You know that I'm always talking about Paying It Forward and how we in the writer community are the best folks anyone could ask for, right? Well, today I'm going to prove it with a post all about amazing people that I've met through various circumstances whose writings and ideas and humor and creativity reached out through the Internets, grabbed me by the shirtfront and bobbled me back and forth until I became a rabid fan. So, like a favorite earworm you can't wait to share with friends, here are three indie authors and their latest "Next Big Things" that you should check out and share with your friends!
Ruthanne Reid's latest novel, NOTTE, is a fantasy described as "the story of a man who became the world’s first biological weapon, through no choice of his own, and took thousands of years to find his way back to being human." I first stumbled onto Ruthanne as a fellow would-be author looking for random feedback on her query letter via Twitter and I, who was avoiding my WIP at the time doing internet clickanery, went and made a helpful comment or twelve. Ruthanne pinged me back and that began a conversation about her query and her story and we worked together until it was good to go and she said if there was anything she could do, etc. and I said no, no, not at all unless she knew something about WordPress because I couldn't get my !#$%^&* site to work. Well, it just so happened that she *did* know something about WordPress, and then she spent days helping me make it good to go with a wave of her magic brains. Take that as a lesson in karmic favors and we've been cheerleading one another ever since. Her first book, THE SUNDERED, was enough to show me that she had a head-twisty flair for out-of-this-world antics and I'm looking forward to what's coming up in NOTTE.
You can check out Ruthanne's latest news (and grab sneak peeks) at ruthannereid.com.
I met Heather Albano over fifteen years ago in circles of creative friends of friends. We never seemed to connect through timing and circumstance, but as we both began wandering down the Road Less Traveled as would-be writers, we found out that we had more than a little in common and more than a little fun talking about books, authors, story ideas, sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, and our favorite genre creators with fangirlish glee. It was a short hop, skip and a jump to regular coffees and brainstorming bashes. Her gift of prose is only dwarfed by her ability to wield a truly plot-worthy pen. Her first novel, TIMEPIECE, came out last year and its sequel, TIMEKEEPER, is available right now! Heather describes them as such: "Steampunk and/or alternate history. Timepiece is more the former and Timekeeper more the latter. There’s a healthy time travel component to both."
You want to know more? We've got more!
TIMEPIECE: A steampunk time travel adventure about a girl, a pocket watch, Frankenstein’s monster, the Battle of Waterloo, and giant clockwork robots taking over London.
TIMEKEEPER: Either "Timekeeper picks up where Timepiece left off, bringing to a conclusion the story of Elizabeth and William" or "An alternate history adventure featuring time travelers, freedom fighters, Frankenstein’s monster, the Battle of Waterloo, and Napoleon invading Britain by dirigible."
You can find out more about Heather and her creative whirlwinds at www.heatheralbano.com.
Grady Hendrix is someone I met through Heather, only after hearing him read aloud from his first novel, SATAN LOVES YOU, at a conference. After I stopped gasping for breath and wiping away tears of hilarity, I pounced, asking to learn more about this story and others he had brewing. As a Clarion graduate and enthusiastic (if perhaps masochistic) collaborator on various and sundry projects, he's released new solo titles such as OCCUPY SPACE and MCMANSIONS OF THE DAMNED, (which is just hitting the query stage now and is briefly described as "a haunted house/horror/comedy about dead mothers and real estate.")
Now you know why I pounced, right?
SATAN LOVES YOU: "No matter how much you hate your job, Satan hates his job more. Hell is full of damned souls, lazy demons, and dead celebrities who whine endlessly about their petty personal problems. After a few thousand years of this, the Lord of Darkness is burnt out, exhausted, and clinically depressed. But in the face of a power grab by the officious and smarmy Heavenly Host, Satan's got to reach deep and find a way to save Hell from a corporate takeover, win a professional wrestling match, deal with an overly-aggressive nun (who may be carrying his child), and cope with a horde of zombie hipsters."
OCCUPY SPACE: "Melville, SC was out of money, it was out of jobs, it was out of hope, and now it was out of astronauts. There'd only been two to begin with, but one of them is stuck up on the International Space Station, abandoned to his fate by both the American and Russian space programs. If you're going to get anything done, you've usually got to do it yourself and so Melville's economically body-slammed residents decide to build their own rocket to bring their boy home. As they attempt to reach low earth orbit they defy insurance regulations, shred international missile launch treaties, step on the toes of the FBI, and ultimately show that everyone's got the right stuff, even if their house is underwater, they love beer way too much, and they never graduated from high school."
Grady is online and at large at www.gradyhendrix.com.
P.S. Check 'em out! You'll be glad you did!
