It's a giveaway to celebrate the release of STOLEN MAGIC by Stephanie Burgis!

To celebrate the release of Stolen Magic by the wonderfully talented Stephanie Burgis, she is holding a giveaway of one witch's heart ring, which I designed for the book! To enter, go to her post with pictures of the ring and an outline of the rules, here.

And I highly recommend this series. These were some of the most fun, heartwarming books I've read in a long time.

My latest short story, Disciple, is up on Black Gate

I know it's been a while since I've posted. My indie writing career is still going full throttle, but my real excuses are my two adorable kiddos, who I have the privilege of playing with during the day. So, I'm a bit late posting this link to my short story, Disciple, that is now up on Black Gate.

This is the story of Dina, a barkeeper with a deep dark secret that involves unlicensed magic, an overthrown monarch, and the deaths of thousands. I've actually got other unpublished stories set in the Disciple universe. We'll see if they ever make it into print.

Tangent Online calls the story a "wonderfully complicated tale" and "a pleasure to read." They "strongly recommend" it.

This story dates back to my days in the Critical Mass writer's group and was one of the first short stories - as in a work of this length that actually told a story - I managed to write. A lot of late nights and tears went into this one. I sold it to Black Gate before I became one of their bloggers (though really, that makes little difference to their editor, when he picks stories to buy).

And with the publication of this story, I enter, for the first time since I sold my short story, a time when I have no more sold but unpublished short stories. I'll need to get hopping on the next one. Part of the reason for this is that as I've sold to bigger and bigger markets, the lag time between sale and publication has decreased. Part of the reason is also that indie writing thing I do.

Head on over to Black Gate to check out Disciple!

My interview of Ellen Datlow on Black Gate

Talk about a gorgeous cover. Check out Queen Victoria's Book of Spells, edited by Ellen Datlow. Actually, before you run off and buy that (or after, yeah you can go ahead because my associates code is in that link, just make sure to come back), go listen to my interview of Ellen on Black Gate.

As you'll probably be able to tell from the tenor of our exchange, Ellen and I have known each other for a long time, because my life is that cool. We met at Clarion West when I was a student in 2001 and she our Editor in Residence fifth week. She told me to keep at my writing and that I had promise, and has still never bought one of my stories, which really is okay by me. She selects the cream of the crop, so it may be a decade or two before I'm in the running.

Real quotes from the interview include Ellen saying, "Oh I hate that," to one of my questions. How often do you hear that from Ellen? She doesn't even say that in her rejection letters! As always, it was very cool to have an excuse to talk to her, and you should definitely go hear what she has to say.

My Interview of Howard and Sandra Tayler on Black Gate

Today's blogpost is over on Black Gate, and is my audio interview of Howard and Sandra Tayler, who are best known for Howard's web comic, Schlock Mercenary. I got to talk to them from my apartment in London via Google Hangout, and this was actually the first time I got to meet Howard.

In the interview, we discuss Howard's reward for the Acts of Whimsy fundraiser to support Jay Lake's cancer treatment. When the donations reached $37,000.00, Howard agreed to draw a cartoon of Jay Lake kicking cancer's ass. Here's the time laps video.

Now head on over to listen to the interview on Black Gate!