COMICS REVIEW: Marvel's Star Wars Kanan Series

I'm a big fan of the Star Wars Rebels series, and recently finished watching it. Kanan Jarrus is one of my favorite characters of the series, and while we get some teases about his background in the show, we don't really learn much beyond that.

That's where this comic comes in. In the two volume series, Star Wars Kanan, The Last Padawan, and then in First Blood, readers learn Kanan's backstory, and how he went from being cocky Jedi padawan Caleb Dume to the Kanan Jarrus we came to know and love in Rebels.

The story is framed within a storyline from the Star Wars Rebels timeline, where we can see connections between Kanan's past and present. While the comic stands alone, I think readers could benefit from knowing the characters of Rebels beforehand, both to know who they are and to feel a stronger connection with them. The story is fast-paced and because I already knew Kanan from Rebels, I was instantly engaged. I often don't like backstories, because so often the characters are obnoxious in their youth, but with Kanan, the writers did a good job straddling the line between portraying a young character who still has a lot to learn with a character who will grow up to be responsible for his crew/family and who will play an important role in the rebellion. Even the one line that usually drives me nuts, "Don't call me kid!" leads up to a really emotional and poignant moment, where Kanan/Caleb says, "Don't call me kid. Not anymore." I also appreciate reading about young people who fight for what they believe in, who grow into heroes. 

This is an exciting and at times, emotional read that is an excellent addition to the Star Wars story. We learn more about characters we love (and hate), and are introduced to new characters who ties storylines together. Highly recommended for readers both teen and adult!

Melanie R. Meadors is a writer of fantasy stories and comics, her work most recently appearing in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. She is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment.  Melanie also edits anthologies, including Hath No Fury, Knaves: A Blackguards Anthology, and Tales of Excellent Cats: A Monarchies of Mau Anthology, which is set in the world of the popular role playing game, Pugmire. She is a content editor and publicity specialist at the RPG game company Mechanical Muse, and has written game settings for the RPGs Tiny Dungeons 2e and Tiny Frontiers 2e. She is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast. You can learn more at melaniermeadors.com 

Gwendolyn N. Nix on What Inspired 'The Falling Dawn'

Gwendolyn N. Nix is the author of The Falling Dawn, a fantasy novel about a celestial warrior named Eos, who is charged with the task of finding a sacred book in order to stop an all-out heavenly war. She joins us as our guest today in order to talk about some things that inspired her to write this book!

Halting a heavenly civil war wasn't exactly what The Falling Dawn's protagonist, Eos, had in mind when she was swept up on a quest scouring the oceans for a holy book, but books are exactly the tools I expected to mine for all my inspiration while writing the Celestial Scripts. Luckily for you, dear reader, this won't be a laundry list of research books. I realized I had a lot of things that influenced The Falling Dawn besides the stacks upon stacks of lore I accumulated—whether it be in an aesthetic sense or for world-building.

1. Angels: Celestial Scripts in Art and Legend by Jacqueline Carey  Okay, maybe just one book. I found this gorgeous book while researching angelic lore and it was monumental in shaping some of the characters and themes of the novel. Beyond being the gateway drug that eventually led me to the Kushiel's Dart series, I spent hours pouring over the snippets of myths that led me to craft Rahab, the Master of the Oceans, who holds secrets ultimately dire to Eos' plight. Not only did the book explore the classic commonly-known stories, it hinted at the apocryphal texts—sending me further down the rabbit hole, desperate for more. The artwork elevated my perception of what an angel looked like—beings with wings, sure, but also as massive sublime giants, terrifying to behold, monsters crafted from fire compared to us humans, creatures of clay. 
2. "Ghost Love Score" by Nightwish One of my favorite songs of all time, "Ghost Love Score" premiered on the album Once by the symphonic metal band, Nightwish. It's a ten-minute ride full of a beautiful orchestra, operatic vocals, and grinding guitars and whenever I hear the flutes trill at the end, I get all tingly. Whenever I hit a writer's block, I'd give my brain a dose of that song and it felt like my creative side lit up with lights. It captured the aesthetic of how I wanted The Falling Dawn to be—layered with complexity, legends, and at its heart, an exploration of love and the lengths people and creatures will go to keep that love. 
3. The Little Mermaid I've been told I'm more of a Belle Disney princess—you know, the books, the library, it makes sense—but I'd always loved Ariel. Her passion, her collector's tendencies, and even her recklessness became something I admired and incorporated into Eos' character. That red-haired spitfire went after what she wanted and she even had the adventuresome free spirit to boot that took her where those under the sea would never go: the surface, the sea witch's lair, even into a shipwrecked Spanish galleon where great white sharks hunted. Yes. I might have a degree in marine biology and yes, I've studied and swam with sharks, but for a good long time before all that I hid beneath the covers when that great white peered through the glass as Ariel marveled over her dinglehopper. Let's just say that oceanic fear and fiery spirit are recognizable traits within The Falling Dawn.  
4. Resurrection It's a broad word to geek out on, but the idea plays a heavy role in the Celestial Scripts. One of the basic tenants of Eos' world revolves around resurrection. Her soul was at the beginning of the world and would be at the end of it. Yet, as she discovers the strength of her unknown powers, she meets a secondary entity—a creature that gains personality, autonomy, and vitality—who is somehow tied to her. Could this creature be a split-personality entity, a past self, or even a future rendition of Eos? I love the idea of recycled souls, but find the aspect downright terrifying. How much of the you in this lifetime remains? Can that facet of the resurrected spirit that is wholly you somehow live on and break off from its original resurrected soul? Questions abound and The Falling Dawn seeks to answer them. 
5. The Coast There are two places that embody The Falling Dawn to me. The first was Makoshika Park in Glendive, Montana where on a family vacation, we were caught in a huge thunderstorm. Caught between the thunder and the rain, the golden streaks of lightning looked like falling angels. The second is a piece of beach along the Long Island Sound where I saw a group of smooth, rounded mossy boulders that looked like a pod of whales rising gently the distance. Both these scenes became heavy visuals that influenced The Falling Dawn and if you keep an eye out, you'll find them. 

About The Falling Dawn:

Stopping a heavenly war isn’t exactly what Eos Azzapardi had in mind when Enoch, scholar and mentor, wiggles his way into her heart and fills her head with gods and angels. He sweeps her on a quest for the Lost Book of Raziel, a book containing all the divine secrets of the god Adonai. Enoch plans to use the Book to stop an imminent civil war between angels in Heaven and release the imprisoned Watchers, an angelic sect who fell from grace because they loved humans. 

After a chance meeting with the prince of the realm, Ciriacus, who reveals he is one of Enoch’s disciples, Eos realizes she must find a balance between obeying the demands of her newfound family and coming to terms with what Ciriacus and Enoch require of her. As jealousy deepens a rift between Eos and Ciriacus even as a prophecy threatens to encompass them both, Eos discovers she has an uncanny ability. Using her gift has consequences, specifically heralding the arrival of a split personality entity named Madame Decay. Madame Decay transports Eos’ mind into an underworld similar to Enoch’s Hell. There, she learns that there is more than one god at play, and sparks fly between her and a psychopomp of death.

When Enoch’s faith begins to border on zealotry, Eos discovers he plans to trade the Book for the Watchers’ salvation, while using Eos as a bargaining chip to seal the deal. Hurt from this revelation, Eos seeks revenge by attempting to sully her soul, all the while uncovering that her unexplainable powers stem from the secrets of her bloodline. As Enoch manipulates her to his own ends and the angels begin to fall, Eos realizes that she must make a choice: fall in line with Enoch’s demands, or lose what little soul she has left to the machinations of Madame Decay.

About Gwendolyn N. Nix:

Raised in the wilds of countless library stacks, Gwendolyn N. Nix has forged her skills in writing and science in the shark-infested waters of Belize, by researching neural proteins, inducing evolutionary pressures in green algae, and through the limitless horizons of her own imagination. A born seeker of adventure, she saw her first beached humpback whale on a windy day in New York, met a ghost angel in a Paris train station, and had Odin answer her prayers on a mountain in Scotland. Her short fiction appears in The Sisterhood of the Blade anthology. The Falling Dawn is her first novel. She lives in Missoula, MT. Find out more at www.gwendolynnix.com.

You Like Me Because I'm a Scoundrel: Guest Post by Alana Joli Abbott

Alana Joli Abbott is co-editor of the new fantasy anthology KNAVES: A Blackguards Anthology, now in it's final days on Kickstarter. She is also the editor in chief at Outland Entertainment. Here, she talks about the allure of scoundrels in fiction. If you like rogue-ish characters, be sure to check out the Kickstarter for KNAVES--lots of awesome rewards available, and only a couple days left to claim them! The Once and Future Podcast host Anton Strout will have a story in there, and O&FP blogger Melanie R. Meadors is co-editing with Alana! Plus, there will be stories from Mercedes Lackey, Maurice Broaddus, Anna Smith Spark, Cat Rambo, Shanna Germain, and many more!

I remember watching Phantom Menace in the movie theater wondering what the movie was missing. There was awesome Jedi action (and way better choreography than the original trilogy). The music was fantastic. Tatooine looked pretty much the same, and pod racing was pretty nifty. (It was even more fun as a segment in later Star Wars video games.) But there was some core element of Star Wars I felt was just absent.

It didn't take me more than a few times watching it to realize that what the film didn't have was Han Solo.

I don't mean Han Solo literally. What I wanted was a loveable rogue. (You'll note that I found a TV Tropes link for the character type--that's how common it is.) It's all well and good to have the earnest hero in the center of things. That's kinda their job. But there needs to be someone around with a smirk and a wink and a hard edge—a little too cynical to believe in the mythic importance of everything around them (even if they're later proven wrong). Sometimes it's their job to undercut the narrative, to give it a little breathing room so the audience can laugh. Pretty typically, their witticisms are the ones people leave the theater quoting. They're not in this story for the higher mission of the plot. They're in it for some selfish reason.

But not really. Because when the chips are down, they show up to help save the day.

Or, actually, they don't.

Even though I grew up with the Han Solo type of scoundrel, and grew into the Malcolm Reynolds kind of scoundrel (as a freelancer, "I do the job, and then I get paid" became a mantra for me), I've developed a bit of a taste for the varied palate they can offer. Around the time I was loving Firefly, I was also reading Steven Brust's "Vlad Taltos" series. Which centers on a character who is, effectively, a crime lord in at least a portion of his novels. He's an assassin. He's not a nice man. But he's affable, the kind of narrator you want to follow on whatever mission it is he's undertaking. And, even when it's not really the right thing, you want him to win.

I followed Mark Henry's "Amanda Feral" series, which is narrated by a zombie socialite. Who eats people. Sometimes they're not even bad people, it's just that she's a zombie, and. Well. It happens. And while the whole experience of hanging out with Amanda is kind of like being a spectator to a train wreck, it's a glorious spectacle.

