Podcasts about novelette

Susan, Charon, and Paul arrive at Basin Farms, near Bellows Falls. The fill in the farmer who is a Coalition operative of their plans to ambush the bombers. Sneaking through Bellows Falls by night, they get ready to cross the river but are stopped by the arrival of the bombers and their boss. Susan sees them receive the explosives and their instructions. The younger bombers worry about venturing into "cannibal country." Enjoying this Novelette? Help keep the stories coming by keeping Mic awake and at the keyboard. Right after you read this, go to  Buy Me A Coffee and buy him a cup of virtual coffee. He will really appreciated it. Monthly supporters on Patreon and BMAC are getting advanced chapters of Susan's Raid to read. If you'd like to read ahead, become a member too!

This Saturday is the 12th annual Independent Bookstore Day, celebrating indie bookstores across the country with everything from exclusive books to literary items. Participating stores in Middle Tennessee include Parnassus, Fairytales, The Bookshop, The Grumpy Bookpeddler, and more. But today, we talk with the owners of Novelette, located in East Nashville. 

On February 20th, I lost my mom, Betty O'Shaughnessy, to cancer. She fought hard but in the end, cancer won the battle.I was encouraged to write while I was in Ontario with my family to support my mom during her final days, as a way to remain grounded. It was cathartic and despite writing being considered a distraction, it actually helped me to remain even more present and observant to all the tiny moments leading up to her death.I needed time to process my Mom's passing before publishing this novelette. Still, it was hard to get through as this piece captured moments that, when re-read, whisked me back to the event and the raw emotions shared with my family.I won't go on too much here as I want the story to speak for itself. Even though I thought I finished writing it, I feel as though I missed some important moments. One such moment was when my sister and I were going through old family photos, organizing them for the memorial service that took place only two days after her passing. This brought so much love and laughter into the space and I'm so grateful to have been able to share that with my family.Though this is a sad account and a chapter of my life that will forever be forged into my heart, I wanted to share it with you. I have never experienced loss like this before and I wasn't sure how I would cope. Luckily, I have a number of loving and supportive people in my life and a community of My Back 40 listeners to lean on. If I haven't already thanked you for reaching out with your thoughts, know that every word I received bolstered my strength and enabled me to get through this.Perhaps this is a little outside the box for My Back 40. For those of you who have been with me the last 5 years, you'll know that part of this project is to not only share stories from amazing people, but to also share a little bit of my life too. Or maybe a lot. My hope is that by being vulnerable here, it will encourage others to do the same. Life is too short to not be our authentic selves.Huge thanks to Rollingdale Cycle for sponsoring the My Back 40 PodcastSave 25% at Dynamic Cyclist when you use the promo code MB40 at checkout.Save 15% at Redshift Sports when you use the code MB40Save 50% off your first month of coaching at Cycling 101 when you use the code MB40 at checkout.Thanks to Spandex Panda for their support.Thanks to Lakeside Bikes in Invermere for keeping me rolling!

Joseph Earl Thomas is the author of Sink, a memoir, and his debut novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence, and winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. On today's show, Annmarie and Joseph talk about working-class upbringings, how to write complicated families with sensitivity and grace, and whether or not to raise an alligator in the backyard. Episode Sponsors The Head & The Hand Books – A community-focused Philadelphia bookstore that provides curated fiction, local lit, and children's/middle grade books to the Fishtown neighborhood and beyond. We do readings, workshops, curated events, children's programming, and more. Stop by for a visit! Or shop online at theheadandthehand.com. Novelette Booksellers – Nashville's only queer-owned bookstore. We are a fun, vibey, safe space for book lovers of all ages. We boast a highly curated selection of both fiction and non-fiction books by diverse authors, and a great selection of graphic novels. With an eye toward inclusivity and the celebration of our differences, Novelette strives to welcome people of all backgrounds. Stop by or shop online at novelettebooksellers.com   Authors and Titles Mentioned in This Episode: Sink, by Joseph Earl Thomas Leviathan Beach, by Joseph Earl Thomas (available for pre-order) God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer  Zone One, by Colson Whitehead The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez Here's a trailer for the Japanese anime Attack on Titan. Follow Joseph Earl Thomas: Instagram: @jetvgc Substack: @birthworldproblems Twitter: @JETVGC josephearlthomas.com Photo Credit: Marcus Jackson **Writing Workshops and Wish Fulfillment:  If you liked this conversation and are interested in writing abroad, consider joining Annmarie and co-leader Athena Dixon for a writing retreat in Italy in September, 2025. Or you can join Annmarie and co-leader Phyllis Biffle Elmore for a writing retreat in France. You can travel to a beautiful place, meet other wise women, and write your own stories. We'd love to help you make your wishes come true.  As of this moment, we only have 2 spots left for France, but you can click this link for $900 off.  Enter the password RetreatWriteRepeat  and the coupon code is 25AK In 2025, Annmarie is teaching online Tuesday nights for Writing Workshops. Learn more and register HERE. For folks interested in an online Saturday morning writing class, message Annmarie to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Malaka Gharib is the author of I Was Their American Dream, a graphic memoir about being first-generation Filipino Egyptian American, and It Won't Always Be Like This, a graphic memoir about her summers in the Middle East. On today's show, Annmarie and Malaka talk about the American immigrant experience, how to be a working writer, and what it means to be the realization of our parents' greatest dreams. Episode Sponsors Novelette Booksellers – Nashville's only queer-owned bookstore. We are a fun, vibey, safe space for book lovers of all ages. We boast a highly curated selection of both fiction and non-fiction books by diverse authors, and a great selection of graphic novels. With an eye toward inclusivity and the celebration of our differences, Novelette strives to welcome people of all backgrounds. Stop by or shop online at novelettebooksellers.com Skylark Bookshop – A fiercely independent bookstore where we strive to find new ways to celebrate literature and our community. Some books give us knowledge and perspective; others simply give necessary space to breathe. Putting the right book into the right hands is a deeply meaningful act. We believe that we can find that book for everyone who walks through our doors. We embrace enjoyment, entertainment, and the beauty of Skylark Bookshop. Stop by or shop online at skylarkbookshop.com.   Authors and Titles Mentioned in This Episode: I Was Their American Dream, by Malaka Gharib It Won't Always Be Like This, by Malaka Gharib Uzma Jalaluddin Liana Finck Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car: Comics for Beautiful, Awful and Ordinary Days, by Jordan Bolton Follow Malaka Gharib: Instagram: @MalakaGharib Substack: @Malaka malakagharib.com Photo Credit: Leah Margulies **Writing Workshops and Wish Fulfillment:  If you liked this conversation and are interested in writing with other women on retreat, consider joining Annmarie and co-leader Athena Dixon for a writing retreat in Italy in September, 2025. Or you can join Annmarie and co-leader Phyllis Biffle Elmore for a writing retreat in France. You can travel to a beautiful place, meet other wise women, and write your own stories. We'd love to help you make your wishes come true.  As of this moment, we only have 2 spots left for France, but you can click this link for $900 off.  Enter the password RetreatWriteRepeat  and the coupon code is 25AK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vancouver will finally get to watch its first-ever Black+Queer dramedy web series this week when five episodes of Novelette is Trying screen at the 2024 Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Novelette is Trying follows Novelette, a cynical, anti-social, bisexual woman who finds herself newly single at 30, and decides, rather reluctantly, to take on a roommate. At first, the extroverted, outspoken Audre seems like an odd choice for a roommate. But, although their personalities clash, Audre's boldness and lack of boundaries soon rub off on Novelette in the best way, encouraging her to put herself back into the dating pool. Audacious, poignant, and funny, Novelette is Trying – which will also be released on OUTtv in 2025 – comes to us from the wonderfully creative mind of Giselle Miller, the Jamaican-Canadian writer, showrunner, filmmaker, and three-time Leo Award-nominated actor. Her credits include Young, Single, and Black, Yolanda the Goddess, and Big People Tingz. In this fascinating conversation with Sabrina Rani Furminger, Giselle reflects on her journey to and with Novelette, and the joys and challenges of bringing this groundbreaking series to the screen. Episode sponsor: Fish Flight Entertainment

Novelette is 38 year old woman, living with a life limiting illness, called Epidermolysis Bullosa. I have the Recessive Dystrophic form of Epidermolysis Bullosa, RDEB. I live in Canada. I have a specialist in philosophy from the University of Toronto. Since 2018, I have been a trained hospice and peer bereavement Volunteer. I co-facilitate a lot of peer bereavement groups. I do a lot of mindfulness for grieving loss groups. I also help with training new hospice and peer bereavement volunteers. I've also volunteered as a hospice care companion to others, living with a life limiting illness.  I enjoy writing poetry and painting. Talking walks in nature. And I enjoy spending time with my nieces and nephew and caring for my cat.

Is it possible a movie that helped define Horror in cinema for generations is exceeded by the Novelette from whence it came? Red Scott and Maggie Tokuda-Hall step inside a phone booth besieged by corvids to investigate Dame Daphne du Maurier's 1952 novelette The Birds and Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic adaptation, The Birds. Order Maggie's newest book, The Siren, the Song, and the Spy If you like us, you'll also enjoy: Following the pod on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/failuretoadaptpodcast/ Following the pod on X: https://x.com/FailureAdapt Supporting Failure to Adapt on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FailureToAdaptPodcast

Pues sigo hablando de esta obra distópica nipona, en lo que fue el ensayo para la presentación de Gigamesh. Hablo en esta segunda parte de worldbuilding. Construcción de mundos en cristiano: cómo hice para crear este Japón del futuro en el que se desarrolla la novela. También toco otros temas como construcción de personajes, el modo de transmitir información importante para el lector y mucho más. Y hubiese hablado más pero me propuse una media hora por parte. Una hora en total que es lo que debía durar la presentación... Espero que os guste. Os dejo los enlaces prometidos: -Vídeo del straming de la charla real: https://www.youtube.com/live/ByGT9tJUrN0?feature=share -Tiendas donde comprar Pulp Reality: https://gigamesh.com/libro/pulp-reality-firmado-por-el-autor https://manodelfriki.com/416-alfonso-martinez -Forma de contacto por si vivis fuera de España y queréis que os lo envie: (aquí tenéis varias) https://www.alfonso-martinez.com Música intro y outro: Piano_Refreshing de Peritune https://peritune.com/blog/2016/07/13/piano_refreshing Música de fondo: Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/jonny-boyle/tres-french License code: Q57VZULTIXECIHTZ by Alfonso Mártinez, autor de «Paralelamente»

Learn about the challenges of coping with loss, grief and uncertainty that accompany a life-limiting illness. My guest Novelette Munroe is a poet, artist and hospice volunteer who was born with a rare and life-limiting genetic skin condition called Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB.) Despite dealing with ongoing and constant medical issues Novelette manages to volunteer her… Continue reading Ep. 406 Living with Life-Limiting Illness with Novelette Munroe

2Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products   Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind

    ASTOUNDING STORIES 20¢ On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher               HARRY BATES, Editor               DR. DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor   The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees That the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;   That such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen; That each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit; That an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages. The other Clayton magazines are: ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN ADVENTURES, and WESTERN LOVE STORIES. More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines.   VOL. VI, No. 1                      CONTENTS                       April, 1931   COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSO     Painted in Water-Colors from a Scene in "Monsters of Mars."       MONSTERS OF MARS EDMOND HAMILTON   4 Three Martian-Duped Earth-Men Swing Open the Gates of Space That for So Long Had Barred the Greedy Hordes of the Red Planet. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE EXILE OF TIME RAY CUMMINGS   26 From Somewhere Out of Time Come a Swarm of Robots Who Inflict on New York the Awful Vengeance of the Diabolical Cripple Tugh. (Beginning a Four-Part Novel.)       HELL'S DIMENSION TOM CURRY   51 Professor Lambert Deliberately Ventures into a Vibrational Dimension to Join His Fiancée in Its Magnetic Torture-Fields.       THE WORLD BEHIND THE MOON PAUL ERNST   64 Two Intrepid Earth-Men Fight It Out with the Horrific Monsters of Zeud's Frightful Jungles.       FOUR MILES WITHIN ANTHONY GILMORE   76 Far Down into the Earth Goes a Gleaming Metal Sphere Whose Passengers Are Deadly Enemies. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE LAKE OF LIGHT JACK WILLIAMSON   100 In the Frozen Wastes at the Bottom of the World Two Explorers Find a Strange Pool of White Fire—and Have a Strange Adventure.       THE GHOST WORLD SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT   118 Commander John Hanson Records Another of His Thrilling Interplanetary Adventures with the Special Patrol Service.       THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US   134 A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories.      

