The Canadian Mounted

If, like me, you pay attention to when books appear in movies, you might be familiar with the mass market paperback that John Candy (Del Griffith) is reading in PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES.

 

Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson) holds the same (or at least a strikingly similar) paperback in DEADPOOL 2. It seems to be a cheeky nod to Candy's character in that classic film. Reynolds has publicly acknowledged being a fan of John Candy and his work.

After being fascinated for years about that hilarious paperback I've decided the world actually needs this book.

So in Oct 2022, 35 years after the original release of the John Hughes classic where the book first appeared as a prop, it'll be coming out.

My version of THE CANADIAN MOUNTED is a combo trivia book and appreciation of PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES as well as John Candy and John Hughes.

The eBook is up for pre-order already. The paperback version will be loaded soon.

And I've been having a blast researching this book.

The Prop Book That Keeps on Popping Up!

Yes, the cover of this book looks a lot like the one Del Griffith (John Candy) is reading at the New York airport in the 1987 movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles. That same book also appears in 2018's Deadpool 2. But prior to now, it was only a fictional prop book. This actual incarnation of The Canadian Mounted explores the use of this prop book and many other intriguing, insightful and entertaining behind-the-scenes details as they relate to the classic 1987 John Hughes film.

Created for fans of the movie and of John Hughes, this book explores and shares stories related to the writing and making of the film, curious tales and collected trivia associated with it, including:

• The incident that inspired Hughes to write the original script
• Del-isms
• The film's eclectic sound-track
• Missing Oxford commas
• Deleted scenes
• Ryan Reynolds' adoration of fellow Canadian John Candy
• General trivia
• And more...

If you love and regularly re-watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles, then this is a book you must read.

Dark Between Pages Live Chat

I had the opportunity to chat with Nichi of Dark Between Pages the other day during an hour long live chat. Okay, we went one hour and eighteen minutes. But that's because the chat was so fun, and the folks watching and commenting during that chat were so lively and entertaining.

We spent quite a bit of time talking about my Canadian Werewolf series . . .

Canadian Werewolf Series

Though we talked about all kinds of other writing things too, including my background helping authors steer clear of the predators and thieves trying to trick authors out of their money using a combination of "smoke and mirrors," false promises, and highly exaggerated "results" from their useless marketing packages.

It was a load of fun. It's always a grand time talking to someone who adores books.

Teaser for THIS TIME AROUND

 There are a couple of audio/video teasers for the first story in my "Canadian Werewolf" series which introduces readers to my main character, Michael Andrews.

 

The first one is a basic audio with animated audio waves and transcription on it which I made using Headliner.

 

The second one is a collection of videos and still images with an appropriate soundtrack to accompany the opening text of the story. This is one I made using Camtasia from TechSmith.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets Logan

 My latest book in the Canadian Werewolf series, Stowe Away, which launched today, has been described as "Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets Logan."

Perhaps because it's about a man with enhanced strength and senses (a la the character of Wolverine) on a cross-country road trip with a young girl who is he trying to protect; but with some of the misadventures, detours, and slight humor of the John Hughes classic.

Stowe Away (Book 1.5) is a novella length story that takes place about one year after the events in A Canadian Werewolf in New York (Book 1), and about another year before the events in Fear and Longing in Los Angeles (Book 2), which is releasing in Feb 2021.

Michael Andrews is an Alpha Wolf and Beta Human trying to live a normal life in the Big Apple while living with the side-effects of being a werewolf. During the right phase of the moon, he turns into a grey wolf, with no control, or memory of the experience from his human brain.

In the novel, Michael is desperate to get to Stowe, Vermont, to be there for his best friend, Gail. Without a driver's license or a passport, he is unable to rent a car or fly there, so he boards a train. Only, there are a couple of challenges in his way:

• The train arrives about half an hour after sunset, and it's "that time of the month" for this werewolf
• There is a young woman being stalked by a human predator and Michael being Michael, is obligated to ensure her safety and escape from harm 
  

The book (and the previous titles in the series) is part of a re-branding, and is available in Print (Hardcover and Trade Paperback), eBook, and Audiobook simultaneously. The audiobooks are read by Scott Overton.

Stowe Away and the other books in the series, are available to order through most online bookstores, through your favorite local bookstore, as well as via your local library.

