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: 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

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.

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/

EVERYTHING You Wanted to Know About DogCon V (but were afraid to ask)

It's all right here, folks. Every sordid detail. Every wild plan. If you're an East Coast writer, this should be on your radar. Tickets are still available.



More details can be found here http://www.broadkillresort.com/ or here http://rawdogscreaming.com/dogcon-5-broadkill-writers-resort/

SMALL SPACE BIG LIFE: Cinque Terre by Sea, August 2016

Published on Aug 16, 2016

The first clip from our Italy trip! This is from our evening cruise along the five villages of the Cinque Terre, courtesy of Angelo's Boat Tours. I'd highly recommend them for anyone visiting the Cinque Terre.

We patronized the following businesses while in the Cinque Terre:
http://www.angelosboattours.com/
http://www.hotelsouvenirmonterosso.it...
http://www.ristorantebelforte.it/it/r...
https://www.facebook.com/nessundormac...
https://www.facebook.com/Mg5terre/

SMALL SPACE BIG LIFE

So, Heidi and I have recently undertaken a new kind of project. After scrolling through some pictures from a trip we'd taken a few years ago, we decided there had to be a better way for us to view them, and took to putting some to music. And to share them with family, we uploaded a few to YouTube.

Ultimately, this is a way for us to relive some great moments. Sharing them is more about making them available for anyone who may be interested in seeing them than becoming an internetfamous vlogger or world-class humblebragger. We aren't shilling hotels or restaurants, and we certainty aren't trying to tell anybody what to do with their time or money. At the end of the day this is a way for us to momentarily revisit some places we truly love.    



The YouTube channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPeKwWd2nVYEJPQh9cxRN6g

LIVE in the 412! Doors to the Universe Book Signing at Copyleft Gallery

As part of their awesome Popup Art Event: Doors to the Universe, Copyleft Gallery is teaming up with PARSEC, Pittsburgh's premier speculative fiction organization, to host a multi-author book signing and party on Friday, May 13, 2016 from 6-10 PM. 

Come see our world!

The event is free and open to the public. No registration or RSVP necessary.

Venue is wheelchair accessible at 127 Brownsville Rd, Pittsburgh PA 15210.

Featured authors include:

Timons Esaias 

Heidi Ruby Miller 

Jason Jack Miller 

Ellen Roth 

Henry T. Lund 

Stephanie Keyes 

J.D. Barker 

Editor Barb Carlson with Parsec Ink books

Thank you to Diane Turnshek for coordinating this event!

PARIS, November 13, 2015

We ended up there by accident.

It was mid-July and we wanted to go somewhere. Anywhere. Berlin, Budapest, and Barcelona were on our short list. Paris was too obvious, and we ended there for the lamest of reasons—it was a direct flight from Pittsburgh. Besides, everybody knows you don’t go to Paris in August. Restaurants and cafes might be closed. Everybody’s on vacation. The admonishments stung, and I felt like we were making a huge mistake. Then I spotted a line in an article that made it okay. A waitress, or shop girl, or bookseller describing what she loved best about summer in the city. “August in Paris is like a month of Sundays.”

Odéon was the closest metro stop to our little Saint-Germain-des-Prés hotel. But I got confused at CDG, forgot about transferring from the RER to the metro once we got into the city, and popped up onto the street at Saint-Michel–Notre-Dame instead of transferring to the purple line. And there it was. Our Lady and her gargoyles. And on the walk to Rue de Buci it hit me.

I’ve been lucky to have experienced many, many amazing places in my life. But there are a few that fly above the rest because of the permanent impressions they’ve left on me. At 19, I trained to be a whitewater raft guide on the Cheat River in West Virginia and took some big first steps toward understanding what it meant to be a man. When Heidi and I got married and moved to Florida in 1998, a rapid-fire series of events helped me learn what it meant to be a husband, and when she sat down to write her first novel there at our little kitchen table, she inspired me to want to give it a go myself. In 2005, I followed her to Seton Hill—defying a personal vow to be done with school forever—and realized maybe it wasn’t silly to pursue a dream after all.

