Current Status: My Writing Efforts

Just as a quick note, since I can no longer submit blog articles to the FWA Royal Palm Literary Awards, I submitted two unpublished short stories - one involving vampire bikers, and a sci-fi flash fiction - for consideration instead.

In the meantime, my trip to last weekend's Sunshine State Book Festival yielded zero sales for Funny Locations or any of the Strangely Funny anthologies I had on display. The guy on my right sold seven of his books, the guy on my left sold four. 

/deep heartbroken sigh 

I gotta work on my marketing skills ('cause I don't have any).

Will blog later tonight.

Personal Note: Appearing at the Sunshine State Book Festival in 2025

Just to let the 10 regular readers of this blog know, I plan on being at the upcoming Sunshine State Book Festival in Gainesville, FL the weekend of January 31st - February 1st this 2025.

 I'm promoting my humor story anthology Funny Locations, and using the opportunity to go visit my college stomping grounds again (GO GATORS) while I'm there.

The event itself is a bit far from the UF campus, but it should be easy to get to:

Best Western Gateway Grand
4200 NW 97th Blvd. Gainesville, Florida

(just off of I-75 in the northwest corner of the Gainesville area)

In the meantime, as the holidays approach, just a quick request to my peeps to hey BUY MY BOOKS please and thank you, they should make fine Saturnalia gifts...

Personal Promotion: Local Authors Event at Lake Wales Public Library April 9

To the nine official readers of this blog, if any of you can reach central Florida this coming Tuesday April 9th, I hope you can stop by Lake Wales Public Library for my Local Authors appearance in the morning.

Here's the event info:

Date:

April 9, 2024

Time:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Location:

Library Lobby

Address:

290 Cypress Garden Lane
Lake Wales, FL 33853

Link:

Sign Up Here!

The library likes you to sign up ahead of time so they can track the turnout, please and thank you.

I'll be there - discussing my latest publication Funny Locations - as part of the National Library Week event that happens across the United States every second week of April. Lake Wales' theme this year is to support the local authors, and they're going to have a big showing of published writers that I know across Polk County and central Florida.

If you can't make it to Lake Wales, at least check out your local libraries to partake of their events, again please and thank you.

And psst buy my book (owstophittingme)

 

Some Notes: May 2016 Edition

Just to state for the record:

1) I'm still going to be at the Local Author's Signing event at the Wesley Chapel FL Barnes & Noble store on Saturday May 21 from 2 PM to 4 PM. I don't care if most of my blog traffic comes from Japan and Russia, I wanna see ALL of you there to support local authors, dammit.

2) I am still working on taking parts of this blog and converting it into a published work, following in the footsteps of Molly Ivins and the newspaper columnists of olde. I'm doing this partly because I want a print record of the ten odd years I've been blogging, partly because the book is going to be about Obama's tenure and there needs to be an outsider's view of how it all went down, mostly because I'm sick of seeing all these anti-Obama books on the shelves at libraries and stores.

2a) That said, converting weblinks to footnotes is a painful and tedious process when you gotta do it by hand. I'm also still stuck on a decent-enough title, not that many people voting on the poll of suggested ones...

3) Going back through the pro-Obama stuff, I now regret not finding the time back in May 2011 writing up the impact and significance of the SEAL raid that killed Bin Laden. It's a key moment in Obama's first term that deserved discussion and I missed it (too busy stressing out over job-hunting at the time I suppose). I'm going to have to write a book-specific article about it.

4) I've decided on going Friday in street clothes to the Orlando MegaCon May 27, and on Saturday May 28 going dressed up as the Jedi.

Friday at Noon, author Bill Hatfield and others are going to discuss writing as part of NaNoWriMo, a forum which I hope to be an audience member. Check out the full schedule here.

On the Friday trip, I'm hoping others I know are going to show up and maybe we all can go see the X-Men movie at a nearby theater. Anybody? Anybody?

May 2016: Very Busy

There's a couple of things happening this month, so I will be slightly distracted but I will post here when I can.

Above all this is a birth month, so yay, there will be cake.

I am going to be at a Local Authors signing event in Wesley Chapel FL (north of Tampa) at the Barnes & Noble store in the Wiregrass mall on Saturday May 21st, alongside 25 other local authors. It would really be great if a lot of people showed up that afternoon between 2 to 4 PM to help promote local writers, and you may find among the various books and genres something worth reading! I'll be there promoting some of my printed works as well as my ebook stories.

There's always May The Fourth and Cinco De Mayo, but May 4th will have a special connotation this year as an anniversary, so please do attend.

Also, MegaCon is this Memorial Day Weekend, so yes I will go. I've been contemplating going as a Jedi again, but I plan on going different days so maybe that Saturday I will.

On A Personal Note: My Writing Side

While I posted this on my writer's blog, I want to pass a couple of notes along over here as well:

I will attend a Local Authors book sale/signing event at the Barnes & Noble store in Wesley Chapel FL this coming Saturday May 21st from 2-4 PM. I'll have print copies of various works on display for sale and autographs, sitting alongside fellow local authors who are published across a variety of genres. I may also be sitting with fellow writers/publishers Sarah Glenn and Gwen Mayo because as the next note will state...

Any day/month now the third volume of the Strangely Funny anthology series will be published. Sarah and Gwen are the publishers and editors with Mystery & Horror LLC imprint, and they'll likely bring copies of this latest anthology to the authors' event, which we can sign as a group.

Update before the Update: Volume III of Strangely Funny is NOW AVAILABLE as a Kindle ebook! Look for my story "Minette Dances with the Golem of Albany" and enjoy! (Print version and EPUB version will be available soon)

I'm finishing up one story for submission to the Florida Writers Association annual anthology (I thought I had it but something needs tweaking...) and I'm thinking a previous writing mini-lesson story I did a few months back could qualify for this year's theme of "Hide and Seek" so I'll likely submit both to test my odds. ;)

Update: I need to revise the status of a previous publication. Stories For All Seasons is currently ON HOLD as the writing group I'm with is changing the format and marketing for the book.

I've changed the Writings Tab atop my banner now, go take a look and consider if you're interested in downloading any of the titles listed, please and thank you.

I am planning on getting a poster of the Body Armor Blues ebook created as a giveaway item for the Local Authors event to entice an audience...