Dramatic Exit: A Stupid Dad Joke Short Film

I have long enjoyed sharing Dad Jokes. Heck, long before I became a father I had been a connoisseur of eye-rolling puns and stupid humor.

I'm also fascinated with adaptations of elements from one form into another.

The first example of this is a cartoon from Leigh Rubin.

My cousin sent it to me. It's a funny cartoon, but the guy in it also looks a little bit like me. (Same head and hair facial style, at least - I'm not quite so thin).

I thought it might be funny to translate the cartoon into a short video.

And came up with a new series that I'm calling A Stupid Dad Joke Short Film.

Yes, that's 35 seconds of your life that you'll never get back.

Enjoy.

Making an Omelette from Broken Egg Yolks

Liz and I have been enjoying writing parody lyrics, recording them to old karaoke tracks, and then making a music video to go along with them.

There's nothing like knowing that you've inspire smiles and laughter from others.

We'd only done it once, but it came from a half dozen ideas we'd been kicking around during quarantine.

"Stuck in the Middle with You" Parody

So we looked for a duet that we could do.

One of my favorite all-time duets is "Islands in the Stream" written by the Bee Gees but made famous by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

We toyed with the lyrics, wanting to tell the tale of a couple that learns how to share their home workspace, and their often struggling home internet connection.

It was, to us, a nice parallel to the previous parody we'd done "Stuck in This House With You" where a couple comes to terms with being isolated together. Whereas that one was about personal relationships, this new parody would be about discovering that same respect for the other person's new "work from home" life.

The song was titled "Sharing Broadband Streams."

Sharing Broadband Streams stills from video

We recorded it a few weekends ago, but we couldn't get over the fact that there were parts of the song that, no matter how many times we tried to re-record it (and trust me, we re-recorded it dozens and dozens of times), we just couldn't get it.

I tried to do some audio enhancement to adjust the lyrical tracks, to at least try to slightly mask my off-key caterwauling, but not even auto-tune programs could resurrect this "The Singing Dead."

Liz wanted to scrap the entire project.

She is a perfectionist. I take more of a "it's good enough, let's throw it out there and see if it sticks" kind of guy.

We clashed creatively. As we do. I relented.

I was frustrated; because I felt the song was pretty good. (And by that, I meant, the parody lyrics were pretty good. The singing - well, it was my singing after all, it almost approached what one might say "not too nauseating.")

But then Liz came up with an idea. A brilliant idea.

She said that there were parts of the main chorus that weren't that bad. She wondered if we could use that, and also create a few other songs and present them together in a medley format.

As we brainstormed further, the idea of doing a K-Tel spoof commercial arose. We must have watched about twenty minutes of those hokey commercials from the 1970s and 1980s.

Then we set about recording the different tracks, and Liz began scripting out how the corresponding video would work.

We came up with Kay-Tell (a fake imprint based on the original) and a compilation album called STILL STUCK, STILL WITH YOU, STILL IN THIS HOUSE.

Kay-Tell Presents: Still Stuck, Still with You, Still in this House

It's something that turned out not that bad, in my humble opinion.

I suppose the lesson in this creative exercise is that I had initially been wasting energy being frustrated with the broken egg yolks I had when I'd planned on preparing a dish of over easy fried eggs. It was difficult for me to see past that, until Liz, looking at those eggs, looked around the kitchen for a few other things to throw into the dish, to turn it into a marvelous omelette.

Hope that you enjoy this omelette, and also that the lesson inspires you to think to look around your own kitchen for how you might be able to do the same thing with your own creative projects.

(Oh, and the original title for this used the term "broken egg yokes" because I was trying to layer in a play on words. Yoke as in an alternative term for a joke. But then I changed it because I was worried the mis-spelling might be too confusing.)

Spud Wars: A New Hopelessness (A Star Wars Parody)

As a writer, I have, lately, been recognizing the value of recycling, or re-using, old material into newer forms.

Come to think of it, perhaps I have regularly taken that approach. I'm only just starting to recognize it now.

"I, Death," a 1000 word short story I wrote in the mid 1980s in my second year of high school was re-imagined into a serialized horror story in blog format in 2006. That same story was slightly revised and rolled out again in 2012, and then it was later adapted into a novel that came out in 2014.

