The Goodreads Q and A Has Started

I received a great question during what were (for me, EST), the wee hours and have answered it on Goodreads. So the Author Q and A link is HERE.

Hope to see you there, and special thanks to Ink Gypsy for pushing the the discussion! Her work in fairy tales is terrific.

Author Discussion at Goodreads Tomorrow

I will be hosting an author discussion about the process of writing fairy-tale influenced stories and poems tomorrow at Goodreads.com. I've never done this before, but I will be taking questions from June 19 to 20 here.

I hope some of you will show up. I don't often lift the veil on the process!

News At Enchanted Conversation--Contests and a Possible Giveaway

Hi All!
Just some contest reminders:

1) The monthly writing contest is still running. You can see the guidelines by clicking HERE.

2) The Beyond the Glass Slipper-connected writing contest is still very much on. It's a totally separate contest from the monthly one and it (the BtGS contest) has rather high dollar prizes (for me, anyway). You can find the details by clicking HERE.

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3) Then, there's the Krampus anthology. That's completely separate from the contests. It's a call for submissions in conjunction with World Weaver Press. It's a traditional call for submissions for a book that will be published in both paperback and e-book form. It is not a contest. You can find the details by clicking HERE.


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4) I have just submitted a 10-book paperback giveaway proposal to Goodreads. If it goes, I will let you know.

In the meantime, something amazing from my favorite source of beauty online, Artmagick.com.

KW

"The Ancient of Days," by William Blake

A Call For Submissions: A Krampus Anthology

You know the Jolly Old Elf of Christmas, right? Of course you do. You can’t avoid him. Yet, Santa Claus isn’t just a kindly old expert at breaking and entering and leaving gifts he didn’t actually buy for the children of a house. At least he isn’t in Austria and many other parts of Europe.

In these ancient places, where, perhaps, the old, old gods still add a touch of mischief, Krampus is the angry, punishing sidekick of St. Nicholas (Santa’s counterpart in much of Europe). Known for his willingness to punish rotten children, Krampus might even be considered Santa’s dark side or evil twin.

Krampus is the sort of guy more and more North Americans want to explore. He’s definitely having a moment this side of the Atlantic. To that end, World Weaver Press and Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine are pleased to announce a joint venture: An anthology of Krampus short stories.

Although the book is yet to be named, we hope you’ll explore every possible Krampus angle via short stories. He’s a nasty old dude, and we hope your imaginations will get the better of you.

Now for the fine print. Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 from Enchanted Conversation and paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. We are seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains non-exclusive right to continue to publish for life of the anthology.

Open submission period: June 15 – August 1, 2013.

Length: Under 10,000 words.
Submission method: Email cover letter and story to enchantedconversation[at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line “Krampus Anthology – story title.” Cover letter should contain your name, contact info, story’s title, and approximate word count; no need to summarize the story, let it speak for itself. Then paste the full story into the body of the email following your letter. Please make it very clear where paragraphs break — this means if your email doesn’t let you indent paragraphs, you’ll need to put an extra space between each paragraph for submission purposes. Do not send unrequested attachments.

Simultaneous submissions = okay. Multiple submissions = no.

Must be 18 years of age or older.

More details to follow!

Update: Sorry, I cannot offer any advice or feedback on submissions at any point in the process. KW

Monthly Columnists Found

EC got very lucky, early and have found the three columnists I've been looking for, so that opportunity has closed.

But a big opportunity starts tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Information about the three columnists will be posted soon.

Lucky Bucky Revisited, By Steve Shilstone

Editor's note: I am a huge Oz fan, and by Oz, I mean the entirety of the Oz canon, not just the first and most famous book. With little time on my hands, I asked Steve Shilstone to do some work with a book by the official Oz illustrator, John R, Neill, and was delighted with the results!

So in 1955 there was this 5^th grader in Seattle, Washington. He read horse books, fairy tale books, dog books, Oz books, and he particularly adored Lucky Bucky in Oz. Why was that? Take a look at the cover. That’s a wooden whale pictured there. That’s the Lucky Bucky guy eating a pie. He was blown from the top of a tugboat in New York Harbor all the way to Oz. He lives in a cabin in the head of the whale. Cupboards in there are full of pies. He eats pies. He lives in the head of a wooden whale. He’s in Oz. That’s as far as you had to go for that 5^th grader in 1955.

So now it’s somewhat later than 1955, and the former 5^th grader gets to look out his window and see forested mountains and a lake. He decides to reread his childhood favorite, does so, and pens the following letter to his 5^th grade self.

Dear kid in Seattle,

You never knew John Neill, one really fine illustrator, was not technically the greatest writer, and you didn’t care, did you? After all, wooden whale, live in head cabin, eat pies, right? But why does Lucky Bucky, New York kid, 1940, say things like: ‘What in the mischief ails you fellows?’ ‘Me? Turn back? Do I look like a pifflepuff? No!’ ‘Of all the star-spangled nerve! What in blazes do you fellows think you are doing?’ 1940 New York tugboat kid? Ummm, no. Okay, shoving bad dialogue aside, Neill’s imagination was up to the task of building an Oz story, and he eagerly served the Oz punning tradition of L. Frank Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson. Witness: The icy zerons say, ‘Just consider your selves ice-olated forever, both of you.’ And Bucky has to play and defeat a crow in a game of crow-kay. And later there’s the Octopuss, the 8-legged underwater cat. Oh, and there are the pesky dollfins below.

 

 

I guess you didn’t notice how Neill rushed from escape to escape without a lot of detail. Fewer and better developed confrontations might have served him well. For a start, he should have gotten rid of that mass of Uncles met by Bucky and the whale as they neared Emerald City. Do they do anything at all for the story? I mean, come on. Pad out the dollfin bit and the gnome bit, using the space left over by dumping the Uncles. And there’s the everything ends with niceness and happiness and all, which is fine. I suggest you read Neill’s first Oz book effort, The Wonder City of Oz. The writing is just as iffy, but the plot is better. In conclusion, the Gabootch below, called The Flummux, little sister of Tom, Dick, and Harry Gabootch, was the best thing about Lucky Bucky in Oz. I don’t remember what you thought of her. You were too overwhelmed by wooden whale, head cabin, pies, and the land of Oz, weren’t you?

 

Yours later,

Elderly fellow in the mountains

P.S.: Why did everyone refer to the whale as a fish, up to and including Davy Jones, the wooden whale himself?

Bio: On his journey to becoming an elderly benign hippie lite loon, Steve Shilstone earned a degree in Anthropology from UCLA, coached youth baseball for 25 years, enjoyed fatherhood, distributed mail for the US Postal Service, and sketched and painted and cartooned and wrote with varying degrees of success.

You can learn more about Steve's writing at his site, Fiddleeebod and at his publisher's site, Wild Child Publishing.