Happy Halloween Eve, everyone!

This week I’m thrilled to announce that The Final Summons, the New England Speculative Writers group’s first anthology, is officially available for pre-sale at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iTunes, with Amazon pre-sales to begin next month.

Visit the official website for more info on the anthology and its contributors, and to place your pre-order. The collection is scheduled for a February 5, 2019 release.

This is one bandwagon you’ll want to jump onto, because the book is already hitting the charts. Within hours of pre-orders going live on Kobo, The Final Summons was the #1 title on three lists. Check it out!

Now, on a much more serious note…

Last week I came very close to withdrawing from Arisia 2019. I won’t go deep into the details, because it’s a very ugly account, but it became public knowledge that a past Arisia participant was allegedly raped by the president of Arisia’s board of directors. After looking into the allegations (which I personally believe are credible), the board returned this man to his position, which happened to put him in place as the man ostensibly in charge of safety and security at the event.

I viewed this outcome as grossly unacceptable on many levels. I wrote directly to Arisia, shared the situation on social media, and encouraged others to do the same. I also announced that if the president remained in his position, I wouldn’t do the show as a merchant or panel participant. I just couldn’t support an event that so badly mishandled such an incident.

Late Friday, Arisia announced it had removed the president and would take steps to prevent a re-occurrence of the situation. I think a lot more has to be done here, but I do believe this is a good first step for the organization.

However, I don’t want to go back and pretend it’s business as usual. I’d like to try and do some good here, so at Arisia I will be selling all full-length novels for $15, with $5 from every sale going to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) and the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC).

WRITING PROJECTS

Well-Behaved Women: Audiobook version of Well-Behaved Women – Awakening in production.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Scratching a Lich: Audiobook in production.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – book four: First draft in progress.

Action Figures – Issue Eight: Crawling from the Wreckage: Fourth draft written. Tentatively scheduled for a February/March 2019 release.

Action Figures – Issue Nine: Hell Hath No Fury: First draft in progress.

Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins (audiobook): Review completed, final editing in progress.

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

• Arisia 2019 – I’ve been accepted into the dealers’ room, so I’ll be there selling books once again, and I hope to hear about any panel assignments soon.

MISC.

The New England Speculative Writers group if offering not one but two free books to new newsletter subscribers. Simply click on this link and sign up for the newsletter, and you’ll receive e-book versions of the two collections pictured here, featuring novel samples from NESW members. The fantasy collection includes the first two chapters of The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Scratching a Lich.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a weekly newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.