Well, having a book that contains your work be nominated for an award isn’t a bad way to kick off the year.

HAUNTED: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror is up for a Reader’s Choice Award over at Preditors & Editors! The book features a lot of great authors, including Jess Hartley, Georgia Beaverson, Chuck Wendig, and Richard Dansky. I’m honored that my story, “It Happened in the Woods at Night”, is included in such illustrious company.

Voting ends soon (January 10th) so please, if you’re a fan of the book, head over to the site and place your vote. (And don’t forget to verify your vote afterwards.) If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you can grab it in digital or hard copy from DriveThruFiction.

My friends at Flames Rising have launched the first anthology from their FR Press publishing imprint and I’m proud to say I have a story in it. The anthology is all about ghosts and ghost hunting. To quote anthology editor Monica Valentinelli:

Who willingly walks into a haunted house?

Ghost hunters explore dark places, investigate clues and uncover secrets of the dead. Evidence of an afterlife may prove elusive and few hunters recognize some things are best left buried and forgotten.

Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror is available now in a variety of digital formats and will be in print soon. My own story, “It Happened in the Woods at Night,” joins fiction from such great authors as Alex Bledsoe, Chuck Wendig, Jess Hartley, Georgia Beaverson, Preston P. DuBose, and more!

I hope you get a chance to check it out. It’s a great kick off to the Halloween season and good for some scares all year ’round.

Buy it for your Nook at Barnes & Noble online.

Buy it in PDF, ePub (most eReaders including Nook), and Mobi (Kindle) at DriveThruHorror.

Matt Forbeck was among the first professionals who welcomed me into the game industry. I’ve been a fan of his for years but more than simply enjoying his work I’ve enjoyed seeing his career branch out, reaching higher and higher. I like when my friends do well, I smile when I see their work appreciated and their goals achieved, so I’m near giddy that his first original novel not only got picked up but was snagged by one of the most exciting publishers out there, Angry Robot.

Introducing Matt Forbeck’s AMORTALS.

Matt’s a machine and he’s earned every success. I hope AMORTALS (and his other upcoming novel VEGAS KNIGHTS, also published by Angry Robot) do well for him. If you’re in the UK, you can grab it on bookshelves now. Folks in the US (like me) will have to wait until January 2011. It’s available everywhere in digital format though so if you can’t wait to tear into it, grab the Nook or Kindle flavors.

See, I lost focus.

And that happens. I’m fallible and I know it. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have initiated Operation: Awesome. I would have just sat around wondering why no one recognized my genius.

A couple weeks ago, I talked about how I had some connections to a potential publisher and how I was looking at novel options suited for that. I let those connections overshadow something very crucial: the identity I want as a writer. Instead of thinking “What type of career do I want?” I thought “What’s my best chance of getting published?”

Now that’s not a bad question to ask. If you have an opportunity, hey, take it. I will never fault a creative for taking the money. In this case, the opportunity was something I’d like to have, yes, but not what I really truly want. My passion lies somewhere else. When I walk into a bookstore, I know the section that feels like home. I know where I want my books to be stocked. When I look at the list of authors I’m studying, they’re in that section. And while I read books in a variety of genres and markets, I have a clear vision of who I am as an author right now and where I want my career to start.

So I’m not writing one of the novels I talked about in that post. I’m still writing a novel. I’m just not writing the novel that makes sense for that connection. I’m writing the novel I want to write. The novel that makes me smile and makes me want to keep writing.

The following is based on a true story.

The Haunted House, by Cambden Blair

Read More »

Thought I’d shed a little light on some of the exciting projects my friends have been cooking up.

Jeff Preston’s 60 Character Portraits
Illustrator-extraordinaire Jeff Preston recently launched a Kickstarter project along with co-conspirator A Terrible Idea called “60 Terrible Character Portraits For Creative Commons Release.” Don’t let the name fool you; the images are anything but terrible. See for yourself below.

If you dig it, kick in a few bucks to help the project here.

Daniel Solis’ Happy Birthday, Robot!
Daniel Solis, along with publisher Evil Hat, just released the print version of Happy Birthday, Robot! I can’t praise this game enough for its concept, goals, and presentation. This game is perfect for getting kids into story creation and using their imagination for the purely fantastic. I can’t sell it nearly as well as the creator does. Check out this video for more information.

If this sounds good to you, pick it up through Evil Hat’s online store.

Monica Valentinelli’s Queen of Crows
Monica Valentinelli released a book trailer for her ebook Queen of Crows, a tie-in to her Violet War setting. She created the video herself, featuring work by illustrator Leanne Buckley and musician James Semple. Check out the trailer below.

If you’re intrigued, you can currently grab the pdf at DriveThruRPG for 25% off its list price (just $3.74).

Last year, my good friend Matt McElroy (of Flames Rising fame) put together a fiction compilation in support of design studio 12 to Midnight‘s excellent Pinebox, Texas game setting (now published by the fine folks at Pinnacle Entertainment Group). The resulting book, dubbed Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas, attracted some great talent notwithstanding my own contribution, a story of skinshifting and strange dates called “Lovable Creatures.”

The book is so good, in fact, that the folks who head up the tabletop gaming industry’s preeminent awards, the Ennies, saw fit to nominate it for Best Regalia. Yep, I can now say I’ve contributed to some of the finest regalia in gaming. Another dream to check off the list!

Anyway, if you haven’t your own copy of the book, check out some excerpts and author bios over at the official site. You can buy the book in digital or physical form, whichever suits your fancy.

Public voting begins next Friday, July 16th so cross your fingers and toes and make your voice heard! (And while you’re at the site, check out the nominations for other excellent gaming products such as Eclipse Phase and Supernatural!)