I've moved for now!

Hello!

Thank you so much for visiting my writing blog, but as it happens, I've moved! In more ways than one, actually.

As far as social media is concerned, I've been posting almost exclusively on 𝕏. You can find my account page here!

That's where I've been posting any writing updates and any/all ephemera related to my day-to-day. There will also be sporadic rants about California's high-speed rail project thrown in there every few months. I don't make the rules.

Additionally, though: I've also gotten married and moved to Japan! So I'll be posting photos about my new life here, as well.

But as for a final update here (for the foreseeable future, at least): I've been working almost exclusively on The Shattered Frontier series since my last post. I have a third book coming down the pike and the first unfinished draft, at present, is around 123k words and counting. It'll be the longest book I've ever written and I'm really enjoying how it's turning out. The final book will probably be cut down dramatically, but I think it's still going to be a monster project.

Check out the first two books in the fantasy western (six-guns and sorcery, if you like) series: What Was Your Name Downriver? and A Bad Rune at Angels Deep on Amazon. The third book has a title, but I'll post it when it's closer to being publishable.

Thank you for your interest, and I hope to see you on 𝕏!

2021 r/Fantasy Holiday Megasale!

It's that time of the year again!

(Although there's never quite been a year like this one, so... yeah.)

Author Bryce O'Connor is once again going to be organizing his annual MEGASALE to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for the holidays!

All participating authors are pledging to put their books up for $0.99 or as a freebie on December 26th and 27th and will be donating $0.01 for every book sold or given away to St. Jude at the conclusion of the M-M-M-MEGASALE.

I'll be participating this year by offering up both WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? and A BAD RUNE AT ANGELS DEEP for a discount: Free and $0.99 respectively. In addition to St. Jude, I'll also be matching that donation to United Way of Stanislaus County this year.

Here's the link to the original r/Fantasy post on Reddit, and I'll be making another post when the sale rolls around that'll act as both an announcement and a connection to the other authors participating.

Snag some books and help out some good causes that might ease what's been a rough year for a lot of folks.

Hope to see y'all then!

NEW SHORT STORY: "Ain't That Just the Way?" (and other various updates)

Long time since the last update! Just a quick rundown of what's been going on in my life since my last post in January:

• I had to get my gallbladder removed! Yeah, I didn't see that one coming. Luckily, everything went a-okay and I was on my feet rather quickly. After three rather severe gallbladder attacks over the last year, I'm so, so happy to not have to worry about that happening again.
• I got accepted into grad school! Yep, I'll be continuing my education in English so I can speak it gooder. (Nyeheheh.) Been fun so far. Lots of theory, which isn't really my bag, but it's interesting nonetheless. I'll be looking at my options at the end and figuring out if continuing on for my doctorate is right for me, but for now I'm just preparing to stress out about my thesis project along with the rest of my cohort.

That's mostly it. Also bought a lot of books and am preparing to move to a different part of California soon... these two developments are at odds with each other, I know.

But, anyway: new short story!

I'm always writing in the background and this is a short story that I wrote, that I loved, but just couldn't find a home for. If I get to the end of that open submission gauntlet and still think I have a fun story on my hands, I'll publish it to Amazon. It was a story that I wrote after rewatching one of my favorite movies, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, for the billionth time. I really just wanted to write some characters who just goof off, talk at each other a bunch, and have some modest adventures for a few pages.

I still really like it. I like Dial and Jim, and wouldn't mind writing some more short stories with them eventually.

That's about it! Outside of school stuff, I'm still mapping out Book 3 of The Shattered Frontier. It's not coming along as fast as the second book did, but the conditions are different and this is going to be a bit of a stopping point for the series. So I need some arcs to come to a conclusion. Depending on where things are at once this one is published (i.e. - folks are reading and enjoying it), then I'll get started on Evaline and Trivan's next adventure sooner rather than later.

Hope all is well!

NEW BOOK: A Bad Rune at Angels Deep: Tales of the Shattered Frontier (Also, r/Fantasy Book Club stuff!)

Here it is! The second book in THE SHATTERED FRONTIER series!

I can't promise I'll be able to consistently deliver two books a year like this, but quarantine has been a heck of a thing. Let's jump right into the synopsis:

THE CONTINUING TALES OF SIX-GUNS AND SORCERY!

Runes: a form of deployable magick that caused untold devastation during the war. With the stroke of a pen, entire cities were demolished, entire armies decimated--and now one such rune may have come south to Ariasun County.