More recently, there's Marvel's Loki, whose Road Movie-like dialogue with Thor was the best thing about Thor: The Dark World. Never quite knowing what side Loki is on is a big part of his appeal—but, even moreso, that he's ambiguous with charm. If you want to talk about a fan favorite character—I think it's probably a safe bet that there's more fan fiction about Loki on the Internet than any of the Marvel heroes. (I'm not going to actually go count them, but I stand by my suspicion.)

And while characters like Kate Daniels and Curran Lennart from Ilona Andrews's "Kate Daniels" series are absolutely the heroes—they've got a bit of a edge on them as well. Kate, a former mercenary, private investigator, and also the daughter of one of the universe's big evils, isn't always good at playing nice. Curran, who for much of the series is the leader of all the shapeshifters in Atlanta, creates a code for his own people, but doesn't always play nicely by the rules of non-shapeshifters. They're a pair for whom the default response is to hit the problem with a sword, and to do so with a gleeful, maniacal smile that makes bystanders scared for their lives.

Fantasy and science fiction thrive on the morally ambiguous characters who can reel you into their stories and make you want them to win, even when they're the bad guys. While I'm no psychologist, I suspect there's something cathartic about rooting for the scoundrel. When you're part of a community (a family, a town, a nation), it's important to follow the rules—but it's not always fun. Diplomacy is hard. Sometimes just getting along with other members of your community is hard.

Rooting for the guy who doesn't have to follow those rules? Sometimes, that's exactly what we need. In all the varieties possible.

As Han says, "There aren't enough scoundrels in your life."

Alana Joli Abbott has been an editor for eighteen years, working on a variety of projects including biographies, news articles, reference books, role playing games, and fiction. At Outland, she has served as co-editor to anthologies, including Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters.

Alana is the author of the novels Into the Reach, Departure,and Regaining Home, the interactive multiple choice novel apps Choice of Kung Fu, Showdown at Willow Creek, and Choice of the Pirate, and she has written for the comics including Cowboys and Aliens II and Ithaca. Her game writing has been featured in Steampunk Musha, the award winning Serenity Adventures, and Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Alana has visited ancient ruins around the world; sung madrigals semi-professionally; and earned her black belt in Shaolin Kempo Karate.

COMICS REVIEW: Jim Henson's The Power of the Dark Crystal, Vol. 1

As a big Dark Crystal fan since the movie first came out, I admit to feeling some trepidation about new developments with the franchise. I don't want people messing about with things too much in my beloved worlds. I don't want my heroes to be ruined, I don't want the magic explained too much, especially by people who weren't involved at the story's conception. But at the same time, I get excited about the new possibilities, and I really want more stories about the characters I love. So I picked up The Power of the Dark Crystal cautiously.

This comic takes place many years after the events in The Dark Crystal. Peace has been restored to Thra with the healing of the Crystal, and Jen and Kira rule as King and Queen. But as often happens, power has made the gelfings complacent and in some cases, corrupt. We see at the beginning that the world is becoming sick, that the light of the crystal is fading. When the gelflings see this, they demand more offerings from the people of Thra, to make the crystal happy. People line up every day to make offerings to the crystal in order to get a boon, such as healing. We meet a new race of people, the Firelings, who are ailing. They live within the planet, near the core, and a young Fireling, Thurma, has been charged with stealing a shard of the crystal in order to heal the Firelings. The only problem is...well, remember what happened the last time the crystal broke? She breaks the crystal, and boom--instantly we hear the mewling "mmmmMMMMMmmmm" of Skeksis. 

So, we have Gelflings who are jerks--corrupted by being the ruling race, to the point where they are bullying other Gelfings, etc. We have an aging King and Queen, who seem to still be kind-hearted, but who are sleepy and complacent, and are letting others become corrupt. We have an adventurous Fireling, who will do anything to save her people, and we have a new Gelfing hero, Kensho, who wants to help do good things, but what IS good? For our old friend, the wise Aughra, knows of a prophesy that says if the Firelings are saved, the world of Gelflings will be destroyed. Yet if the Gelflings are saved, the Firelings will die. How can there be a balance? 

Well, the aging and tired King Jen, along with his companion Fizzgig, are about to go on a quest to find out. And as Jen says himself, "...I'm not sure we're the heroes this time."

I was pleasantly surprised with this comic, over all. The writer and artists managed to keep the feeling of the movie, and the personalities of the characters we've known from before remain intact. I'm really intrigued as far as how the problem is going to be resolved in a way that will help both the Gelflings and the Firelings. And I hope the Gelflings mend their ways and discover kindness again. We can see some hope for that in Kensho. It's a great balance of old characters and new that I think will bring in new fans as well as keep existing fans happy. I really enjoyed reading this, and can't wait for the next installment. 

Also worthy of a mention is Sana Takeda's chapter break artwork, which has an art deco type feel to it. Gorgeous work. 

Melanie R. Meadors is a writer of fantasy stories and comics, her work most recently appearing in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. She is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment.  Melanie also edits anthologies, including Hath No Fury, Knaves: A Blackguards Anthology, and Tales of Excellent Cats: A Monarchies of Mau Anthology, which is set in the world of the popular role playing game, Pugmire. She is a content editor and publicity specialist at the RPG game company Mechanical Muse, and has written game settings for the RPGs Tiny Dungeons 2e and Tiny Frontiers 2e. She is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast. You can learn more at melaniermeadors.com 

COMICS REVIEW: Ladycastle from Boom Studios

I did a review of the very first issue of Ladycastle when it came out, as well as an interview of writer Delilah S. Dawson. I loved issue one and couldn't wait to read the rest...but of course, as happens, life got in the way and I didn't get a chance to review the whole collection--until now. 

What the heck was I waiting for? 

Issue one was a great set up, and the rest of the four issue series delivers perfectly on any expectations I had. Ladycastle is a standalone, four issue story that is now collected in a single volume via Boom Studios. When all the men of the castle are killed by a dragon and leave the rest of the population under a curse, the women take up arms to defend themselves, and learn about themselves as individuals, and what life is like out from under the shadows of the men. The story looks at a lot of issues, such as independence, identity, abuse, strength, emotions, different abilities, body image, etc, in such a way that it's part of the story. The messages aren't heavy-handed but are definitely there. Yet, story trumps all, and readers will love the women of Ladycastle right off the bat for their unique personalities and personal struggles that are very relatable. Characters learn lessons such as, "I don't have to be something for someone else," and "I don't have to be hidden away because I'm different," and "Killing everything isn't always the solution." Yet there is a definite fun thread running through the entire storyline which makes this a very enjoyable read even while it's moving and inspiring.

One fun thing about the comic? The Easter eggs. Between Monty Python, Hamilton, Disney, and more, as well as the varying degrees of toilet humor, there are plenty of laughs and fun moments between the serious ones to really make this a perfect story for any mood. The characters make great company, and like I've said about other comics as well, it's very refreshing to see positive relationships between women happening more in fiction and comics. Life isn't a competition, people don't have to be catty and bitchy to each other. Ladycastle is a great example of this. The women support each other, and find strength together. 

Do yourself a favor and grab this comic for yourself, your daughters, your sons. It really is a comic for everyone! 

Melanie R. Meadors is a writer of fantasy stories and comics, her work most recently appearing in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. She is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment.  Melanie also edits anthologies, including Hath No Fury, Knaves: A Blackguards Anthology, and Tales of Excellent Cats: A Monarchies of Mau Anthology, which is set in the world of the popular role playing game, Pugmire. She is a content editor and publicity specialist at the RPG game company Mechanical Muse, and has written game settings for the RPGs Tiny Dungeons 2e and Tiny Frontiers 2e. She is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast. You can learn more atmelaniermeadors.com 

COMICS REVIEW: Heathen, Volume 1

How can I describe Heathen, by Natasha Alterici (who both wrote and did the art), from Vault? Frankly, it's the comic I've been waiting for for a long time. I honestly got chills when I read the description on the back:

Aydis is a viking, a warrior, an outcast, and a self-proclaimed heathen. Aydis is friend to the talking horse Saga, rescuer of the immortal Valkyrie Brynhild, and battler of demons and fantastic monsters. Aydis is a woman. Born into a time of warfare, suffering, and subjugation of women, she is on a mission to end the oppressive reign of the god-king Odin. 

But even though I expected a comic that would kick ass, I was still surprised. Yes, Aydis is the comic book heroine I've been looking for, and how can I NOT love the Norse setting and plot? But this isn't just a tale about a warrior fighting the powers that be. It's also a story about love and acceptance. About fighting so that other people can find love and acceptance. It's about throwing off the shackles of those who tell you who you can be and who you can love, and staying true to yourself and your own power. 

One thing I liked about the comic, which was unexpected was that the female characters work together. They are opposed at times, but they aren't petty or "bitchy" toward each other, as I've come to expect often times. I went into this expecting to have to choose sides, especially when Freya came on the scene, but I didn't have to. Freya is exactly how I think of her in my mind, just as the goddess of love should be. The women care for each other and look out for each other. At the same time, the men aren't just looked down upon as the enemy. There are men who are portrayed as wonderful supporters and heroes themselves. Male readers will still feel included and they definitely have a part to play in the story.

The artwork of Heathen is amazing, harsh yet lovely at the same time. Aydis is so expressive, eevn the animals' personalities shine through (though there is more to many of these animals than meets the eye). 

I can honestly say this is one of the top comics I've read in the past couple years. PLEASE, comics publishers--more like this!

Melanie R. Meadors is a writer of fantasy stories and comics, her work most recently appearing in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. She is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment.  Melanie also edits anthologies, including Hath No Fury, Knaves: A Blackguards Anthology, and Tales of Excellent Cats: A Monarchies of Mau Anthology, which is set in the world of the popular role playing game, Pugmire. She is a content editor and publicity specialist at the RPG game company Mechanical Muse, and has written game settings for the RPGs Tiny Dungeons 2e and Tiny Frontiers 2e. She is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast. You can learn more atmelaniermeadors.com 

Visit the Kickstarter for KNAVES! Includes stories from Mercedes Lackey, Anna Smith Spark, Anton Strout, Cullen Bunn, and more!

The Mother Hero in Speculative Fiction: Guest Post by I.L. Cruz

Mothers are some of the most resourceful people I know. I know this because I’m a mom—I’ve entertained my daughter for hours with nothing more than stuff I find in my purse and no electronics. We hold positions of authority. We shape new generations. We work inside the home and outside it. It’s been proven time and again that we can do it all. Then why don’t we go on quests?

I’ve read (and written) a lot of speculative fiction and not once do I remember a woman tucking up her children into bed before sharpening her sword by the fire. Have you ever read an urban fantasy that began, “She waved the children goodbye at the drop-off, hoping she hadn’t missed the window for the trans-dimensional portal,” or a space opera with, “Rey knew she was meant to find the last Jedi, if only Ella would get the hang of potty training?” I’m willing to bet a whole stack it’s never been written. Motherhood is when you hang up your spurs and tell the tales of your youth because maturity and experience are a hinderance on quests, right?