    ASTOUNDING STORIES 20¢ On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher               HARRY BATES, Editor               DR. DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor   The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees That the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;   That such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen; That each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit; That an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages. The other Clayton magazines are: ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN ADVENTURES, and WESTERN LOVE STORIES. More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines.   VOL. VI, No. 1                      CONTENTS                       April, 1931   COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSO     Painted in Water-Colors from a Scene in "Monsters of Mars."       MONSTERS OF MARS EDMOND HAMILTON   4 Three Martian-Duped Earth-Men Swing Open the Gates of Space That for So Long Had Barred the Greedy Hordes of the Red Planet. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE EXILE OF TIME RAY CUMMINGS   26 From Somewhere Out of Time Come a Swarm of Robots Who Inflict on New York the Awful Vengeance of the Diabolical Cripple Tugh. (Beginning a Four-Part Novel.)       HELL'S DIMENSION TOM CURRY   51 Professor Lambert Deliberately Ventures into a Vibrational Dimension to Join His Fiancée in Its Magnetic Torture-Fields.       THE WORLD BEHIND THE MOON PAUL ERNST   64 Two Intrepid Earth-Men Fight It Out with the Horrific Monsters of Zeud's Frightful Jungles.       FOUR MILES WITHIN ANTHONY GILMORE   76 Far Down into the Earth Goes a Gleaming Metal Sphere Whose Passengers Are Deadly Enemies. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE LAKE OF LIGHT JACK WILLIAMSON   100 In the Frozen Wastes at the Bottom of the World Two Explorers Find a Strange Pool of White Fire—and Have a Strange Adventure.       THE GHOST WORLD SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT   118 Commander John Hanson Records Another of His Thrilling Interplanetary Adventures with the Special Patrol Service.       THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US   134 A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories.      

    ASTOUNDING STORIES 20¢ On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher               HARRY BATES, Editor               DR. DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor   The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees That the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;   That such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen; That each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit; That an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages. The other Clayton magazines are: ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN ADVENTURES, and WESTERN LOVE STORIES. More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines.   VOL. VI, No. 1                      CONTENTS                       April, 1931   COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSO     Painted in Water-Colors from a Scene in "Monsters of Mars."       MONSTERS OF MARS EDMOND HAMILTON   4 Three Martian-Duped Earth-Men Swing Open the Gates of Space That for So Long Had Barred the Greedy Hordes of the Red Planet. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE EXILE OF TIME RAY CUMMINGS   26 From Somewhere Out of Time Come a Swarm of Robots Who Inflict on New York the Awful Vengeance of the Diabolical Cripple Tugh. (Beginning a Four-Part Novel.)       HELL'S DIMENSION TOM CURRY   51 Professor Lambert Deliberately Ventures into a Vibrational Dimension to Join His Fiancée in Its Magnetic Torture-Fields.       THE WORLD BEHIND THE MOON PAUL ERNST   64 Two Intrepid Earth-Men Fight It Out with the Horrific Monsters of Zeud's Frightful Jungles.       FOUR MILES WITHIN ANTHONY GILMORE   76 Far Down into the Earth Goes a Gleaming Metal Sphere Whose Passengers Are Deadly Enemies. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE LAKE OF LIGHT JACK WILLIAMSON   100 In the Frozen Wastes at the Bottom of the World Two Explorers Find a Strange Pool of White Fire—and Have a Strange Adventure.       THE GHOST WORLD SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT   118 Commander John Hanson Records Another of His Thrilling Interplanetary Adventures with the Special Patrol Service.       THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US   134 A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories.      

    ASTOUNDING STORIES 20¢ On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher               HARRY BATES, Editor               DR. DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor   The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees That the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;   That such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen; That each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit; That an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages. The other Clayton magazines are: ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN ADVENTURES, and WESTERN LOVE STORIES. More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines.   VOL. VI, No. 1                      CONTENTS                       April, 1931   COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSO     Painted in Water-Colors from a Scene in "Monsters of Mars."       MONSTERS OF MARS EDMOND HAMILTON   4 Three Martian-Duped Earth-Men Swing Open the Gates of Space That for So Long Had Barred the Greedy Hordes of the Red Planet. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE EXILE OF TIME RAY CUMMINGS   26 From Somewhere Out of Time Come a Swarm of Robots Who Inflict on New York the Awful Vengeance of the Diabolical Cripple Tugh. (Beginning a Four-Part Novel.)       HELL'S DIMENSION TOM CURRY   51 Professor Lambert Deliberately Ventures into a Vibrational Dimension to Join His Fiancée in Its Magnetic Torture-Fields.       THE WORLD BEHIND THE MOON PAUL ERNST   64 Two Intrepid Earth-Men Fight It Out with the Horrific Monsters of Zeud's Frightful Jungles.       FOUR MILES WITHIN ANTHONY GILMORE   76 Far Down into the Earth Goes a Gleaming Metal Sphere Whose Passengers Are Deadly Enemies. (A Complete Novelette.)       THE LAKE OF LIGHT JACK WILLIAMSON   100 In the Frozen Wastes at the Bottom of the World Two Explorers Find a Strange Pool of White Fire—and Have a Strange Adventure.       THE GHOST WORLD SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT   118 Commander John Hanson Records Another of His Thrilling Interplanetary Adventures with the Special Patrol Service.       THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US   134 A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories.      

John wants new gloves, Alison is foreshadowing, and Liz scrolls past spiders. Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media. Content warnings this episode: Spiders (chapter 6) Letters of comment Raj Bridget Bradshaw Chris Garcia Bigbug (Netflix) OSS 117 (Amazon) Brice de Nice (Hoopla) Lori Anderson Curt Phillips Chengdu is a shower (but not as bad as the BBC) They have opened Hugo nominations Conversions for Chinese language nominees: “A factor of 1.6 will be used when converting from English words to Chinese characters. As such the fiction category breakpoints will be: 1) Short Story: fewer than 7,500 English words or 12,000 Chinese characters. 2) Novelette: between 7,500/12,000 and 17,500 English words or 28,000 Chinese characters. 3) Novella: between 17,500/28,000 and 40,000 English words or 64,000 Chinese characters. 4) Novel: greater than 40,000 English words or 64,000 Chinese characters.” Nebula nominees are out Strange Horizons argues erroneously that Our Flag Means Death is fantasy, actually BSFA nominees are also out Everything Everywhere All at Once prop auction(s) Everything Everywhere All at Once shop Picks: John: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (ebook, paperback, Amazon) Force Majeure Outer Dark Trilogy Part 2 Episode 1 - “In Space, No-One Can Smell Your Frog” The Dark Room by John Robertson Alison: Allegiance by George Takei Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford (ebook, paperback, Amazon) Liz: Los Espookys **(HBO, Now TV) Credits Cover art: ”MidJourney Into Space” by Alison Scott Alt text: Three adorable little rockets with faces corresponding to John, Alison and Liz above the text “Octothorpe 79”. Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0) “Announcement” from Orange Free Sounds (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Dana concludes her origin story of a Housewife in Handcuffs...An FBI raid of her parent's home... Dana details the moments before her arrest...What did the FBI tell her? FBI headquarters... Dana reads a shockingly personal novelette about her experience with the law... A story she has never told before... It is raw, honest, extremely vulnerable, and a bit political... How was she arrested? An indictment... White collar criminal laws... Was this real life?What was jail like? The processing, the physical conditions, and the characters...Feminine hygiene products, cellmates, and that bathroom situation...A $25,000 coincidence...How can the system be so cruel to people not yet convicted of anything?What happens to your personal life when you are indicted? What do they tell you you can and cannot do?The evidence, prosecution, and defense... How much did the case cost? The Criminal justice system... Indictment strategies... Civil death... Sentencing guidelines...Who was the culprit behind it all? What was the punishment?Support the showDana is on Cameo!Get Dishing Drama Dana Merch!https://represent.com/store/dishing-drama-dana-wilkeyFollow Dana: @Wilkey_Dana$25,000 Song - Apple Music$25,000 Song - SpotifyTo support the show and listen to full episodes, become a member on PatreonTo learn more about sponsorships, email DDDWpodcast@gmail.comDana's YouTube Channel

Would you rather perform in front of thousands of people or a handful of strangers?  Does performing in a small crowd bring out the shy introvert version of you? Surprisingly, many of us are shy and it manifests in different ways. Singer/Actor, Alana Bridgewater, will join us in this week's episode to reminds us that it's okay to constantly search for ways to overcome shyness and solve your challenges as an artist. You can have an arsenal of different things that can help you cope with the demands of the life of an artist. Give yourself permission to figure things out and enjoy the journey towards finding the best solution for you. SHARE THIS EPISODE >>> www.thisischelseajohnson.com/230 In this episode: How singing in front the church congregation sparked Alana's love for singing. The impact of having a strong mentor in her commitment towards fostering the next generation of artists. The importance of having grounding practices incorporated into your routine in mitigating the negative impact of unattended pressures and shyness.  An artist is someone who is trying to keep the culture of creativity and art present. A little about Alana: Alana Bridgewater is an actor and singer in Toronto. Best known for her role as Killer Queen in the hit musical We Will Rock You, Alana made her debut at the Signature Center in NYC with the prestigious Soulpepper Theatre Company. Her recent credits include the title role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Novelette in Da Kink In My Hair at Arts Club Vancouver, Eartha in the animated series Mysticons (Nickelodeon) and the voice of Mr. King Dice in the hit video game CupHead. Working with youth, Alana was Choral Director for Daniels Corporation's production of The Journey. Alana, with her team, won Gold at The New York Radio Awards for the documentary Journey To Jazz and Human Rights which she narrated. Alana was appointed Resident Artist for Necessary Angel Theatre Company for the 20/21 Season Musically, Alana sang backup on tour with Johnny Reid, Digging Roots and Corey Hart. She also contributed vocals on Digging Roots latest album Zhawenim which has been nominated for a 2023 Juno Award. Follow Alana! Instagram: @alanabridgewatermusic Twitter: @alanabeemusic

It's more than a creative outlet. It's also a way to explore relationships. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind

We're joined by Podside's own World Warrior, Zangief, to take the pulse of the genre and talk about the Short Fiction and Novelette ballots for the Shirley Jackson Awards.

Jordan Tromblee and Deezy Youngdahl opened Novelette Booksellers in Nashville, Tennessee, less than six months ago. The vibrant, colorful, inclusive and welcoming shop has already been hailed as one of the city's most talked about indies. They join Matt this week to tell us why. Books We Talk About: Exalted by Anna Dorn, Babel by R.F. Kuang, Less by Andrew Sean Greer, The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, Melissa Broder's books, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston and No Choice by Becca Andrews.Venture Europepersonal conversations with the entrepreneurs and investors reshaping our futureListen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

Amazon link: The Sweetest Heat: A Novelette - Kindle edition by Xaviera, Bianca . Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thebibliophilebookcase/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thebibliophilebookcase/support

Get your tools together for our big drafting sprint that begins November 1st? And, let's be friends on NaNoWriMo: username: author_devin_davis “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind

Join me in NaNoWriMo!  username: author_devin_davis Sign up today and add me as a friend! Let's do this thing together. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind

Tiz is ready for beta testing! Reach out to me so you can get involved today! Contact me on social media. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. The entire point of this podcast is to help the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and stress management, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in, and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.  Hello? Hello. Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. Guys, it's been a really busy summer. How has your summer been? I am doing one last, well, actually, I don't know. It's hard to say just how many passes of a work in progress constitute a session of editing, but I've been doing more content edits more developmental edits for the past while. And I'm feeling really, really good about my work in progress. Tiz is making huge strides toward being just kind of the perfect thing right now. And I'm getting super excited about it. I have a goal to get this round of developmental edits finished by this weekend so that I can move on to beta readers because we are at that point in our lives, my friends. So beta readers are super awesome and they are a huge part of the publishing process if you are professionally [00:02:00] self-publishing. just really quickly. If you already know what a beta reader is, and you want to be a part of my beta reading team, please reach out to me on social media on Instagram. I'm @authordevindavis Davis and on Twitter. I'm @authordevind and I will hook you up that way. If you don't know what a beta reader is, a beta reader is a person who read. A work in progress pretty casually, as casually as you would read anything else that you are reading for entertainment and then simply shares in some way, their experience with the author or whoever is doing the edits for the work that they are involved with. What that looks like. So all of that is well and good, but this is kind of what the process looks like, just because we're all busy. We all have a lot to do. And a lot of people. Oh, I would love to beta read, but they don't fully understand the importance that they are playing in the process. So [00:03:00] usually when a work is to the point of beta reading, it has been through a number of developmental edits. So in my case, I finished the work in progress and then I cleaned it up so that it would be ready for me to actually read. Because if you remember, I dictated my work. And that required a lot of tweaking afterward, which is fine. It, it was not a waste of time. And I was glad that I did it. It got me through, I cleaned it up as a way to just read it, to be able to sit back and read the content. I did my own developmental edits, at least one round of them. And then I sent my story to my developmental editor, crystal and a critique partner as a way to. Have them show me holes that I might have missed. And I have had conversations with both of those people in some way, crystal, we speak on the phone and then this critique partner, she actually sent me a big document [00:04:00] with her thoughts and her notes and her suggestions. And I have paid very close attention to both of those things. Now I'm working through it again, going through the developmental edits again, and things are improving. Things are better. Like the story is starting to bloom and I'm really excited to see that it's such a breath of fresh air to actually see what this can be to me, the magic of writing is in the edits anyway. And so when you crash out your first draft and it looks like garbage because it is garbage, you are tilling the soil and planting seeds, and then it's through the developmental edits that you water the place so that plants can grow. And I'm seeing that with this. So. This is the way a beta reader program works. while you are certainly going to, let's say that you go ahead and you sign up for my beta reader [00:05:00] program, because you are super interested in what I am writing and you want. Part of it. And you want to be involved in this whole process because you love the arts. You love fiction, you love fantasy fiction and how fun to be involved, right. Even if you're not a writer. So what happens is, and, and this is how it, it's a little bit different for every author, but I'm going to show you my. Program here and tell you a little bit about what other programs look like. So beta reading is in essence beta testing. When a person, when a company or when a. Group of people develop a product. They need to test that product to make sure it's something that people want to use. And so if you have been a part of a beta testing trial with new products, what they do is they provide you with the [00:06:00] product so that you can use it. And in fact, they may have some suggestions with specific applications for you to use it So that you can get a full feel of what the product is even for and what it's about. And then at the end, there's always a questionnaire. There is always a way for you to share your experience and offer feedback now with a beta reading program. It's much the same thing. An author is asking a person to read a book. So in my instance, this novella, read it, read it casually, read it as you would. Any other book that you read for entertainment? This is not about studying. This is not about asking you for free editing stuff. This isn't that your role as a beta reader is not to sniff out all of the common mistakes and the misspelled words. It is not to suggest [00:07:00] that this specific sentence would be better if you used this word instead of that word, that's not what beta reading is for. With beta reading, you have a manuscript that is not finished. And so we all just understand right away that it is not a perfect manuscript and there may be typos and little problems in it that you are going to be asked to ignore or to simply read. Through. I mean, if you're reading and there's a, uh, a paragraph where a section that is really problematic, it is really good of you to mention that, but nobody expects you to put on your editing cap and try to flex your grammar muscles, cuz that's, that's not what the beta reader role is. Your role is to read it and then share with the author or whoever is doing the edits experience. If you are [00:08:00] involved with a first time author, it is possible that they may not fully have a program developed. And so they may. Fully understand what sharing your experience needs to look like. It has been my experience with previous beta readers and just with other people who have read my stuff that you read a thing. And then if someone simply says, share with me your experience, you don't really have a lot to say. You just read something, you experienced something, but you don't have words for it yet. So hopefully the program that you're entering into will have questions to kind of probe through your experience so that everybody can get an understanding for what worked, what didn't work. And it's for the big parts of the story. It's for the relationships it's for setting it's for different things. A lot of authors will release [00:09:00] their books, especially if they have written a larger book and they are professionally self-publishing, they will release their book in sections to their beta readers so that they can have conversations fresh with each section of the book. And they can gauge how each section of the book is doing instead of throwing this huge manuscript at somebody and expect them To read it and remember everything as they go through it. So, because TIS is a Nove, it's already a shorter document and there's no need for me to release it in sections. But oftentimes the author will say here's the first section or maybe the first chapter. And then if they are prepared and they know what they're doing, they will have questions ready already for you to respond to. Questions about. How you felt, if there was tension in that specific chapter, if it was working for you, if the love [00:10:00] story is happening in a good way, just whatever the content is. If they know what they are doing, they will ask. Specific questions and they'll have that ready for you to respond. And usually they will ask you to respond in a timely manner. Sometimes it can be a texting conversation. If it's somebody that, you know, on a more personal level, it can be a phone call. It can be something like Marco polo. I don't know if. If you know what that app is, but it's basically video chatting or writing letters, but it's video. , that's how I feel that it is anyway. And you can go through and respond to those questions. It is important for you to be thorough. And it's important for you to be a little bit long winded. super short answers to these questions are certainly helpful, but elaborating. On what you mean by those answers is always more useful, even if [00:11:00] you err, on the side of sharing too much. So sharing all the things, even if you feel all the things is kind of a lot to get through is very, very beneficial to a person who is gauging the content of their story. And then once the beta reading project is over and done with, if it's an author, Has this all worked out, hopefully they are taking notes and they can go through and revise something or tweak something so that they can get ready to send it to their editor next. So this is a very important step in. All works in progress who were becoming professionally published professionally self-published. And so again, if you are interested in joining my program, please reach out to me in social media. And I will, uh, I will announce that again at the end of this episode, here is, what other people's programs can look like sometimes. So a [00:12:00] lot of people will recommend 25. Beta readers to read their work in progress. Sometimes it can be a struggle to find 25 people to read a book, especially if you're releasing a big book. If you're releasing this big epic fantasy thing, that's like 800 printed pages. It can be a lot to find people who can read that in a specific amount of time. Just because if you're releasing on a schedule, you don't have six months for somebody to get around to reading your work in progress with these shorter works like with TIS and with BJE it. Take as long to find people to beta read, just because they are much shorter works. I mean, JE was just 9,000 words. TIS is 20,000 words. It's a proper novella, but they're not long documents. And so people can read them in a shorter amount of time and it's not as big of a [00:13:00] time commitment. with many people, they suggest 25 beta readers and. I know of some authors who go as high as 45 beta readers. I have some mixed feelings about that. I do feel that you will flesh out absolutely everything. If you can get 45 people to read your work and respond to your thing. I also know that keeping notes on everybody's thoughts would be pretty tedious and a lot of people would end up sharing. The same things over and over again. And if you want to endure that 45 times, then that's fine. I don't think that I'm going to be searching out 45 people to read ti. Also with my particular program, I like to release it to a small number of people get their input. And if there are glaring problems, I like to do another round of edits in order to fix those problems. If I agree with them and then release it to [00:14:00] the next set of beta readers so that the manuscript can be continually improv. Before I send it off to my editor. So that's just kind of what the program looks like. That's what a program looks like. That's what beta readers are for beta readers are a huge part to the development of a book, and like I said, it is beta testing to see if the book would land well, if people would like it, if people would buy it. And if the content is something that would stick around and come across as something important. So beta readers are super a big deal. And this is why all authors are super grateful for their beta reading team.  And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read [00:15:00] the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today. 

Bookstores are exactly what their name implies, but they're so much more than that. They are vital spaces where people go not only to find and buy books, but to encounter new ideas, meet fellow readers and build community. Even so, a decade ago, with the rise of online retail and e-books, the local independent bookstore was widely considered a dying breed. And many of them did die off, including the beloved Davis-Kidd in Green Hills. Whether or not you call it a comeback, the bookstore scene in Nashville is healthy and growing. In part, that's because the personality and curation of a small bookstore is something you just can't get from a website. This hour, we explore Nashville's bookselling scene, past, present and future. We talk with newcomers Novelette, longtime staples Alkebu-Lan Images, and also browse the city's diminishing used bookstore scene. But first, we talk with WPLN morning producer Alexis Marshall about how Nashville employers are planning to help employees access reproductive care after the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Guests: Jordan Harris, owner, Alkebu-Lan Images Deezy Violet, co-owner, Novelette Booksellers Cat Bock, store manager, Parnassus Books Larry Woods, bookseller, Book Man Book Woman Carl Smith, book reseller

Don't allow any aspect of your novel to get too complicated, otherwise you will lose interest from your readers! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind

This is the audio-only version of a Zoom discussion panel about the 2022 Hugo nominees for Best Novelette. It’s slightly shorter than the video, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK00Q96yMQc Time Codes: Bots of the Lost Ark: 07:45Colors of the Immortal Palette: 23:17O2 Arena: 40:55That Story Isn’t the Story: 53:10Unseelie Brothers, Ltd.: 01:02:57L’Esprit de L’Escalier: … Continue reading "2022 Hugo Nominees for Novelette – Discussion Panel"

David and Perry discuss this year's nominees for the Short Story and Novelette categories of the Hugo Award, and Perry discusses the movie "Everthing Everywhere All at Once" with W. H. Chong. Introduction (02:42) General News (04:59) Nebula Awards (01:46) International Thriller Awards (01:37) Australian Book Design Awards (01:23) Hugo Nominees 2022 (53:57) Hugo Voting Packet (03:47) Short Stories (19:42) Unknown Number by Blue Neustifter (03:00) Proof by Induction by José Pablo Iriarte (02:51) The Sin of America by Catherynne M. Valente (03:35) Mr. Death by Alix E. Harrow (02:29) Tangles by Seanan McGuire (02:47) Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather by Sarah Pinsker (04:40) Novelettes (26:53) Bots of the Lost Ark by Suzanne Palmer (04:24) That Story Isn't the Story by John Wiswell (02:26) Unseelie Brothers, Ltd. by Fran Wilde (02:54) L'Esprit de L'Escalier by Catherynne M. Valente (05:41) O2 Arena by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (04:27) Colors of the Immortal Palette by Caroline M. Yoachim (06:09) Overall opinions (02:47) Discussion on Everything Everywhere All at Once (33:59) Windup (01:03) Illustration by David Grigg

David and Perry discuss this year's nominees for the Short Story and Novelette categories of the Hugo Award, and Perry discusses the movie "Everthing Everywhere All at Once" with W. H. Chong. Introduction (02:42) General News (04:59) Nebula Awards (01:46) International Thriller Awards (01:37) Australian Book Design Awards (01:23) Hugo Nominees 2022 (53:57) Hugo Voting Packet (03:47) Short Stories (19:42) Unknown Number by Blue Neustifter (03:00) Proof by Induction by José Pablo Iriarte (02:51) The Sin of America by Catherynne M. Valente (03:35) Mr. Death by Alix E. Harrow (02:29) Tangles by Seanan McGuire (02:47) Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather by Sarah Pinsker (04:40) Novelettes (26:53) Bots of the Lost Ark by Suzanne Palmer (04:24) That Story Isn't the Story by John Wiswell (02:26) Unseelie Brothers, Ltd. by Fran Wilde (02:54) L'Esprit de L'Escalier by Catherynne M. Valente (05:41) O2 Arena by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (04:27) Colors of the Immortal Palette by Caroline M. Yoachim (06:09) Overall opinions (02:47) Discussion on Everything Everywhere All at Once (33:59) Windup (01:03) Click here for more info and indexes. Illustration by David Grigg

Sharifah and Jenn discuss a Miyazaki graphic novel, Black superheroes, Octavia Butler, recent award-winning short fiction, and more. Follow the podcast via RSS here, Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here. To get even more SF/F news and recs, sign up for our Swords and Spaceships newsletter! This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. News 2021 Bram Stoker Awards finalists English translation of Miyazaki graphic novel “Shuna's Journey” [Nerdist] “My Super Hero Is Black” book forthcoming [EW] Octavia Butler profile [USA Today] Works Discussed “Rat and Finch are Friends” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo, 2021 Nommo Award Winner for Short Story (Tied), published in Strange Horizons (cw: homophobia) “Metal Like Blood in the Dark” by T. Kingfisher, 2021 Hugo Award Winner for Short Story, published in Uncanny Magazine “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong (warning: disordered eating) (2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story; 2016 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction) Emergency Skin (Forward Collection) by NK Jemisin (warning: racism, homophobia) (2020 Hugo and 2020 Ignyte Awards for Novelette)

Dank der unterschiedlichen Veröffentlichungsstrategien kommen die Leser:innen in den Vereinigten Staaten in der Genuss einer Geschichte mit Hercules Poirot, während er im Vereinigten Königreich noch Gemüse züchtet. "The Under Dog" ist eine lange, klassische Kriminalerzählung, die unspektakulär ist, aber gut unterhält. Und irgendwie ist es schön, dass der exzentrische Belgier wieder da ist.

This week we'll discuss our recent trip to Cherokee NC, how Kevin's new meds are working - and the impact of not taking them. We also talk about the dividing line between a Novel and Novelette, and Kevin's new favorite device. After that, we'll talk to Sean Nittner, game producer, project manager, and con host! Links for this Episode: Charity Spotlight: TLDEF - Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund Charity Spotlight: Black Lives Matter Sean Nittner Sean on Twitter Sean on Twitch Sean on YouTube Big Bad Con Cal Performances Evil Hat Thirsty Sword Lesbians War of Ashes Asana InstaGantt ReMarkable 2 Cult Pens Advent Calendar

