tower. The first tower hit.
Life changed for many of us that day. Even more so for those of us near Ground Zero.
I can’t watch the images. I saw them in real time, and they are burned into my memory.
So, this year, I focused on podcasts. Those I can handle. They let me reflect on that time period with more clarity and less trauma.
They also let me reminisce about what life was like in the years before 9/11. Before smartphones and Covid and Zoom.
What were you doing in the ‘90s? My high school graduation, undergraduate college years and first career were all in the ‘90s.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch attended hundreds of science fiction fan conventions in the ‘90s. She loved them. And she started writing short stories starring characters Spade and Paladin honored that love of the fans and the conventions.
The stories became known as Spade/Paladin Conundrums. And both mystery readers and science fiction fans loved them. She’s written eight of those short stories over the years.
When the pandemic hit, and Kris needed a place to escape the world and have fun in her fiction, she turned once again to the ‘90s and the Spade/Paladin Conundrums. But this time, she wrote a novel. It’s called Ten Little Fen.
The novel won’t officially be released until November, but you can get a copy early through our latest Kickstarter. And since the Kickstarter has already hit several stretch goals, you’ll also get electronic editions of several of the Spade/Paladin short stories (including one that’s exclusive to the Kickstarter), special pop-up workshops for writers, and a whole lot more to come.
Check out the Kickstarter here, and be sure to watch Kris’ video about the fun that is the Spade/Paladin Conundrums.
Because couldn’t we all use a bit of fun and nostalgia these days?
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: An Alien Landscape
We live in crazy times. (An understatement, I know.) Weird shit keeps happening. And nothing goes the way it’s supposed to go. These are the times we live in.
Take this blog, for example.
We couldn’t post the one I originally wrote for Monday, Aug. 30, because our web host decided to delete all the content on our site (it’s a long and frustrating story filled with gross incompetence that I’d rather not rehash at this time). We finally got the site back up thanks wholly to the ingenuity of WMG’s intrepid IT Manager.
And just in case more website weirdness happens over the long holiday weekend upcoming, I felt like we should post the next blog early.
So, here we are days late for one blog and early for the next. Somehow, that seems wholly appropriate for the times we live in.
Speaking of strange times, school starts on Tuesday. At least, I think it does. The district calendar lists two start days. And I still have very little information as to how school will be handled.
I do know two things thanks to state mandates, at least: Masks will be required by everyone entering school buildings during school hours, and vaccines will be mandated for all teachers, support staff and volunteers.
Other than that, we’re flying blind here. Even my teacher friends don’t fully know what’s going on yet.
You might think I’m angry about all this. I’m not. Frustrated, yes. But I also know that the schools are dealing with extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Before they could even assemble the classroom rosters, for example, they have the daunting task of tracking down all the students who got “lost” during online schooling. Given last year’s attendance rates, which by the end of the year were about 30 percent, that’s a lot of lost kids.
I can’t even imagine what school administrators are dealing with now, and I’ve worked in enough fields to understand that if you’re not in the field, you don’t fully understand the challenges. Just because you eat in a restaurant, for example, doesn’t mean you know what it takes to run one.
The pandemic has certainly driven that home. I approach everything with even more patience now than I would have before. Everyone is struggling. I get it.
We’re trying to navigate school on a different world than the one we’ve always known. We continue to be in uncharted territory. And that requires flexibility, backup plans, and no small measure of creativity.
Good thing I navigate other worlds all the time. They might be fictional, but I find science fiction helps explain a lot these days.
At the very least, it helps distract us from the bizarre reality we live in now.
So, if you’re looking for a little otherworldly distraction too, check out the Cosmic Visionaries StoryBundle, curated by frequent Pulphouse Fiction Magazine contributor Robert Jeschonek.
Here’s a bit about the bundle in his words:
What is it about space opera that makes us love it so much? The action, the exotic settings, the colorful characters, the alien species? The promise of countless adventures in the face of the great unknown? The excitement of imagining what humanity may someday become and accomplish in the vast reaches of the final frontier?
Or is it mostly just that space opera is so gosh-darn cool? The ships…the technology…the planets…the ray guns and laser swords. In many ways, it’s the ultimate escapist genre, transporting us to places and situations that dwarf our everyday troubles in every possible way. And yet, at its heart, space opera is all about us, about what it means to be human and how we can triumph over our limitations.
WMG has two books in this ten-book bundle: Maelstrom: A Diving Universe Novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Ball of Confusion: An Earth Protection League Novella by Dean Wesley Smith.
