COVER REVEAL: LIKE SUNSHINE AFTER RAIN

A CHARITY ANTHOLOGY FROM RDSP 

Raw Dog Screaming Press and international award-winning editor Heidi Ruby Miller are taking pre-orders for the charity anthology LIKE SUNSHINE AFTER RAIN. Proceeds benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The beautiful cover is by Brad Sharp. Interior illustrations by Sharon A. Ruby. 

This limited edition anthology is available in lettered hardcover and numbered paperback editions. It hosts short stories, poems, and essays from 82 authors, including: 

New York Times bestsellers Jonathan Maberry and Maria V. Snyder 

USA Today bestseller Annette Dashofy 

International bestseller Liz Coley 

Amazon Charts bestsellers Cary Caffrey, Sasha Dawn, and Jennifer Foehner Wells 

Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner Randall Silvis 

Bram Stoker Award winners Lee Murray, Christina Sng, Lucy A. Snyder, Sara Tantlinger, and Tim Waggoner 

International Horror Guild Award winners Michael A. Arnzen and Gary Braunbeck 

Asimov’s Readers Award winner Timons Esaias 

Arthur J. Rooney Award winner Jason Jack Miller 

Pittsburgh City Paper Best Local Writer winner Brian Butko 

American Library Association Notable Book Award winner Lynn Salsi

Eugene V. Debs Foundation Literature Prize winner Eric Leif Davin

 
This is a limited edition anthology which will be available in two different bindings: a $100 lettered hardcover with dust jacket and a $30 paperback limited to 300 copies. All proceeds minus production costs will be donated to LLS. 

Preorder the hardcover for $100 

Preorder the paperback for $30

FROM THE FOREWORD BY HEIDI RUBY MILLER: 

“When someone I loved was diagnosed with stage 4 leukemia in the middle of the pandemic, I spiraled into an existential disquiet. Everything was going wrong everywhere, and I felt helpless. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society was there for my family in so many ways, including guidance and emotional support. I wanted to help them and also give myself purpose. I did what I do best, I wrote…and I asked others for their writing with only two requests:

It must be upbeat. 

It must be under 1500 words. 

I heard the groans right through my email. That’s a pretty tight word limit. And, even those writers who weren’t part of the horror scene said they didn’t exactly go for upbeat in their projects. But they all agreed to try. And something unforeseen happened. My writing friends were experimenting with forms and genres, writing out of their comfort zones, sharing personal connections to cancer, to fear, to overcoming their sadness, and they thanked me for it. 

Their willingness to search for the positive became an unexpected time capsule of perseverance and pushing onward when so many of us struggled to make it through one day at a time.” 

To reserve your copy of LIKE SUNSHINE AFTER RAIN, visit http://rawdogscreaming.com/books/like-sunshine-after-rain/. 

ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Heidi Ruby Miller is a travel writer turned novelist. She uses research for her stories as an excuse to roam the globe. Her books include the popular Ambasadora series, Man of War, which is a sequel to Science Fiction Grandmaster Philip José Farmer’s novel Two Hawks from Earth, and the international award-winning writing guide Many Genres, One Craft. In between trips, Heidi teaches creative writing at Seton Hill University, where she graduated from their Writing Popular Fiction graduate program the same month she appeared on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Follow Heidi’s writing journey with her husband, Jason Jack Miller, and their two cats in the newsletter Small Space Big Life and find her online everywhere as Heidi Ruby Miller. 

LLS MISSION 

“Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.” 

https://donate.lls.org/lls/donate

WHAT WRITERS MAKE (With apologies to Taylor Mali)

Watch on YouTube.

EVENTS

FROM THE PULPFEST WEBSITE BY WILLIAM PATRICK MAYNARD:

PulpFest is proud that over 30 popular fiction writers will be attending our 2019 convention. “Back in the day,” the authors who labored for the rough paper industry liked to call themselves scribes, word-slingers, penny-a-worders, and, perhaps the most favored term of all, fictioneers. Join PulpFest as we celebrate today’s fictioneers — the authors writing today’s pulp fiction!

On Friday, August 16, at 11 AM, join five writers from Raw Dog Screaming Press for a Rapid-Fire Read and Sweet Sixteen Celebration. It will be hosted by publisher Jennifer Barnes. Raw Dog Screaming Press has carved a niche for themselves as the specialty house for offbeat, dark, deviant, thought-provoking fiction. They were the recipient of the 2018 Horror Writers Association Specialty Press Award for outstanding horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction. Their critically acclaimed publications are attracting mainstream attention with Ridley Scott recently optioning one of their titles as a major motion picture for Twentieth Century Fox.