Acting on scant clues left behind by the vicious lynching of a smuggler, Evaline Cartwright and Trivan Esterhazy head north to track the rune’s passage through the county. All in the hope of destroying the rune--or its possessor--before it can be used for catastrophic ends.

RELEASE DATE: February 23rd, 2020

This has been an odd writing process for me. Legitimately, I haven't been able to write this much in many, many years. A big part of it, I think, was quarantine and just wanting something to engage with. Another part was most of the footwork already being done. Seems strange that WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? took years to finish, while A BAD RUNE AT ANGELS DEEP only took three months... and is almost twice as long.  But a lot of that time spent on Book I was planning the big steps and small steps alike, and with all that locked into place I could just get up and go.

It's also very likely that my mind needed a distraction. Losing my old cat took a lot out of me. It's been just shy of five months since he died, but it still feels raw. Taking some time and writing a novel definitely took the edge off.

So, it's up for preorder now! I'll probably still take some time to make a few last minute corrections before I walk away. I'm also in the process of getting the paperback version ready. The preorder page might not be up until the second week of February, but it'll definitely launch concurrently with the Kindle version.

Other bits of news:

r/Fantasy RAF Book Club

WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? was selected to be a part of r/Fantasy's Resident Author Fantasy Book Club on Reddit! This was a great surprise and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say.

The book will be read through March, with a Q&A to be posted just before then, I think. If you want to join in, here's all the information. And I'll probably post all the relevant posts here as they drop.

To everyone who will be participating in the book club, I'll try to make the book free for a week beforehand.

Price Drop: The Shattered Frontier - Book I

Since Book II is right around the corner here, I'm lowering the price of WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER to $2.99 as a means of lowering the barrier of entry to the series. This will likely be where it'll stay.

Lore of the Reluctant Paperbacks Temporarily Withdrawn

Now, I'm still fairly new to all this. I'm always learning, always fine-tuning. I started publishing the Lore of the Reluctant books several years ago to help myself get over the fear of putting my work out there. There was a sort of lackadaisical approach to publishing them that I'm still trying to correct, as a result. One of these was the formatting of the paperbacks of both THE OUTCASTS OF VAMPIRE FLATS and BLADES OF ELSINGR.

Basically, I'm going to spend a little more time fine-tuning the formatting for the paperbacks. Shouldn't take too long, but I didn't feel good about having them up for sale in the meantime.

The Kindle editions are a-okay, though I'll be going through and updating their "Works by" pages (I'm legit blanking on their formal names) to account for A BAD RUNE.

I think that's it! Be well, everyone!

Status Update: New cover, new projects, and fond farewells.

Hope everyone is doing well! (In this Age of Fire and COVID.)

New Cover:

Since my last post, there have been some new developments. Chief among them is that WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? has gotten a snazzy new cover! The old one was serviceable for what I was trying to accomplish at the time, which was to just get my writing projects out there no matter what. Cover art was always a barrier and I decided if it's between not publishing a story or making something for the cover, then I should go for the latter.

But! Circumstances allowed for the creation of a new cover that fit the tone of the story and I'm grateful that opportunity came along. So here is the new cover for the first story in The Shattered Frontier series:

Sha-sha-shaw!

Love the way it turned out and I couldn't be more happy about it.

I did a free promotion for the book recently and I got some very kind reviews/comments. I'm ecstatic that folks seem to be enjoying it so far. It's not a particularly long book, but it's something I've been working on awhile. Getting all the worldbuilding locked in, writing/rewriting after work, editing, formatting for both ebook and paperback. It's been a journey!

As always, if you happened to check it out, please consider leaving a review. I can't tell you how crucial reviews are for indie authors. They help expand the book's audience, take the edge off of any prospective sequel plans, and, dang it, they're a great form of encouragement besides.

New Projects:

As for the future, I think I've mentioned a number of projects since moving back to the States, but there are three main projects on the docket that I hope to see completed within a reasonable amount of time. In no particular order:

1. Lore of the Reluctant (Book 3): This Machine Kills Dragons - When I first started writing these stories, I made myself a promise that I'd see a trilogy through to completion. I've started writing the third book, but it might get knocked down in priority if WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? maintains the traction it has right now. It'll close out what I'm tentatively calling "The Long Road to Vellonae Trilogy" and leave the door open for more stories if there's some demand for more.

2. The Shattered Frontier (Book 2) - The adventures of Evaline and Trivan were always supposed to culminate in much larger novel. Book 1 shows how their friendship calcified, Book 2 would see them on a rather long journey of some personal import to Evaline. If Book 1 was a shorter adventure, Book 2 would be something closer to FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, somewhere in that ballpark. It would also firmly establish a larger story arc that would carry on through additional novels.

