Spring Doings

Dreary, rainy weather inspires me to read and write, but I somehow always manage to be more productive in the Spring than in the winter. Seems a little cliche, what with all the spring "rebirth" symbolism and what have you, but there you have it. I'm a busy bee when it comes to writing in the spring.

Here's a quick recap of what's going on.

Garrett Calcaterra at FOGcon 6

I'm very excited to be participating in this year's FOGcon, FOGcon 6 to be precise. The guests of honor are Jo Walton, Ted Chiang, and Donna Haraway. The posthumous "ghost of honor" is Octavia Butler. Butler is a big influence of mine, and incidentally enough, I just discussed her novel Wild Seed in a guest blog post I wrote called "The Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels that Inspired The Dreamwielder Chronicles." I'm pretty excited to catch some panels on her work. I'm also excited to hopefully meet Katherine Kerr, who will be appearing on several panels. I remember enjoying her Deverry series when I was in my early teens.

Upcoming Appearances

It's mid-February, and I'm finally settling in to the new home, new freelance work, and my new writing schedule. I'm excited to announce several appearances at conventions and signings in the coming months. If one of them happens to be in your home town, I hope you'll stop by.

FOGCon: Fri, Mar 11 — Sun, Mar 13, Walnut Creek, California
I'll be giving a reading on Friday, and then appearing on two panels on Saturday. It'll be my second time at FOGcon and I'm really looking forward to it. Weekend and day passes are still available for purchase on the FOGcon website if you wanna go.

An Interview with Thriller Author Mia Thompson

One of the coolest things about being an author is having the opportunity to meet other authors. Mia Thompson is one of the authors I've been fortunate enough to get to know. She's author of the internationally bestselling Sapphire Dubois series, which includes the novels Stalking Sapphire, Silencing Sapphire, and Sentencing Sapphire. She also happens to have the same agent and publisher that I do.

I'm continually blown away by Mia, not only because she's a great writer, but because she was born in Sweden and English wasn't even her first language. The fact that she writes about serial killers is pretty cool, too.


Garrett: We’ll get right to the good stuff. Where did your fascination with serial killers come from?

Mia: I write about things that perplex me, and evil does. I have a hard time comprehending where it comes from, and why it evolves in some while not in others, so I write about it to try and understand it.

Garrett: Any chance that you’ll delve into supernatural horror in future books?

Mia: Supernatural, yes! I have a book plotted and planned in that very genre. Horror, no. Years ago, I tried to write a horror story about a haunted kindergarten. It creeped me out so badly I couldn’t sleep, so I swore to myself I would never attempt it again.

Wulfram: Cheap as Free

Happy new year!

I'm excited to announce that Wulfram, a prequel ebook that ties into Dreamwielder, is super cheap all January long. Like free cheap. There is one catch, of course. You need to to sign up for my mailing list on my website, www.garrettcalcaterra.com. Okay, you don't actually have to sign up to download the book for free. Since I'm nice, here's the cheat code (aka the direct link to where you can download the ebook files for free): www.garrettcalcaterra.com/wulfram.

I do ask, pretty please with a cherry on top, that you sign up for the mailing list, though. I promise not to sell your info to a pharmaceutical company marketing genetically engineered flying monkeys that are guaranteed to be toilet trained but really aren't. Pinky swear.

All you'll get from me is an occasional newsletter announcing new releases of mine and whatever else worthwhile I have going on (probably not much). So yeah. Download your ebook for free, before it goes on sale at Amazon (not for free), and sign up for the email newsletter if you want.

That's about all for me. I'm about to go into heavy research mode for my new book project, but no spoilers yet.

-Garrett Calcaterra

A Big Thanks to Wendy Wagner and Bruce McAllister

Souldrifter doesn't have an acknowledgement section, but if it did, Wendy Wagner and Bruce McAllister would be two of the people right at the top of the list. Both were gracious enough to read a pre-published version of the manuscript and then grace the cover of the book with wonderful endorsements. Bruce, who is a great mentor and teacher in addition to a great writer, even took the time to provide some suggestions for improving the book before I sent the final version to my publisher. I'm thankful to both Wendy and Bruce for their time and kindness. Here's a little background on each, in case you want to check their work out (and you should!).

Wendy Wagner is highly involved in the speculative fiction world on multiple fronts. As an author, she's had short stories published in some of the best SF/F magazines, and she's also author of Skinwalkers, a Pathfinder Tales novel. On top of that, she's the Managing/Associate Editor of Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines, guest editor of the anthology Queers Destroy Horror!  and nonfiction editor of the anthologies Women Destroy Science Fiction! and Women Destroy Fantasy! Whew, that's a lot of hats to wear.

Wendy and I actually went to college together at Pacific University, and I feel quite fortunate to have friends in high places. For a flashback, here's an interview I did with Wendy back in 2013, prior to the release of Skinwalkers.

Bruce McAllister has been an acclaimed author for more years than I've been alive, which is sort of mind-boggling. He's probably most widely known for his short stories, which you can find collected in The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, but he also writes novels. His newest novel, The Village Sang to the Sea, is a fantasy based in large part on his early life growing up in Italy. He is also author of Dream Baby, one of the best books I've read in recent memory.

Before moving to the Bay Area this summer, I lived near Bruce and had the pleasure of getting to know him. He's a fascinating person and a great teacher of the craft of storytelling. You can read the in-depth interview I did with him last year over at Black Gate magazine.

Here's a heartfelt thank you to both Bruce and Wendy.

-Garrett Calcaterra

#NaNoFailMo

Well, I came into the month of November—National Novel Writing Month—hopeful that I would get back on track with my work in progress, a Cli-Fi novel called Remember the Future. I even updated my NaNoWriMo profile, but alas, I never touched the damn manuscript.

I did do a bit of non-fiction writing of my own, and a lot of freelance writing work, but I couldn't seem to carve out the time to work on Remember the Future. I can't help but wonder if part of the problem is that I've lost the initial enthusiasm I had when starting the project. A lot has happened in my life since I last worked on it, and I'm finding that there are other projects I'd much rather be working on. I'm not officially shelving Remember the Future, but I'm close to doing so. I'll give you my final decision in my next post.

In the meantime, the word has slowly been getting out about Souldrifter and reviews are starting to trickle in. I have a few more interviews and guest posts that will be coming out soon, but here's what's dropped so far.

• Goodreads reviews of Souldrifter
• Black Gate excerpt of Souldrifter
• SF Signal guest post on storytelling and finding your voice as a writer
• BooksChatter Dreamwielder excerpt and author Q&A 

-Garrett Calcaterra