But why? As I mentioned before, whose more resourceful than a mother? I’ve gone weeks without sleep, confronted countless unknowns and dangers—anticipated, searched and deduced the indecipherable. Aren’t those key elements to a good chosen one? In Greek mythology Demeter brought the world to a standstill and descended into the underworld just to find her daughter. That’s a Mother Hero. 

As writers of fantasy we love to imperil the young and immature, still uncertain of their responsibilities. We delve into the realm of firsts and watch as they grow with each misstep or triumph. Harry Potter grew from a neglected eleven-year-old boy to a seventeen-year old chosen one, but still a boy. Could Molly Weasley have taken on the Dark Lord instead? Imagine the story of a woman with seven children and little money taking on the greatest evil.

Heroic loners have nothing to lose other than a chance to be remembered. A mother can save the world but lose her family. How powerful would Spock’s speech in The Wrath of Khan about “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one” have been if he was a mother? Is there really so little inner conflict with a character who has to weigh the fate of the world against the safety of her child that writers ignore the possibility? 

The likely culprit of this oversight is worldbuilding. A fantasy writer can commit thousands of words making the world in their mind come to life for the reader. It can read like a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, spending an entire chapter describing a wild rose bush. The modern reader finds this tedious (at least I do). To get to the story, we create a shorthand for the accoutrements. Or we prefer to visualize magic working at a time when science was scarce. Therefore, many fantasy stories take place in a medievalist recreation—men in hose with swords, women in gowns and corsets—including all the prerequisite baggage. We can believe a young woman, still untouched by the demands of her society (or normally just on the cusp of being pushed into it) will steal her brother’s chain mail and seek out the “item of destiny” or inherit the “power from prophesy”. Meanwhile her mother hounds her to sit up straight and fix her hair or she’ll never catch the prince’s eye (who invariably marries her because he likes her moxie). What about her mother? Doesn’t Wilhelmina Baggins taking on a mission with a wizard and some dwarves and getting more than she bargained for sound plausible if she needed a little “me time”? Wouldn’t portraying a mother going on a quest be a perfect parallel to the mother who must decide whether to continue chasing her outside career or staying home? 

I’m guilty of it, too. I rarely considered mothers in stories to be more than queens, who hold power, but do none of the heavy lifting. They spar with words, wit, guile and rule worlds. The young and untried risk life and limb for a chance to save the world. What if a queen chose both roles? I don’t have an easy answer for this. I’ve been a mother for ten years now and all my protagonists have been unencumbered females searching for a place in their worlds. I submit that mothers should join the search as well. Katniss Everdeen was young and maternal, but she could have easily been mature and maternal. I’d read that. 

Mothers can be fierce and brave as well as nurturing and kind. They know all about sacrifice and patience. Giving birth demands Herculean strength and taking on a child you didn’t bear takes epic bravery—traits of a hero. Let’s celebrate that in the real world and in literary ones, too.

I.L. Cruz wants to live in a world where words are chosen with care, shoes are as comfy as socks, and reading time is sacred. As someone who’s taken the plunge into writing, she’s been working on a fantasy series, posting on her blog and searching valiantly for her perfect writing tribe.

When she’s not distracted by the voices of characters in her head you can find her wrangling her daughter and a super-mutt named Dipper, indulging in her guilty pleasure of costume dramas and fanboy flicks, and planning European escapes with her husband (where we always end up in a park). Her book, A Smuggler’s Path, will be available this summer. You can learn more at booksbyilcruz.com or her blog, Fairytale Feminista.

COMICS REVIEW--Rose: Volume One, The Last Light

Rose is a young woman who grew up in a world where magic has become not just frowned upon, but outright banned. Entire villages are burned and people killed for even associating with Guardians, the people who use magic. Children suspected of having magic are hunted down and killed. Traditionally, when the world was at peace, the Guardians had companions called khats--giant sentient cats that were bonded with their human counterparts. But all of the khats were wiped out years ago, save one, Thorne. Volume One of Rose is the story of how Rose discovers her powers, and how she and Thorne find each other. 

I really loved the concept for this comic, as well as the artwork. Rose comes into her power by accident and has to be on the run, to escape the power-hungry evil Queen Drucilla, who wants all the Guardians destroyed. We are introduced to a band of people who are resisting the queen, and see indications that there is a movement brewing. It's a traditional fantasy story that deals with familiar themes, and I think high fantasy fans will enjoy it. A lot happens in the space of the first volume, alliances made and broken, promises made, and characters grow. We can see that Rose is a charismatic character who has potential to lead the entire movement against the evil Queen, and by the end of the volume, she's already won a person to her side. Volume 1 ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, and so I'll definitely be picking up the next volume to see what happens. 

One criticism that might be made is that Rose could be considered a bit of a Mary Sue character, but really I think the creators handled this well--we can see that Rose has a lot to learn still, and her magic isn't refined, even though she has the power. Now that she is united with her khat companion, who is older and knows more about magic, it'll be interesting to see how she develops. 

Rose, Volume One: The Last Light is exciting and action-packed, with heroes you cheer for and villains you want to see defeated. It's definitely one you'll want to read straight through. All in all, I highly recommend for fantasy lovers!

Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. Melanie is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

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Anna Smith Spark, On Writing SFF: A Celebration of the Human Soul

Please welcome guest Anna Smith Spark to Once & Future! She is the author of the Empires of Dust series, and also has a story in the new anthology KNAVES: A Blackguards Anthology, now on Kickstarter! She's also eligible for this year's Gemmell Award! 

At NineWorlds last year, I was interviewed for a television programme. The first question I was asked was about whether events like this might be able to ‘reclaim’ the word 'geek’. As though it was something insulting that needed to be ‘reclaimed’.  I had no idea what to say to that, flannelled about saying very little, made an annoying nervous laugh. I thought of this again recently when a controversy erupted in the genteel world of British publishing, after an article in The Bookseller (THE UK publishing trade newspaper) described Gollancz’s current role as an SFF imprint as a ‘tragedy’ given the history of the name.  Gollancz responded furiously, of course, pointing out the The Iliad, 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale etc etc etc are technically ‘SFF’. The article’s author made one of those classic non-apologies that only people with an absolute sense of their own superiority make. Every word of it screamed that the saddos at Gollancz should be bloody grateful the author was even deigning to reply to them.

I’ve lived my entire life with mental health issues. Body issues, crippling shyness, a deep conviction that I was ugly, clumsy, stupid, fat.  The one thing I’ve never been ashamed of, seen as anything but a mark of superiority over others, is my love of SFF. 

‘I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate’

‘I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.’

‘We dream of light and shadows and the glory of something far greater, the old wild powers of the world. Gods and demons parading. The secret things we cannot see that fly somewhere far beyond our human eyes.’ 

That last one’s by me, from The Tower of Living and Dying. It’s my favourite line I’ve ever written. I make no apologies for quoting it. It sums up my life and why I love SFF. And why I feel contempt for those who claim to dislike it. And why I feel pity for them. 

I am reminded of a recent blog post by my friend and agent-brother Ed McDonald, who wrote of the feeling of inferiority he’d feel standing in a room full of bankers and admitting that he was a fantasy novelist. I did see what he meant – these men (sic) are the masters of the universe, Ed and I write about imaginary people with magic swords. The whole basis of liberal democratic society is that the former is ‘the best and brightest ‘, the latter is ‘childish’. The pinstriped men in the City … yeah, they’d look at Ed and me like dirt. But they’re wrong. The world would be a better place without them. The world’s a better place because people like Ed and me exist. Shelley, who knew a thing or two about the fantastical, wrote in A Defence of Poetry that poetry ‘awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought’. SFF shows us gods and wonders. Beauty. Re-enchantments. Sublime, numinous things. Bankers just make a bigger pile of cash. Weber wrote about the disenchantment of the world, the impact of modernity in stripping the magic of the world away. SFF brings the enchantment back.

I am gazing idly out of a train window as I write this, see a may tree all in bloom. I see the White Tree blossoming in Minas Tirith. I see the May Queen and the Corn King of British folklore. I see beautiful, wonderful, glorious things. I walk the world and I see dragons in the clouds, krakens sleeping beneath the waves of the North Sea, the door to the Otherworld in the hollow hills of the South Downs. I look up into the night sky and I see distant civilizations a thousand light years away, unreachable; I see vast space creatures that can swim through the void like fish through water; I see other sentient beings unimaginable in their alienness. 

I would bet a lot, somehow, that the banker masters of the universe don’t see any of that. 

Gollanzc’s response to the article in The Bookseller argued that ‘Political commentary, social critique, empowerment, standing up for others and freeing your imagination lie at the heart of SFF and—if you’ll forgive us for drawing on the genre here—aliens visiting our planet could learn everything there is to know about our race and society from perusing the pages of Terry Pratchett, George R R Martin, Joanne Harris, Ursula Le Guin, Stephen King and Iain M Banks’. Which is all true, and another reason to feel intense pride in our genre. There’s more human truth in one page of Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore than there is in million economics textbooks. But.

There was a recent discussion in The Guardian about the idea of placing monetary value on the environment. Persuading capitalism that nature is important by assigning a value to it. We do that already, of course, we argue that we need to save the rainforests ‘because they’re the planet’s lungs’; the Artic melting will be a disaster ‘because sea-levels will rise and flood New York’; insects numbers must be protected because of ‘eco-systems’ and ‘food-chains’.  Which is all true, and very important. Oxygen’s kind of useful. Pollination is fairly important if you want to grow anything. I’ve never been to New York; I’d kind of like to see Lady Liberty before she sinks. But.

But these arguments are all unnecessary. These things do not need rational justification. These things are important because they are wonderful. Trees are wonderful. Bees are wonderful. SFF stories are wonderful, to me at least. In a better world, that should be enough. How small must your mind be, for that not to be enough?

In the bankers’ world, the disenchanted world, nothing has wonder. Everything is a thing to be used, bought and sold. It’s the banker’s world that’s a tragedy, that should be ashamed of what it is, that’s childish, in the sense of children as selfish and egocentric and convinced their own little wants are the centre of everything. What use is this thing? Can it make me money? Can it make me more successful? Everything must be quantified, given a value, a purpose, a job.

In my geek SFF world, I care about the world because the world is vast and full of wonder and I love wonderful magical things. The world of SFF is numinous. The divine is there in everything. It is childlike, in the sense of children finding new joys and new terrors in the world every day, never ceasing to revel in the glory of just being alive, of knowing that the world is. I sink away into SFF and I realize again and again how extraordinary and precious the world is, and how extraordinary and precious life is, and how much we need to care for it.

What must it be like to lose that wonder? To no longer be able to see the dragons dancing on the morning wind?   What must it be like never to have been able to see them? 

What a small, sad, mean place the world must be, if you do not see wondrous things.