Readings on Friday morning will be given by author/poet Michael A. Arnzen (four-time winner of The Bram Stoker Award); fantasy and science fiction author Carrie Gessner; author and founding editor of Raw Dog Screaming Press John Edward Lawson; novelist and journalist Jason Jack Miller; and Bram Stoker Award-winning poet and novelist Stephanie Wytovich.

On Saturday, August 17, at 11 AM, join six writers from Dog Star Books for a second Rapid-Fire Read for PulpFest. It will be hosted by publisher John Edward Lawson. Dog Star Books is the new Raw Dog Screaming Press imprint for Science Fiction Adventure titles. It is the specialty house for edgy, evocative, thought-provoking sci-fi and adventure fiction from new and established authors who shine among the best in their field today.

Readings on Saturday morning will be given by author and poet Matt Betts; editor and author J. L. Gribble; Dog Star Books founder/managing editor and science fiction and thriller author Heidi Ruby Miller; science fiction and urban fantasy author K. W. Taylor; science fiction author and poet Albert Wendland; and science fiction author, editor, and poet K. Ceres Wright.

We’ll also be showcasing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill prior to the Dog Star Celebration. Join Dog Star Books founder and author Heidi Ruby Miller and three writers from Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction Master’s Program at 10 AM Saturday morning, August 17th at PulpFest in the convention’s programming hall. Horror and fantasy author Jeremiah Dylan Cook; author and screenwriter E. C. Skowronski,; and horror author, poet, and editor Sara Tantlinger will be reading from their work.

Coffee, tea, and sweets — celebrating sixteen years of high quality Raw Dog fiction — will also be available both days, compliments of the publisher.

PulpFest 2019 will begin on Thursday, August 15, and run through Sunday, August 18.  Join PulpFest at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, just north of Pennsylvania’s “Steel City” of Pittsburgh. We’ll be celebrating “Children of the Pulps and Other Stories” at this year’s gathering. Click our Programming button below our homepage banner to get a preview of all the great presentations at this year’s event.

To join PulpFest 2019, click the Register button below our homepage banner. To book a room at the DoubleTree by Hilton — our host hotel — click the Book a Room button, also found on our homepage.

(Raw Dog Screaming Press and Dog Star Books banners and logos designed by Jennifer Barnes.)

Man of War by Heidi Ruby Miller as E-book

Since all the special edition hardcovers of Man of War are almost sold out, Meteor House has the paperback on sale at $5 off for the next two weeks and they've released the e-book on Kindle and Nook!

EVENT: 32ND ANNUAL PENNWRITERS CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS OPEN

EVENTS

Registration for the 32nd Annual Pennwriters Conference in Pittsburgh is now open: http://bit.ly/pennwriters2019.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
JESSICA STRAWSER AND JASON JACK MILLER

Thursday Pre-Conference Intensive Faculty
Timons Esaias - The Crafts of Fiction: The Nuts, the Bolts, and Hoisting the Girders into Place
Deborah Riley-Magnus - Author Marketing Master Class
Coroner Lyell P. Cook - Coroners: Their history, What they do, What they see

Friday Networking Luncheon Speaker
JD Dunbar - Listen for the Lyrics

Friday Published Penns Luncheon Speaker
Siobhan Vivian - Your Next Big Idea: Developing and Heightening the Plot of Your WIP

Agents, Editors, Publisher
Kaitlyn Johnson, agent, Corvisiero Literacy Agency
Amy Bishop, Agent – Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC
Bibi Lewis, Agent – Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Danielle Dieterich, Editor – G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Random House
Rhonda Penders – The Wild Rose Press

32nd Annual Pennwriters Conference
Friday, May 17, 2019 9:00 AM - Sunday, May 19, 2019 1:00 PM (Eastern Time)

Pittsburgh Airport Marriott
777 Aten Road
Coraopolis, Pennsylvania 15108
United States
412-788-8800
EVENT DETAILS

Conference Coordinators: Pauline Drozeski & Hilary Hauck, ConferenceCoordinator@pennwriters.org

Registration Coordinator: Cathy Seckman, ConferenceRegistration@pennwriters.org

EVENT: Jason Jack Miller at PARSEC

I'll be giving a talk at PARSEC on St. Paddy's Day, so if you're in the Burgh from 1:30-4:30, stop by the Squirrel Hill Library and say hi.

EVENT: Jason Jack Miller and Heidi Ruby Miller at Brazosport College

EVENTS

If you're in the Lake Jackson area of Texas on April 1, come and visit us at the Brazosport College Library. We'll be discussing what it's like to collaborate as authors and also reading from our work.
Note: This is not an April Fool's Day joke! :D

Christopher Paul Carey is the New Director of Publishing at ERB, Inc.

Congratulations to good friend and SHU WPF alum Christopher Paul Carey for becoming the new Director of Publishing at Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy.

