AUTOGRAPHED E-BOOK!

AVAILABLE NOW!

Thanks to MyWrite, I now offer personalized, autographed e-book versions of Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing, the first two books of The Hidden Lands of Nod. For the same $2.99 price available from Smashwords or Amazon, you can get the most recent authorized edition of either novel—inscribed to you and signed by me!—from this very website. When you purchase an e-book using one of the convenient links accompanying this post, a great boot kicks out from the aether to goad me into action. I enter the MyWrite application, select the purchased title, and inscribe a personalization and autograph. MyWrite inserts these into the purchased title and either e-mails the now unique copy to you or, if the file is large, provides a download link. You receive your purchase in both epub (for most e-book readers) and mobi (for Kindle) formats, so you’re able to feed all your devices. MyWrite is the brainchild of my good friend, Paul Elard Cooley. Besides creating cool applications like MyWrite, Paul is an amazing writer breaking new ground in the realm of horror and dark fantasy, in both print and through the medium of podcasts. Look forward in January to Paul’s very special contribution to the 3000 Weeks project.

A note on 3000 Weeks: It gives me great pleasure to report that contributions and commitments to the project are arriving from amazing people. Besides Paul, we look forward to sharing work from good friends like filmmaker Kat Candler, musician Freddie Steady Krc, actor Gary Warner Kent, artists Alain Viesca, Sasha Pyle, Rocky Kelley and Ashen Gray, poet and translator James Rossignol, photographer and poet Ed Buffaloe, graphic storytellers Bram Meehan and Monica Meehan, novelists M. S. Lewis and Oris Bracken, mosaicist and acupuncturist Mary C. Saunders, conceptualist and sound artist Thomas Fang, musician/artist/videographer Tom Wheeler, songwriter Colin Kennedy Jr., anthropologist/comic book creator/author/artist/etc. Mel White, and many more. Confabule’s editorial director, Amanda Kimmerly, is preparing her own contribution, as well as beginning to select from submissions those that will feature in the e-book album of the project. Even I have begun to scratch my head and wonder what new mischief I might throw into the works. Stay tuned!

Here I’ve been remiss again. Almost two weeks after BayouCon III, and I’m just now getting around to a recap. The good news is that I have reasons for letting my attention fix elsewhere. The bad news is, so what? I haven’t been updating this site. “Yeah,” the other voice answers, “but I’ve been productive”—and I have, at least a little.

Part One of Rose Moon, the paranormal romance I am writing for serial publication by a new ‘zine launching in coming months from Zarathustra Publishing. Piloted by editor in chief and publisher Jeremiah Griffin, Zarathustra Publishing is the agency behind The Sorcerer’s Scrolls, the gaming magazine that featured my story, “Death on the Toilet,” in issue #47. I believe Mr. Griffin waits only for me to finish an illustration for the cover before scheduling the new venue’s launch, and that is the OTHER thing I’ve been working on instead of updating this site. As soon as final revision of “Part One” shot into the queue, the bulk of my attention shifted to illustration mode and detailed rendering of a scantily clad woman referenced in the narrative. Failure to blog is worth the sacrifice for such a return to the roots of (male) fantasy.

CONFABULE, rendered in DVARSH

Apart from these lonely pursuits, my collaboration with Amanda  in the field of reperiolinguistics has continued to move forward. We are up to elbows in development of the Dvarsh primer. Last I checked in with Ms. Kimmerly I think we inclined toward calling this initial work, The Way it Grows, an introduction to Dvarsh. The eventual title will be in that ball park. The ball park itself will be set in a wider complex. Take this as a pre-announcement of expanding horizons. Coming together around our Dvarsh language project, Amanda and I are in advanced stages of forming a company to bring to market all manner of Dvarsh cultural materials that have emerged as elements of backstory to The Hidden Lands of Nod. With Amanda as editorial director, the new entity, Confabule LLC, will produce these items and such other creative expressions as we jointly see fit.

