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.)

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 Revelations of Preston Black Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Revelations of Preston Black

by Jason Jack Miller

Giveaway ends February 26, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

COVER: Greenshift by Heidi Ruby Miller

To celebrate the cover reveal for Greenshift, the e-book will be temporarily 99 cents at Amazon!

A tale set within the world of Ambasadora.

Mari's rare eye color makes her a pariah within Upper Caste society, which is why she prefers plants to people...except David, the former Armadan captain who shuttles scientists around on a refurbished pleasure cruiser.

But someone else is interested in Mari and her distinctive look--an obsessed psychopath who tortures and murders women for pleasure.

When the killer chooses Mari as his next victim, the soldier inside David comes alive, but it is Mari who must fight for her own life and prove she isn't as fragile as the flowers she nurtures.

Greenshift by Heidi Ruby Miller

Cover Art by Bradley Sharp

Foreword by Dana Marton

Space Opera/Science Fiction Romance paperback coming from Dog Star Books in August 2013

COVER: Hysteria

Asylums once used to confine those deemed mentally unfit to linger, forgotten behind trees or urban development, beautiful yet desolate in their decay. Within them festers something far more unnerving than unlit corners or unexplained noises: the case files left to moulder out of sight, out of conscience. Stephanie M. Wytovich forces your hands upon these crumbling, warped binders and exposes your mind to every taboo misfortune experienced by the outcast, exiled, misbegotten monsters and victims who have walked among us. The poetry contained in Hysteria performs internal body modification on its readers in an unrelenting fashion, employing broad-spectrum brutality treatment that spans the physical to the societal, as noted in Stoker Award winner Michael A. Arnzen's incisive introduction.

Hysteria by Stephanie Wytovich

Introduction by Michael A. Arnzen

Cover by Stephanie Wytovich

Pre-order this poetry collection from Raw Dog Screaming Press

Hazard Yet Forward Authors Featured on IMJ

Visit Ian and Jose at Inveterate Media Junkies (IMJ) for a Halloween Blitz benefiting the Hazard Yet Forward charity anthology. The IMJ Nation has generously donated three of our monthly columns (Heidi Ruby Miller's Geek Girl Underground, Irene L. Pynn's The Princess and Her PS3, Jason Jack Miller's Sound Check) to promote breast cancer awareness and introduce you to some wonderful authors. They answered some questions and talked about their stories. And you'll find out just how each of them plans to deal with a zombie apocalypse.

Now, about the anthology...

Seventy-six writers connected to the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction program have created a multi-genre charity anthology entitled Hazard Yet Forward. All proceeds from this project will benefit Donna Munro, a 2004 graduate of the program. Munro, a teacher living in St. Louis, Missouri, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Genres represented in the book range from horror to romance to mystery - and everything in between. Some of the notable writers in the anthology are World Fantasy Award winner Nalo Hopkinson, Bram Stoker winners Michael A. Arnzen and Michael Knost, Bram Stoker nominees Lawrence C. Connolly and John Edward Lawson, ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults winner Jessica Warman, Rita finalist Dana Marton, Spur award winner Meg Mims, Asimov's Reader's Award winner Timons Esaias, Rhysling Award nominee K. Ceres Wright, Ronney Award winner Jason Jack Miller, and WV Arts and Humanities literary fellowships winner, Geoffrey Cameron Fuller.

FEATURING: Querus Abuttu, Sally Bosco, Penny Dawn, Matt Duvall, Jacki King, Dana Marton, Michael Mehalek, Rachael Pruitt, Chris Stout, K. Ceres Wright

FEATURING: A.G. Devitt, David L. Day, Kristin Dearborn, Ron Gavalik, Scott A. Johnson, Meg Mims, Nancy J. Parra, Lori Pollard-Johnson, W.D. Prescott, Jessica Warman

FEATURING: Michael A. Arnzen, S.A. Check, David Corwell, Natalie Duvall, Ron Edison, Timons Esaias, Geoffrey Cameron Fuller, Karin Fuller, John Edward Lawson, Deanna Lepsch, Donna Munro

Cover Reveal for COG by K. Ceres Wright

In a futuristic world where personalities can be downloaded at will, who's a girl to trust?