But when we started exploring Paris—first, small loops on the Left Bank and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the bouquinistes along the Seine and museums, then an expedition via the Grands Boulevards up to Montmartre on the last day of our trip—I felt like I was a part of a much larger world that had somehow existed forever. And it had nothing to do with Hemingway. Paris felt like a door to something very special. A visceral river of thought and ideas. Where I grew up—a rural, blue collar area—expression and intellect made you an outcast. I'd been threatened and beaten up for being different. But in Paris I felt a sweeping validation of my life choices in the spirit of the city’s art, architecture, food, and people. I no longer felt so silly for having embraced love and creation because I’d finally experienced a place that embraced those ideals at its core. And when we left, my heart ached to go back.

We are not made better by the good things that happen to us. We grow when we push toward the light. But to be a city of light in a world half-covered in darkness, that is a different thing altogether.

  

MURDER BALLADS AND WHISKEY IN SF SIGNAL

John DeNardo, Managing Editor at SF Signal and columnist for Kirkus Reviews, researched this great list of 385 Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror eBooks Priced Less than $5 Each. He has generously included my novels--The Devil and Preston Black, Hellbender, The Revelations of Preston Black--as well as Heidi's Marked by Light, the first book in her Ambasadora space opera series.

Other authors include fellow Seton Hill Writer Tim Waggoner as well as Brandon Sanderson, Paul S. Kemp, Michael Swanwick, Tim Powers, Peter Straub, Lilith Saintcrow, Gail Carriger, Philip Pullman, Marissa Meyer, Justin Gustainis, Chuck Wendig, and about 270 more, give or take.

At Heidi's insistence, I wrote the following letter to be read during afternoon announcements to express my gratitude to the Uniontown students who participated in this weekend’s literary festival, held at the Uniontown Mall:

I would like to thank the writers and sponsors of the UHS Tomahawk Talk for their support of the inaugural Pennsylvania Literary Festival—the first of its kind to be held in the entire state of Pennsylvania. The event brought in writers, publishers, artists, and readers from all over the United States, and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett sent state librarian Stacey Aldrich as his personal representative. Ms. Aldrich was so impressed by the festival that she offered the state library in Harrisburg as a possible location to host next year’s event.

I would especially like to thank the Uniontown High School students and alumni who visited, bought books, talked to authors and publishers, and participated in workshops. Your presence at this event is what made it special. I was very lucky to be part of a team that consisted of three Uniontown graduates—Matthew Dowling, Dave Slusarick, and my wife, Heidi Ruby Miller. One of our primary goals for creating this festival was to showcase Uniontown and its people and you did not disappoint!

When an author or publisher asked about the kids they saw participating in the workshops I was very happy to be able to say that you were Uniontown students. It takes a lot of courage to be able sit through a class with professional writers—some of whom were more than four or five times your age. But taking that huge step in pursuit of something you love shows that you have the guts and desire to succeed, no matter what you chose to do after you leave UHS.

Many, many thanks,
Jason Jack Miller

COVER: The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland

What could draw poet,  explorer, loner and paranoid Mykol Ranglen away from the relative peace  of his own ring-in-space habitat?

He has no choice in the matter as one by one  acquaintances are murdered or disappear altogether. Propelled by ever  changing and deepening mysteries Mykol embarks to uncover secrets which  could make people rich beyond their wildest dreams…or tear apart human  civilization.

The escalating quest takes him through worlds of many  dangerous extremes, leading him to confront the deadly alien Fist of  Thorns, extinct species refusing to give up their power over the future,  and those racing against him to uncover the secret first. But in the  course of his pursuit, he must also face his own secrets. And some of  these are even more dangerous.