A ghost story that I made up to scare students when I was teaching drama as part of a summer program at Carleton University (Prospero's Ghost) was re-adapted over the years to be set within the context of almost every new bookstore I worked at between 1992 and 2008, to entertain and frighten fellow bookstore employees. That story then got re-envisioned to take place at McMaster University when Kimberly Foottit and I co-authored "Prospero's Ghost" to be included in the anthology Campus Chills, which was released in 2009.

And yesterday, for May the Fourth, 2020. I released a silly parody video called Spud Wars: A New Hopelessness.

Spud Wars: A New Hopelessness

I spent a few hours on Sunday May 3rd working on the parody, which basically stars me playing every role, with not much in terms of costumes, makeup, or even acting ability, a Darth Tater Mr. Potato Head, and our dog, Maya. I then added in a few visual effects.

It is, of course, silly, and self-reflective, and produced with virtually no budget and a hastily written outline.

Of course, the parody video was based on the Spud Wars series rolled out on this blog, originally in 2006, and then re-vised and re-edited/crafted in 2011.

Spud Wars: The original text/photo story

That original Spud Wars series was a text and photo based serialized story inspired by a a simple photo I'd taken of myself unmasking Darth Tater.

The original storyline, of course, actually had somewhat of a plot, which involves Darth Tater wanting to get revenge because I ate his father (as a plate of French Fries the night before) - he attacks, I am knocked out. The story continues in The Carb-Eater Strikes Back where I seek help from the wise old Yoda-figure mentor, Mister Bunny. He advises me to "use the forks" which I do to defeat the spud. The story continues in Return of the Spud-Eye where Darth also seeks help from the same old master, who advises that he clone himself.

At that point, the story devolves in terms of storyline and trying to parallel the original Star Wars movies, because the next chapter is Darth Comes Knocking - and then trying to adapt cloning into it (in recognition of the Star Wars prequel movies), with titles like Darth's Revenge Part I and Part II, followed by Mark's Last Stand where I am defeated by the clone army of Taters.

I then, of course, adapted a picture of Alexander man-handling my camera when he was about 18 months old . . .

The story continues with Alex Attacks and then more episodes, including images of Alexander fighting a bunch of the Tater clones in The Final Standoff, then coming to a truce and playing video games (because all this violence makes them want to play video games) in All This Violence.

It was supposed to end there, but I'm a sucker for cliffhanger endings, and so had someone creeping up on them at the end of that one, and the story ends with Spud Wars: The Conclusion and Spud Wars: Epilogue.

It was a fun 12 part serialized story.

Of course, writing a parody script to a few images and shooting an entire sequence of these things are two different things. Alexander most certainly wouldn't participate in it with me, and he's no longer 18 months old. He is 15. Most of the additional Star Wars Mr. Potato Head figures are in Liz's office at the school, so I only had the one Darth Tater in my office at home to use. Not to mention, I had less than 24 hours from conception of the movie trailer parody to wanting to release it on May the Fourth, Star Wars Day.

That is why the recent adaptation is so different than the original scrip.

The lesson, of course, is a concrete example of why the movie version and the original text-based version are so different.

No wait, the lesson is that re-adapting and re-imagining an idea can take many different forms and formats, over the years. It's all part of the creative process of being a storyteller.

Well that's neat. I started writing this thinking there would be a lesson about re-using and re-cycling ideas into different forms and I also ended up exploring one of the many reasons why a movie adaptation of a book, or comic can't possibly be the same thing, that it has to become it's own unique  entity, it's own unique experience.

Two conclusions for the price of one.

I'll take that as a win.

Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction

On Wednesday April 22, 2020, I'll be presenting in one of Jane Friedman's online classes.

Jane is a consistently reliable authoritative source of solid information about the writing and publishing industry. Her blog and The Hotsheet are two amazing resources I regularly consume. I'm honored that I get to participate in one of her online workshops.

Creating Income & Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction

The course is $20 USD and will be a video chat where I'll be talking through several of the examples that Matty Dalrymple and I wrote about in our February 2020 book, Taking the Short Tack.

I will share many of the examples that we write about in the book as well several other options and examples with the goal of informing and inspiring authors on how they can leverage their short fiction IP in multiple ways.

There's Something Here As Strong As Life

"Suddenly you were gone

From all the lives you left your mark upon

- I remember."