Use this link to purchase your own copy of “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor: https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=devin+davis+brigitte&qid=1634970266&sr=8-1 Become a patron today and get a copy of each of these short stories as they are released. Go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today. Also, Krissy Barton offers free consultations and sample edits. www.littlesyllables.com The following is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript can be found on the show's website. [00:00:00] Are you in the market for some light reading, then you need to read "Brigitte," Tales from Vlaydor Installment One. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello! Hello! Hello. This is Devin Davis and you are Writing in the Tiny House. I am the guy in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you the different ways to write the things, to write the fiction that you have in your brain, that you are convinced you are too busy to do. [00:00:51] It's interesting sometimes recording podcasts, just because we record on a different day than we release things. And so today is not October 27th in my world, but this podcast is going to be released to the public on October 27th. If you are a patron, you're going to get this a few days before that. [00:01:12] But all of this means that today in this magical world, October 27th, we are one day after the release of "Brigitte," Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One. And that is good news, my friends. This is the episode where I get to gush all about my writing and about this fun, little journey of this novelette and what it has taught me and what I have learned and grown from and where, and most importantly, I guess, where you can buy it. [00:01:48] So let's actually deal with that first. "Brigitte" Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One is available on amazon.com as an ebook download. It costs $2 and 99 cents. So go there, follow the link in the show notes and go to there and get it today. There were a lot of people who reserved their thing. I did a pre-release for this book and I'm so glad that I did. [00:02:12] I can delve into reasons why in another episode, I don't want to talk about the things that went wrong. So instead follow the link in the show notes and go to amazon.com and you can search for Devin Davis. And you can search for Brigitte which is the French spelling spelled B R I G I T T E, Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One. [00:02:38] Anyway, it is available. It is affordable and it is really good. It's a good short story, guys. I have had really good feedback from this from very trusted sources, and I am proud as proud to release this to you and to have it available for people to go to and find it and buy it. And so yeah, this is an example of, I guess, following your own advice. The things with with this podcast that I share, I do those things, and I had the goals starting in September to get this short story underway. And I gave myself an extra week, but I wanted a short story or a novelette cranked out in eight weeks. And because this was the first one in a long time and I needed to re-establish all of my systems for it and reach out to friends and family and people who would be interested in helping me out. [00:03:38] Just because so many works of fiction, especially if you are writing to market, if you are writing to sell your stuff, you need to involve other people. You need to consistently get other people's points of view, just because they will see things that you might miss. And if you are hoping to make money on your writing, you need to get additional points of view and other opinions. [00:04:04] So I knew from the beginning with this first installment of Tales from Vlaydor with Brigitte that I would need some extra grace time to get all of those systems in place again, just because it has been a minute since I have written something that would go along the different steps of editing so rapidly. [00:04:25] And so, yeah, reaching out and contacting and phone calls and emails. All the social media contacts, all the things. So I gave myself some wiggle room and I was able to do it in eight weeks. I was actually able to do it sooner than that. And that's cool. That means that I can do this again. [00:04:47] And so starting November 1st with NaNoWriMo, I will be working on installment two of Tales from Vlaydor entitled Otto. So it's a different story in a different city of the land, and it's going to be another fun ride, friends, another fun novelette or short story. I haven't started drafting it yet, so I don't know exactly how long it will be, but I think it'll be comparable to Brigitte, which tows the line between short story and novelette and falls in novelette. That is the next project. And I am stoked for it. I'm stoked for NaNoWriMo. I'm stoked and scared to have another thing to write, another thing to draft, but a good friend and I have already been brainstorming what the story of Otto can actually look like. [00:05:43] And so it's something that I already have an amount of clarity on. And so getting started isn't going to be hard. It's not going to, I mean, it will definitely be work, but it's not going to be impossible to do. And it's something that I'm eager to do. So during this whole process there were people that I asked to read Bridgette, there were people who gave good feedback. [00:06:07] There were people who showed me that they are willing to support my work, which is cool. All the people, when I announced on this podcast and on my social media, that Brigitte was available for pre-order, there were a lot of people who immediately pre-ordered and I am just going to publicly say, thank you. [00:06:27] That is really a cool thing for me. And that is really reassuring to me. I absolutely love that. And so thank you for all of the pre-orders. However, I am not living under a rock. I'm living in a tiny house and I know that most people do not pre-order. And so thanks in advance to everybody who orders a digital copy of Brigitte and I'm excited to see what happens with this, guys. [00:06:55] I'm really excited about this. I'm excited to do another thing that should be released around Christmas, and it's just going to be good times. So things that I have learned. I have found that I can crank out a pretty good story in one week. That's how long it took me to draft Brigitte. [00:07:15] It took me about nine or 10 hours of drafting And I think about nine. And I have found that I have wonderful people in my circle who are more than willing to bounce ideas back and forth off of me. And they are excited to see what comes of it all. There are so many people who love fiction, who simply don't write it. [00:07:37] And so to have them involved with this and to allow them the chance to give feedback and give ideas and do the back and forth, was a really cool thing. I could tell that they were edified by that as much as I was. To have that exchange and to have that back and forth was so good. That's a good thing. [00:07:59] I think I said earlier in this episode that I actually completed Brigitte sooner than in the eight weeks that I was expecting. I actually completed it in about six maybe even five. There were some things that did not take nearly as long as I was expecting them to do. And the main thing was my editor, Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing is fast. [00:08:27] She is always in contact with the people that she is working with. And she did a great job with the line and copy editing and the proofread of this book, of this novelette. And so. Little syllables editing. She is, I mean, that business is kind of the editor on board with this entire Tales from Vlaydor project. [00:08:49] And so of course, I'm going to give her a shout out because she did a great job. So that was the thing that I was able to save some time on. There were a couple other steps too that simply didn't take as long as I was expecting, I had. Eight weeks in a spreadsheet. And I had planned out in two-hour blocks, what I would be doing just because I usually have about two hours to work on stuff.  [00:09:16] With this next installment with Otto, it's entirely possible that I will be thrown to the wolves with this next installment with Otto. And that here I am spouting all of these wonderful things about how efficient the process was. And maybe with Otto it's going to be kind of a car wreck or a garbage fire. [00:09:37] One thing that I was able to try. And that I was able to do and that we are still deliberating back and forth on is I sat down and I have always had the desire to narrate my own books. And so I took my audio equipment and I managed to make the tiny house as quiet as I could make it just because there are certain technical requirements for audio books. [00:10:04] If you wish to publish them to audible, which I do. And I sat down and I recorded Bridgette twice. And the thing is, guys, the audio for it. This is the first, you know, audio narration that I have ever done, but it was so fun to record all of this. I am still in the middle of editing. I think that once we nail this down and we decide that it's a good thing to do, I'll be able to release this to audible at about the same, I mean, closely after the ebook is released on Amazon. I was able to sit down. I was able to narrate, I was able to just do all of that, which is what I've wanted to do for such a long time. I have found out though, why audio books often take a while after the printed book is released. It is more expensive to produce an audio book. So with this, there were parts in the audio that had to be recorded several times. There were parts in the book that it was not just about making the text pretty, just because there is no text in the audio. [00:11:22] It was about sound. It was about pronunciation. It was about tripping over my tongue. It was, it was about reading. It was about staying close enough or far enough away from the microphone. It was about all of those things. Also, it has been a really rainy October in Utah. And so I wasn't able to record on some of the days just because of rain and I didn't want to have to deal with rain in the background. And so turning the tiny house into a recording studio is not necessarily the most ideal thing, but I think it worked. I'm goingto see though, I'm going to have to see if it's okay. [00:12:05] Like I said, there are technical requirements to audio files if you hope to publish to audible. And I think that I will be squeaking in pretty easily. If not, I can send it to an audio engineer to kind of clean up the noise floor of the files a little bit, a very little bit. I was surprised at how well the things turned out recording in the tiny house. [00:12:30] So yay for all of that. Brigitte released October 26th. It is now available to purchase because today is October 27th. And look for the audio version of Tales from Vlaydor Installment One, Brigitte in audible coming up soon, I will keep you abreast with this podcast as far as how that is going. [00:12:58] But guys, here is one of the big take homes that I want to include with this podcast. Now is a great time to become a patron of this show. I'm grateful for the patrons that I already have for their donations, just because they wanted to support the podcast. [00:13:17] And they believed that the podcast is such a good resource and something that was worth supporting financially. And I have been so grateful for, I mean, I treat them, I see them as gifts. Those monthly installments are gifts to me, but now if you have been on the fence of becoming a patron to Writing in the Tiny House, now is a good time to join. If you go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up, you will see that, with these installments that I'm writing, I am going to be providing electronic versions of these short stories to my patrons as they are published. And so if you want to be one of the first people to get a copy, or perhaps even a few days in advance, a copy of these installments of Tales from Vlaydor as they are released, I will likely also release the audio to my patrons. [00:14:20] If you're interested in an audio book, I'll see how all of that works. Audio books are kind of are kind of ratty. I mean, it's a lot of different files that a program ties together. And so we'll see how that goes. I think I can make it work though. But absolutely yes, the eBooks of these small installments of Tales from Vlaydor I release those to my patrons. [00:14:45] And then they are available to purchase on amazon.com. So if you sign up as a patron today, you will be receiving as a thank you, a copy of Brigitte. And in December, when I publish the next installment, Otto, you will receive an ebook of that too. So go onto patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and become a patron today. [00:15:14] So that's it for today. Follow the link in the show notes and navigate to amazon.com today and purchase your copy of "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor. And be sure to follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. [00:15:37] And that is it for today. Thank you for joining me and have fun writing.

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Also, for all of your editing needs, to go www.littlesyllables.com Krissy Barton offers free sample critiques, and she is a wonderful professional to be involved with for all of your line editing, copy editing, and proofreading needs. The following is a transcript of this episode. For a complete transcript, please visit the show's website. [00:00:00] In all of your time writing the works that you're doing, did you ever think to try to crank out 50,000 words in a single month then perhaps you are gearing up for the national novel writing month that happens every year in November, also known as NaNoWriMo. And we are talking about preparing for that today on Writing in the Tiny House. [00:00:34] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I give you the tips and tricks to writing that work of fiction that you have in your brain that you think you are too busy to write, but I'm here to show you that it's completely possible. [00:01:14] And here I am in Northern Utah living in my tiny house. We had a hiatus and we went to Hawaii not too long ago. And I have said in a few episodes that we are going to be hitting NaNoWriMo pretty strongly this year. I missed out on NaNoWriMo last year. I missed November and NaNoWriMo is a great time of the year. It is where we celebrate making progress in that work of fiction that you're doing or whatever it is you're writing.  [00:01:46] Today in order to make sure that NaNoWriMo is successful, we have what is called Preptober where we go through, we organize our notes. We figure out our schedule and we do all of the things as a way to make sure that NaNoWriMo is going to be successful. That is what we are going to be covering today. But first I need to say a couple things about my current work in progress. Many of you know that I have been working on a novelette the, it is Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: Brigitte. And it has gone to the editor and the editor has kicked back the edits. [00:02:30] And so I am doing the final cleanup before laying it out, sending it back to my editor for a final proofread and then releasing it on Amazon. Some of my writing is going to be available for all of you to read and destroy. If you want to, it can be really nerve wracking, releasing something like this. [00:02:54] But I just need to give a shout out to Krissy Barton, my resident editor for this project with Tales from Vlaydor. She runs a business called Little Syllables editing, and she is great. She is fast. She is in constant communication with the author of whatever she. Editing and she has incredible customer service. She does line edits and copy edits, and then the final proofread. [00:03:28] So if you want prices, she is affordable. Go ahead and go to little syllables.com and I will have the website in the show notes of this episode. Krissy Barton is amazing. Please send her all of your business.  [00:03:44] Let's talk about Preptober. Let's talk about making NaNoWriMo count. So the whole goal of NaNoWriMo is to do a 50,000 word manuscript in one month. It is to make 50,000 words of progress in whatever work you are doing in the month of November. And I have interviewed people on this podcast or at least one person specifically AJ Mac who did that. [00:04:10] And he cranked out his first novel because of NaNoWriMo. He had the idea already, but he didn't have the push to get it finished. And so he did his Preptober correctly so that he could do his NaNoWriMo most effectively. So NaNoWriMo is technically a competition, but it is a self paced competition. [00:04:33] Meaning you are not actually racing against anybody unless you join a Facebook group that is racing against something. And it is all about just accomplishing things. And so if you manage to write 50,000 words and NaNoWriMo, nobody is going to question your work, but they give you a thing to print out, to display like a certificate, and it can be a super fun way to bring like-minded people together who enjoy the craft of writing and storytelling. [00:05:03] So let's talk about what Preptober gets to be in order to understand what NaNoWriMo can be, which will be in a future episode. First of all, to write 50,000 words in a month means that you need to crank out about, let me hurry and figure this out. Let's see, 50,000 words divided by 30. That means you need to crank out an average of 1,667 words every day. Now I'm going to be upfront with you. I'm going to be very serious about NaNoWriMo, but I don't think that I am going to make a 50,000 word progress on anything just because I am on this release schedule with these short stories and novelettes for Tales from Vlaydor. [00:05:53] Which means there are automatically going to be some days that need to be dedicated in my case, that needs to be dedicated toward revision and toward editing. And so that is already built into the month. I don't have a way to really change that. And it's important to me to stay on this schedule because I want to release at least two of these short stories by the end of the year. if you have not written 1,667 words in a day before, but you want to do NaNoWriMo, I highly recommend that you find some time in Preptober to try it. Set some time aside, have some notes ready, have an outline ready for whatever it is t hat you're going to be writing. I recommend doing it in 25 minute bursts, and then you recover for five minutes and then you do 25 minute bursts again. Those are called writing sprints. It's something that a lot of people do in order to make good progress and to stay on task and to not be overwhelmed by your writing. But you need to measure that baseline for how fast you write and how much of it at a time you can tolerate. So for me, I personally prefer setting aside at least one hour, if not, two hours to write. [00:07:14] And I know that in two hours time, I can crank out 2,500 words. If I set myself to a clock and do these writing sprints, and I don't get caught up in editing too much. If you have never written things before, or if you have not written things in a long while, or if the things that you have written have not been on a computer and they have been long hand in a journal, or in some other medium like that, you may want to set some time aside to see what your rate is and how much of it you can tolerate. [00:07:51] So once you have that figured out, you can then look at your month of November and see what your schedule is for the entire month of November. Just because if 1,667 words is all that you can handle, which is perfectly fine. I know plenty of published authors who write half of that every day or in the times that they choose to write and they do just fine with what they're doing. [00:08:23] They usually don't do a big push for NaNoWriMo also, but if 1,667 words is the limit, then that means that you need to do it every single day. If you're hoping to reach 50,000 words in November. And so that means that you get to look at your schedule and you get to set that time aside. [00:08:42] If you live alone and you are completely reclusive and you don't have any obligations outside of your bubble, then it should be easier to set time aside to do this. If you want to. However, if you are like me and you are juggling a family and you are juggling a full-time job and other things, I still have this podcast to do during November and realistically, I don't think that I'm going to be recording four episodes ahead of time. [00:09:11] So that I don't have to record anything in November. I just don't foresee that happening. Then it means that you need to set aside a time to do that. And. You can do more than 1,667 words every day. Then you can figure out when you need to take your days off, or if there are other obligations that come up that need to be considered so that you can reach that 50,000 word mark. [00:09:38] By the end of the month, I told you with my podcast and with writing these short stories and being on the release schedule that I'm on, I'm not going to be able to honor a 50,000 word. By the end of November. However, I think that I can get close to half of that and considering all of these other things that I'm doing during that month, I think that's pretty. [00:10:02] Okay. So we'll see, I will fill you in as it goes and it's going to be an awesome thing, guys. I'm excited to do NaNoWriMo. Excited to have you guys I'll do it with me. So know your schedule, know your limits, sit down and plan out what you're going to be doing with your schedule and your limits. And then guys, November is a time to bust out words. [00:10:29] If busting out words aggressively. At a very reckless, rough pace that is going to require hella revisions at the end of November is not your style. Then don't participate in NaNoWriMo. However, if you want to go all out and make a ton of progress in your novels. The thing is I find most of my magic in revising what I've written anyway. [00:10:58] And so it's okay if my first drafts are really rough, I like to crank out larger volumes at a time. And so this totally works for me, but in order to be prepared for that, I know that I need to have at least something outlined. I'm not much of an outliner. I don't like to have an outline. Like the outline that I prepared for my novels was like three pages long. [00:11:23] And this was back when the two novels that I'm writing were in one manuscript. And so this was going to be at that time, a 200,000 word document, and I had like a three page outline. I prefer to revise, revise, revise. It all just depends on what you prefer. And there is no right or wrong answer. I love revising, but I also know that unless I understand what I am about to sit down and write, I will struggle with the writing sprints. [00:11:59] So it is really, really valuable to me. To at least have some notes to have at least a skeleton outline of what I'm going to be doing so that I don't encounter writer's block or I don't encounter writer's block as much. There is always a chance that in the middle of all of this frantic fever, Writing a pounding on your keyboard and staring at your word processor. [00:12:28] There is always a chance that you're going to need to take a second to step back and outline a little more. I do it regularly with my books. My outlines tend to be pretty dynamic and. It is important to understand that the more you have outlined the less you are going to encounter the possibility of writer's block. [00:12:49] And that means that you can push through every single day until you reach that 50,000 word count at the end of NaNoWriMo. So with that, I intend to finish the rough draft of at least one short story and have well. I intend to finish the first and second drafts of at least one short story and have the rough draft of a second short story finished. [00:13:18] I'm also going to be staying up to date with this podcast. I'm not going to be skipping episodes in November, and if I choose to get my crap together, I might, pre-record a few things so that in November, I have more time to focus. Writing and less on talking about writing. So we'll see what I managed to actually do. I am envisioning and I am purposefully creating time in November to revisit the novels that I was writing earlier this winter, this previous winter and spring, just because it has been a minute. And I feel that I am ready to make some more progress with that. And I'm excited to revisit some of that and to add some parts that have been bubbling around in my brain and. [00:14:07] I'm eager to make more progress with that. So it's going to be a first and second draft of one of these short stories, a rough draft of another, and some more headway in the novels that I have not finished. And like I said, I will touch base with you every single Wednesday. If you are a patron, it will be on Saturdays. [00:14:31] Just to share with you the progress. This episode is going to be released to the public October 15th. And so that gives us two solid weeks to fit in a good prep Tober so that we can be prepared. And have all of our notes together so that we don't encounter writer's block during NaNoWriMo. And that means that even if we are furiously writing and composing and drafting and all the other words that mean writing in November, it means that what we write will be more focused and it will be more clean and it will have a better plot. [00:15:12] It will have a better structure, without doing all of that work beforehand, you risk having a plot that doesn't make sense. You risk having some very fundamental problems. So do your prep. Tobar guys. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I love every single one of you, people who subscribe to this show, even if I don't entirely know who you are, if you wish to become a Patron and support this show. It is because of the generous donations of my patrons that this show is possible. Please go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up to become a patron today. Also follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Again, thank you so much for tuning in today and have fun writing.