I've got a decent chunk of Book 2 already done. It was originally supposed to be Book 1, but I doubled back to write a smaller story that would act as a more effective introduction to the setting and characters. A nice vertical slice!

EDIT (Sept. 28): This plan will be shifting around a little bit. I think it's all but a certainty that my next book will be TSF Book 2, but I've changed the plan as far as what the story will involve. It will be longer than WWYND, but of a similar scope. I'd like to do one more of a similar size to round out a trilogy before jumping into the juggernaut that'll be the fourth book.

I think spending more time with Evaline and Trivan, in addition to getting more of the setting on the page and dropping more hints about the larger arc, will give me some much needed runway for Book 4.

Book 2 is in the works right now. It's rough, but there are 10k+ words locked in so far. Really liking where it's gonna go!

3. Realm of Avarill Online - A while back I wrote a short story called "In the Land of Dead Dragons," which I really enjoyed writing. So much, in fact, that I started work on a follow-up novella that's maybe 60% finished right now. It's been a good excuse to revisit all of my old MMORPG experiences from games like Nexus, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and Lord of the Rings Online. Corpse runs and player-killing and griefing like crazy. It's irreverent, the protagonists are terrible, terrible people, but I'm hoping litRPG fans will get a kick out of it!

And, of course, I always seem to be writing short stories, so some of those might pop up on Amazon soon.

Social Media:

So think I'm finally getting the hang of Twitter! After playing around with it for a couple months, I've actually come to really enjoy it. Feel free to find me at @AntonymLowe and check out my Star Wars geek-outs, Japan pictures, writing and personal updates, and even more Star Wars geek-outs!

Goodbye, Hershey:

In a rather sad update, my cat of 18 years passed away a couple weeks ago. It was a devastating blow to the family. It's always sad to lose a pet, but Hershey has been around for more than half my life (and three presidents!) and there's still the expectation at the back of my mind that he'll be there when turn around since it feels like he's always been there.

He was a super-affectionate cat and made it a point to involve himself in everything the family did, at all times. Even though I'm thankful for every day we had with him for nearly two decades, it still doesn't seem like enough.

Goodbye, Hershey. I'll miss you like crazy, buddy.

Hate to end the post on a sad note, so instead I'll end with a link to what's currently my favorite YouTube channel. David Lynch of TWIN PEAKS and ERASERHEAD fame spending a few minutes of each morning everyday to provide a weather report in LA and wish everyone a pleasant day. Not a bad idea to make positivity a part of a daily routine!

DAVID LYNCH THEATER

Be well, everyone!

NEW RELEASE: My Battery Is Low and It Is Getting Dark

It's here! Starting today, you can pick up a brand new sci-fi anthology featuring one of my stories, MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK. The theme of this one is various forms of technology finding renewed purpose in obsolescence.

The immediate comparison is Wall-E, but for some reason my mind goes right to The Brave Little Toaster.

Anyway, here's the synopsis for the anthology:

A military attack drone turned shepherd. A train on the London Underground evolving into something new and wondrous. A troupe of robotic actors struggling to find meaning when the audience has disappeared. Explore the myriad ideas of what happens when out-of-date and abandoned technologies are given a second life—one that takes them in a new direction, far outside their intended programming and beyond their original purpose.

MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK features fourteen stories of quiet hope, heartbreak, creation, and death from fantasy and science fiction authors Dana Berube, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, Jacey Bedford, Anthony Lowe, Chris Kocher, Brian Hugenbruch, William Leisner, José Pablo Iriarte, Alethea Kontis, Kari Sperring, Edward Willett, John G. Hartness, Alexander Gideon, and Stephen Leigh. You may never look at your smart speaker the same way again.

I was able to take a look at some of the stories while doing some edits and there's some good stuff in there. My story is titled, "Ain't Done Haunting," and I'm pretty proud of this one. I'll probably talk about it more at-length once the anthology has been out there a bit, since I don't want to give anything away.

You can pick up MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK almost anywhere books are sold online. You can also purchase through the publisher if you want to support a small press directly.

I'll make a proper update about some upcoming projects in the near future, but in the meantime I've recently started a Twitter account. Still getting used to how to even, like, Tweet and stuff, but if you want to see me geek out about Star Wars or whatever game I happen to be addicted to recently (LOTRO), then look me up: @AntonymLowe

Thanks -- and be safe!

MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK

Zombies Need Brains LLC Official Store:

(Supports the publisher directly)

- Trade Paperback

- Kickstarter Paperback Edition

- eBook (Mobi, ePub, or PDF)

- Cover Art Print by Justin Adams

BookShop
(Support a community of indie bookstores)

IndieBound
(Buy directly from your local bookstore)

Amazon:

- Kindle

- Trade Paperback

Barnes & Noble:

- NOOK Version

- Trade Paperback

Google Play

Rakuten Kobo

The paperbacks are here, yo!

After much to-do and a ton of back-and-forth between myself and the printers, the paperbacks for four of my books are available!

Now, the quarantine will probably mess with the availability of some of them infrequently, but it shouldn't be for more than a day or two. Not to mention shipping times are varying wildly. I'll be keeping an eye on it. But let's go over what we got:

Lore of the Reluctant: Books I and II

                               

These books marked my first ever experience with publishing of any kind. I've learned a lot since then and I've tried to apply all of that to these new editions. Both the Kindle editions and these new paperback editions got another thorough editing pass for typos, inconsistencies, and formatting. I tried not to really touch anything relating to story; like Timothy Zahn says, to a certain extent once a book is published it's an historical document. If you keep going back and editing, then you'll never stop.

That being said, a few exchanges got tweaked and there were a couple vague lines that I cleared up. Overall, they're generally the same manuscripts, but they should look and flow nicer!

Since all the cleaning of their descriptions, the short story promotion, and these paperback editions, they've been getting a little more attention. If you've read them (or are currently reading them) and have enjoyed your time with them, a third book will be on its way soon. I can't promise it'll be here this year, but now that I'm back in America working on novels is much more realistic.

What Was Your Name Downriver?

This story just came out and the paperback not too long after, but I did a little more research and applied some cleaner formatting to it. Should look nice and clean now!

All the Stars in My Eyes: A Short Story

Not sure if buying physical copies of short stories will ever really be en vogue, but "All the Stars in My Eyes" is one of my favorite pieces. Not to mention the cover art is one of my all-time favorites as far as my sister's art goes. Lots of sentimentality wrapped up in this one, so I figured since it fit all the requirements, I'll just go ahead and make one.

If you liked the story and the art, too, it'll look good on a shelf!

Here are all the appropriate links:

Lore of the Reluctant: The Outcasts of Vampire Flats

Lore of the Reluctant: Blades in Elsingr

What Was Your Name Downriver?:

Tales of the Shattered Realm

All the Stars in My Eyes

And it goes without saying: if you've read any of my stories lately, please, please, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. For indie authors, reviews can mean the difference between being able to write consistently or not at all.

Be safe everyone!

NEW SHORT STORY: "Define Heroes: A Lore of the Reluctant Short Story"

FREE PROMOTION! - Starting tomorrow, April 29, this story will be free on Amazon for five days!

This will probably be my final story release until July-ish. By then, MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK will have released and I'll have one more short story ready to go.

"Define Heroes" is a standalone short story that's set in my LORE OF THE RELUCTANT series. Timeline-wise, it takes place after THE OUTCASTS OF VAMPIRE FLATS and BLADES IN ELSINGR.

Here's the synopsis:

Acys, Jasper, and Kalen are three friends from our world who woke up one day to find themselves in a fantastical realm of swords and sorcery. But it's been a few years... Now they're bored.

In this adventure, the trio of sellswords have run out of money in an eastern kingdom that is enjoying an era of lasting peace. In their bid to avoid skipping out on another bill, and to put a little extra money in their pockets besides, they might just commit regicide and plunge the entire kingdom into civil war.

More portal fantasy for ya!

This series has always been super easy to write. It was originally part of my goal to learn the ins and outs of self-publishing and so I thought up a concept that would be just plain fun to mess around with. I love the idea of fantasy adventurers who are in on all the jokes and are unimpressed with a lot of the tropes. And, also, they're kinda sociopaths at this point. Fun all around!

As I said above, I'll be running a free promotion starting tomorrow (April 29 @ 12 AM PST, as best as I can tell) and it'll run for about five days.

Be safe!

NEW BOOK: What Was Your Name Downriver?: Tales of the Shattered Realm

Another product of prolonged self-quarantine comin' at ya!

I've just gotta say, I'm so happy that I'm finally able to put this out in some way. These stories are the product of a lot of work and a lot of encouragement from interesting places. They're some of my favorite stories in that I love the characters and loved playing in their world.

WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? is a collection of three stories (one novella, two short stories) that take place in my fantasy western setting, The Shattered Frontier. They follow the adventures of war veteran, bounty hunter, and famous/infamous gunslinger, Evaline Cartwright, as she endures the travails of one of the most lawless counties in the nation. The kind of fun place where Evaline might fight your average brigand one day, and the next day a volatile mage who can destroy entire cities on accident.

Here's the synopsis:

TALES OF SIX-GUNS AND SORCERY! 

Evaline Cartwright: war veteran, bounty hunter, known to many in Ariasun County by her thoroughly-earned appellation, "Calamity Cartwright." 

Trivan Esterhazy: a woman gravely wounded, hoping to find a better life for herself in more civilized parts of the nation. 

The two have only just met, both riding a steamboat north through the county to escape foul dealings in their respective lives, but a violent attack by a rogue mage has ensured their abrupt alliance. Armed with Evaline's wits and weaponry and Trivan's instincts and common sense, the women will have to plot their way through hostile territory and wild woods in the hopes of defeating the mage and freeing themselves of its volatile magicks.

History Time! If you don't mind indulging me!

Evaline has appeared in a few other places publicly:

• The first short story I ever sold was the first story I ever wrote about Evaline called "The Lonesome Dark." It appeared in BLACKGUARDS and was recently republished in BRIGANDS.

• Michael J. Sullivan put out an open call for short story submissions to be published with the third book of the Ryria Chronicles, THE DEATH OF DULGATH, and, while it didn't make it to publication, "The Horse Thieves of Ariasun County" was a runner-up.

• "Gunfight at the Thornmount Colossus" was a runner-up in the 2016 Baen Books Fantasy-Adventure Award.

After getting that kind of positive feedback, I spent some time really fleshing out the world and the characters themselves, and doing research into American history for flavor, with the intention of writing a novel tentatively titled RIDERS OF BITTER PROSPECT. Another novel commitment was something I couldn't realistically do while I was at university and, subsequently, abroad for a year. The Japanese work week just didn't frequently allow for it.

So I opted for a collection of short stories which, again, was a pretty tough commitment. You might have noticed that progress bar on the side that hasn't moved in a while. One of those short stories just kept going until it became a novella, the anchor story WHAT WAS YOUR NAME DOWNRIVER? It's a straight-forward adventure, but it does the heavy-lifting as far as providing a cross-section for what the setting is all about and what potential stories might emerge as a result.

That's it! I hope you'll consider giving it a try. If this book does well, I'd like to work in this setting indefinitely. Love hanging out there!

Be safe!

NEW SHORT STORY: "Our Sun Is Shining on the City"

One of the very few perks of the self-quarantine lifestyle is that it has freed me up to start packaging some short stories that I had intended to get onto Amazon at some point. Well, that point has arrived!

"Our Sun Is Shining on the City" is a science fiction/post-apocalypse short story about people surviving inside the guts of decaying alien machinery that was once used to hollow out the planet's core. Here's the synopsis:

From origins unknown, towering machines descended upon the planet of Narashi and forcibly hollowed out its core, leaving behind an uninhabitable world, a decimated civilization, and a sprawl of interconnected drilling rigs that dwarf even the tallest mountains. 

Inside these decaying rigs, what remains of Narashi's natives endure, subsisting on captured oxygen, water from cooling lines, and what little food can be grown with scant sunlight. 

Taura and Carth are young siblings who scavenge abandoned settlements in the dark for their benefactor. As they pick through emptied shelters and shops, they begin to wonder just how long any of them have, as the alien machinery that sustains them begins to show signs of death throes.

I really liked how this story turned out. The inspiration for it actually came out of some books I read that centered on environmental justice. Stories about outsiders coming in, taking what they need out of the ground, and then just leaving, usually devastating communities in the process. I wanted to extrapolate that out to a planetary scale, where people literally have nowhere to go and just have to survive in what's left.

By the time this is posted, the story should be published. It should also be included in Kindle Unlimited, if you happen to have that!

Stay tuned for some more stories! Also, if you missed my last post, I have a story coming out soon in the sci-fi anthology, MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK.

Be safe, everyone!

ANTHOLOGY ANNOUNCEMENT: My Battery Is Low and It Is Getting Dark (July 1, 2020)

I'm finally able to announce that I'll be contributing a short story to another ZNB anthology this year on July 1st! The story is called "Ain't Done Haunting" and it'll be published in MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK, a sci-fi anthology about various forms of technology finding renewed purpose in obsolescence.