I’ll end this with a quote from Flecker’s Samarkand that encapsulates everything I love about SFF:

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

Always a little further: it may be

Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow, 

Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

White on a throne or guarded in a cave

There lives a prophet who can understand

Why men were born: but surely we are brave, 

Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.  

Anna Smith Spark is the author of the critically acclaimed Empires of Dust grimdark epic fantasy series. The Gemmell Awards shortlisted The Court of Broken Knives is out now with Harper Voyager (UK/world) and Orbit (US/Can); The Tower of Living and Dying will be published in August 2018. Her favourite authors are Mary Renault, R Scott Bakker and M. John Harrison. Previous jobs include English teacher, petty bureaucrat and fetish model. You may know her by the heels of her shoes.

www.courtofbrokenknives.org

Twitter: @queenofgrimdark

Facebook: Anna Smith Spark

You can vote in the Gemmell Awards here: http://www.gemmellawards.com/award-voting-2018/

COMICS REVIEW: Scales & Scoundrels, Vol. 1: Into the Dragon's Maw

I picked up Scales and Scoundrels, Volume 1 because it looked like a fun sword and sorcery type comic with a fun style of artwork that kind of reminded me a bit of Lumberjanes. And in this case, judging the book by its cover worked--it WAS a fun romp in fantasy land, that readers of all ages can enjoy. 

Immediately I got a good laugh, when on page one we have a meta situation where characters are in the middle of playing a fantasy game. Right away, when we meet main character Luvander, we can tell it's going to be a fun ride of treasure hunting and thrills. When she teams up with a prince, his protector, and their dwarf companion, the adventures really begin. 

Volume 1 does a good job at introducing the characters and getting readers to care about them. Even though Koro, the bodyguard, doesn't trust Luvander, and normally readers might give her the side eye, we can understand why when we see her backstory. All the main characters are well developed and aren't just walking cliches--even though that could have worked with this sort of story, the story is much stronger because the writer didn't take the easy way.

The creators have a great, diverse cast of characters here, and they aren't just painting some characters with darker skin in order to have token characters of color. There is culture and tradition here, decisions are not just made arbitrarily. Again, this points to the excellent character development, which is what makes this comic rise above others.

The volume ends with a couple of mysteries at hand, and leaves readers wanting to know more. I'll definitely be picking up Volume 2 to find some answers to the questions raised in this book.

Also, I want an isp!

Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. Melanie is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

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COMICS REVIEW--Rat Queens, Volume One: Sass and Sorcery

I'm trying to get caught up with my comics reviews--some of these books I've read a long time ago, but never had the chance to review. And some I'm just reading now. So prepare yourselves! Comics are happening!

I knew I had to read Rat Queens when I first saw it, but for whatever reason, it ended up slipping on my To Be Read pile. Something was always coming up or happening, and I just never got to it until now. What a mistake! I devoured this first volume, Sass and Sorcery, which contains the first five issues. 

Written by Kurtis J. Wiebe with art by Roc Upchurch, Rat Queens is the story of four women, described on the back cover as "a pack of booze guzzling death dealing battle maidens-for-hire." It's of the sword and sorcery genre, but updated for a modern audience who knows that women can kick names and take ass with the best of them. These ladies don't hold back, and the comic is full of wit, laughter, violence, sexy times, partying, and most importantly, heart. An imbalance of these things would make the comic into a spoof, but Wiebe and Upchurch did a phenomenal job with their pacing of action and timing of jokes. The four main characters are tight friends, and really care for each other. They have each other's backs, which was really refreshing (I'm kind of sick of the whole competition between women, aren't you?). 

All four main characters are fully fleshed three dimensional characters with complete personalities and backstories that make them who they are. Not only that, but the characters--including secondary characters--have different body types, and the cast is diverse in pretty much all ways. The comic not only deals with friendship between women in a positive way, but body image, sexuality, and varying lifestyles. And all of this is handled in a natural, story-driven way. Nothing hits you over the head or is screaming *MESSAGE* at you as you read. It's a comic as comics should be. I love the irreverence and fun as much as I love the adventure and the relationships between characters. 

My favorite characters? I love all of them, but I have to say Hannah, because let's face it, she's me, and Betty, because she's fun and loyal to the end, one of my favorite character types (also, she's a smidgeon, and you know how I love my smaller races!). Orc Dave has also pretty much become an instant favorite. Seriously, so often in books like this, there is always one character who drives me up the wall, but that's just not the case here. I love them all, and can't wait to read the next volume!

Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. Melanie is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

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No Thank You, Evil! An Interview with Shanna Germain

A couple years ago, I interviewed the talented and big-hearted Shanna Germain, from Monte Cook Games, about her new game, No Thank You Evil. Now, two years later, the game has sold out! So they are running a Kickstarter campaign to fund a second printing! Here is the interview I did, which originally ran on GeekMom.com. 

Melanie R. Meadors: Welcome! Tell us a little about yourself.

Shanna Germain: Thanks so much! I’m a writer, editor, and game designer by both passion and trade. Right now, I’m the creative director and co-owner of Monte Cook Games, where I’m designing a storytelling game for families called No Thank You, Evil! I’m also a pretty big geek—I love books, games, TV shows and movies, and all things word-related. I even own a dog named Ampersand.

MRM: How did you get into gaming? Was it something you were interested in as a kid?

SG: My grandmother was a big gamer—she loved card and board games especially, so games have always been part of my life thanks to her. She taught me a lot about how to lose with dignity, win with grace, and play with style. I liked games when I was a kid because I was very shy and socially awkward, and having a way to interact with other people where I understood the rules really helped me overcome a lot of that.

MRM: What was the game that started it all for you, like your gateway drug into gaming?

SG: For storytelling games, it was definitely Bunnies & Burrows, which is a game based on the novel Watership Down. You could play a bunny in the game, which I thought was the most incredible thing ever, and you did martial arts moves called “bun fu.” My babysitter introduced me to it; I had no idea what a role-playing game was, but she told me I could pretend to be a bunny, and I was like, “Yes, please!”

MRM: What is your favorite game now?

SG: I don’t know that I could choose just one. I use different games for different needs. When I need a quick break, I’ll play an iPad game like Words with Friends. When I want to work out, I play a computer role-playing game like Elder Scrolls Online or Borderlands on my treadmill desk. When I want to immerse myself and spend time with friends, I play a role-playing game like OD&D and Numenera.

I tend to play a lot of games all the time, because they open my own way of thinking about games and game design.

Image: Monte Cook Games

MRM: I’d say it’s safe to say that the majority of our readers here have kids, and many of those kids have some geeky aspirations. If a kid came up to you and said they wanted to be a game designer when they grew up, what would you say to them?

SG: I would say that they should follow that dream by playing lots of games, thinking about games, and creating their own games. You’re never too young to start drawing maps, creating characters, and writing adventures. Get all of your friends to help you, and then play together.

MRM: Any other advice for young geeklings out there? How about for their parents?

SG: I think that it’s really easy for geeky kids to feel like their interests are weird or uncool. Thankfully, we live in a time where being a geek is cool. So to young geeklings, I’d say: Love what you love. You’ll be surprised how many other people love what you love too.

To parents, I’d say: If you’re already supporting your kids’ interests and want to find a way to do more, or if you’re unsure how to support the geeky things that your kids are into, consider looking into school programs and gaming clubs that support geeky interests, attending conventions that have a family focus, and finding geeky role models that your kids can look up to.

MRM: You are a writer, editor, gamer… how do you make time for all of your passions? Is there one role you identify with more than others?

SG: I feel like I could ask that same question about so many people I know, and I think we would all have a similar answer: I have no idea. It’s a tricky balance. If I don’t have enough going on, I lose that sense of pressure and am much less productive, but if I have too much going on, I get stressed about all I have to do and can’t seem to accomplish anything. Sometimes I think that there’s a perfect point of busyness—just busy enough to keep the pressure on, not so busy that you start to fall apart—and if you can walk that tightrope, you can accomplish everything. I have a hard time asking for help, and that is something I have to keep learning, because sometimes having someone else just take one thing off your plate can save you from falling off that tightrope.

Writing is my first passion, and has been since I was old enough to smash letters and words together. I’ve always wanted to tell stories. The medium doesn’t matter. I love writing fiction as much as I love writing games. It’s all about stringing words one after the other to tell a story that moves someone else in some way.

GMM: Tell us a little about your involvement with the new game on Kickstarter, No Thank You, Evil!.

SG: No Thank You, Evil! is a game of creative storytelling for families. I’m designing it, along with Monte Cook. Designing a game for families is really different than designing a game for adults, and it’s wonderfully challenging. Kids are so creative and so smart, and they intuitively understand how to pretend to be someone else. So the game doesn’t need to teach them how to role-play—it needs to give them the space to let their creativity shine, while also providing them with solid boundaries and guidance.

It’s also really important to me that all kids and families can play games, so one of the things that we’ve been working hard on is making sure that No Thank You, Evil! is accessible to and inclusive of children with cognitive and physical concerns like autism, dyslexia, and color blindness. We’re using fonts and colors that are easy to read and discern, creating art that depicts a wide variety of characters, and making sure there is no one right way to “succeed” in the game. Creative solutions are encouraged, so a player who’s nonverbal can draw or act out their character’s actions, while a more verbal player can do a robot voice, repeat a favorite phrase, or sing a song instead.

Image: Monte Cook Games

MRM: What project are you most proud of? What do you hope to be remembered for, and what is your dream project?

SG: Right now, I have to say that No Thank You, Evil! is my dream project. We’re right in the middle of play-testing, so I get to watch all of these amazing kids interact with something that I’m creating, and they just keep blowing me away with their creativity. When you write a book, the reader goes away to read it and you may never know what they thought of it. When you write a game for adults, you might hear afterward how much they liked it. But watching these kids at the table, when they get excited about their character or they get a really good dice roll or do something that saves the day—there’s something incredibly special about that energy and enthusiasm. It’s like you’re getting to watch their minds expanding right in front of you.

MRM: Anything exciting coming up for you?

SG: I’m still working on No Thank You, Evil! for a little while longer, and then I’ll start working on two new books for Numenera, which is the first game that we created at Monte Cook Games. One is a sourcebook and the other is a novel, so I get to do a little of each of the things that I love at the same time.

MRM: Thanks again for taking the time to chat! Best of luck to you with your Kickstarter and all your future projects.

SG: Thank you so much!

Shanna Germain is also an author in my newest anthology KNAVES! Currently on Kickstarter, Knaves includes authors like Anna Smith Spark, Mercedes Lackey, Lian Hearn, Anton Strout, Maurice Broaddus, and many more! Be sure to check it out!

Shanna has worked as a writer and editor for nearly 20 years, and has six books, hundreds of short stories, and a myriad other works to her name. Over the years, she’s won numerous awards for her work, including a Pushcart nomination, the C. Hamilton Bailey Poetry Fellowship, th Utne Reader award for Best New Publicatio, and 7 ENnie Awards.