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] That's right guys. We are back in the tiny house with tiny house acoustics and you are listening to the podcast Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house who is here to show you did that work of fiction that you have bubbling around in your brain is completely possible to write, no matter how busy you feel that you are with your nine to five. I am safely back in Utah. Thank goodness. The journey home was pretty long. I traveling is so weird now. To fly back from Hawaii, it seems that the only way to do it is through a red eye flight. [00:01:13] And I couldn't sleep on the red eye at all. And when I arrived in Phoenix, because flights, I had a 10 hour layover in Phoenix, it ended up being a 10 and a half hour layover in Phoenix because the red eye flight got in early. So anyway, I have spent more than enough time for the next long while in airports and airplanes and face masks, and all that stuff. During the 20 hours that I was either on a plane or in an airport, I was also in a face mask and I was tired of wearing one when I got home. So anyway, we are back, we are here. I have some fun things to share with you guys in later episodes likely for November that I got to do in Hawaii. [00:02:07] And we're going to be sharing some of that during the episodes that we released for NaNoWriMo. So be sure to like, and subscribe, I don't know about liking, be sure to give us a five-star rating and subscribe to this podcast. So you don't miss out on the NaNoWriMo push that we do in November. [00:02:28] Before we get into the topic of today's episode, let me go ahead and give a shout out to Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing, she is a wonderful editor. She is fast. She is comprehensive and she keeps in good communication with the author of the work that she is editing, which is rare. And so anyway, she is the resident editor for the Tales from Vlaydor collection of short stories and novelettes that I am putting together and working on now. And if you have anything that you wish to have a professional look over get ahold of her. I will include her website in the show notes of this episode. And she's great. It is worth it every single time to get an editor on board to whatever your work in progress is. [00:03:18] So guys, Little Syllables editing with Krissy Barton is definitely the way to go. So today we know that I have been working on novelettes and short stories. It has been the main theme of the past few episodes. And today I have another thing to share in regards to that, in regards to the tips and tricks to get your novelette or short story off the ground, this is a way for developmental editing. [00:03:47] And when I read it, I thought, nah, I don't think I would ever do this, but here's what the deal is. Here's what the tip is. The recommendation, the advice comes from the book, a swim in a pond in the rain. I have referenced this book before on previous episodes when I shared the thing about the cat. The metaphorical cat is what I called it. Describing one thing in a room so that your reader can accept the room without you having to go into too many detail about it, because in a short story or a novelette or frankly, a novel, there is not enough room. [00:04:34] Every single paragraph, every single page, everything has to be. On point and there is no room for fluffer in these shorter works. And so, unless it is super important to describe the entire room, which I don't see many instances in which that would apply a trick is to describe one thing in the room. [00:04:58] And then we can accept the rest of the room. The rest of the room can be filled in with our brains and we can carry on with whatever the story is. This trick that I'm about to share is it's more of an exercise, but it's very important when we do these shorter works, there is less content there. That does not mean that there is less meaning there. [00:05:22] And it doesn't mean that it's less important. It just simply means there's not as much room. There's not as much text. And so delving into things like story arcs and subplots and whatever else, likely in a short story, there is not going to be a subplot. And if there is, there will only be one, if there's a subplot at all. [00:05:46] And so. Sometimes with developmental editing, there is kind of less of a story to see and less of doing the sluthing to pick out what the plots and the subplots are in order to make sure that they all make sense. So this is another process that you can do. You can either do it with your short story. [00:06:08] You can do it with your shorter works in progress, or you can do this with every chapter of your book. So every now and again, we have a thing and we print it. I personally don't own a printer, but it is possible to print a thing. And then. Mix up the pages so that when you read it, you can consider each page on its own. [00:06:35] Go through and read each page completely out of context, read it and see if there are points in it. That makes sense. If there are important things that stand out. And if the idea by itself as a page is something that you want to continue on with. So we say that the reasons why people will continue to read any work of progress is due to suspense or it's due to fun imagery or it's due to humor. [00:07:09] All of that can be true, but what it boils down to is people continue reading simply because they want to read the next line. However you have chosen to build that. So if we take each page out of context and we see what is there, unrelated to the page that comes before it and the page after it. And we're able to write in the margins or in a notebook or somewhere, what good points are in that page. [00:07:43] It can be an easy way and a very good way to first find the pages that are awesome to find the pages that rock, to find the good points and the really exciting moments and the funny parts and whatever, and absolutely nail that down and know where it is. But, and equally as important, we can nail down the fluffer parts. [00:08:13] Sometimes when we read a section or a page or even a short story, there are moments where the story drags by. And sometimes because we are so close to the story and we're so close to the flow of things, it can be hard for us to pin down where it started dragging and where it stopped dragging. Sometimes that can be hard to pay attention to, and just find. If we read pages out of context, we can think to ourselves, oh my goodness, this entire page is so boring. [00:08:52] Or we can see that the first half has good stuff, but the second half sucks. Or whatever, or we can see that this one paragraph at the top is fluffer, but the rest of it's pretty good. It's an easy way for us to break down the story itself. And find the things that work and the things that don't work. So for something like the novelette Brigitte, it's 50 pages, this process would take a while to do, but you can understand the importance of it. [00:09:28] So you take your random page. I mean, if you choose to keep it in your word processor, if you choose to print it out and do what I suggested, you know, a second ago, that's up to you and. You read the page, just what's on the page. Even if it doesn't start with a complete sentence, read it anyway, and then summarize the points that are there. [00:09:54] It's a way to see if not only if it's good or bad stuff, but sometimes in a short story. It can be hard to actually put together a story. And so picking out the important parts and summarizing up to the very end, what is there can also be a way for you to pin down where the story is. There can be parts in the story. [00:10:20] Not only that are fluffer, but that don't relate to the story at all that are simply there because it was fun to write them. And perhaps as the development of the story happened, you needed to write them in order to get the next parts out of your brain. But that doesn't mean that you should keep them. And so sometimes when we're so close to a story, we can't see the nonsense and we can't see. Some of this stuff that we've worked so hard and spent so much time on. Sometimes doesn't need to be there while I was in Mililani Hawaii. I cut out eight pages. Of my 50 page. Novelette I mean, that's like 20% of the words I wrote. [00:11:05] No, I think it was seven pages and it was good. It felt great because I realized that those things didn't belong there in that way anymore. And the way that I was choosing to approach the conflict and choosing to reveal some of these fun secrets along the way, I was able to get a better understanding and a better vision of what this thing needed to be. [00:11:29] It is absolutely okay to slash out big parts of your text so long as you know that you are doing it responsibly. And so long as you know, that it is part of the refining process for you to get to the end. If you are simply slashing your book apart because you are bored with it, or because you have fallen off. [00:11:53] Hard self-esteem times and you don't feel good or confident about yourself or about this project. I encourage you to stop slashing your book, but if you have new found clarity and you understand. A better way for your characters to get along the storyline and to get there in a more meaningful way then? [00:12:17] Yes. If there is fat to be trimmed out of your novel, then trim it. So sitting down and reading each page out of context. And summarizing the good or bad or whatever points of each page is a perfect way to see, first of all, what the story is. And secondly, what the story is not, and the story is not the filler. [00:12:46] The story is not always a subplot. The story is not a fun little moment that isn't related to the rising action of your story. And this is an easy way to identify that on your own. Another good way is to find a friend. So that's it for today. [00:13:05] Big shout out to my patrons without your contributions. This podcast could not be possible. If you wish to become a patron and donate to the writing and the tiny house podcast, please visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. And every little bits and every contribution is definitely appreciated. [00:13:29] Go ahead and find me on social media and follow me there. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.