Tarzana, CA (February 5, 2019) — Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., the company that manages and licenses the creative works of novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs, including TARZAN OF THE APES® and JOHN CARTER OF MARS®, is pleased to announce the addition of Christopher Paul Carey to its executive staff in the role of Director of Publishing, effective February 4, 2019.

Christopher Paul Carey, as the new Director of Publishing, will work closely with Jim Sullos, President, and Cathy Wilbanks, Vice President of Operations, on all aspects of the company’s publishing division, including exciting new initiatives to be announced in the future.

Read more here.

THE BIG THRILL!

Many thanks to Derek Gunn for some great questions and to THE BIG THRILL for the opportunity!

Read the interview here: http://www.thebigthrill.org/2018/02/all-saints-by-jason-jack-miller/

Monessen Public Library, Saturday, March 3!

Deets: 326 Donner Ave
Monessen, PA 15062

ALL SAINTS Release

With everything that's happened over the last few weeks I'd pretty much forgotten that I have a book coming out this week. I'm not really sure what I want to say about it at this point, except that this was supposed to be a big moment for me. I'd been working on this idea for about 18 years and am really proud of what I've written. And then...

I'd missed a few interview opportunities, had a plan to countdown here on my blog and on Instagram, had a few videos I wanted to make. But that's not how it happened.

So here's what I would've said about the book in the weeks leading up to the release:

• It's bigger and more ambitious than anything else I'd ever attempted. 
• The Maya cosmology is based on years of study I did while considering a run at grad school the year before I married Heidi. 
• An early draft of this was the first thing I'd ever written. In the original version, Henry Collin runs away to Mexico after a horrible rafting accident that leaves two girls dead. Once I decided to put this book away I immediately began HELLBENDER.   
• I think a book should be re-readable, and this feels like one of the most re-readable things I've ever written. It's got layers.
• The yellow dog was in that old first draft, and there were two boys instead of three--Paco and Trejo.
• At the moment, Danicka is my favorite character. So much so that I have started writing a historical urban fantasy series to show what she's been up to for the last 100 years. 

The book is available for order and should ship soon.

Here's the trailer in case you missed it the first time around:


 

SMALL SPACE BIG LIFE YEAR IN REVIEW 2017 Travel to Portugal, Toronto, Walt Disney World

This is a collection of clips we put together to remind us of some of the things we want to hang onto as we roll into 2018. Scenes include shots from Lisbon, Nazaré, Óbidos, and Berlengas, Portugal, the Rock and Roll Hallof of Fame in Cleveland, Toronto, Broadkill Beach, Delaware, and Melbourne Beach and the Walt Disney World resort in Florida. On the day we returned from Portugal, we lost Francesca, our cat of thirteen years. The experience cast a dark shadow over the following months, and we vowed to wait until the end of 2018 to discuss getting another. As you can see, that didn't happen. On a random trip to Petsmart we saw Amélie and Madeline, the sisters we adopted from the Animal Friends of Barbour County, WV. Though they didn't erase the sting of our loss, they reminded us that life does indeed go on.

ART CRITICISM FOR AMATEURS 101

Vincent van Gogh is peculiarly cursed to be travestied, misunderstood and reduced to a kitsch parody of himself. Look at the art section in your local bookshop and you will find a glitzy new publication of his “lost” Arles drawings being heavily promoted even after the Van Gogh Museum denied the drawings in it are by Van Gogh at all. Now more fake Van Gogh is on its way, with the release of the trailer for Loving Vincent, a feature film about the artist that has been made by animating oil paintings that ape his style. From WE MUST RESCUE VAN GOGH FROM BECOMING A POP CULTURE CLICHE, Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 23 January 2017

Then this came along:

High art needs all the friends it can get. Museum attendance is dropping all over the world, and earnest attempts to court the young and identify with the new are clearly not working. Something more eloquent is needed: unequivocal enthusiasm for great art in a language people in the 21st century understand.

How about a Louis Vuitton bag with RUBENS written on it in big gold letters over a reproduction of that 17th-century painter’s violent, exuberant and gorgeous work Tiger, Lion and the Leopard Hunt?" From JEFF KOONS' LOUIS VUITTON BAGS: A JOYOUS ART HISTORY LESSON, Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 12 April 2017

Kind of gross, if you ask me. But a critic doesn't produce--he just takes. He isn't even accountable for his own contradictions because opinions are an ephemeral commodity. Cultural toilet paper. An artist or writer takes real risks, and the mistakes they make may linger for generations, if they're lucky.

Michael A. Arnzen: HUMOR IN WRITING Saturday, April 1, 4-6pm

Join us this Saturday from 4-6pm for a visit from author Michael A. Arnzen, who will speak on the subject of comedy in writing. Light refreshments, a book raffle, and meet-and-greet will follow.


