Dreamwielder Art Showcase

I'm very excited to present the brand new collection of Dreamwielder artwork from artist Patrick Williams. Patrick is a talented, versatile artist, and it's inspiring to see his vision of the Dreamwielder characters. So much so, I have half a mind to put down my work in progress, Remember the Future, and start writing a sequel to Dreamwielder, but no, there's time enough for that. For now, I hope you will enjoy the artwork as much as I have. Cheers!

-Garrett Calcaterra

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.

An Annotated Bibliography for Science Fiction and Climate Change

So, I just finalized a magazine article I've been working on for the last couple of weeks called "Can SF Save the World From Climate Change?" Hopefully, the article will be coming to a science fiction magazine near you soon, but seeing as how my research led me to some great reading material on the subject, I figured it'd be helpful to share my sources here and now. Below you'll find the annotated bibliography I included with my article, everything from the most up-to-date prognosis on our planet to the newest trends in literature dealing with climate change. I'd like to give a very special thanks to Bill McKibben of 350.org for taking the time to provide me with some of these great resources and for weighing in on the idea of SF inspiring creative solutions for dealing with climate change. Likewise, I'd also like to give a special thanks to John DeNardo of SF Signal. Thanks, gentlemen!

Climate Change: The Reality of the Situation

McKibben, Bill. “The Reckoning.” Rolling Stone. Issue 1162, August 2012. The popular article that drove home the notion that we’re already experiencing the effects of global warming. In addition to laying out the

Terrorism, Climate Change, Mass Hysteria – This is Why I Write Spec-Fic

In his personal essay, “Almost California,” Chuck Palahniuk says, “That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can't control life, at least you can control your version.” As a teacher, I make all my creative non-fiction students read this essay because I think it poignantly defines what autobiographical writing is all about. As a writer, I take this idea a step further and ask myself: why do I write spec-fiction? Hell, why do I write at all?

In the summer of 2010 I worked on a clean-up barge in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As I wrote here on this blog afterward, it was a highly frustrating experience—my hunch that the clean-up vessels were being chased off so BP could sink the oil into the ocean, thereby avoiding damaging photo ops, turned out to be right on—and I was newly inspired as a writer. In my own words, “I (re)adopted the strategy of trying to write stories with relevance to the real world...”

Midlister City, Here I Come!

Sadly, the Dreamwielder Ketchup
promo did not catch on...

So it turns out promoting a new novel, teaching six classes, playing in a rock and roll band, and trying to write a new novel keeps you pretty damn busy. I’m not complaining, though.  If I keep it up at this rate, I should be able to pay off my student loans in 22 years.  Huzzah! But seriously, all joking aside—well, I’m not kidding about the 22 years to go, just joking about it, because otherwise I’d have to curl up into a little ball and cry myself to sleep—but yeah, all joking aside, I’m happy to be busily working and things do seem to be looking up.

After riding a Barnes & Noble Nook First Look selection up into the top 200 bestsellers, Dreamwielder has settled comfortably