Be sure to become a patron! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today! Contact Krissy Barton today at Little Syllables editing: littlesyllables.com

"The Reluctant Heroes" is a novelette written by Frank M. Robinson. It appeared in the January 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Frank M. Robinson wrote numerous short science fiction stories in the 1950s, with his later work turning longer form. He won his first major award in 1991: A Lambda award for The Dark Beyond the Stars. In addition to his fiction work, Robinson wrote extensively about science fiction. He was also a speechwriter for Harvey Milk, and he later played a small role in a film about Harvey Milk's life. He wrote a memoir about his life, released posthumously as "Not So Good a Gay Man." --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

The Gift of Alpha Readers If you wish to become a patron of Writing in the Tiny House podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today! The following is a transcript of this episode. For the complete transcript, please visit the show's website. [00:00:00] So you did it guys. You have written the next best thing and you are so eager to get this out into the world that you have revised it, you have combed through it, and you have all of these things ready, but nobody has read it yet. So what do you do next? Well, let's find out today on Writing and the Tiny House. [00:00:26] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in the tiny house who is here to show you, you busy adults working a nine to five like me, that it is completely possible for you to write that work of fiction that you have always wanted to do. [00:01:06] And you should. I just recorded 20 minutes of audio and didn't actually record any of it. So we're starting over and it's fine. Because now I get to say the things that I didn't save very well the first time, and it's okay to start over. We're still learning some of this new recording equipment and that's okay too. [00:01:26] But many of you know, because I announced in last week's episode that I have been working on some smaller things as a way to get my writing more available, to get my writing into the hands of people who are eager to read it and to do it faster than I could do if I were to just write a book just because the time to produce a book is much longer and there are a million different ways to share your writing with other people. [00:01:57] So I have been working on some smaller things and I am working on them in conjunction with Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing. She is going to be the editor on call or whatever, the editor in this whole project of writing a collection of short stories or novelettes. And so with this, I am writing these smaller works, and I'm going to be releasing them on a schedule, provided all of this works out okay. Right now we are on track with this first thing. And so I expect everything to be okay. And I think that this is something that we can reproduce right now. All of this is tentative stuff though. Like this is not gospel truth yet, but in doing these shorter things, I still need to go through the different steps of writing and revising and cleaning up these smaller works of fiction as I would have to do with a book. [00:03:07] But because the thing is shorter, all of those steps don't take as long to do, which is kind of cool. It's fun to blaze through some of these different steps a little faster, and to get that progress done faster, to arrive there more quickly. And with this, I also hope to have myself on a regular releasing schedule, which means that there is kind of a stopwatch going for each of these projects. [00:03:35] And for this first one, I am hoping more than anything. And I am taking a leap announcing this on the podcast that this will be ready for sale by the end of October. I'm going to post it on amazon.com and it will be available to purchase there. It'll be affordable. Don't worry about that. But I wanted so badly to share my writing and I think that I'm going to do it. [00:04:00] So what I'm doing is this collection of short stories ties into the larger books that I am also in the middle of that I have set aside for the moment. So the world that all those things take place in these smaller short stories will tie into that same world. And this collection is called Tales from Vlaydor, and this is Installment One, which is entitled Brigitte. [00:04:29] And so, yeah, so we did it. We've written a manuscript. We've gotten, you know, a few revisions under our belts, but if you are like me, perhaps you don't outline things very well. I surely don't, I don't like to outline. I like to write and then make huge revisions to what I've written because I don't like to outline, but for this first installment, I did not get any feedback to begin with on the story itself. I wanted to sit down, I wanted to write the story, revise a couple of things just because I wanted to present it in a good way to a small group of people. So I sat down. I wrote the thing. I revised it a couple times. I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, which by the way, Pro Writing Aid is amazing. [00:05:19] Especially if you are using Scrivener as your word processor, because it integrates into Scrivener. It was the easiest thing to do. I recommend sending anything you are working on through Pro Writing aid before you let anybody read it, just because the edits were easy to do. And because Pro Writing Aid made it easier to read. [00:05:42] Everybody seemed to have a better time. Pro Writing Aid does not replace a professional editor, but it is a very good tool to use along the way. So I wrote the thing, I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, and then I gathered in a way, a group of people that I would want to get feedback on this first draft, I guess we can call it a first draft. On this first revision, I guess. [00:06:09] And this is what we do, this is how we approach this. So I needed to get feedback because first of all, I needed to know if this was a story that anybody wanted to read. I wanted to know also if this was a story that people would be willing to buy, and I needed to know if after reading this, they would be interested in reading more. [00:06:35] And if the results were such that, no, this story idea is not a good idea. You need to switch to something else. I didn't want to spend so much time and energy on something that nobody would want. And so I would sooner scrap the whole idea and start a fresh with a new story idea rather than try to simply make something work. [00:07:04] And so, because I'm writing to market because I want this to be sold. And so I want there to be a certain audience appeal. I wanted to make sure that I was on track and on base with the very foundation of this story. So that's what I did first. And I recommend you doing the same thing with your shorter works of fiction also, or with your novels. [00:07:29] So here's the deal. I'm sure that you have heard the term beta readers a million different times if you are engaged in the writer, community. Beta readers are basically the people who are doing product testing for your book. They get your book and you need to know that the book is working for them as books need to work for readers. Does it keep their attention? Is it easy to read? Is it entertaining? Can they keep track of characters? Can they keep track of places? Do they have a good experience? Are they surprised during the surprising parts? Are they scared during the scary parts, all those things. [00:08:10] That is what beta reading is for, but there's a big step before that. Some people call it alpha readers. Some people call it, I don't know other stuff, but. I had this concept and I needed to make sure that the concept was okay. So I selected a few of my close friends and another person that I'll get into in order to share ideas. [00:08:36] So I wrote this novelette called Brigitte. It is about 9,000 words long, and I included just some questions at the end as a prompt, as a way to help people give feedback. And I recommend that you do the same. In a novel I recommend actually that you include things like that in sections of the book, rather than just a big, long list at the end of the book, just as a way to get the gears moving so that people can be inspired or understand how to give feedback, just because, especially in this most recent round of feedback, I have found that so many people read just to be entertained and they don't read critically. And that is fine. And so the little bit of help for that is really good for them. And it's good. It's good to hear all sorts of feedback. I've also found that for many people. So with this story, the vast majority of the feedback was positive. [00:09:45] People liked the story. It was pretty middle of the road, which is okay. But people liked the story. They thought that it was easy to read. It was easy to get to the end. They weren't confused by people or names or places. And so I took that as a good affirmation or confirmation that I was on the right track with this, and I should move forward. [00:10:14] And that is great. With many of the people though, the feedback was simply, Hey, this is great. I like it. I would want to read more of things like this. And that feedback is valuable for a specific reason. If that is all they're saying, this is great. I want to read more. While that feedback is not going to help you iron out the kinks and dings and dents in your manuscript. And it's not necessarily going to help you with your craft. It can show you that producing work like this. There are people who want to support your craft. And that is very valuable. So even though the tools aren't there, even though the feedback isn't there to help you get better as a writer, it is really cool to know that people are there to support you as a writer. [00:11:12] And like I said, that is valuable too. However, with a lot of people, they responded to the questions. And I liked that and I took notes and I paid attention. With those questions though, I found that with many of them, I didn't require seven people to answer each of those questions just because the same answers for many of those questions ended up showing up like seven different times. [00:11:41] That's okay. We live and we learn. However, there were a couple peers a couple people that read it, took notes, re-read it. And then had a really long conversation with me about how it went about, what was working and what wasn't working. And I'll come back to that in just a second, just because people who are willing to put that type of attention and energy into my work, those are people that I hold near and dear. I mean, everybody who is supporting my work is held near and dear, but those are the people that I will go to with the first ideas, with the baby ideas that I need to grow from, the really underdeveloped things that need to grow that are still vulnerable and still scary and still underdeveloped. And working together we're able to come up with some cooler things for the next revision of this story.  [00:12:47] With this, and I recommend this thing until the day I die. It is important to send your work, especially if you are writing to market, it is important to send your work to someone you don't know, or to many people that you don't know. [00:13:02] When you are ready for that, you will know. I sent this first revision. I will likely try to find another person that I don't know to read this after this next round of revisions, but here's the reason why. The feedback that a stranger gives you is really hard to take, but it is super honest and it's usually really direct and it's really easy to understand, and that matters my friends. [00:13:30] These people are not preserving a friendship. And so there is no holding back when it comes to what isn't working, what is confusing, what seems silly, but seems banale or stupid. I mean, what other words did this nice person include? But the points that this person brought to my attention were good points. It was clear that I had not conveyed so much of this story clearly. [00:14:01] And like I said, because we weren't already friends, there was no reason to pretend like we were friends and try to sugarcoat anything. Most of the stuff that this person told me was really good and really valuable feedback. And so what I was able to do is take the key points from her feed back and talk about them with these other friends who were interested in helping me develop the story. [00:14:29] So they didn't have to worry about stepping on eggshells. They didn't have to worry about offending. I got to say, oh, this other lady said this and this and this. And they're like, oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. And then we were able to discuss together ways to make it better. So with these conversations, some people tend to kind of freak out about it because they don't know how to have a critique conversation. So with these conversations, it is you and somebody else. And maybe a third person who are trying to improve a specific work. They're trying to make things better. If you or someone is coming to the table just in the attitude of saying this sucks. You need to leave it alone. You need to throw it away. [00:15:16] Then you're not going to have this conversation with that person, but everybody has the common goal and the common understanding that this work is not finished and we are joining forces to make it better. The way that this conversation unfolds is much of the time the person will have notes. The person will have some ideas, but they don't really know how to get started about it just because Cohesion and hoping that everything links together and thoughts and different things like that. [00:15:50] But this conversation is not going to be a dissertation. This conversation is not going to be like baring of souls. This conversation is largely brainstorming, which means a lot of the ideas and a lot of the topics don't have to mesh in the most beautiful way throughout the conversation. It's okay to jump from topic to topic. [00:16:15] It's okay to say, oh, are we done with this? Because on the next page, this completely different problem is there. Let's talk about that now. And through those, I had two friends who were very interested in helping me improve this work of fiction. And that is exactly how the conversation went. They put aside an hour, we had a phone call and we talked about all the things that didn't work. [00:16:42] And we talked about the things that this stranger critique partner brought to my attention, and we were able to iron out things and bring up some different ideas and some different approaches that I should try to incorporate into the next revision of this work. And that happened to me twice and it was beautiful and I felt enriched at the end and they were excited that they were included with this. [00:17:11] And it was a really good thing. So I guess the takeaway here is when you are searching for feedback, it is important to help by supplying a list of questions. If it's a person who's already experienced with giving feedback, they likely won't pay much attention to those questions, but a lot of people don't read fiction critically. [00:17:35] And so they they may need a little help with that. And that's great. Also, if you find those friends who are so engaged and so interested in helping you develop your craft, make sure to keep them near and dear. Take care of those friends. And lastly, If you have the people who say this is good, I want to read more, and then don't say much more than that. That means that you're on the right track and that what you have written is good. And while it may not improve your craft, it shows that there are people in the world who want to support your craft. So that's the quick take home for today.  [00:18:24] Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. If you wish to become a patron of this writing in the tiny house podcast, go topatreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. And I will have links to that in the show notes of this episode. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter my handle is@authordevind. And have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.

David and Perry discuss the nominees in the Novelette category for this year's Hugo Awards, and go on to talk about their other recent reading. Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award (03:15) Davitt Award shortlist (02:58) Hugo Award Novelette Nominees (36:18) The Pill by Meg Elison (05:03) Helicopter Story by Isabell Fall (06:43) Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super by A. T. Greenblatt (03:10) The Inaccessibility of Heaven by Aliette de Bodard (05:56) Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker (08:29) Monster by Naomi Kritzer (06:03) What we've been reading (30:33) The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (07:23) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (07:48) Foundation by Isaac Asimov (07:20) The End of the Day by Claire North (07:16) Windup (01:00) Photo by SHVETS production from Pexels.

David and Perry discuss the nominees in the Novelette category for this year's Hugo Awards, and go on to talk about their other recent reading. Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award (03:15) Davitt Award shortlist (02:58) Hugo Award Novelette Nominees (36:18) The Pill by Meg Elison (05:03) Helicopter Story by Isabell Fall (06:43) Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super by A. T. Greenblatt (03:10) The Inaccessibility of Heaven by Aliette de Bodard (05:56) Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker (08:29) Monster by Naomi Kritzer (06:03) What we've been reading (30:33) The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (07:23) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (07:48) Foundation by Isaac Asimov (07:20) The End of the Day by Claire North (07:16) Windup (01:00) Click here for more info and indexes. Photo by SHVETS production from Pexels.

Although they don't seem to get as much attention as novels and short stories, I believe novellas can stand on their own as great literary works. I discuss some unique characteristics of novellas and types of novellas, and explain some benefits of reading them...and crafting your own. ***************************************************************************************** Email: marisadellefarfalle@gmail.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/marisadee13 Instagram: www.instagram.com/marisadf13 Buy Me a Coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/marisadf13 I'd also really appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts (or your favorite podcasting app), as it'll help a lot more people find out about this show! ***************************************************************************************** Novella References Deverell, Eva. "How To Write A Novella." https://www.eadeverell.com/how-to-write-a-novella/. Jordan. "How to write a novella: 6 essential tips." NowNovel, https://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-novella-6-tips/. McEwan, Ian. "Some Notes on the Novella." The New Yorker, October 29, 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/some-notes-on-the-novella?irclickid=Q6TzvUx4VxyLWyRwUx0Mo38cUkBwT%3A2Z3y4eS80&irgwc=1&source=affiliate_impactpmx_12f6tote_desktop_Bing%20Rebates%20by%20Microsoft&utm_source=impact-affiliate&utm_medium=2003851&utm_campaign=impact&utm_content=Logo&utm_brand=tny. Meer, Syed Hunbbel. "Differences Between a Short Story, Novelette, Novella, & a Novel." Owlcation, June 3, 2016, https://owlcation.com/humanities/Difference-Between-A-Short-Story-Novelette-Novella-And-A-Novel. "What is a Novella? Understanding the Form (with Examples)." Reedsy, April 2, 2021, https://blog.reedsy.com/what-is-a-novella/. ***************************************************************************************** July's NaNoWriMo is right around the corner...and you can sign up now! You can learn more at https://nanowrimo.org/what-is-camp-nanowrimo.