Here's the synopsis for the collection:

A military attack drone turned shepherd. A train on the London Underground evolving into something new and wondrous. A troupe of robotic actors struggling to find meaning when the audience has disappeared. Explore the myriad ideas of what happens when out-of-date and abandoned technologies are given a second life—one that takes them in a new direction, far outside their intended programming and beyond their original purpose.  

MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK features fourteen stories of quiet hope, heartbreak, creation, and death from fantasy and science fiction authors Dana Berube, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, Jacey Bedford, Anthony Lowe, Chris Kocher, Brian Hugenbruch, William Leisner, José Pablo Iriarte, Alethea Kontis, Kari Sperring, Edward Willett, John G. Hartness, Alexander Gideon, and Stephen Leigh. You may never look at your smart speaker the same way again.

I was very excited to be able to work with Zombies Need Brains again. They are just a well-oiled machine at this point after so many successful projects and they put out quality products by unique voices.

And "Ain't Done Haunting" is a story I'm particularly proud of, so I'm glad it was able to find a home here.

You can preorder the anthology right now, either directly through the publisher or through Amazon. It'll also be available through the usual suspects (Nook, Scribd, Kobo, Baen, etc.) on the release date. If you're all about physical copies (like me), those will be available, as well.

Hope you'll consider giving the anthology a look when it's released on July 1st!

MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK

Zombies Need Brains Official Store

(Supports the publisher directly)

Kickstarter Paperback Edition

eBook (Epub, Mobi, PDF)

Cover Art Print

Amazon

Kindle Version

UPDATE (4/2/20): The sale went over well! I've donated 100% of what I made to United Way of San Joaquin County and also purchased a batch of stories from the sale. Here's what I got! Looking forward to checking these out.

• Twelve Ways to Die in Galadore, Coleman Alexander

• Fire in the North, Richard J. Lowe (No relation 😄)

• The Blood-Tainted Winter, TL Greylock

• The Half Killed, Quenby Olson

• Street Cultivation, Sarah Lin

• The Dragon's Blade Trilogy, Michael R. Miller

• The Crimson Queen, Alec Hutson

Author Bryce O'Connor has put together one heck of a cool charity event called LOCKDOWN READFEST.

From March 30th to March 31st, 60+ authors have pledged to lower the prices of their books/short stories to 99 cents and donate 50% of their proceeds (more, in some cases) to charities relating to COVID-19 relief.

In my case, I've pledged the revenue from the two novels and three short stories I have available through Amazon. When Lockdown Readfest has concluded, I'll be donating to United Way of San Joaquin County.

San Joaquin County borders two of California's most densely populated counties and, as a result, has begun to feel the impact of COVID-19 and shelter-in-place order. Funds donated to United Way of San Joaquin County will be directed to local non-profits and shelters, and will help provide relief to folks in our county's most vulnerable communities.

I'll also be going through and picking up a bunch of stories from some talent authors in the hopes they'll be able to help out their own communities, as well!

For more information about Lockdown Readfest, as well as the authors who have pledged to the event, CHECK OUT THE REDDIT POST HERE.

Check out some fantastic stories, buy some on the cheap, support some worthy causes that'll bring relief in these stressful times!

• LOCKDOWN READFEST Information and Author/Story List

• United Way of San Joaquin

• Bryce O'Connor Official Website

NEW RELEASE and STORY SALE: "We Suffered Such a Man as This" via Mystery Weekly Magazine

One of the short stories that I wrote in Japan, about an eccentric old west detective in Calaveras County, now has a home at MYSTERY WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

Here's the synopsis of "We Suffered Such a Man as This":

Arriving in the small mining town of Copperopolis in fall of 1899, Georges Armadale, self-proclaimed detective extraordinaire, has taken it upon himself to solve a murder recently committed in a local church. At the standard rate, of course.

As part of my ongoing fight to write more stories around or near the San Joaquin Valley in California, I decided to try my hand at detective fiction and set it in one of my favorite little towns in the foothills at the turn of the century. Copperopolis is a small town wrapped around Lake Tulloch with a long history of mining for, as one would imagine, copper. Much of what was mined during the 1860s was sent east to be smelted for ammunition during the Civil War.

Copperopolis is also located in Calaveras County, where Mark Twain spent much time working with family and friends during the Gold Rush. His time here inspired the story, published by Bret Harte, that would become his first real success: "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" Nearby Angels Camp is, as the story goes, where the story's narrator first heard of this frog competition. And Jackass Hill, where Mark Twain spent his time working, can also be visited and plays host to an old replica of what his cabin would've looked like (and is old in its own right, despite being a replica).