The creative director and co-owner of Monte Cook Games, LLC, she is currently designing a creative storytelling game for families called No Thank You, Evil!

Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. Melanie is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

Pro Wrestling Is My Game of Thrones: Ashley Lauren Rogers Geeks Out

Please welcome playwright, vlogger, blogger, podcaster, and all around AWESOME person, Ashley Lauren Rogers to Once and Future! 

The lights go out. Darkness all around. Creepy organ music plays and fire shoots out of the ring posts illuminating the arena. My friend, my father, and I are far close enough that we can feel the fire. I am in awe of “The big red machine,” Kane as he and his brother The Undertaker enter the Paul Tsongas arena as the Brothers of Destruction. I never wanted this moment to end.

Pro wrestling is one of the most visceral forms of storytelling I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I know what you’ve been told “Professional Wrestling is fake,” and yeah, it’s pre-determined (for the most part) but so is The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The characters are over the top and ridiculous, the storylines are meant to pull at your emotions, and the physical storytelling and athleticism are second to none.

Photo: John N. Collins

Growing up I’d create characters and wrestle with my cousins. A fun pastime that grew into backyard wrestling (I never hit my friends with lighting tubes, or barbed wire baseball bats though). For me it was always about the characters. We’d work out how to do the moves we knew ahead of time, enter to our favorite songs, and cut promos on one another, then create matches based on the moves we worked out ahead of time. It was some of the most fun I’d ever had.

Engaging in pro wrestling, as a fan and in (backyard) practice, helped steer me towards a career in the arts. Those moments in the arenas watching Kane, and The Undertaker, and the 1-2-3 Kid, and Rob Van Dam were some of my earliest experiences with theatre. A truly great piece of theatre will move you in a way other mediums can’t. You’re there physically with performers bearing their soul in front of you convincing you what they are experiencing is reality... and in those moments they are. I have lost my voice screaming for CM Punk to beat John Cena, I have cried witnessing Bayley overcome the odds against Sasha Banks, I was nervous to interview Rey Mysterio Jr. and Kane (who’s now the Republican nominee for Mayor of Knox County Kentucky...), and I felt real fear being in the same space with the Undertaker at a time where I was old enough to know he was playing a character but young enough to want to believe. I love Pro Wrestling because I always want that feeling.

Photo: John N Collins

Which is why I am creating a new piece of theatre called SCOWL: Fight For Your Rights, a queer/trans centric, action-packed piece of stage combat theatre in the vein of GLOW, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, and WWE which aims to use Pro Wrestling Story Telling but apply stage combat, acrobatics, and improv to create a new theatrical experience. SCOWL: Fight For Your Rights will be premiering this July at The Brick’s Transgender Theatre Festival in Brooklyn, but we’re in the beginning stages of a crowd funding campaign . If you can’t make it to Brooklyn, don’t worry--we intend to film and release the footage on YouTube, Vimeo, and other video sharing outlets!

Here is the IndieGoGo link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scowl-fight-for-your-rights

Ashley Lauren Rogers earned a Bachelor’s of English Literature and Theatre at Fitchburg State College. Her most recent ten minute play “Tag You’re Dead,” about the medical gatekeeping and erasure of the trans experience premiered at Joe’s Pub as part of the Nasty Women Unite arts festival.  Her collection of short plays The Illustrated Xmas Sweater was produced in December 2016 by Step1 Theatre Project under the name Falsehoods, Fallacies, and Fairytales which played to mostly sold out houses.  Ashley was invited to the two week summer playwriting intensive at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, had shows produced in New York City as part of Stage Left Studio and the New York Nineteenth Century Society, Theatre To Go in Melrose MA, and as part of the Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC. Recently her work has been displayed as part of Stage Left Studio’s sold out Gender: A Performance Project, and her show Bite Curious, was a part of White Rabbit Production’s Scream Queens and Crazed Fiends, short play event. Her one person show PASS/FAIL received its premiere at Dixon Place Lounge NYC was performed for The Midtown International Theatre Festival, and was part of the Trans Theatre Festival at The Brick in Brooklyn and has since been performed at the University of Wisconsin, as well as in Cincinatti, Piscataway NJ, and upcoming in Detroit.   Ashley is also a Joker with Theatre of the Oppressed NYC

Ashley is a recipient of the ACM Award for Comedy Video for writing the pilot of Marisa and Rocco, is the creator of Ashley Rogers Does Something Awesome, Monthly Tea with Madeline Foxtrot, all through Dogtoon Media. She has been featured in the Frenchy and The Punk Music video for “House of Cards,” Sundance Channel’s “Young Broke and Beautiful,” and TLC’s “Bling It On.” Ashley has written articles for Cosmopolitan, The Mary Sue, SFWA, John Scalzi Blog, Beyond Victoriana and Steampunk Magazine Online, has been a vlogger and a blogger for NerdCaliber.com. Ashley has developed a workshop for writers to learn how write for trans and non­binary narratives and is available on WritingTheOther.com. Ashley is the Producer/creator of the Is It Transphobic? Podcast and Ashley is currently working on an untitled non-fiction manuscript for Three L Media.

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Alethea Kontis on Imposter Syndrome

Please welcome Alethea Kontis, bestselling author, princess, and all around awesome person (the tagline on her website is "optimism is the true resistance"), to Once and Future, where she offers us some wise words on that dreaded beast, Imposter Syndrome.

Earlier this year, I met the only student Katy Kellgren ever had. He told me he just about had to bully her into being his teacher. This amazing, multiple award-winning voice actress with hundreds of audiobooks under her belt truly didn’t believe she knew anything that anyone would want to learn. 

And yet, I totally understand why. Because I felt exactly the same way. 

As writers, we tell everyone that “Impostor Syndrome” never goes away. It’s true, in a sense. The more we work, the more we learn to recognize it when it pops up—and then we tell it to go away. I mean heck, I winged my fairy tale talk at the Library of Congress. Sure, I wrote up an outline and jotted down a few notes, but fairy tales are something I’ve studied my whole life and genuinely love to talk about. The “OMG WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, YOU IDIOT?? THIS IS THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS!!!” didn’t hit me until about 3/4 of the way into my talk…and by then it was time for questions. 

Where that Impostor bugger really loves to rear its ugly head is when you’re starting something new and different. Who are you to think that anyone will follow you down this path your forging? Sure, you’ll make it to the top of that mountain, but what if you turn around and they’re all laughing instead of cheering? That’s right, show up on [Famous Author]’s doorstep, hotshot—she’ll either love you or hate you! And teaching? I mean seriously! Who the heck are you to think that you know anything that anyone wants to learn?

Well, you might be Katy Kellgren. Or you might be me. 

In the last few months, it seems like every time I check in on social media, another friend has made a movie deal. Or a TV deal. Or comic book. Or they’re writing for a property I would give my left arm to be part of. Or they sold foreign rights in twenty countries. Or they just shared a picture where some super famous performer is reading their book to his/her kids. 

We all reach an age at some point where everyone around us is getting married or having kids, right? Well, when you’re a writer, you reach the age where everyone around you is suddenly Announcing Big Deals. And YES I am happy for them. Immensely! And YES, I get that comparison is the thief of joy. My time will come! But when I posted the link to my online writing workshop for teens, that Impostor voice seeped through the cracks. 

Who are you? the Impostor said. Your bestselling book was published 12 years ago. No one remembers you. You haven’t walked a red carpet. No movie stars retweet your posts. Where’s your coloring book? Where’s your HBO series? No one wants to learn from a Nobody.

I could lie and tell you that voice wasn’t constantly in the back of my mind, poking at my ego with its malice. But I won’t. No, I heard that voice loud and clear. But you know what? I did it anyway. And not a ton of kids signed up, but that’s okay. Because SOME DID. 

Besides, I told myself, smaller groups are better. Fewer students to forgive me if I screw up, so less pressure for me to put on myself. I’ll feel more comfortable. Stretch my legs. Work the kinks out. 

By the end of the first online session (of four), I could feel the magic. I missed working with kids, yes, but more importantly, I had never worked with young writers before. And I don’t ever want to stop working with them for the rest of my life. You know how some teachers say that they feel “a calling”? I do believe I’ve found mine. 

AND HERE IS WHY:

—Writers are always asked “If you could go back in time and tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?” (When I asked Anne McCaffrey this, she said, “To have more sex while I’m young and beautiful.”) My answer is always: Write more. Never stop. And finish what you start. Now…until they invent the TARDIS, I can’t actually go back in time and tall my teenage self this. BUT I CAN TELL THEM. I can tell them all of that, and more!

—I was a teen writer. Would you believe that I actually forgot this would make a difference? I remember what it’s like to have parents who tell you to “major in something that will get you a real job.” I remember form letters from editors telling me never to use a pseudonym. I remember staring at that novel and KNOWING that I wasn’t old enough to write it. Knowing that I just didn’t have the experience yet to tell the story the way it needed to be told. Knowing that I had not known enough pain and hardship and broken hearts and death. I remember how the stories still wanted to be told, regardless, and how my friends wanted me to write them all, no matter what. 

—I had that Cinderella story. I peaked early, both as an actress and a writer. Of course, I didn’t know it at at the time—that’s the curse of peaking early in one’s career. You don’t know how to handle it until it’s too late. But if writing is what you want—if it’s what you really want—nothing will be able to stop you. In the meantime, you lean the hard way how to buckle down and teach yourself a work ethic. You watch friends come up from beneath you and rise above you in record time. Sometime they stay your friends. Sometimes they don’t. You begin to recognize which projects are wort spending time on…and which people, too. 

That last bit came directly out of all that vile nonsense the Impostor voice had been spewing. It made me laugh to think that all those reasons I was telling myself I had no business teaching young people was exactly the reason why I should be teaching….especially young people. 

It’s true. The Impostor never really goes away. But my teens will learn its tricks, and they will learn them far earlier than I did. AND THEN THEY WILL RULE THE WORLD. 

Want to know more about Alethea Kontis's upcoming classes? Follow her on social media (Twitter @AletheaKontis, Facebook @AletheaKontis) and check out her Eventbright profile here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/alethea-kontis-16376673838

New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a voice actress, a force of nature, and a mess. She is responsible for creating the epic fairytale fantasy realm of Arilland, and dabbling in a myriad of other worlds beyond. Her award-winning writing has been published for multiple age groups across all genres. Host of “Princess Alethea’s Fairy Tale Rants” and Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow every year at Dragon Con, Alethea also narrates for ACX, IGMS, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea and the magic, wonderful world in which she lives here: https://www.patreon.com/princessalethea

How Can Creators Get the Most From Social Media? A Primer on Marketing and Publicity

Whether you’re an author, artist, comic book writer, or game designer, social media can be a valuable tool. But a tool for what? Using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram “effectively” as an author is one of the things I’m asked about most in my freelance publicity work, and the answer can be deceptively simple, but it’s not what many creators want to hear.