From my album "Stephen Heller: Études Mélodiques, Op. 45", available in streaming services. Score: https://musescore.com/classicman/heller-opus-45-no-17

Continuing the story of Kay and her semi-sometimes master Jon. Master Jon comes for a visit and things actually switch between the usual bad little girl and her dominant man, at least for a little bit. The couple takes in the sights and sounds of San Francisco and settles into a domesticity that both Kay and Jon fear, and secretly ache for, as Kay feels her sensibilities all but completely budding for this man who has captured her heart, loins, and imagination. This is the fourth audiobook in a series of six. Listeners who want to continue the story in sequence can do so with The Master's Little Jewel: An Age-Play Novelette. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Book one of R. Greco's six-part age-play series introduces the evolving relationship of a non-lifestyle dom and a sexually adventurous divorcee, starting with a serendipitous online chat and a lust-at-first-sight hookup, which careens into uncharted territory for Kay when Jon draws out her latent submissive tendencies. The downside to their intense D/s bonding: he lives in New York and she resides in California. Once she returns home, determined to explore the possibilities of a future together, they utilize all the modern electronic tools at their disposal to indulge in long distance Daddy and Little scenarios while exploring ways to get together again in person. Before the end of this portion of their story, Kay occupies herself with some local, and very naughty, sexual activities that allow her normally more dominant persona to emerge, and of course she shares the details of her escapades with Jon to spice up their bi-coastal games of dominance and submission. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We're talking with Laura Sanchez-Greenberg.  She's the founder of Verde Associates… a performance acceleration firm focusing on transforming individuals and the companies they lead. She's incredible and a true expert on grit and perseverance.  And… as you listen, you'll hear some simple but powerful strategies to beat that feeling of “meh” that can creep in.  You know.  Covid's causing a lot of our days to be the same.  Plus, now that a lot of us are facing cold temps… so we're feeling more limited on the stuff we can do. So yeah… we need some real-world strategies to beat the crap out of the “meh.”  THAT is what we're talking about and I think you're going to love it!  Let's get to this! RESOURCES: Dr. Fredrickson's Positivity Self-Test:  Here's where you can Track your Positivity on Dr. Fredrickson's website and some of her interventions to increase positivity resonance. Go to “tools” on the website menu and click on “positivity self-test”  - it will give you your positivity ratio for the day and also track it across time. It's got some neat features which is that it will let you map too.  Positive Image, Positive Action: The Affirmative Basis of Organizing: Laura mentions a study by David L. Cooperrider from Case Western Reserve University.  Download the study here.  The “Implications for management” around positivity starts on pg 14, but a really good read overall.  Enjoy! “We are sometime truly going to see our life as positive, not negative, as made up of continuous willing, not of constraints and prohibition.” – Mary Parker Follett.  TRAVIS ENSLEY: Manage Time & Live Intentionally Laura and I got connected through my good friend and DTD guest, Travis Ensley.  So, I wanted you to have access to his episode too!:  www.mitchmatthews.com/182    Laura is a true “PRACTITIONER SCHOLAR.”   She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business... a certificate in Change Management from Harvard Business School, and has studied Group Dynamics and Organizational Design from Georgetown University, and Negotiation and Mediation at the University of Chicago.  Plus, Laura is currently pursuing her PhD in Values Based Leadership.  Specifically... her research focuses on strategies and traits of teams that have experienced accelerated growth and maintained excellent cultural, people, and financial success.   And… as you guys know… at DREAM THINK DO… we're always encouraging experimenting and stretching yourself… and Laura is a big believer in this too! So much so that in addition to the academics… Laura has trained in improv, culinary arts, and she's certified in over 25 different types of assessments. Yeah… she's wicked smaaaat and pure awesome.  So let's get to the conversation. EPISODE MINUTE BY MINUTE: 0:02 Welcome to episode 308 1:32 The Dream Think Do App is coming! 3:46 Get to know Laura 5:52 Conversion starts 5:57 How Laura became passionate about the topic of positivity 7:44 Practical tools for being positive 12:58 Small things that lead to big impact 15:26 You have to start slow 16:32 Novelette vs. new 21:17 Practical ways to beat the “meh” 25:01 Lauras encouragement to you today 25:58 Mitch's biggest takeaways LET'S HEAR FROM YOU! I want to hear from you.  What's something that stood out to you?  What's something you're going to try as the result?  Comment below and let me know.  Can't wait to hear about YOUR experiments.

What is a novelette? And why would you write one, instead of a novel or a short story?

Join Alison as she Concludes her conversations with Novelette Aldred, on being a counsellor to prisoners, pre-marital couples, married and her journey to becoming a Chaplain.  Novelette believes that The philosophy of counselling is like a journey from despair to hope; with strong emphasis of...

Join Alison as she speaks with Novelette Aldred, on being a counsellor to prisoners, pre-marital couples, married and her journey to becoming a Chaplain.  Novelette believes that The philosophy of counselling is like a journey from despair to hope; with strong emphasis of respect and...

Nothing is more important to a rapid release author than writing consistently. One of the best ways to do that is to have clear deadlines and word count goals. Are you using them? In today's episode, we're going to talk about word counts – why they matter, how to leverage them, and when to ignore the rules. Most importantly, we'll also determine how they're important when Rapid Releasing. Be sure to check out the show notes by going to authorrevolution.org/31.

The final chapter of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. You can check out all my published works on nicholasmcgirr.com or on Amazon. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

Chapter 7 of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

Chapter 6 of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

Chapter 5 of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

Chapter 4 of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

Chapter 3 of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

Chapter 2 of The Life Tree. I am not a professional narrator. Please excuse all stutters and outside noise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

During quarantining, I will post my novelette, The Life Tree chapter by chapter, day by day to help with your boredom. I an by no means a professional narrator, please excuse any hiccups, coughs or outside noises. Enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/storiesinthecemetery/support

First Contact - by Murray Leinster.  First Contact is credited as featuring one of the first instances of a universal translator in science fiction.  Receiver of a retro Hugo Award in 1996.  Novelette originally published in 1945.  Adapted by Howard Rodman for the radio series X Minus One for broadcast in 1955.  Additionally adapted for podcast by Auditory Entertainments.

This episode we’re reading Short Story Collections! We talk about the differences between collections and anthologies, when a short story is too long, futurespeak, and how little Charles Dickens knows about writing. Plus: Accidentally buying Canadians. You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Books We Read This Month (or tried to read…) All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva Robots vs. Fairies edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe Gutshot by Amelia Gray The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 edited by N.K. Jemisin Three Deaths by Josip Novakovich Fantastic Adventures How Long till Black Future Month by N.K. Jemisin Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville Her Bodies and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado Hark! Episode 212: Strawberry Equinox (with the neck ribbon story) Gothic Tales of Haunted Love edited by Hope Nicholson and S.M. Beiko Other books Meghan read Useful Phrases for Immigration by May-lee Chai Wedding in Autumn and Other Stories by Chiung-Yu Shih Lonesome Bodybuilder: Stories by Yukiko Motoya The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada A Manual for Cleaning Women: Collected Stories by Lucia Berlin Bad Endings by Carleigh Baker Can RJ Recommend a Book by a Trans Author in this Genre? A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett Maiden Mother Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction Other Media We Mention Hellboy Series Itty Bitty Hellboy by Art Baltazar and Franco Flight Series Beyond: the Queer Sci-Fi & Fantasy Comic Anthology Lightspeed Magazine Strange Horizons Borne by Jeff VanderMeer Zombies Vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers (anthology with a story by RJ!) Links, Articles, and Things Nebula Rules Short Story: less than 7,500 words; Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words; Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words Novel: 40,000 words or more. Game Writing: An interactive or playable story-driven work which conveys narrative, character, or story background. Picaresque novel January 1998 North American ice storm Suggest new genres! Fill out the form to suggest genres! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, April 16th for our 75th episode when we’ll be discussing other books and media we've been imbibing! Then come back on Tuesday, May 7th when we’ll be talking about the genre of Fairy Tales/Fables/Legends/Myths/Folklore!

http://www.rubysfostervillage.org Brains Novelette Bowen is a Foster Mom, Transformational Speaker and Coach. Her passion is speaking, coaching and creating a bigger voice for change for at-risk young men to maximize their fullest potential. She is also the Founder /Executive Director of Ruby’s  Foster Village Inc    

So, this was the episode that got postponed from October.  I'm presenting my short story/novella* "Varcolac," which is long enough I felt safe in splitting it in two.  No qualms there."Varcolac" is the second Western story I ever wrote, but it differs from "Birth of a Sidekick" in that it's a Weird Western (if that's what a Western combined with another genre is called, in this case, Mystery or Horror).  Give it a listen, y'all.Go right ahead and download the show, when you Right-Click HERE.Destined to be a Patreon Supporter?  Well, just go HERE.*Novelette?  Don't get me started.

The George Wilder Jr. Show is now in the Air. GUEST: Whitney Hogans MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ONE SHOW AT A TIME.  YOUR TALENT WILL ENDURE HARDSHIP WHERE THERE IS LACK OF RELATIONSHIP.  HATE HAS NO HOME HERE. BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER, IT IS SO EASY. Christmas is Coming, be sure to pick the Novelette, 'FINDING CHRISMAS'  AMAZON KINDLE. GO TO:  http://www.amazon.com/author/gwilder

The George Wilder Jr. Show is now in the Air. GUEST: Shanta Gabriel MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ONE SHOW AT A TIME.  YOUR TALENT WILL ENDURE HARDSHIP WHERE THERE IS LACK OF RELATIONSHIP.  HATE HAS NO HOME HERE. BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER, IT IS SO EASY. Christmas is Coming, be sure to pick the Novelette, 'FINDING CHRISMAS'  AMAZON KINDLE. GO TO:  http://www.amazon.com/author/gwilder

The George Wilder Jr. Show is now in the Air. GUEST: Cristina Carballo MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ONE SHOW AT A TIME.  YOUR TALENT WILL ENDURE HARDSHIP WHERE THERE IS LACK OF RELATIONSHIP.  HATE HAS NO HOME HERE. BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER, IT IS SO EASY. Christmas is Coming, be sure to pick the Novelette, 'FINDING CHRISMAS'  AMAZON KINDLE. GO TO:  http://www.amazon.com/author/gwilder

The George Wilder Jr. Show is now in the Air. GUEST: DOUGLAS SANDERS.  MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ONE SHOW AT A TIME.  YOUR TALENT WILL ENDURE HARDSHIP WHERE THERE IS LACK OF RELATIONSHIP.  HATE HAS NO HOME HERE. BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER, IT IS SO EASY. Christmas is Coming, be sure to pick the Novelette, 'FINDING CHRISMAS'  AMAZON KINDLE. GO TO:  http://www.amazon.com/author/gwilder

What a fascinating discussion this week's Doctor Who episode lends itself to. Join Deb, Erika, and Tansy as we discuss women who are allowed to fail and still be heroes, the sexual politics of Romans, the Doctor's (possible?) impatience, Bill's outlook on history and its denizens, Nardole as a "space tourist", and much more. Erika, of all people, even has a cracktastic fan theory about the next season of the show. Incredibly unlikely, but kinda fun, depending on your outlook. What did you think about this story? Was it slight? Were the stakes high? Was the monster the point? Was the doctor impatient or irritable or something else? What's up with Missy? SO MANY QUESTIONS. Please feel free to play in the comment section like it's one big happy fandom sandbox. ^E Also covered: Tansy Kickstarts a fabulous speculative fiction anthology of diverse, challenging stories about gender and AI, which we have all backed, and you should too! attends the Australian National Science Fiction Convention and won a Ditmar Award for Best Novella or Novelette for "Did We Break the End of the World?", from Defying Doomsday! Erika flashes back to #shelfwars as she and Steven prepare to move their DW materiel to a new apartment. Deb wants the epic flirty snark that James Goss wrote between Captain Jack and Jackie Tyler in the new Big Finish audio, The Lives of Captain Jack #2!

Get back to your roots! “If you want to know a black woman, you touch her hair,” says Novelette of the clients in her Toronto hair salon. ‘da Kink is raw, energetic theatre, showcasing eight fascinating, multi-faceted women. With riffs on sexuality, families and inner lives, this theatrical kaleidoscope is accompanied by live rhythm-and-blues and gospel music. A joyous and triumphant hit, this hugely popular work by writer/ performer Trey Anthony kicks off the English Theatre season with style. “‘da Kink was a revolution when it sprang from the Toronto Fringe to land on the main stage of the Mirvish season in 2005. The script is so entertaining and so moving I jumped at the opportunity to work with Theatre Calgary to bring this beloved work back to Canadian audiences.” – Jillian Keiley, Artistic director, NAC English Theatre

Leslie & Alyssa critique the opening of Mark S.R. Peterson's novelette, Guest of Honor. They discuss the suspense genre, prepositions, present tense, tension, characterization, and point of view.