Hope you'll consider checking out this month's issue for the story!

Mystery Weekly Magazine | Amazon

And I can also announce that I've sold another story! Can't get into details, but it's one that I really enjoyed writing. Will drop more details the closer we get to publication.

NEW RELEASE (Kinda): Brigands: A Blackguards Anthology

A lot going on these days! I'm back from Japan and I've got a new-ish project to talk about!
The first story I ever published was "The Lonesome Dark" back in BLACKGUARDS by Ragnarok Publications. Since then, Outland Entertainment has taken over publication duties, and their first act was to take all of the BLACKGUARDS stories (even those of us published in the e-book and extra digital material) and give the whole thing a proper physical re-release. Pretty exciting!
So while you couldn't get a physical copy of "The Lonesome Dark" before, you absolutely can now!
It currently seems to only be available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but I'll update this post and the My Books section if I track down any further marketplaces.
"The Lonesome Dark" is a fantasy western set in Ariasun County, a secondary world where a lot of my current projects are taking place. The main character, Evaline Cartwright, is a bounty hunter/hand-for-hire in a part of the world where it's really hard to find work that doesn't end in some kind of betrayal or undue violence. She takes a job bringing the body of a Sharath boy back to a commonage, which sounds innocuous, but the trip starts to unravel as she draws closer to her destination.
Hope you consider checking it out!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble

What Have I Been Up To?

Hello!

So, this blog hasn't seen an update in a while. The writing has continued and I plan on releasing some more stories in the near-future. Likely over the summer when I'll have more time to sit down and give everything a thorough edit and begin formatting.

But the main reason I haven't been able to update:

I'm in Japan!

Last August, I started working as an ALT at a high school in Japan. Specifically, it's a school in our sister city, which has provided me a tremendous opportunity to explore a culture I've always been fond of, get some first-hand teaching experience by working alongside other teachers, and facilitate a cultural exchange between our two cities as best as I can.

So, while I've had plenty of time to write, and while I've actually been able to complete a few projects that will either get shopped around or self-published in the short-term, my ability to get things self-published out here is not at a comfortable level.

In the meantime, if you're at all interested in my adventures over here, please give my Instagram a look!

@amlowe1123

This will be my primary social media account going forward. I'll still have Facebook, but it won't be getting much attention.

Looking forward to sharing what I've been working on this year!

"All the Stars in My Eyes" and "In the Land of Dead Dragons"

                 

And they're up! The last of the three short stories that I planned on putting up before the summer.

Just like "Alive," these are two stories that I just had a ton of fun writing. Both in the first person, both characters who could safely be accused of being a little heartless.

The first, "All the Stars in My Eyes," is a near-future sci-fi story about a doubler, someone who uses state-of-the-art tech to take the place of celebrities when they have to tap out for a bit. Seems like the need for the actual actor/actress to be on set is diminishing over time, so this is about a time when the need to actually be at their own meet-and-greets and on their own press tours is tenuous.

Here's the synopsis:

She's a doubler. Hired to take the place of imperiled celebrities.

She lives in the spotlight that isn't hers, revels in adoration she never earned. A composite of a failed actress and state-of-the-art disguises, she's lived the celebrity life for so long that she's starting to believe she deserves it.

The second story, "In the Land of Dead Dragons," is a LitRPG short story about a woman trying unriddle her brother's lifestyle. In the absence of anything to go on in realspace, she dives into the most popular VR-RPG in the world, The Realm of Avarill, and tries to find anyone who might have encountered her brother in the years that he played the game.

And the synopsis:

Orin the Dragonslayer has vanished from The Realm of Avarill -- the most popular VR-RPG in the world. In his place, Valystra de Fere approaches.

She comes seeking Orin's legacy, tales of his heroics, and the cold trails he left behind. All so that, back in realspace, she might better understand the brother she fell out of touch with so many years ago.

I added a series title, because I'd genuinely like to write some more stories using this setting. The one I'm starting to outline probably won't be nearly as silly!

Thanks and enjoy!

Alive in Obsolescence: A Cyberpunk Short Story

It's up! The first of three short stories I'll be self-publishing through Kindle for now, each of which will feature cover art from my talented sister.

This is a story I wrote about a year ago as a return trip to a post-apocalyptic setting, this time with a cyberpunk slant. Here's the synopsis:

The world is dying. Thick smog chokes the skies and the oceans are acrid and toxic. As a pleasant alternative to riding out extinction, humanity is retreating into battery-powered VR simulations.

