Back to miscellany

Last week's rant gives way to the miscellany characterizing the last several days.

On Friday afternoon, I had a podcast interview with Tony Tellado of Sci-Fi Talk. As of writing this blog, it hadn't yet been posted, but you can be sure that I'll announce it (and post the URL) when I know it's gone live. Mr. Tellado and I had a nice conversation about The Eagle at Dawn, the Immortal Shifters series, and writing in general. In short, I don't write the way most authors do: I'm a minority--a pantser, not a plotter.

Speaking of author interviews, I have two more coming up. One will be with AdriAnne Headen of The Writer's Television. This face-to-face interview will take place in my hometown. At her request for a public location, I suggested Un Mundo Cafe, a favorite of mine for lunch and chai tea. The other interview will be with Richard Dugan's radio show and broadcast titled Tell Me Your Story. I'll keep y'all posted.

I'm making decent progress on my next book, which I have tentatively titled F-Stop. Another title I'm considering is Focus. The spark for this story came from my last attempt at reading a BDSM romance and, consequently, becoming--again--disgusted with it. I know the sub-genre is popular, but I just don't see the appeal. One of my issues with the sub-genre is the utter lack of respect the heroes in those stories have for women and the spineless heroines who just just roll over and take it. Can you hear Aretha Franklin singing yet? My story doesn't focus on BDSM and it's not a BDSM romance, but respect is a strong theme running through it. I hope to release it April.

The author registration form for the 2020 Springfield Book Fair will open on March 1 and close May 31. After the poor showing at the summer event in 2019, I decided that holding two events per year was overkill, so I dropped it back to one. The May and September dates have been canceled. The 2020 Springfield Book Fair will be held on Saturday, June 13, from 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM, at Mother Stewart's Brewing Company. I increased the registration fee to $75, so we can afford more advertising and marketing. Personalized Marketing Inc. will handle event promotion and marketing beyond that which we request participating authors to do. All participating authors are requested to share event information to their social media networks.

Speaking of events, I'm headed to Kentucky for the Lexington Legendary Book Bash on Saturday, March 21, at the Doubletree Suites by Hilton Lexington. My bestie, Cindra, has graciously consented to keep me company. Doubtless, she'll do a good bit of the driving, too. Driving in cities makes me nervous. I'll have copies of my latest books, Shot from the Hip (a collection of all my western short stories) and Hogtied (released on Valentine's Day). More events are coming up, so check out the EVENTS page on the Hen House Publishing website.

If you haven't noticed, I'm changing the Book of the Month feature. Each book featured will be available for free download during the last weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) of the month. All other times, the e-book will be available for only $0.99. February's featured book is Triple Burn. March will feature The Falcon of Imenotash. Please be sure to leave a review, whichever book(s) you read.

That's it for now. I'll get back to my regularly scheduled rant next week.