King Tideby Alison WilgusSome particular trick of the moon, the weather, and the Earth's closeness to the sun had pulled the tide all the way to 5th Avenue, a good half-block further uphill than usual. The city had put out an alert, so Jordyn knew to clear out the basement ahead of time. Their landlord was smart enough to have the foundation sealed years ago—that would be fine—but there wasn't much to be done for cardboard boxes and old futons. Those had to be kept above the tide line, or they were garbage.Full Transcript appears under the cut:----more----[Intro music plays]Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 10 for June 11, 2015. I'm your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.It's only been a few days since I uploaded last week's episode, but I'm back. One of the other things that happened last weekend is that the Nebula Awards were given out. If you're not up on a lot of the science fiction awards, these are given out by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and are voted on by the professional writers who are members of that organization.I'll provide a link to the complete short list in the transcript, (Nebula Awards) but I'd also like to congratulate the winners on the show.So!The winner of Best Novel was Jeff VanderMeer for Annihilation.Novella - which is like a really short book - went to Nancy Kress for Yesterday's Kin.Novelette - which is like a really long short story - went to Alaya Dawn Johnson for "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i"And short story went to Ursula Vernon for "Jackalope Wives."The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult SF&F went to Alaya Dawn Johnson for Love Is the Drug.Congratulations to all the winners!Our story this week is "King Tide" by Alison Wilgus.Alison Wilgus is a writer of comics and prose, and currently working on nonfiction graphic novels for First Second Books. She also draws her own comics about space, cats, monster hunting, and very occasionally herself. She lives in Brooklyn.She is also one of the co-editors at The Sockdolager, which is a semiprozine at sockdolager.net. You may also remember the comics anthology called Beyond, which is an all-ages queer science fiction and fantasy comics anthology edited by Sfé R. Monster and Taneka Stotts. Alison wrote one of the comics for that anthology, which was illustrated by Anissa Espinoza. You can find more information about Beyond at beyondanthology.comKing Tideby Alison WilgusSome particular trick of the moon, the weather, and the Earth's closeness to the sun had pulled the tide all the way to 5th Avenue, a good half-block further uphill than usual. The city had put out an alert, so Jordyn knew to clear out the basement ahead of time. Their landlord was smart enough to have the foundation sealed years ago—that would be fine—but there wasn't much to be done for cardboard boxes and old futons. Those had to be kept above the tide line, or they were garbage.Her girlfriend, Mia, had paused on the first floor landing to breathe, a disintegrating tomb of Jordyn's family albums clutched in her hands. Its weight eased for a moment as she rested an edge on the railing. "We should toss these," Mia had said. "You digitized them years ago.""Oh, but it's not the same," Jordyn had said, and it wasn't.Now she sat cross-legged on their bed while Mia showered, a stack of albums on the duvet beside her and another open in her lap. She peered at the careful handwriting under each photograph, names and dates and in-jokes, most of them incomprehensible. The photos had been taken with cell phones and carefully printed out, an anachronism even then. Her grandmother had pressed hard when she wrote, and as Jordyn ran her fingertips over the pages she could feel indentations beneath the ink. The album smelled of dust and old glue and a worrying hint of mildew.Jordyn had copied one—taken a photo of a photo, found a place up in Bushwick that still did small print jobs, bought a silver frame secondhand at the Brooklyn Bazaar—and set it on the wooden dresser beside their bed. Her grandmother had taken it decades ago, when her mother was a little girl and the Gowanus canal only rarely ventured out onto the streets.In the photo, a small, smiling version of Jordyn's mother sat on the stoop of her grandparents' house. She was an almost-copy of herself: curly black hair, brown skin, freckles on her cheeks and bare shoulders. The house was yellow brick, with white-washed iron bars over the windows and a little flower garden tucked between the concrete stoop and the stairs down to the cellar. Her grandparents had bought it in the 1970s for very little money, and, at the time the photograph was taken, were rightly smug about their foresight. Back then they could have sold it for a million dollars to developers who'd have cheerfully replaced it with a narrow stack of condos.They'd stopped using the cellar after Hurricane Oscar. Hurricane Andrea had ruined the curtains and the carpets on the first floor, and they’d been forced to sell the house for little more than it cost to buy a new car.Jordyn lived just up the hill, now. The yellow house in her picture wasn't large—two stories and a basement—but on most days, its top story rose out of the lagoon. She liked to look at it from her roof in the late afternoon, when the warm golden sunshine made it look buttery and romantic. Like it had sounded in her mother's stories, back when she was still alive to tell them.The pipes thumped as Mia turned off the water. She walked out the bathroom in a cloud of steam, her stout brown body naked and dripping as she toweled off her hair. "Moon's out," she said.Jordyn closed the album in her lap and set it on top of the others. The bed creaked as she slid to the edge, tucked her feet into her slippers, stood up; she stretched her arms above her head and her muscles resettled. "It's a King Tide," she said. "Highest this year. By a lot."Mia pulled her head through a cotton tee shirt. "We should drink a couple beers on the roof.""Hah! In winter?"Mia shrugged.Jordyn opened the door to their apartment, then turned the lock so that the deadbolt would catch on the frame and keep the door ajar. Theirs was the top floor; they climbed one flight of steep marble stairway to the roof. Two bottles clinked together in Mia's hand, held by their necks between her fingers.The winter had been mild, but little mounds of rotten snow hid in the shadows, and Jordyn rubbed her arms through her sweatshirt as she walked across the tarpaper. Through the steam of her breath, she looked out over a city of brick and stone and water. Behind her swelled the high-rent higher ground of Park Slope, dry townhouses climbing up the hill to Prospect Park, Flatbush, Windsor Terrace, Crown Heights. Neighborhoods that emptied this time of year, when everyone escaped to their condos in Georgia.Before her, an archipelago.Real estate agents had started calling it "Gowanus Beach," which Jordyn thought was pretty misleading, even by real estate standards. At least when people said Red Hook was "The Venice of Kings County" that evoked a useful image: water-stained townhouses and floating wooden walkways, plastic kayaks tied up in front of corner bodegas, tanned women in sundresses puttering around in little zodiacs with outboard motors, the East River lapping at second story windowsills. "Gowanus Beach" implied sand, maybe sea-smooth stones, even the muddy shore of a lake. Nothing about "beach" said crumbling asphalt, or concrete gnawed away by the tides, or exposed rebar skeletons crumbling into rust, or the bloated carcasses of cheap student furniture bobbing up from drowned garden apartments.The wind was wet and heavy. Jordyn shivered and looked down at the rippling gray water. The tide had swallowed her grandparents' house entirely.Mia popped their bottles open on the low brick wall of the facade. They stood in the cold and looked at the city, at the full moon in the blue evening sky, at the waves. A trash barge puttered along the street below, pausing every half-block for building supers to add to its load. Jordyn could hear the siren of a fire boat, but couldn’t see the boat itself, nor the smoke.Jordyn took a sip from her beer, which was warm and tasted of hops and cardamom. "The tide's supposed to drop all the way down past Fourth Ave," she said. "I thought I might go for a walk."Mia pursed her lips. "It'll be dark.""It hasn't gone out this far in years.""Still." Mia nursed her beer in silence for a while, time measured out in the swish-pop of her sips. "When was your last tetanus shot?""Couple years ago. Remember? I fell off Madison's dock."Mia sighed. "Wear your reef shoes, all right?"The sirens faded. Jordyn stepped into the warm space beside Mia's body and slid an arm around her thick waist, tucking her hand into the far pocket of Mia's coat. "I'll be fine," she said.Anticipation kept Jordyn from sleeping soundly, and she woke before her alarm. She had dreamed about riding the old subway system her mother had told her about. She dressed by the amber light of the street lamps, pulled a coat on over her wetsuit, slipped her feet into her reef shoes. Kissed Mia on the forehead and closed their bedroom door.Mia had set the big flashlight to charge before they'd gone to bed. Jordyn took it, and her set of keys, locked up the apartment, descended the stairway in rubber-soled silence, and stepped out onto the empty sidewalk. The water was gone, but the tree wells were frozen with mud.As Jordyn walked downhill toward Fourth Avenue, below the usual tideline, she had to pick her away around soggy timber, hunks of old insulation, rusted soda cans, tangled knots of plastic shopping bags—the usual trail of city detritus left behind by high tide. She passed under the elevated boardwalk running along the east side of the avenue, a tourist attraction some mayor had built when she was a little girl. The wreckage of a gull had caught on one of the pilings.Beyond the boardwalk, crumbling asphalt dissolved into a sort of coarse black gravel, bits of the roadbed mixed in with the sand and soil and stones that had once supported it. In places, the steel tubes and concrete cylinders of the old infrastructure were exposed—gas lines, water mains, sewers, electricity. Round black holes gaped open, liquid noises echoing up from underground. Most of the old manhole covers had been stolen by trophy hunters years ago. Jordyn chose her steps carefully, eyes on the ground.Once she reached the buildings on the far side of the avenue, she paused to look behind her. Only the foolish or the desperate would eat anything fished out of the Gowanus lagoon, but the boardwalk was crowded with seafood restaurants hoping to capitalize on the maritime atmosphere. Their neon signs still winked at her from above shuttered doors and windows, criss-crossed by the black silhouettes of utility lines.The canals of the lagoon were lit, but not well, and the low tide made the landscape unsettling and strange. Buildings were taller than she remembered; boats moored in shallow water now rested on the ground.The lagoon had retreated to a few yards below the avenue. Jordyn switched on the flashlight and waded in one cautious step at a time, careful not to shift her weight forward until she was sure of her footing.The water was cold. Her toes were numb within half a block, but that was fine. The soles of her shoes were tough enough for nails and glass, and she didn't have far to go.In the LED glow of her flashlight, the yellow brick house looked almost white. For a disoriented moment, she wondered if she'd gone down the wrong street, or misremembered which side of it the building was on. Someone—a thief, an interim owner, the tide—had taken the bars from the lower-story windows. And the brick was striped with stains, each line a marker of the lagoon's creeping progress uphill.But the black iron numbers hanging above the door were the same. This was thehouse, reclaimed from the tide, if only for tonight. From this stoop, her mother had watched the water come.Jordyn was up to her waist in the lagoon. Her feet still had some feeling left, and she poked around with them under the night-black water, looking for the first step. Finding it, she climbed the uneven stairs, water running down the legs of her wetsuit and dripping from the saturated hem of her coat, to finally sit on the stoop, her back against the font door. Her feet were still in the water, and it tickled as it lapped around her ankles.She dried her hands off on her hair, then tugged her phone out of a waterproof pouch in her jacket. She held it up in front of her, looked into its little black eye, and smiled.END"King Tide" was originally published by Terraform in December of 2014.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I’ll have another story for you on June 18th.[Music plays out]

The "Baby Boyz Dance Group" is a group of eight diversely trained male dancers under the direction of Artistic Director and choreographer, Trevor Brown. The company incorporates many genres weaving a creative identity that is compelling, moving, athletic and explosive dedicated to the creation of original works that celebrate the power and scope of the imagination with an emphasis placed on incorporating social messages in their work. The "Baby Boyz Dance Group" puts the D' in dancehall, while highlighting the artistry indicative in hip - hop and progressively connects both genres to dances of African and contemporary influences. The "Baby Boyz Dance Group" have appeared internationally in videos of Sean Paul and Rihanna and have shared performance venues with the likes of LL Cool J and Jully Black, among others. In 2009, they performed at the Legends of Hip Hop concert in which Chris Brown participated. In 2007 they performed at the prestigious Panafest festival in Ghana, West Africa. In this episode, we speak and share with Sheldon Steel, one of the members of "The Baby Boyz Dance Group". Shelodon talks about various subjects such as how the group was started, how he become involved with the group, the preparation needed for one of their shows and the group's trip to Ghana in 2007. The "Baby Boyz Dance Group" is holding it's fifth annual fundraiser and dinner dance and gala on February 12, 2011 at the Chandni Gateway Banquet Hall at 5 Gateway Boulevard in Brampton, Ontario (http://www.chandnibanquethalls.com/). The event starts at 6:00 p.m. Dinner is at 7:00 p.m. The dress code is formal. The event will feature The Baby Boyz Dance Group and other performers. For more information, please call Novelette at (647) 746-8609 or Paulene at (647) 866-0245. "Dance Immersion" proudly presents the Baby Boyz Dance Group in an urban dance story for its 2011 Annual Showcase presentation. The world premiere of Three Boyz, Three Countries & One Dream runs March 24-26, 2011 at 8 p.m. at Enwave Theatre as part of Harbourfront Centre's NextSteps. This exciting new dance-theatre work is about three young men from Africa, Jamaica and Canada who share the same dream to be the best no matter what life has to throw at them. All three men share one dream, but none of them could guess where that dream would lead - or how it would impact their lives and the lives around them. If you want to find out more information about the "Baby Boyz Dance Group" and "Dance Immersion", go to:http://babyboyzent.com/ ; (Website) babyboyz_ent@hotmail.com (email)http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/babyboyz.dancegroup (Facebook) Feel free to email us at info@blackcanadianman.com. If you live in North America, you can leave us a voice mail at 1-866-280-9385 (toll free). God bless, peace, be well and keep the faith, Vibe and Vegas info@blackcanadianman.comhttp://thevibeandvegasshow.wordpress.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/vibeandvegas