COG by K. Ceres Wright

Cyberpunk Science Fiction coming from Dog Star Books in Summer 2013

Cover Art by Bradley Sharp

G is for Genre

Originally posted at SETON HILL WRITERS, on Friday, April 8, 2011

Today, we're pleased to have a guest post by Jason Jack Miller on GENRE RESPECT.Does genre fiction receive more respect now than it ever has?

Genre fiction has certainly become more daring in the way it deals with its own tropes.  Crossovers and blurred lines between the genres allow readers to dip a toe into new reading waters without fear of having it bitten off.  Consider Max Brooks' World War Z--is it horror or SF?  Or literature, maybe?  And what about the Twilight series?  Horror or romance?  Are there readers who loved Twilight that would never in a thousand years consider picking up an Anne Rice novel?  Certainly.  Both have vampires and romance, but only one had the benefit of a rabid fan base accustomed to using social media to take their passions viral.

There have been multitudes of novels that have straddled genre throughout written history, but they have never received the type of marketing attention that books get today.  I believe our perceptions of genre are manipulated by the publisher's marketing departments and big budgets.  With the right, well-targeted fan base a genre novel can fly or flounder.  'Don't judge a book by its cover' is an old adage that may not apply to 2011 when covers are usually tied to ginormous marketing campaigns and interactive media blitzes. Just look at the evolution of the SF/Fantasy reader stereotype over the last twenty years.  From the 1990s it's the Dune/Lord of the Rings/Star Wars fan living in his mom's basement on a diet of Doritos and Cherry Coke.  The 2010s stereotype is a tween who wants to know 'Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?'
Stories evolve and styles come and go, but readers always love what they love.  Now publishers can target readers more specifically than they ever have, and book clubs are global institutions no longer confined to library and church basements.  So while I'm not certain genre fiction receives more or less respect than it ever has, I know that fans and publishers are changing, and now more than ever fans are able to find, and talk about what they love.

G IS FOR GENRE

Does genre fiction receive more respect now than it ever has?

See what I have to say about it over at Seton Hill Writers.

Pennwriters Workshop

WRITING WITH AUTHORITY
Online Course

INSTRUCTORS: Jason Jack Miller and Heidi Ruby Miller

DATE: April 1 – May 2, 2011

LIMITED CLASS SIZE. Enroll now.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The easiest way to engage your reader is by using concrete nouns and action verbs. In this one-month online course, Seton Hill University creative writing faculty Jason Jack Miller and Heidi Ruby Miller will show you how to analyze your writing and use easy techniques that will increase the authority of your voice.

Participants will:
* Discover how to spot passive voice
* Scrutinize their writing for generic nouns and indefinite pronouns
* Learn to avoid weak verbs and overuse of “be” in all its forms
* Practice using strong synonyms to find the best action verb
* Apply word cloud research to make their plot come alive

FREE BONUS: Course participants will receive a free excerpt (.pdf) from the new writing guide, MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT: LESSONS IN WRITING POPULAR FICTION (Headline Books, Inc.) edited by Heidi Ruby Miller and Michael A. Arnzen with contributions from Jason Jack Miller et al.

TUITION: $79 ($89 non-Pennwriters members) $89 ($99 non-Pennwriters members)
EARLY-BIRD PRICES END SOON!

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS: Heidi Ruby Miller is the co-editor of the writing guide, Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction. A graduate from Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction Program, she has authored dozens of publications. Before becoming a full-time writer and adjunct faculty at Seton Hill University, Heidi worked as a contract archaeologist, an educational marketing coordinator, a foreign currency exchanger, and a world language teacher. To learn more about Heidi Ruby Miller, visit http://heidirubymiller.blogspot.com or email her at heidirubymiller@gmail.com.

Jason Jack Miller is a writer, photographer and musician whose work has appeared online and in print in newspapers, magazines and literary journals, and as a smart phone travel app. He has co-authored a travel guide with his wife Heidi and served as a photographer-in-residence. Jason is an Authors Guild member who received a Master’s in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University where he is adjunct creative writing faculty. To learn more about Jason Jack Miller, visit http://jasonjackmiller.blogspot.com or email him at jasonjackmiller@gmail.com.

* Subscribe to the Pennwriters Online Courses announcement list for email on our latest workshops:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PennwritersOnlineCourses