-Neil Peart, Afterimage, Grace Under Pressure (RUSH)

Earlier this week the world lost legendary drummer and author Neil Peart. Peart, who was born on Sept 12, 1952 in Hamilton, Ontario died in Santa Monica on Jan 7, 2020. RUSH and Peart's family made the announcement late on Friday Jan 10th.

“It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate of over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer,” began a statement from Rush. He was 67.

I first learned about Peart when my dear friend Pete Mihajic insisted that I listen to the 1984 album, Grace Under Pressure.

I had been spending a lot of time thinking and reading about anxieties over potential nuclear war and gotten involved in some nuclear disarmament groups. Pete said that this RUSH album had themes that were reminiscent. Certainly, the album's first track "Distant Early Warning" brought that to mind, as did many of the other tracks, such as "The Enemy Within" and "Red Sector A" - although I later learned of Peart's inspiration for the song of a prison camp being inspired by fellow bandmate Geddy Lee's mother's accounts of surviving the holocaust.

I listened to Grace Under Pressure over and over and over on the cassette tape that Pete recorded for me. Then I went out and bought the album. Then the cassette.

I fell in love with the thoughtful and pensive lyrics, the musical styling, everything about this band.

As an interesting aside, earlier this month an anthology of science fiction stories, Galaxia was published which includes a short story called "Grace Under Pressure" which I'd originally wrote to try to sell to Kevin J. Anderson for an anthology he was editing. Because I knew he was a huge RUSH fan I titled it that as a nod to our favorite band. ;) I didn't sell the story to Kevin, but was able to get it into this other anthology.

Then I bought the album Signals which also resonated with me with songs such as "Subdivisions" and "The Analog Kid" which were stark reminders of growing up as a nerd who never felt like he fit in. I wrote articles for the high school newspaper about how the songs resonated with me.

RUSH became a centerpiece for my friendship with Pete and Steve Gaydos and John Ellis.

 

 

 

 

 

I actually can't count the number of RUSH concerts that we saw together over the years. And I would never be able to count the number of hours we listened to their music and talked about the meaning of the songs. We loved that the guys of RUSH seemed to be more like us (nerds) than they were larger than life rock stars. They were three best friends who thought of one another like brothers and enjoyed making music and playing together for forty years.

 

But I got a little ahead of myself there. After discovering how much I loved Grace Under Pressure and Signals I moved on to get more backlist albums like Fly By Night and their first album, Rush. That first album did not include Peart, and so many of the lyrics weren't as philosophical and pensive. But John and I used to play many tracks from it before heading to high school dances, in particular the song "In The Mood" because it was, as the song lyrics go, roughly "a quarter to eight" when we were listening to it and getting ready to head to the dance.

The title track off of "Fly By Night" has been a song that has been with me through virtually every single significant change in my life over the decades. I first showed up to play it for Steve when he moved away to college, then it became my "acknowledge" change song for so many things.

I, of course, worked my way through all of their albums, and so many of their songs have been the backdrop to the soundtrack of my life in so many ways.

"Hold your fire
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame
'Til the dream ignites
A spirit with a vision
Is a dream with a mission

I hear their passionate music
Read the words
That touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart

When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct
I wish I had that drive"

Neil Peart, Misson, Hold Your Fire (RUSH)

It's rare for me to get into any sort of meaningful conversation about something without likely bringing up something from a RUSH song lyric that pertains to the topic. From songs like "Entre Nous" or "Spirit of Radio" or "Cinderalla Man" or "Circumstances" or "Madrigal" or "Limelight" or "Marathon" or "Mystic Rhythms" or "Dreamline" or "Far Cry" or "Caravan" - oh, who am I kidding? There are too many songs so meaningful to me to mention.

RUSH's music has been an integral part of my life. And it will continue to be.

"Listen to my music

And hear what it can do

There's something here as strong as life

I know that it will reach you."

- Neil Peart, Presentation, 2112 (RUSH)

I met Liz in 2014, just as RUSH was beginning to near retirement. And, as I do, I shared many of the songs and meaning of the band, it's music, and it's trio of amazing people with her. We listened to plenty of their albums together, we watched Beyond the Lighted Stage together. Seeing the back story of this band helped her understand the depth of the importance they had to me. And we attended their final tour, the R40 tour, together, which was really special.