Unfortunately for Shilo, his battery has run out -- and hard reality awaits.

The other two will be up within the next week or so, with one being a litRPG story and the other a kind of sci-fi take on celebrity worship. I'm wrapping up final edits on them now.

Enjoy!

Evaline Cartwright makes a return trip!

"The Lonesome Dark" was the first short story I ever got published. I had a fantastic time during the process and was very thankful Ragnarok Publications tossed me into a volume with other authors that I respect immensely.

While I continue plotting out further adventures with Evaline Cartwright, the magick-scarred gunslinger of "The Lonesome Dark," the original short story will be making a comeback thanks to Outland Entertainment.

The new volumes, entitled Brigands and Scoundrels will have all new cover art by Daniel Rempel, and editing will be done by Alana Joli Abbott and Melanie R. Meadors (with first edition credit going to JM Martin). The books will have stories in them by Bradley P. Beaulieu, Lian Hearn, Rob J. Hayes, Anthony Lowe, Anthony Ryan, Linda Robertson, Cat Rambo, Erik Scott de Bie, and many more. Not only will the books have stories that appeared in the original anthology, but each volume will feature a brand new story from fantasy authors not included in the original volume or the ebook companion.

Excited to see how it turns out! Check out the full post here: https://outlandentertainment.com/206648-2/

Stuff on the way!

It's been a while, but with my time as an undergrad coming to an end this summer, I have some more stories on their way towards merry self-publication!

Without getting into details (yet), it will be a batch of three short stories that I'll be making available through pretty much as many sites as possible. Kindle will be a certainty, but I'm looking into others such as B&N, Kobo, and Drive Thru Fiction. All of it will depend on which ones accept short fiction.

Beyond that, I'm looking to get an unpublished piece LORE OF THE RELUCTANT short fiction up on Kindle as a free purchase. The Weird Western Anthology thing is still in progress, though, with graduation on the horizon, I'm guessing that one won't see completion until winter. I'd also love to get more movie reviews up on the blog. I love writing them, but I can rarely keep them brief. If I can keep up with it, I'll post some in the short term.

Until next time!

Movie Review: The Homesman (2014)

"You are not socially acceptable."

THE HOMESMAN opens with a very awkward marriage proposal on the part of a woman living alone in Nebraska Territory to a man who can barely stay awake during their dinner. Mary Bee Cuddy (Hillary Swank) is a farmer in an unforgiving part of the country, eking out a fair living but unable to find anyone willing to marry her, which is beginning to cause her great distress.

Meanwhile, as winter picks up, three wives of nearby homesteaders have all gone insane. Unable to cure the women, the church of the nearest town elect Mary Bee to take the three back east across the Mississippi, where they'll be sent back to their families. Before the journey can even begin, Mary Bee runs across a man calling himself George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), left to die with a noose around his neck and an unsteady horse beneath him. Agreeing to help Mary Bee transport the three women back east in exchange for his life, the five of them set out into wilderness unsure of what they'll come up against.

THE HOMESMAN, which marks Tommy Lee Jones' third film in the director's chair, is (for my money) one of the best Westerns to be made in recent years. Though Jones himself has made the claim that the film has little in common with a traditional Western aside from time and location -- and he's right -- it still fits neatly within the boundaries of a revisionist Western, with its goal of treating familiar imagery with a healthy dose of realism.

The film shines a light on the treatment and overbearing expectations of women on the frontier, and does not shy away from depicting the conditions which first impelled these three women towards insanity. Even Mary Bee, who is the overseer of the journey, finds it difficult escape the pressures of being a single woman. Though only thirty-one years old, she perceives herself as someone who is missing the train, so to speak, to becoming the wife she believes she *must* be and achieving her womanhood in the process. Although she is the one driving the wagon, she and the other three women are all on the same journey, suffering the same affliction at varying intensities. (This also makes the title of the film tragically ironic in context.)

THE HOMESMAN is a very cynical film, and very aware that the conditions that plague its main cast are not going to go away for decades. Its very premise illustrates this, kicked off by a group of men who would rather send their wives away forever than to deal with their suffering. However, it still focuses on a facet of the frontier that very rarely takes center stage in the genre. It's beautifully shot, well-written, and the cast is all around solid. Tommy Lee Jones has created a Western that meshes the aesthetics of the classics with the themes of modern cinema. It's not very optimistic, but then again the West rarely was.

* * * *

4 out of 4 Stars