Free tickets are now available at the Library's main desk. To learn more about the Author Series, please visit: http://www.uniontownlib.org/author-series

WORKSHOP: UPL Writers Workshop with Heidi Ruby Miller and Jason Jack Miller

This week (Wednesday, February 15) at the UPL Writers Workshop, we'll continue our discussion of formatting and submitting and will do a critique of another writer's work. Hope you can join us!

The Uniontown Public Library offers a Writers Workshop led by authors Heidi Ruby Miller and Jason Jack Miller each Wednesday afternoon. The weekly meetings will include a short writing lesson, writing tips and advice, and a discussion about members’ work. We'll be using lessons from Many Genres One Craft. Each lecture and activity will be self-contained in case you can't attend every week. 

This is a great opportunity to meet fellow writers, talk about your ideas, and explore your creativity. The UPL Writers Workshop is a free program and writers of all genres and experience levels are welcome!

The Writers Workshop will meet every Wednesday from 4:30 – 6:00 PM in Meeting Room A.

If you have any questions, please contact UPL at (724) 437-1165.

Heidi Ruby Miller and Jason Jack Miller started as travel writers more than a decade ago and continue to explore the globe, but now as research trips for their fiction. In their spare time, they teach in Seton Hill's MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program. Between them, they have published six novels (with two more forthcoming this year), a hundred short stories, poems, articles, and essays, and a travel guide. They chronicle their adventures on Instagram and YouTube under their own names, as well as their shared project Small Space Big Life.

SMALL SPACE BIG LIFE: Florence, Arno River, August 2016

Just wanted to post the video I made for our little Arno River cruise from last August. Heidi and I have been sharing some of our travel videos over at Small Space Big Life. It's been a fun way to share our travels in a slightly different way, and it allows to get a little creative without worrying about word count or dangling participles.

SMALL SPACE BIG LIFE YEAR IN REVIEW 2016

Earlier this year, Heidi and I started a YouTube channel as a place to share our travel videos. It's been rewarding and a lot of fun, and we hope to vlog more frequently next year.

This is a highlight clips from some of the amazing things we got to see and do this year. If you want to see more, check out our YouTube channel SMALL SPACE BIG LIFE.

UNIONTOWN AREA HIGH SCHOOL TOMAHAWK TALK 2ND ANNUAL LIP SYNC BATTLE is here!

Many thanks to Jordan Coddington for setting this up and many, many thanks to Patrick Quinn for bringing it like a true pro! (You can tell one of us practiced.)

Youtube vid is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAFILKQK3Ro&t=165s

Poll is here, in the POLLS section: http://tomahawktalk.co/ (Right side, near bottom of column.)

You're Invited to a night of Whiskey and Words!

We hope you can attend our upcoming event Whiskey and Words on Wednesday, October 12th from 5pm- 9pm at Wigle Whiskey's Barrelhouse and Whiskey Garden in Pittsburgh's Northside. In addition to our fabulous line-up of authors, we will also have delicious Whiskey cocktails, Burgh Bites Food Truck and the Mangini Trio. If  you can't attend, but want to help support our local authors please share the flyer that has been attached. 

This event is free to attend. 21+. 

Link:  http://mandeline28.wixsite.com/whiskeyandwords 
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1802307836654674/

Hope to see you all there! 

Next up--BOOKtober!

September 29--DogCon V

DogCon is a big shindig RDSP holds every year to celebrate books, authors and all our supporters. It’s a chance for the RDSP family to get together, meet each other, show off the latest works and begin new creative ventures.

Details can be found here: http://rawdogscreaming.com/dogcon-5-broadkill-writers-resort/

Oct. 12, 5-9 p.m.--Whiskey and Words

Book and author vendors signing autograph and selling their books, Whiskey and Words will have lectures taking place inside the barrelhouse throughout the evening. Wigle Whiskey will also be dishing out a bevy of delectable drinks, a traveling food truck (TBD) will be slinging eclectic eats and there will be live outdoor musical entertainment during the evening’s soiree.

Details can be found here: http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/whiskey-and-words/Event?oid=1950438

October 15--10th Annual Western Maryland Indepent Lit Festial

The Frostburg State University Center for Creative Writing, in partnership with the Allegany County Library System, is excited to announce that the ninth annual Western Maryland Indie Lit Festival is scheduled for Oct. 14 & 15 at Main Street, Frostburg. The event brings together editors and publishers with writers and educators of the local community. Panel discussions and roundtable sessions include topics on various creative genres, DIY publishing, self-publishing, promotion and marketing, writing local, and reading and writing online.

Details can be found here: http://www.frostburg.edu/cla/indie-lit-festival/