So often, creators want a magic bullet to sell books. A lot think social media is that magic bullet, and when it doesn’t work for them, they lament that they are doing something wrong, or that it’s Facebook’s fault, or that something is broken. And as a creator myself, I completely get the frustration. But the thing is, sometimes things don’t work because you just aren’t using them right. You CAN use a screw driver to drive in a nail. I’ve done it. Smash the butt end against the nail enough and it will eventually go in. But not in the best way. Not the fastest way. Using the proper tools for the job can save a lot of energy and time, and using the tools themselves properly does the same.

You know how Petyr Baelish goes on in Game of Thrones that “chaos is a ladder?” Well, the same is kind of true for marketing. You create one form of content, and if someone is interested in that content, they become curious about your other content. They will climb to another level to explore that content. But first, they have to be enticed to look at that first content to begin with. And this is where a lot of authors go wrong with social media. 

See, a lot of authors think of social media as a publicity tool. But here’s the thing. Even though some PARTS of social media can be used for publicity, on the whole, social media is a marketing tool. What’s the difference? Well, marketing is the content you create, basically (simplified). You want people to pay you? Your marketing gives people a reason to pay you. It’s what people are paying you FOR—your value. According to the American Marketing Association, their official definition of marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” So…what does this boil down to? Marketing is offering clients/customers something they find valuable so they hang around, and even eventually pay you for it. How is social media a marketing tool? Well, you create content on social media. Those are your posts. Your images. The links you share. People look at those posts and say, “oh, I’m not interested in that,” and leave. Or they say, “Cool!” and follow you.

That’s it. 

So what’s publicity, then?

Publicity is the act of making people AWARE that the content exists. And social media provides opportunities for that, as well. When other people share your posts with their friends? That’s publicity for you. When you take out an ad, that’s publicity for you, to get more likes on your page, or get people to see your book. 

If I were to share a link to Charlaine Harris’s new series on my Facebook page, that is marketing on my side. I’m providing some content for my followers that they will hopefully find interesting, and because it’s about books, it’s part of my brand. But at the same time, my sharing that post is publicity for Charlaine Harris, because it is making others aware of her content. 

Now…let’s look at how some authors use social media.

“I have a new book out! Click here to learn more!” “My newest book is out! It’s about werewolves and sharks and brontosauruses in space!” “Don’t forget, my new book is coming out!” “Like Anton Strout’s urban fantasy? Then you’ll LOVE mine! Check out my book on Amazon.”

Going back to our knowledge that social media is a mostly a marketing—not publicity—tool, when you look at posts like that, what is the person who is posting that branding themselves as? Remember, branding is like writing: show don’t tell. You can have a brand statement, and scream it from the rooftops, but unless you ARE that brand, unless OTHER PEOPLE see you as that brand, it means nothing. I could say “I’m a monkey astronaut!” as my brand statement, but my followers still know I’m a just a book nerd who plays games. Because that’s how the content I provide portrays me. So what do those above posts say about the person posting them?

They are a pimp.

There’s no content there that makes me believe this person is an author I want to read books from. How do I know I like her stuff? That last one was the closest thing to being somewhat intriguing, but even so…pfft. People are blind to stuff like that. They hear people proclaiming to be things all day. They scroll right by it because it’s NOT CONTENT THEY ARE INTERESTED IN. 

If you are a fantasy author, you KNOW your readers want to be whisked away to a magical place. 

START THERE.

“I went for a hike this weekend and saw this awesome tree. It looks like a gateway to fairyland or something.” “My cat is staring at ghosts again.” “I love researching stuff for my books. This weekend I got to wield a real battle axe. Those things are way heavier than you’d think! Kind of makes you appreciate Gimli in a whole new way.”

When you are so focused on book sales, posts like that might seem silly. After all, selling your books is how you want to make a living! But in reality, posts like those are what draw people—and keep them following—your page. What you are saying is interesting to them. Then after a while, they will learn that you have books out there. If they like what you say on social media, then they might check out your books, too. After all, you wrote them!

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Social media was created so that people can be social with one another. MOST people (not just authors, but  everyone) use social media to talk to their friends, to tell folks what they are up to, to share stuff. When you, as an author, use social media, think of how everyone else uses it—how it’s MEANT to be used, and in doing so, you’ll be using it in the most effective way. Social media is meant to cultivate engagement between people. One way to tell if you are actually doing this or not is to think about what feelings you have and what you want others to feel when you make your post. Not actions—FEELINGS. If you want someone to click a link—no, that’s not the most effective use of social media. If you want someone to feel excitement, that is. If you feel excited, that is. There is a huge difference between posting, “Here’s the cover to my new book, coming May 23,” and “Wow, I just got a look at my cover, and I couldn’t wait to show you guys. Look at Johann. He looks EXACTLY how I pictured him when I wrote his story. See that sword? Wait till you guys find out where he gets that from. I LOVED writing this book, and I really can’t wait for you to read it. What do you guys think of the cover?” There’s a big difference between sharing a link for a blog post: “Check out my latest article on O&FP, about social media for authors!” and “So many authors have come to me really frustrated because they aren’t getting the results they want from social media. I gave the subject some thought, because I know how hard these people work and I know there are definitely ways they can use it more efficiently. I ended up writing an article on the subject! Let me know what you think. Did I cover all the bases?” The first example is pointing at something. The second is showing people why they should go there by providing a little actual content.

Appeal to the heart, with sincerity. Post about things you are interested in, that move you. Even if it’s not what your book is about, don’t be one note. Post about your food, post your pets. Comment on other people’s posts. ENGAGE. Once people experience you being social, they get to know you. Once they get to know you, and you mention you have a book you’re working on, they will take the first step. “What’s your book?” Then you can make a new post, “A lot of people have been asking me what I’ve been working on: It’s a superhero novel with a twist. I got the idea when I was watching some construction workers one day, and thinking to myself, we’ve seen tons of nerdy skinny guys become superheroes with the opposite attributes. What about a big burly guy? And what would that change do for his perspective on the world? Can “weakness” be some sort of power on it’s own?” Talk about your work and what gets you excited about it. Your enthusiasm will be contagious. THAT is what will get your followers engaged, and what will make them more likely to search for your book on their own. You can’t make people click on a link, but you can entice them by making it irresistible because you’ve elicited an emotional response from them in some way. You’ve gotten them excited. Once they love you on one rung of that marketing ladder, they are more likely to follow you up to the next rung.

One note about content on social media. There are some folks who will say to avoid controversy, or to only post positive things, or to avoid politics. What should you do? Give it some thought. My opinion is that this is something that only YOU can decide. People don’t like a fake. And like it or not, who you are, you’re life view, bleeds into your fiction. You might as well be true to it on social media as well. But make it a conscious decision, so that you are prepared for any consequences. 

Can you post links on social media? Sure you can. But make sure it’s only a small piece of the puzzle. Want book publicity? Take out an ad or encourage folks to share your posts that have actual content in them that represent you and your work. You can’t MAKE people publicize your work, but you can ENTICE them to do so by creating content that both you and they love. By engaging with them. By just being yourself, rather than a pimp.

Unless, you know, you ARE a pimp. Then...carry on!

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Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. Melanie is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

Perfectionism and the Judgy Self: How to Ruin a Creative Life

We all want to be good at the things we do, right? I mean, it’s natural. We want success, approval of some kind often feels good, and validation makes us feel like we have a reason for being on the planet, that we are worth something to others. And yes, we should all have a strong enough self-esteem where we don’t need the approval of others, but that still doesn’t negate the fact that when we receive compliments, it feels good. 

But there is a fine line between wanting to do well, and being afraid to do poorly. Wanting to do well is a positive thing. We strive to better ourselves, we want to be masters of our craft, we work hard to achieve our goals.  Yet there sometimes comes a point where we can go from trying to do better in a healthy way to bullying ourselves because we aren’t good enough. And that’s what perfectionism is. 

It’s one thing to say, “oh, I hope people like this book.” I mean, we’re writers, and that is how we make a living—people like our work enough to buy it. It’s quite another to say, “Oh what if someone doesn’t like this, I’ll change it…Oh, wait, that might not work for these people, maybe I need to just scrap this whole project.” Perfectionism doesn’t know how to say, “Good job on that chapter!” or “I feel really good about where this is going.” Perfectionism is the negative bully in our heads, the one that says, “You’ll never be good enough,” and “No one likes you” (and yes, mine kind of sounds like Smeagol). What are some other things that perfectionism does?

• Compares our work to others in a competitive way. 
• Compares a beginner’s work to a master’s work.
• Makes us feel bad about projects we should love.
• Makes us afraid to submit our work.
• Makes us feel like frauds.
• Makes us feel like everyone is talking about us in a bad way.
• Keeps us looking for the perfect time, the perfect place, the perfect story, the perfect venue, the perfect audience, the perfect font, the perfect program…Instead of actually WRITING the story.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people,” says Anne Lamott, of Bird by Bird fame. If you notice you have some really negative self-talk going on in your head, that can be one sign you might be suffering from perfectionism. If you are constantly revising a story instead of submitting it, that can also be a sign of perfectionism. It can take many forms, but the main way you can tell you might have fallen for its tricks? 

You aren’t submitting, you aren’t finishing, you aren’t telling yourself your story—and you—are good enough.

You know how Yoda says, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side?” Well, it’s true. Once you feel that fear of not being good enough, you can become bitter and angry. That’s when you start saying things like, “Look at that author, it’s so easy to be them. No kids, probably rich, too. Of course THEY can have all THEIR dreams come true.” Or, “If I had my own office, I could write for *insert franchise here*, too.” “Why do all of THEIR dreams come true? I must have done something wrong in a past life.” Soon, you start scanning social media, and it seems like everyone has great news to celebrate except for you. And you feel like stabbing them all. OK, not really, but your bitter anger morphs into hate, and you become someone not very fun to be around.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Even reading this, someone who has a Perfectionism Monster on their shoulder will say, “Oh, yeah, easy for her to say. She has ___ and does ___ and gets ____. Of course she thinks it’s all fine and dandy to JUDGE. She doesn’t know what it’s like!” Well, you’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to be you. But you don’t know what it’s like to be all these other authors you might be comparing yourself to. That author who gets to write full time? They are up all night worrying about health insurance and paying their mortgage. The author who gets all these mega-franchise book deals? They are petrified at the keyboard because they are afraid they can’t deliver. We ALL have our hang-ups, and we ALL face perfectionism at some point in our lives. And even when someone’s life seems perfect, it’s not. No one’s lives are. We all have our battles to fight.

So what can you do if you find yourself falling victim to this crap? Well, one thing is to tell that voice in your head to stop being an asshole. You don’t speak to other people that way (I hope). Why do you speak to yourself like that? And yes, that’s easier said than done. But once you catch yourself engaged in negative self-talk, try to switch it off and focus on something good. “I’m not good enough… But I WILL be. And this is a good paragraph. And everyone starts somewhere.”