The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland

Cover Art by Bradley Sharp

Foreword by William H. Keith

Space Opera Paperback coming from Dog Star Books in June 2014

What They’re Saying About The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes

"Mystery,  heart-pounding adventure, and the dazzling wonders of far-flung space  play significant roles in Wendland's breakout novel, all while gifting  us with a mesmerizing tour of alien landscapes destined to get under  your skin and remind you of the very reason science fiction exists: Not  to escape to other worlds, but to find ourselves within them."
--Diana Dru Botsford, author of THE DRIFT and FOUR DRAGONS

Inside are alien worlds and titanic space habitats and a brilliant and paranoid hero, all skillfully blended together with long-vanished galactic secrets. Science fiction… good science fiction, by a college professor of literature who loves good SF."
--From the foreword by William H. Keith, New York Times Bestselling Science Fiction Author

2013, so sad to see you go.

 
I've done 'year in review' posts before (the Justine Bateman/Arya Stark thing that got me thousands of hits) but I figured this year I'd keep it simple.

For a brief moment, I thought there'd be captions and reflections on each. Maybe it's best to let the images speak for themselves.

Linden Place, Summer 2013

Seton Hill University, June 2013

Preston Black promo, February 2013

Guggenheim Museum, April 2013

Magic Kingdom, July 2013

Paris, August 2013

Pennwriters, May 2013

Book launch for THE REVELATIONS OF PRESTON BLACK, June 2013

Nashville, July 2013

Paris, August 2013

Capclave, Washington DC, October 2013

Paris, August 2013

Baltimore Book Fest, September 2013

Share the Spirit, Uniontown, PA, December 2013

Paris, August 2013

Paris, August 2013

Mega-Author Signings in Uniontown!

Mega-Author Signings in Uniontown!

On Saturday, December 14 from 1:00 - 3:00 PM, Bradley's Books at the Uniontown Mall will host a book signing for 13 authors from Raw Dog Screaming Press and Dog Star Books, including Michael Arnzen, Jennifer Barnes, Matt Betts, Leland Pitts-Gonzalez, John Edward Lawson, Heidi Ruby Miller, Jason Jack Miller, Diane Turnshek, Matthew Warner, Albert Wendland, D. Harlan Wilson, K. Ceres Wright, and Stephanie Wytovich.

The authors are also guests at Share the Spirit that evening at the State Theater Center for the Arts in downtown Uniontown. The Share the Spirit Author Mix and Mingle begins at 6:00 PM.

Both events are free and open to the public.

Hope to see you there!

Spacetime Playlist!

A little music for your trip beyond. Also suitable to inner space travel.

COVER: Wasteland Blues by Scott Christian Carr and Andrew Conry-Murray

 

Of Mice and Men Meets The Odyssey in a Post-Apocalyptic Future

Having only ever known the uncivilized wake of nuclear and biological apocalypse, three friends and their wheelchair-bound hostage set out on a perilous fool’s mission--to cross from one side of the devastated United States to the other, in the desperate, half-believed hope of finding a rumored haven. 

Spurred by a dark vision and the murder of their father, rageaholic Derek Cane and his over-sized, simple-minded brother, Teddy, flee the only home they've ever known, a struggling shantytown on the edge of the vast Wasteland. Heading ever eastward, they are accompanied by their friend, John, an orphan brought up by a fanatical religious order, and Leggy, a crippled old drunk who brags that, in his youth, he once traversed the Wasteland as a scavenger.

 

Wasteland Blues by Scott Christian Carr and Andrew Conry-Murray

 

Cover Art by Bradley Sharp

Post-Apocalyptic novel  coming from Dog Star Books in March 2014

 

 

Pearl Jam/Lightning Bolt Playlist!

I missed Pearl Jam's opener in Pittsburgh last week to attend Capclave in DC. I'm just trying to piece together a little of the music that I would've missed. Figure it'd make a nice soundtrack for the Raw Dog Screaming Press event in Pittsburgh this weekend.

#BOOKSBURGH!

 

http://rawdogscreaming.com/raw-dog-screaming-press-takes-pittsburgh/