My story "Rags to Riches" is featured today over at Every Day Fiction. It deals with a genie -- or, rather, jinn -- but in my head, it isn't blue.
A Few Things
First, a special important reminder that I'll be speaking at Elizabethtown College this Saturday at noon. You should come. Second, it seems every time I speak in public, I come down with a cold beforehand. So yeah, not feeling too well today. Hoping it's just allergies. Either way, you should totally come Saturday.
Third, today is the last day to get in on the giveaway Steve Umstead has over at his website. Free stuff!
Fourth, last week Joseph Nassise kindly singled out The Dishonored Dead (along with John Hornor Jacobs' This Dark Earth) over at the Kobo Writing Life blog, where he's counting down the days until Halloween. About the two novels he says "Every now and then, however, you come upon a novel about the walking dead that restores your faith in the subgenre by delivering something new, something fresh." As for The Dishonored Dead, he says: "Swartwood’s writing is solid and he does a nice job of ratcheting up the tension and stakes throughout. The book would be worth reading just for the unique take on zombies alone, but thankfully Swartwood delivers a well-written tale that makes the experience all the more valuable." Read the rest here.
Back To School
I graduated from college in 2004, and next month I'll be headed to college again. Only this time I won't be taking any classes. This time I'll be teaching a class. Sorta. Here are the deets:
Saturday, October 27 | 12 – 2:30pm BOWERS WRITERS HOUSEFiction Masterclass and Lunch w/ Robert Swartwood
Novelist and fiction dynamo Robert Swartwood will join us for lunch, and offer a craft talk/workshop concerning fiction, especially flash and hint fiction. What are those? Come on down and find out! Robert Swartwood was born in 1981. His work has appeared in such venues as The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, Postscripts, ChiZine, Space and Time, Wigleaf, and PANK. He is the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, which was chosen by The Nervous Breakdown as one of their favorite books of 2010, and was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon.
Cost: free. Attendance based on reservations. First-come first-served; arrive at least a half hour before the event to get a seat.
Sponsor: Bowers Writers House
Contact: Jesse Waters at writershouse@etown.edu or 717-689-3945
Open to the public
So if you're in the central Pennsylvania area that day, stop by Elizabethtown College and check it out!
One More Week
Until I do a live reading here at the website. That's next Monday, September 17, first at 7:00 pm EST, then at 10:00 pm EST.
I'll be reading from The Inner Circle and also doing a Q&A. It'll be fun!
Two chances to check it out, so there's no excuse not to tune in.
In other news, The Inner Circle is now available on all platforms:
Also, this is the last week Man of Wax is available for 99 cents, so grab it while you can:
The Inner Circle Has Arrived
The Inner Circle is finally live. Well, at least it is on Kindle and Nook. Kobo and iTunes seems to be taking awhile. I know many of you have been looking forward to this since April, when I (foolishly) predicted it would be released. Obviously I miscalculated, so apologies for that. But now the book is finalized and available for your reading pleasure. So far this is the longest book I've published (over 120,000 words) and I think it's probably my best. I'm quite proud of this book, and I hope you all enjoy it. Here's what it's about:
Two years ago Ben Anderson woke up in a rundown motel, three thousand miles from home, his family missing, and the words LET THE GAME BEGIN written in blood on the back of the bathroom door.
Now, with his past life gone, Ben has become a soldier in Carver Ellison's army against Caesar.
But when a mission goes wrong and one of their team members is murdered, it's the last cryptic word spoken that will lead Ben and the team one step closer to the Inner Circle -- a step that may bring them salvation ... or get them all killed.
Here are the purchasing links:
Also, for those of you on Goodreads, you can mark the book to-read here.
To celebrate this new release, Man of Wax is currently 99 cents on Kindle and Nook for the next two weeks. Tell everyone!
Finally, mark your calendars -- September 17th I'll be doing two live readings here at the website via Ustream. The first reading starts at 7:00 pm EST, the second at 7:00 pm PST. I'll read from The Inner Circle and also do a Q&A.
P.S. For those of you who prefer dead-tree books, a trade paperback is forthcoming (450 pages long!), and I will of course notify you when it's available.