Remember WHY you are doing it (writing, art, whatever you are doing) in the first place. I’m certain no one started writing because they thought suffering would be fun. Why did you start? Was it because you wanted to share the stories in your head? Was it because you just wanted to write the stories in your head down? Did you want to play with some characters who popped into your head? Did you want to inspire people? Did you want to make people laugh? No matter what your goal was, if you start listening to that imaginary negative voice in your head, you won’t be accomplishing it. Sometimes this negative voice makes us forget our goals. Instead of wanting to write, our goals morph into these things we a) have no control over or b) are unrealistic. You will NEVER write the perfect story. And I don’t know anyone who has ever sat down and said, “OK, I’m going to intentionally sit here and write a New York Times bestselling novel right now,” and had it actually work. That’s because if you only write something in order for it to be “successful,” what you’ll end up with is derivative, shallow crap—copies of what you think other people will want, imitations of what has done well before. The stories that really speak to people are written from within, with passion, excitement, glee. And yes, it’s hard work, too, but without that element of “I’m doing this because it feels good,” stories often fall flat, and those who strive to write a story just to be “successful” end up self-sabotaging their work. And I don’t mean to say that writer’s don’t need to just jump through some hoops in order to stay in business—we all do. But if you remember WHY you are jumping through those hoops, and why you go through the hard times, it’s easier to see your way to  the end, to accomplish your goals.

The thing to remember is, if you spend your life waiting for things to be perfect…you’ll spend your whole life waiting. NOTHING is perfect. Nothing will ever BE perfect. So commit yourself to finishing that good-enough draft and sending it out, even if it’s just to show that you CAN do it. Then start the next project, make it good enough, and repeat. Finish things. You’ll never be published if you never submit. You’ll never finish a book if you don’t just grab those ten minutes  to jot down some lines. Time is a finite resource, it’s true. Waiting for more to come is an exercise in futility. Those authors out there who have the time to write those books they have? They didn’t have a magic time fairy come by to deliver extra hours in their day. They TOOK that time to write, because writing was important to them, and they silenced the voices in their heads that told them they couldn’t have that time.

You DESERVE to create the things that are in your heart. You DESERVE to take that time, even if it’s 10 or 20 minutes a day. You DESERVE to have your voice heard, you DESERVE to make your dreams come true, and no imaginary voice in your head has the power to tell you otherwise. Banish that bastard, and take control of your destiny.

Want to learn more? Try reading The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown, Fearless Creating, by Eric Maisel, and Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance, by Julia Cameron. You can also read Neil Gaiman’s thoughts on the subject. And remember, sometimes we must make glorious mistakes if we are to succeed. Call it practice. And move on!

Support another creator--check out this project from one of our sponsors!

Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the anthologies Champions of Aetaltis and Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters. Melanie is the co-director of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium and the publisher at Outland Entertainment. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

Without Gaming...: An Essay from Author Elizabeth Vaughan

Gaming opens doors. I've often said this. I know situations where gaming has helped people overcome depression, substance abuse, and more. Gaming can be a great help to teach autistic people about social skills. Counselors use it to build trust in their clients. It's a great way to unwind after a hard week of work, and it's fun to get together with friends. It allows you to meet new people, to have adventures you wouldn't in real life, and more. 

USA Today bestselling author Elizabeth Vaughan is not just a writer and lawyer, but also an avid gamer as well. She wrote an essay about what doors gaming helped open in her life. Please welcome her as our guest today! --Melanie R. Meadors

Without gaming, I would not be an attorney.

Law school is the mind-numbing, soul-devouring, energy-sucking marathon that everyone says it is.  It’s designed to train your brain to think in certain patterns by over-whelming you with reading, writing and research.  The Socratic method of questions and answers teaches, yes, but it teaches through a combination of intimidation, embarrassment, and brutality.  By Friday afternoon, all the average law student wants is a drink in their hands.

All I wanted was a sword in mine.  

Well, if not a sword then a d8 at least, once the gamers at the University of Toledo showed me which piece of colored plastic that was.  They welcomed me, sat me down and pulled out a character sheet.   "Give her a fighter," my first Gamemaster said.  "Best way to learn."

And so they did.  They shared their dice, explained what "stats" were and under their expert tutelage I rolled up Demetria, a kick-ass human warrior with a bad attitude and a thirst for treasure.  They told me to give her high strength and con, and not worry too about my intelligence and wisdom.  "You’re job is to hit things," they said.

I could do that.

From that day on, from my first class Monday morning at eight am until Friday at five pm, I would work and read and study to learn the structure of the legal system, the codes and rules that a civilized, democratic people use to resolve disputes in a rational, organized, fair manner that allows society to function smoothly.

But on the weekends, I reveled in the brutal destruction of my enemies beneath the strength of my blade.  Laughed as they cowered in fear from my blood-soaked weapon.  Gloated as I looted their still cooling corpses and their treasure vaults.  Cheerfully trudged through the depths of the mires, and the heights of the mountains, questing for gold, magic and enough "experience points" to level up in the never-ending quest for more power.  I was an adventurer, born with wanderlust in my heart and a sword in my hand.

At least until dawn broke on Monday morning, and I dragged my sorry tuckus back to the law school for class.

Without gaming, I would not have found my people.

Oh, I’d probably have friends.  But what gaming gave me was a community, a family that thought the same way I did, read the same books, watched the same movies, laughed at the same obscure jokes.  Friends who read historical books to improve their gaming experiences and poured over books of ancient weapons and their uses.  Friends who thought in terms of military strategy when navigating a crowd at a concert and spent hours discussing the arcane intricacies of gaming systems and rules.

Friends, either seated at the table or logged on to the same server, who always had my back.

Friends who’d think nothing of gaming until the wee hours of the morning, and then go out for food, to continue the heated debate on the best strategy to defeat a red dragon - leaving  the waitress shaking her head in confusion.

Friends who’s voices provide companionship through my headset as we wander the digital wilderness of my MMO, and cheer when we finally defeat Lolth and her evil schemes.

Friends who struggled to teach me to place my fireballs for optimum damage against the enemy, and who died in those same fireballs when I didn’t get it right.

Friends who rued the day they let me play a rogue, because I never met a trap I didn’t like.  I had to know what it would do, ya know?  Someone put it there for a reason, and I had to find out the whys and wherefores.  Which usually meant blowing the disarm role and killing half the party.

Friends, that even after twenty-some odd years, who are still at the gaming table with me along with their children.  And while the Doritos and Coke bottles have been replaced by bottled water and carrot sticks, we still play on.  

And after all the adventuring I have done over the years, the greatest treasure I gained are the friends by my side.

But don’t tell that to Demeteria.  She’s in it for the gold.

Without gaming, I would not have developed into a good attorney.

Listen, law school might teach you how to think, but it sure as The Lower Planes of the Abyss does not teach you to deal with people. 

Gaming, on the other hand, is all about the people at the table.  Their quirks, their desires, their personalities.  Gaming is also about solving problems, yes, sometimes with a sword, but more often through role-playing, negotiation, and arguments.  Which path will we take through the mountains, how are we going to meet the requirements of our quest, how can I bluff, deceive, or use my diplomacy skills to get us out of this situation?

How do we resolve a dispute about the rules?  Who gets which part of the treasure?  What will my paladin do when the rogue in the party is caught thieving . . . from a blind, elderly widow and her four orphans? [No names - but you know who you are.] 

After arguing with my fellow players and GMs about rules, resolving legal disputes seems relatively easy.  After worrying about the wording of a wish for hours, the worst contract boiler plate seems like child’s play.  After listening to the evil villain’s monologue rationalizing his baleful activities in a perfectly logical manner . . . .

Well, okay, that still makes me want to pull out a sword.

Without gaming, I would not have started writing.

I am a terrible gamemaster.  I’ve tried a number of times, and I just don’t have the necessary skills, or patience or flexibility.  The players are all ‘lets go this way’, and I’m saying ‘but the adventure is over here’ and well, it all ends in misery.

I did learn not to send dire wolves after first level characters in their very first adventure, and the very first encounter, when they were naked and fleeing from slavers.

I still feel bad about that one.  Tore through them like tissue paper.

*sigh*

So I started writing things down, putting my own characters through adventures, making things go the way I thought they should go, controlling the story instead of trying to control the players.

But it wasn’t until a friend I met through gaming challenged me to ‘put up, or shut up’ about my writing that I got serious about putting words down on paper.  Oh, I’d talked about being a writer since high school, but I didn’t ever really believe, even after I was challenged, that I’d get published.

I mean, that kind of thing doesn’t really happen to ordinary people. 

Without gaming, I would not have tried to get published.

It was the aforementioned gamer friends that said "let’s go to GenCon."

"What’s Gen Con?" I asked, and was promptly stuffed into a van with more people then sense--or money--and it was off to Milwaukee.   

It was overwhelming.  All those people, all those games, all those dice.  Twenty-four hour anime, movies, costumes, I’d died and gone to paradise.

Then I stumbled on the writing workshops.

I found a new community of friends, who shared my passion for telling stories, putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard to try to get the words down on paper and share them with the world.

Here were people, who were published, mind you, willing to talk, willing to share, to tell me what not to do, what mistakes not to make, how the industry worked.  In the early years, those workshops were geared more for the role-player, for writing dungeons and gaming materials.  But there were kernels of information for tie-in books and short stories.  Once I found the workshops, you couldn’t pry me away.  I was glued to those rooms for the entire four days, and came home energized and ready to write. 

The workshops taught me about the actual business behind writing, the process of querying, the existence of the slush pile.  Who the publishers were, the mysteries of agents, the professionalism of the profession.  From actual, normal, living, breathing human beings who seemed to think it could happen.  Even to me.

Without gaming, I would not be published.

When I attended GenCon in 2001, I worked up the courage to approach two of the writers that were giving seminars on writing and getting published.  One was Jean Rabe and the other was Janet Deaver Pack.  I waited until everyone else had cleared out, and then walked up to the table and asked if I could buy them lunch.

They both said "no." [A fact that I remind them both of on a regular basis.]

The negative response was because they both had prior commitments.  But Jean asked me to walk with her to her book signing in the dealer’s room, and Janet offered to meet me about an hour later for lunch.  Since then, they have both become dear friends and wonderful mentors.

Jean suggested, pushed, then demanded that I go to World Fantasy Convention.  She told me that I had to get more exposure to the writing world, and World Fantasy was a great place to network.  So, with a bit of hesitation, I decided to go.

Now, I am a morning person, and I exercise in the mornings to try to keep my blood pressure down.  So I am usually awake at 5:00 am.  With the time change, I was awake at 4:00 am.

Since there was no getting back to sleep, I threw on my exercise clothing and grabbed my swim suit and went to the hotel’s exercise room.  I did my treadmill and weights routine and then changed and paddled around the pool until I was tired.  I floated, letting the pool get really still, looking at my toes, because I don’t get to see my toes that often. . .

