Podcast! Author squee!

Seeing your story in print (or pixels) is a thrill that never goes away, but hearing your story read aloud is a whole different level of squee.

This month, my story "The Sound of My Own Voice"—a snarky urban fantasy starring a Siren in Los Angeles—will appear in the anthology Hex in the City from Fiction River. Drunken karaoke is involved. (No, I didn’t sing drunken karaoke—it’s in the story! And while drunken karaoke is never a good idea, in this case, it was a really, really bad idea…)

Aaaaanyway, if that makes you salivate for the story, I have great news: Starting today, for one week only, it’s available as a free podcast.

I haven’t heard the podcast yet, so I can’t say whether the reader (the amazingly talented and supremely funny Jane Kennedy) attempts drunked karaoke. It’s up to you to decide whether that’s a good or bad idea, too…

Here's where you can get the podcast!

Here's where you can order the book!

Cover

Squeeing author

Elementary, my dear!

[Ooh! I thought I'd lost this post, but apparently not! Yay!]

It's out! It's out!

Pardon my French, but holy shitballs. I now have stories in two Mercedes Lackey anthologies, based in her Elemental Masters fantasy world. How...how did this happen? (Ken is no doubt shaking his head at my lack of belief in my writing, even though he's downstairs and has no idea I'm typing this.)

Dudes.

The book is out today, so if you're so inclined, you can now order Elementary (All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters). The stories are set in a world (pre-WWII) where magic exists in the form of elementals (earth, air, fire, water), and people who can wield that magical energy. Misty's novels, as well as the stories, are each loosely based on a different fairy tale as well.

This time, I wrote about Hansel and Gretel in the Black Forest of Germany during the potato famine (yep, Germany had a potato famine, too)…except it's really about the "witch" and her oven and fire, and loss and hunger and finding something to live for, and family. And magic. And as I type this, it occurs to me that there's a little bit of freaking The Sound of Music in it, kinda. Huh.

Anyway. I share a glorious TOC with my friends/awesome authors/fellow Oregon Writers Network peeps Michele Lang and Louisa Swann, as well as (holy shitballs) Mercedes Lackey and Diana L. Paxson and Tanya Huff Rosemary Edgehill and…will someone kindly pass me the smelling salts?

Oh, and what a pretty, pretty cover…

The universe scoffs at my attempts to do anything

So I was writing a happyhappy blog post about Elementary, the new anthology set in Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters universe, which contains my story “Hearth & Family,” when Afalwen (my darling writing laptop) decided it was full. And could not go on. Of course, this was one of the very rare times that I was writing the post in Blogger rather than in a Word .doc and then copying it over.

It was a really funny post, too, because everytime I think about the fact that I now have stories in two Elemental Masters anthologies, I need someone to pass me smelling salts.

Thankfully, Ken the Computer Guru came to my rescue, found the enormous unecessary file that was clogging up Afalwen, and has taken it off to perform other update-y type miracles that will make it Bigger. Stronger. Faster.

He says this’ll take about an hour, which means two hours (he knows whenever he tells me how long something will take him, I automatically double it…because when I first told him that, he got miffed and then realized I was absolutely right). And even though I haven’t gotten to my copyediting for the day, you know what? Screw it, I’m’a gonna pour me a glass of wine and run a bath and read Seanan McGuire short stories on my Kindle (yes, I’m’a gonna take my Kindle into the bath with me because I LIVE ON THE EDGE).

I will re-create the happyhappy blog post later.

Updated to add: My life…I’d barely finished typing this when a friend called to say he’d been in a car accident and could we pick him up and take him home? Well, duh, of course, where are my shoes? (He’s bruised but fine; car is totaled. Egads.)