When I found out that Neil Peart also wrote fiction and non-fiction, I was beside myself with joy, gobbling up everything he wrote, from his first co-authored short story to his first non-fiction travel memoir, and all the way through his writing career.

 

I have loved all of his books, but if I had to pick a favorite, it might be Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to my Life and Times. One of my favorite pictures of me and my son when he was a baby, was of the two of us having an afternoon nap. On the nightstand there is a copy of Neil's book, which I was mid-way through reading at the time.

While I never had the pleasure of knowing Neil personally, I am good friends with Kevin J. Anderson, who has long been a close friend of Neil. Considering how private a person Peart was, and the fact that he enjoyed working hard as a drummer, lyricist and writer, but was never comfortable in the role of celebrity and the way that fans fawn over and place them on pedestals, I was perfectly fine never trying to push through that veil. Why make someone uncomfortable for no good reason. I could admire and respect the man and his phenomenal work without having to gush in person to him about the incredibly powerful and positive inspiration he had on my life.

"Living in a fisheye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger
Is a long awaited friend."

- Neil Peart, Limelight, Moving Pictures (RUSH)

The closest I suppose I ever got to him was when I re-published a short story that Neil Peart and Kevin J. Anderson wrote called "Drumbeats" in the 2012 anthology I edited, Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound. Tesseracts was an anthology to spotlight Canadian authors, and Anderson is the only American to make it into the series, because his co-author, Peart, was Canadian.

When my buddy Kevin was in town to launch the novel Clockwork Angels, he stayed at my place in Hamilton, and at the celebratory dinner of the book launch with Peart and ECW, Kevin brought a copy of the anthology so that Neil could sign a copy for me.

 

It was an honour to bring back into print a story that I have long adored. And, earlier this week, I had the privilege of bringing it to more readers, as I have included "Drumbeats" in the guest editor issue of Pulphouse magazine that I just turned in to Dean Wesley Smith and WMG Publishing. It'll be out later this year.

Several years back, Kevin and I were enjoying craft beers on a patio at The Winking Judge in Hamilton when he invited me to submit a story to an anthology he was co-editing that was going to be called 2113 and feature stories inspired by the music of RUSH. The title story would be written by Kevin J. Anderson, and be a sequel to the story told in the RUSH album 2112. He told me to pick a song that hadn't already been spoken for, and to send him something.

I chose one of my absolute favorite RUSH songs, "Losing It" and wrote a story entitled "Some Are Born to Save the World." The beautiful and haunting song, "Losing It" explores the lives of a writer who can no longer create, and a dancer who can no longer dance as they age and their mind and body begin to fail them.

"Some are born to move the world

To live their fantasies

Most of us just dream about

The things we'd like to be

Sadder still to watch it die

Than never to have known it

For you the blind who once could see

The bell tolls for thee"

- Neil Peart, Losing It, Signals, RUSH

My story was about a superhero who could no longer save people as he reaches old age and his own body and powers begin to fail him.

It was a significant honor to re-publish a story co-authored by Anderson and Peart. But it was another truly unique honor to be able to write a story inspired by one of my favorite RUSH songs of all time.

The book cover features the "Starman" from the album cover for 2112 standing up to his knees in water and facing away from the viewer. I can ALWAYS tell a RUSH fan when I have the book at a comic con or other show where I have an author table, because they recognize the font and styling of the cover as matching 2112 from across the room and often stop, turn, then make a bee-line to the table to pick up the book as if it were some magical oracle.

I know that look, because it's likely the look I get on my face every time a RUSH song starts to play.

Because I know I'm about to be transported into some special place.

"As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that you were gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart"

- Neil Peart, Nobody's Hero, Counterparts

I have written and spoken about Neil Peart countless times over the years. The words and music and example that he set continue to inspire me, and will continue to inspire me.

Thank you, Neil Peart, for the amazing gifts that you shared with the world, for the inspiration in all of the truly remarkable work that you left behind.

You will be missed. But you will be remembered and honored.

[EDIT - On Jan 14 I recorded a special Thanks for the Inspiration: Neil Peart episode of my Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing Podcast, which includes a bit of this same info]

FREE Writing Survival Guide

I'm proud to have my work appear in a FREE Writing Survival Guide created to help inspire writers for NaNoWriMo 2019.