Good and well, but what about BayouCon III? Lake Charles was muggy and damp, and the crowds were small. Although we managed to sell a few books, the real dividends were in new friends. Special mention goes to Kimberly Richardson and Allan Gilbreath, of Kerlak Publishing, neighbors in the dealers room. Besides being wonderful people, Kimberly and Allen are accomplished authors and editors. Kimberly, at least, is also a reviewer, and has graced Prelude to a Change of Mind with a kind review. In a beautiful parallel, Amanda posted a review of Kimberly’s book, Tales from a Goth Librarian. Doubly nice about Amanda’s review is that she has passed Kim’s book back my way for MY turn. In other notice, we also made the local paper, The American Press.

Looking to the future, Comicpalooza manifests at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, May 27-29. Blue Moose Press will have a booth in the dealers room, augmented by a Robert Stikmanz table in artists alley. We return to the Houston area one short month later for ApolloCon 2011, at the DoubleTree Hotel Houston Intercontinental Airport, June 24-26. Our arrangement there will be the same: Blue Moose Press in the dealers room, and a Stikmanz table in artists alley.

P.S.: Check out the new Blue Moose Press website.

Rushing toward us is ConDFW X, February 18-20, at the Crowne Plaza Suites Dallas-Park Central. Only today did I realize that I’ve been dawdling through preparations, especially since this time around I’m scheduled to appear on SEVEN panels. This would seriously impact operations at the Stikmanz table in the dealers room, except that this year I’ll share table staffing duties with dear friend and collaborator, Amanda Kimmerly. Besides fast becoming the world’s second authority on my invented language, Dvarsh, on The Hidden Lands of Nod, and on future geardown fantasy as a genre, Amanda is a brilliantly accomplished poet in her own right. Come out to see us; come out to play. If you have not yet picked up copies of the new, revised editions of Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing, this will be a fine opportunity to do so.

With assistance from able editor and ebook formatter Amanda Kimmerly, the ebook edition of Entranscing, the second book of The Hidden Lands of Nod, is now available on Smashwords. It was Ms. Kimmerly’s dedication that carried the tedious process of conforming to the Smashwords style guide to successful conclusion. The happy result is that the book may be had in any of the preferred e-reader formats for one low (really low) price. It’s hard to go wrong for $2.99, but you need not walk in blind. Even the most discriminating reader may practice due diligence by downloading the first 20% of the book free for sampling. Take note of the salient terms “20%” and “free.” All the details and the download may be obtained here.

I hear some of you in the back muttering that you’d rather have a physical book with pages and a cover, the scent of wisdom rising from it over time. Not to worry. Both Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing, books one and two of the cycle, may be purchased on this very site where you currently gaze. Explore the links in the left hand column for your chance to buy words on actual paper.

A chunk of this evening went to assembling Nod’s Way oracle dice, dice bags and Nod’s Way pocket reference cards into sets packaged in hand-sealed poly envelopes. Eventually, this will be a limited edition of around 240. I began designing a successor set even as I pulled together a master for this one. Time was the overriding design concern in this instance—I needed a credible package for Wizard World Austin Comic Con this weekend, and I needed it to fit a standard format for fast turnaround, short run printing. The next version will emerge from broader design horizons.

Nod's Way oracle dice, with dice bag and pocket reference card

I’ll be at Wizard World this weekend as one of the authors staffing the Blue Moose Press booth in the vendors area. Besides dice, I’ll be signing and selling new editions of Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing, as well as some of the last copies of the first edition of Sleeper Awakes. This event will be the one opportunity of the season to pick up all the novels to date, in one stop, with the author conveniently near to personalize each volume. When you figure in the other Blue Moose titles, Rowan of the Wood series by Christine and Ethan Rose, and Avalon Revisited by O. M. Grey, you come quickly to realize there is no need to trouble with any other destination for your holiday shopping. Think of the opportunity here. In one swoop, you can acquire an array of excellent speculative fictions as stocking stuffers, while at the same time providing crucial direct support for the arts and independent media. And, truthfully, folks, if you don’t buy this stuff, then we can’t keep creating it.

Fans of the recently moribund STIKMANZ NEWS communiqués will be pleased to learn of their resurrection. Next week, I’ll launch a regular monthly e-newsletter of Stikmantic travel, appearances, projects, opinion, etc. The only way to receive these gems is by joining the e-newsletter list via the sign up form here, on the contact page of this site. You have my solemn word that this list will never be traded or sold. I also confess a vague, generalized intention to make them as amusing as possible.  That commitment requires more weasel room, since so much of amusement is in the eye of the amusee.

