From Tavern Wench to Mettlefetchers and Beyond!

Alas, the Mettlefetchers Kickstarter campaign died last week with a pathetic little whimper. Collaborator Ahimsa Kerp and I really thought the project would elicit more attention and excitement, particularly with the great press it got from SF Signal and Wendy Wagner at Opera Buffo, but so it goes with crowdsourcing. We accept the judgment of the Internet masses and have shelved the project for now, but fret not—if you were excited about the prospect of an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure style spec-fiction book, rest assured I’ll be revisiting the concept again in the near future. With today’s e-reading technology, it just makes too much sense. Hell, Ahimsa and I explored the CYOA concept all the way back in 2003 with a little magazine called Tavern Wench Journal of Lore.

It all started back in the late 90’s. I was killing time during a summer internship and thought it’d be cool to launch my own fantasy e-zine. To set the tone I was shooting for—edgy, fun, and irreverent—I named the zine Tavern Wench.

FREE BOOKS!!! - The Mettlefetchers Inverse Meme Campaign

FREE BOOKS!!! You've likely seen the series of Mettlefetchers pictures I've been posting the last week or so. Now I need your help with the inverse meme campaign. Repost some of the Mettlefetchers memes, or better yet, show off your Photoshop skills and make your own with the catch phrase "What is Mettlefetchers?" Post them wherever you hangout online--FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram--and then report back here where you've shared them and I'll pick my top 2 favorite helpers to receive the prize package in the picture: a DRM free version of Dreamwielder (Kindle not included) and paperbacks of Baldairn Motte, Umbral Visions, and Pirates & Swashbucklers 2. It's a win-win situation for everyone. Free books and you do me a giant favor in helping promote Mettlefetchers by simply having a little fun. Whadaya think?

-Garrett Calcaterra

What is Mettlefetchers?

For Your Consideration: Mettlefetchers

As I wrote a while back in an article at Waistcoat & Watch, one of the keys to having a successful career as a writer is creating a large body of work. If you want to make a living as a novelist, you need to have a bunch of books out there for fans to buy and read. I take the idea a step further and really try to diversify my writing, publishing everything from novels and short stories to magazine articles and essays, not to mention writing screenplays to submit to festivals on the long shot some producer will actually want to produce one and write me a fat check (yeah, I know, fat chance). In any case, this usually means I’m juggling multiple projects at any given time, and right now is no exception. In fact, my good friend and frequent collaborator, Ahimsa Kerp, and I have just a launched a new project we’d like to submit for your consideration: Mettlefetchers.