Click here to learn more.
And if Maelstrom makes you crave more adventures in Kris’ Diving Universe, her newest novel in the Diving Series, The Chase, publishes Sept. 21 but is available for preorder now in ebook, trade paperback, and hardcover.
Click here for more information.
Back in the real world, I’m taking it day by day. Nola will learn new things one way or the other. Crazy times are certainly not short on life lessons.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: Staying Busy
I was about to write that we have a busy week coming up here at WMG, but then I realized that could be said about any week this year. From January to July, we published 91 new books. And we’re not slowing down any time soon.
This week, we add two more titles to that count. Both are magazines edited by Dean Wesley Smith.
The first, Smith’s Monthly #52, is an entire magazine featuring Dean’s writing. This latest issue has five short stories, a book serialization, and an original novella from Dean’s Earth Protection League series.
You’ll be able to buy it here when it releases later this week, and you can subscribe here so you never miss an issue.
And on Thursday, Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #13 publishes. A three-time Hugo Award nominated magazine, this issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine offers up nineteen fantastic stories by some of the best writers working in modern short fiction.
Here’s the table of contents:
“Brick Houses” by Annie Reed
“Starlings” by Jerry Oltion
“The Man who Married his Wife’s Thigh” by Bonnie Elizabeth
“Bear Trap Island” by Jamie McNabb
“Walking the Dog” by J. Stephen York
“Being Ernest” by Rick Wilber
“Art of the Homeless” by Joe Cron
“January 3rd” by Ron Collins
“When the Sun Goes Down” by David H. Hendrickson
“The Poodles of Panama” by Kent Patterson
“The Return of NOPD in 2006” by O’Neil De Noux
“Specialty Hummus” by Jason A. Adams
“New England’s God” by Lee Allred
“The Pearce Shootout” by Robert J. McCarter
“A Jury of Their Peers” by James Gotaas
“Till Death” by R.W. Wallace
“Knowledge Blooms” by Rob Vagle
“The Last Surviving Gondola Widow” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“The First Hollywood Cowboy of the Bropocalypse” by Robert Jeschonek
You’ll be able to buy it here when it releases later this week, and you can subscribe here so you never miss an issue.
And there’s still time to take advantage of the Summer Setback Sale, where we’re offering 50%-off sale on everything on Teachable. Every WMG Publishing Workshop, Lecture, Pop-Up, Class, or Subscription on Teachable is half price.
Go to the WMG Teachable page and click on “see all courses.“ Then find the course you would like to buy and hit purchase. On the top of the next page there is a place to put in the code:
SETBACK
Click here to learn more.
So much to do. So much to read.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: Setbacks and Opportunities
I remember just a couple of months ago writing about our last 50 percent off workshop sale, which we called The Last Sale. Vaccination rates were going up here in the US, Covid numbers were coming down, and we seemed to finally see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. It wasn’t over yet, to be sure, but we had hope.
I knew Covid wasn’t done with us yet (as I’ve mentioned, Nola still isn’t eligible to be vaccinated, so my family never really left masking and other mitigation measures behind), but I didn’t see the Delta variant coming.
Maybe I should have, but that’s neither here nor there at this point.
In Oregon, case numbers are exploding, including here on the Oregon Coast. Our governor just reissued a statewide mask mandate (the third state to do so) and our local casino shut its doors for the next two weeks. Including the hotel. During a heat wave in the Valley where tourists are flocking here in droves. They’re losing big money with that move, but the safety of their employees and guests was paramount.
And we’re not even one of the worst-hit states. Not by far.
Whether this should have been able to happen in the US, with our fortunate and easy access to highly effective vaccines is not a topic I’m going to delve into in this blog.
But the reality that things are shutting down again (and have been in other parts of the world) has led us to realize that this thing is far from over.
And so, we’re bringing back our sales. It’s the way we can help, and we all need as much help as we can get to get through these trying times.
So, from now until Aug. 25, we’re offering 50%-off sale on everything on Teachable. Every WMG Publishing Workshop, Lecture, Pop-Up, Class, or Subscription on Teachable is half price.
Go to the WMG Teachable page and click on “see all courses.“ Then find the course you would like to buy and hit purchase. On the top of the next page there is a place to put in the code:
SETBACK
Click here to learn more.