Robert Stikmanz at Blood of the Bean II, 10/16/010. Photo by Thomas Fang.

As I prepared to read my story, “Death on the Toilet,” this past Saturday evening at Blood of the Bean II, it was migrating into the larger world with the release that very day of The Sorcerer’s Scrolls #47. The version featured in the magazine is not the same as the one I read—time constraints required that I cut 600 words, mainly modifiers and digressions—but the printed story includes everything the audience heard, plus a tiny bit of additional context.

The Sorcerer’s Scrolls has a reputation primarily as a gaming publication, and this remains a central focus; however, new editor and publisher Jeremiah Griffin has begun to expand the publication’s ambit to feature more short fiction and original art. To my great good fortune, Mr. Griffin likes my stuff. Each issue of the magazine is available as both print and electronic publications. Get your copy of “Death on the Toilet” by visiting the TSS website, and ordering your preferred format.

Note to authors and artists: The Sorcerer’s Scrolls has issued a call for submissions of short fiction and original art. See the website for more information.

If you would rather kick back and experience my story as audio, and you happen to be in Denver this coming weekend, come catch my reading at MileHiCon 42, at 7:00 p.m. local time, this Friday, October 22. I’ll read a selection from the new, just released edition of Entranscing, in addition to “Death on the Toilet.” Copies of the Blue Moose Press editions of Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing will be sold by Who Else Books, in the dealer room. Tuck that information away so you’ll know where to get copies for my booksigning session on Sunday afternoon. Between reading on Friday and signing on Sunday, I am also scheduled for two panels, one on invented language and one discussing the cases of authors who are also artists and artists who are also authors. This will be my third visit to MileHiCon, although my first without a table in the dealers room as an anchor.

A quick update on The Hidden Lands of Nod: I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that a new edition of Sleeper Awakes will have to wait for early 2011. Sufficient time to do justice to the processes of revising and editing the book does not remain in this year. However, there is time enough to bring out a new edition of Nod’s Way and—possibly, just possibly—a first glossary of the Dvarsh language. My attention turns now to those things and to a new novella commissioned by The Sorcerer’s Scrolls. Work enough for the moment, I think.

It give me great pleasure to report that Blue Moose Press has released Entranscing, the second book of The Hidden Lands of Nod, newly revised in trade paper. Roughly five thousand words longer than before, this second edition has been augmented as well as polished. The first edition of this tale worked, no question about it, but it was always a raw version of a story. This new publication gave me an opportunity to unfold, explicate, smooth out and burnish in a way for which there was simply no room in the schedule when the original edition was being prepared for press. I’ve done it this time around, and I’m pleased with the results.

Second, revised edition of Entranscing, from Blue Moose Press

Plaudits and praise go to Blue Moose Press principals Christine and Ethan Rose for making this volume possible. Roses, wherever you are on the road promoting Rowan of the Wood and your other novels, thanks.  My hat is also off to Amanda Kimmerly, for superlative editorial assistance. She and her passion for all things grammatical and punctuative contributed immensely to the result. (Although, truth be known, I chose to ignore her suggestions about 5% of the time. I can almost guarantee that any suspicious or boneheaded lapse tripping the innocent reader is a construction retained out of my cussed stubbornness.)

This trade paperback version is available now from your favorite bookseller, whether online or brick-and-mortar. Or, get it directly from yours truly, the author, using the “BUY NOW” button in the left column of this very website. I shall sign, with flourish and pleasure, each copy purchased through this website.

For those among you preferring e-books to hard copy, the basic file that will upload to Smashwords is even now in preparation. If you do not yet know about Smashwords, take a moment to explore the offerings. As a matter of fact, you can acquire the e-book of my first novel, Prelude to a Change of Mind, by going to its Smashwords page. An entire division of strange, small folk are chasing around Stikmanz Intergalactic HQ, wrangling format and hammering default fonts into shape. My expectation is that the Smashwords selections will go live this weekend. A separate, specially formatted Kindle edition will be available on Amazon.com from sometime in November.