Writing about 2,000 words a day isn't hard.

Doing it sustainably is the hard part.

That's why a group of amazing authors got together, under the guidance of Laura Crenshaw, to create 50 pages of useful, inspirational content to help other writers as they dive into 30 days of National Novel Writing Month.

You can check it out and download it here.

Saving The World One Book At A Time

Studies have shown that reading fiction can heighten and increase empathy in people. Empathy is the ability for someone to understand and share the feelings of others, typically by having the capacity to place themselves within that person's frame of reference or point of view.

Research has shown that cognitive empathy in a person has predicted helping behavior towards victims in natural disasters.

One might then extrapolate that one way to save the world might be to get more people to read.

The more people who read fiction, the more empathy within a society can grow, and the more likely it is to generate a hero who can save the day, or save the world.

Okay, maybe I'm stretching things a little, but perhaps it's not a bad way to suggest that grabbing this awesome limited time Saving the World StoryBundle can not only be good for you, but good for the world in general.

Saving the World StoryBundle

Dean Wesley Smith, the curator of this bundle, set off to create it with a goal to find as many ways to save the world as possible, as well as having as many worlds to save as possible.

What he came up with was eight novels and two collections of short stories - four of which are exclusive to this limited time bundle, which is available for less than a month.

I compiled a short story collection exclusively for this bundle called Nocturnal Saves. It's a riff on the short story series Nocturnal Screams and collects together more than 40,000 words from seven different stories, that each explore the theme in different ways, from people with superpowers to those in the midst of an apocalypse, to everyday people wanting to make some small positive difference in their way.

Exclusive to Saving the World StoryBundle

Is a hero someone who puts on a mask and costume and rushes to the rescue to save the day? Is a hero someone whose exploits results in the discovery of a miraculous cure to a life-threatening disease or plague? Is a hero someone who employs their supernatural ability for good and to assist others? Is a hero someone who loves another person or a cause so much that they risk life and limb in order to protect or save them from peril? Is a hero someone who stops in the midst of hustle and bustle to listen to those who no longer have a voice?

All of those things, can, of course, make a hero.

Heroes come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and personas.

Saving the world can come in an epic and dramatic, world-shattering event; but it often can happen in small ways, in the one-on-one interactions people have with one another; in the subtle ways one small action can have a dramatic impact.

The stories in this collection, collected exclusively for this StoryBundle theme, explore all that and more.

Open your mind, heart, and imagination to these seven nocturnal saves.

• Some Are Born to Save the World
• Collateral Damage
• The Zombie Whisperer
• This Time Around
• A Murder of Scarecrows
• From Out of the Night
• Memento Mori

But that's just my own addition to this wonderful collection. You also get novels and stories from some of the most amazing imaginative writers working today.

Saving the World StoryBundle

The way this works is that you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.

•         Earthbreaker by Robert Jeschonek   (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  
•         Meteor Attack! by Robert J. McCarter
•         Recombinant by Lisa Silverthorne   (StoryBundle Exclusive)
•         How to Save the World by Fiction River

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus SIX more books!

•         Chasing the Setting Sun by Ron Collins
•         Nocturnal Saves by Mark Leslie  (StoryBundle Exclusive)
•         Broken Gears by Louisa Swann  (StoryBundle Exclusive)
•         Searching for the Fleet by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
•         Destroyer of Worlds by J.F. Penn
•         The Taft Ranch by Dean Wesley Smith

This bundle allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) for all books!

The bundle also includes support for AbleGamers - they use the power of video games to bring people together, improving quality of life with recreation and rehabilitation by giving people with disabilities custom gaming setups including modified controllers and special assistive technology, like devices that let you play with your eyes, so they can have fun with their friends and family. Any purchase allows you to assign a portion to this cause, at no extra cost to you.

Which kind of ties back to saving the world one book at a time.

The Book Break

It was great catching up with Melissa Dalton at this past year's Superstars Writing Seminars.

I was honoured to have her interview me for this episode of her awesome show The Book Break for Season Two, Episode Five.

Melissa interviews authors, artists, & publishing industry experts on this weekly show airing on Flashback TV network on Roku & Tiki TV.

The video from YouTube is embedded below.