At least the opportunity to learn new skills is something we can count on paying off in the future, no matter what happens.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: The Power of Charting Your Own Course
Like many things with the pandemic, watching the 2020 Olympics (in 2021) has been a very different experience. The athletes in their Bane-like medal masks is not even the weirdest part. It just feels…not so enthralling.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe we all have.
But one thing that’s come out of this Olympics that I’m cheering big time is the focus on mental health. And how important it is.
When Simone Biles pulled out of the team competition because something wasn’t right, I was disappointed, of course. She’s amazing. But I was more concerned about why such a spectacular athlete felt she couldn’t compete.
When I found out it was a special awareness issue, I was so relieved she had the courage to pull out that I almost cried. I know what it’s like when your brain and your body aren’t talking to each other properly.
I’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness and disorientation when, as part of the neuro exam in the ER right after they discovered my brain tumor, I was asked to hop on one foot. And I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I could visualize it in my head. I could “see” what hopping looked like. I knew I had done it in the past. But even upon penalty of death, I could not have made my body do it at that point.
Thank goodness Simone Biles had the wherewithal to recognize what she was experiencing and the strength to say no.
The “twisties” are a physical issue with a mental component. And the pressure put on these athletes to do things we’d never want people to expect from us is insane. Mental health is as important as physical health. Maybe more so.
Simone Biles owes us nothing. She has only herself to account to. And I’m so glad that she recognized that and defended it.
She shouldn’t have to. But in doing so, she once again proved an amazing role model for everyone. She charted her own course. Critics be damned.
I know a couple of editors like that. They started a series of magazines decades ago that charted its own course. And then they revived it two decades later.
I speak, of course, of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. The cutting edge of modern fiction…unafraid to push the boundaries and publish great stories that others are afraid to publish.
The Pulphouse Kickstarter is in its final days, but it’s not too late to sign on for the spectacular journey that is Pulphouse. From discounts on subscriptions to special workshops for writers to limited-edition collections, there’s lots to love in this Kickstarter.
And with all the stretch goals we’ve already hit, supporters can look forward to a deluge of reading to brighten even your darkest days.
We’ve got stretch goals yet to hit, which means more great rewards for everyone, so if you’ve been biding your time, don’t wait any longer!
Click here to support the Kickstarter today!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: Fun, Fun, Fun
Today, the old Beach Boys song keeps playing itself in my head, the one about having fun in a T-bird.
I have no intention of deconstructing the lyrics, (even though my eyebrows go up when “she” got her daddy’s car and the girls all hate her, and the guys try to chase her but they can’t catch her) because who cares? The tune itself, but also the rebel-girl quality of the lyrics, perfectly capture the carefree summers of my T-birdless youth. I spent those long empty July days not cruising California beaches, but riding my bike around the small Indiana town I grew up in, and out into the countryside thick with cornfields, smelling the clover and watching for fireflies in the gloaming. And yes it was fun and free and happy, even though I was no Indy-500 driver.
But the song came into my head today as I was making a video for WMG’s current Kickstarter campaign promoting editor and writer Dean Wesley Smith’s Pulphouse Fiction Magazine subscription drive. Why? Because I was having fun! The video is silly and fun and hopefully captures some of the Pulphouse spirit.
Watch the video, or just hop on over to the Kickstarter page and check out all the terrific bonus books and workshops you get when you subscribe to the magazine.
Get your subscription so you can still have fun, fun, fun, even if your dad takes your T-bird away.
Gwyneth Gibby is associate publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, a filmmaker, and former Hoosier.
Publisher’s Note: When Life Hands You Lemons
Sometimes life throws you for a loop. After 2020, we all seem to be experts in that.
A pandemic. An accident. The death of an elderly pet. All are hard. We navigate them the best we can.
But sometimes life doesn’t throw you for a loop, it pitches you a curveball. And in those cases, it has help.
Superhero Marble Grant knows all about that. And you can read her story in the latest novel by Dean Wesley Smith: The First Year.
Here’s the synopsis:
Superhero Marble Grant dies suddenly on a blind date, a bullet between her eyes. Maybe the worst ending of a blind date in recorded history.
But instead of taking the white light to the next world, she finds herself still here. Her first year as a ghost agent begins with her sitting on a dumpster in a dirty alley watching the man who killed her and her date.
The entire first year got stranger from there. And over that year Marble Grant and her lover, Sims, saved a lot of lives.
So, if you’re dealing with your own loops or curveballs, take a break from reality and see how Marble Grant makes the most of a really crappy life roll.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.