Before I forget, I am on the program as one of the readers for Blood of the Bean II, 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., October 16, at Kick Butt Coffee (5775 Airport Blvd., Austin TX). This is the second of what looks to be an annual horror-themed program created by Gabrielle Faust to feature regional authors. I’m not a horror writer, but my short story, “Death on the Toilet,” does feature the Grim Reaper as a character. The story will appear in issue 46 of The Sorcerer’s Scrolls later this fall, which means you can scoop the press by coming for caffeine and an earful on the 16th. I’ll also have copies of Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing on hand to sell and sign. Leaving me aside, the event will showcase an impressive roster of authors, including Ethan Nahté, Stina Leicht, D. B. Grady, Rhodi Hawk, Lee Thomas, Gabrielle Faust herself, and others. It would be wonderful to see you there.

Two nights ago I finished editing Fire of the Fey, third novel in the the Rowan of the Wood fantasy series by Christine and Ethan Rose. I managed the task lickety-split, two full passes through the book in about five days, while the Roses were still revising. These are not circumstances I want to repeat any time soon. The upside is that it associates me with a project for which their fans are clamoring. Christine informs me the completed files were successfully uploaded to the printer yesterday.  Let’s mark it as points for the team.

Having put Fire of the Fey behind me, I now turn back to work on the second edition of my second novel, Entranscing. I had hoped to relaunch this title in time for MileHiCon in late October. That, alas, does not appear to be possible. With luck, I may just squeak it through before Halloween. While the release date is up in the air, one thing that is certain is that the new edition is leagues and furlongs better than the original version. What I have done with extensive revision is finally finish the book. To anyone who picked up the original printing, you will find it well worth a few paltry dollars to pick up the new one upon release, I assure you. Right now the text is in the hands of my capable copy editor, Amanda Kimmerly, while I focus on making a cover worthy of wrapping the whole.

Writing and designing books is not the sum of my activities, as most of you know. Besides appearing in the coming issue of The Sorcerer’s Scrolls, my short story, “Death on the Toilet,” will be my text of choice when I read as part of the program for Blood of the Bean II, October 16th at 5:00 p.m., at Kick Butt Coffee (5775 Airport Blvd., Austin). This is the second of what looks to become an annual event featuring some of the best horror writers the state of Texas boasts. I’m no horror writer, and my story is no horror story, but the Grim Reaper does figure prominently as a character, and host/organizer/reigning queen of the night Gabrielle Faust generously bent the rules to invite my participation.

As mentioned above, I travel in late October to Denver, to appear as a guest at MileHiCon, largest and best sci-fi/fantasy convention in the Rocky Mountain region. This will be my third year at this event, and my first without a table in the dealer room. Come out to help keep me grounded.

November will find me back behind a dealer table when Wizard World comes to Austin, November 12-14. If you haven’t picked up the new editions of Prelude to a Change of Mind and Entranscing before then, this will be your best opportunity to grab both before year’s end. Need I mention that books of my Hidden Lands of Nod fantasy cycle make excellent selections for everyone on your list for the gift giving season? Well, it’s true. Don’t hesitate.

Check out ebook options for Prelude to a Change of Mind on Smashwords. Enter coupon code RC92P at checkout to purchase this first book of The Hidden Lands of Nod for only $1.99—in your preferred format! Don’t hesitate. This coupon expires September 3, 2010.

Prelude to a Change of Mind is also available in trade paperback through your favorite bookseller, or directly from the link in the left column of your screen.

Here at the last minute of the eleventh hour I would like to invite everyone to the virtual release of the newly revised Blue Moose Press edition of Prelude to a Change of Mind, the first book of The Hidden Lands of Nod. Let us stamp August 1, 2010, as the official date of appearance. You may order copies of the handsome trade paperback from your favorite bookseller, or from the link on my website. All copies ordered through the website will be signed by the author.

If you prefer a post-paper reading experience, Smashwords offers the complete text in ten popular ebook formats, from PDF to Epub to Kindle. A distinct Kindle version that preserves design elements from the print edition is available on Amazon.

In hard copy or not, this Blue Moose Press edition remains the gateway to the world of the Dvarsh, refreshed and renewed. Highly recommended.