Then a woman came into the pool area, took off her robe and stepped into the water.  I was fairly sure she hadn’t seen me, and since I didn’t want to startle her, I said "Good morning”.

I startled her.

But she laughed, and got in the water and paddled over near me.  “Good morning!”  She said, in a lovely British accent.  “Are you here for the convention?”

“Yes, I am.”

“In what capacity?”

“I’m a writer.  Well, I’m a wanna-be writer.  I am here with my friend, who’s published.”

“Oh, you will have a marvelous time.  It’s a great convention.”

“So, you’re here for the convention too?  In what capacity?”  I asked innocently, treading water.

“Oh, I’m an agent.”

I splashed around for a minute, trying not to drown.  “An agent?  Do you know how dangerous it is to tell a wanna-be writer that you are an agent?  In a pool?”

She laughed.

We talked a bit longer, exchanging names, and then I had to get out of the water, since I was turning into a prune and meeting Jean for breakfast.

The convention was great.  I enjoyed the panels and meeting lots of people whose names I knew.  Everyone that I talked to was warm, friendly and encouraging.

And I kept running into the agent.  She’d be in the same panels, or eating at the table next to me.  So much so, that we ended up sharing a cab to the airport, and after we got through security, sitting and talking for about an hour.

As we got up to go to our gates, she handed me her card, and offered to read my book, IF I wanted an honest opinion.  I was flabbergasted and asked if she was sure?  She laughed, and said yes, but cautioned me that she was going to give me an honest opinion.  I told her that more than anything, I wanted to know if I was wasting my time.

So, I over-nighted the manuscript to London. [Do NOT ask me how much that cost!] I kept checking the tracking number to make sure it got there.  The darn thing went to TENNESSEE?  What was doing in TENNESSEE? [It’s our hub, ma’am.  Please calm down.] 

When it arrived in London, I got an email from the agent, saying that she had it and would get back to me in ninety days.  So I only checked my email every half hour.

Thirty days later, I got an email.  She said it was a wonderful book. . .

. . .I just about died . . .

and IF I was willing to rewrite it to fix some major problems, she’d be willing to represent me.

. . .I was crying and dancing around the house and scared the cats half to death. . .

So I spent four months rewriting the entire manuscript from a thirty page revision outline.  And three months later I had a three book contract with Tor.

I still tear up when I think of it.

Without gaming, I would not be an adventurer.

You should always roll the dice.  Take a chance.  

When your back’s against the wall, and your party is laying at your feet, and the orcs have flanked you, you can still roll a critical, still win the day.  Never, never give up, until the last die is thrown, the last bit of magic cast from your fingers, the last hit point bled out onto the cold stone floor of the dungeon.

But having said that, I must also say this:  You always fail on a one.

For gaming has also taught me that sometimes the dice are against you.  Magic sword, magic shield, magic plate and all the protective spells in the universe can’t save you from a bad roll, at a bad time, for a bad result. 

Sometimes you fail.  And there are consequences to that failure.  Sometimes you lose items, stats, gold.

Friends.

When it happens, (not ‘if’, mind, but ‘when’) you don’t crumple the character sheet, or throw the dice against the wall, shouting obscenities.  (Well, maybe that one time - but it was completely justified.  Honestly, it was.)

No.  You roar against the inherent unfairness of the universe.  You mourn, you grieve, then you move on, hard as that might be.  You deal with it.

Gaming has taught me to take chances, my eyes wide open to the perils and rewards.

There’s a theory that life is really a game.  We are spiritual beings that choose to play in mortal shells, picking our attributes and stats, our advantages and disadvantages.  A swift throw of the die and it begins, as we learn and grow in the game we call life.  Until the Ultimate Gamemaster calls for the final saving throw, if you will.  When we sit back and contemplate the lessons we have learned, the dice rolls we’ve made, and all of our choices.

Until such time as we pull out a new character sheet, get the dice out, and start the next game, the next quest.  

So, you’ll pardon me if I bring this essay to an end.  I have a gaming session tonight.  I need to make sure that my character is ready, and that my dice are in my bag.  Sure, it takes time and effort to maintain a gaming group these day, both table-top and online.  But I make the effort.

Because without gaming . . . . well, where would I be?

Elizabeth Vaughan is the USA TODAY Bestselling Author of Warprize, the first volume of The Chronicles of the Warlands. Her father introduced her to sci/fi and fantasy, and she’s never looked back. She loves fantasy and romance novels, and has played Dungeons and Dragons since 1981, both table-top and the online game. The Chronicles of the Warlands stretches over eight books, with more to come. The latest in the series was Wardance, 2017. Beth also has a number of short stories published in various anthologies.

Beth is owned by incredibly spoiled cats and lives in the Northwest Territory, on the outskirts of the Black Swamp, along Mad Anthony's Trail, on the banks of the Maumee River. 

 You can learn more about her books at www.writeandrepeat.com.

How Robin McKinley Made Me a Life Long Reader

We all have favorite books, the stories that have stayed with us our entire lives. As a writer, though, I have some books that I love to read repeatedly because they are just awesome stories, and then others because I think to myself, “Dang, if I could write like that…” But there is one book the fills both roles, and has since I was very young.

In the third grade, there was a spelling bee in my school. I tied with a boy for first place, which for me, was a pretty big accomplishment. Where I’m pretty well known for my big mouth these days, back then I was actually really quiet and shy. For me to get up in front of people and actually spell words without dying in a puddle of introversion was a big deal. Since there was a tie, the teachers needed to come up with two prizes. They did this by digging into the book order from that month and grabbing two books that we winners were to choose from. Because I was a girl, I got to go first.

Well, the choice was between some pink book and this other book. I remember clearly thinking that the font of the title looked cool, and there was a horse, which automatically made it cool.

Oh, and there was a fire-breathing dragon.

Without hesitation, I grabbed that book. I didn’t even think or feel bad about the other kid, a boy who got stuck with a pink book. I just wanted to get home so I could start start reading.

The book was The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley.

For the rest of the day, I was a little distracted at school. I kept looking at the book, wondering what adventures the boy on the cover would be involved it. Would he kill that dragon? Would the horse be OK (it is standing pretty close to the fire on the cover)?

Finally, we all loaded on to the bus, and I could start reading the book on the way home. I didn’t bother reading the back of it—I devoured books when I was little, and seldom cared what specifically they were about—I just started right in reading it.

“She could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it.”

Wait. She? I looked back at the cover. The character was covered with armor and had a hood. One couldn’t really tell if it was male or female. Maybe…it was a trick. Maybe the book was about a boy but a girl was telling the story. But no. Right at the end of the first chapter were the words, “Lady Aerin, Dragon-Killer.”

After I got of the bus that day, I read the entire book in two sittings, taking a break only to eat my supper.

I grew up surrounded by cousins who lived locally. Many cousins, and at that time, they were all boys. I was so used to playing boys’ games and imagining boy things and being a boy character when we played. I hadn’t really been exposed to many really awesome girls in literature or movies. I’m not sure how many might have existed then who weren’t overly concerned with boys or clothes or hair. This book was a game changer for me.

I was sort of a tom-boy, but still liked girl things, too. And The Hero and the Crown was everything I needed a book to be. Aerin was struggling with people’s perception of her as a witch-woman’s daughter, being, she thought, the black sheep of her royal family. She didn’t feel that she was good at anything, and the book chronicled her journey to self-discovery. She didn’t suddenly have these great powers. She worked hard for what she got, and any abilities she got were the result of great trials. She faced dragons and bad guys, and she found love and respect.

Aside from Aerin instantly becoming a character I loved, I also loved the way Robin McKinley told the story. I felt like I was reading a fairy tale. Most of the novels I’d read at that point seemed “written down,” written for kids. I didn’t like the simplistic language so many of them were written in, which was probably one reason I love reading fairy tales in collections such as Lang’s. McKinley didn’t shrink from using big words and more lyrical language. I wasn’t able to articulate it at the time, but later understood that I really appreciated that this author respected me as a reader. McKinley doesn’t talk down to her reader. I think this is one reason this book has stood the test of time for me so much, and I reread it all the time. It’s just as good to read as an adult as it is for a youngster.

McKinley also didn’t shy away from subjects that might be taboo in a younger person’s book, possibly because she also didn’t feel the need to smack people over the head with things. When I was little, and I read the part of the book where Aerin is traveling with Luthe, a mage and someone she grew to care for, I remember reading this line:

“My love, I feel it only fair to warn you that I am feeling quite alert and strong tonight, and if you choose to sleep with me again, it is not sleep you will be getting.”

When I was nine years old, I thought, “Hey slumber party!” Maybe they would spend the night talking, maybe he would teach her some more magic. When I was fourteen, however, and read that line that I had read so many times before, it meant something completely different, and it made the parting which came a couple pages later even more heart breaking than I thought before. With every passing year, every re-read, I get something new from this story, and therefore, I never grow tired of reading it.

Aerin’s story challenged me to find other stories like it. Stories where girls don’t have to get rescued by boys, stories where people fall in love, but it’s not because they are beautiful or charmed, but because they themselves are worth loving. And eventually, when I started to write stories of my own, I looked to McKinley’s books as examples of how to not sacrifice the use of language or situations for the sake of reader age. And some day, I hope young readers will look at my work and aspire to be my heroines and I hope I can show that girls can slay dragons and fight evil wizards AND marry the prince. If I can reach one girl and affect her as strongly as McKinley did me when I read The Hero and the Crown, all the solitary hours of writing will have been worth it.

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Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. She’s been known to befriend wandering garden gnomes, do battle with metal-eating squirrels, and has been called a superhero on more than one occasion. Her fiction has appeared in Circle Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and in the anthology Champions of Aetaltis. She studied astronomy and physics at Northern Arizona University and has published some non-fiction in the field of astronomy and library sciences. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

Barking and Binging: Netflix Survey Reveals Pets as #1 Chilling Partners

Would you believe the most popular partner to Netflix and chill with is...your dog? (OK, not THAT Netflix and chill...)

That's right, Netflix recently did a survey, and they found that most people like to watch Netflix shows and movies with their pets! Fifty-eight percent, to be exact. And it's not just dogs and cats--people also watch with birds as well as other small animals (I myself watch with my guinea pigs on my lap). I suppose you don't have to worry about your dog spoiling the ending to a 15 episode series or judging you for watching Kong for the fiftieth time. In fact, one third of responders said they turned to their pet for comfort during upsetting scenes. And almost a quarter said they actually talked to their pets about what they were watching.

Image: Netflix

Though it's not always easy to watch with your pets. Several said they had to bribe their companions to continue watching the show in peace (hmm...*cough* well, does feeding them so they are quiet during the show count?), and others have even changed shows because their pets weren't engaged. 

So what shows did the pets like best? Dog owners voted mostly action shows like Daredevil and Narcos. Cat owners preferred sci fi like Black Mirror and Star Trek: Discovery. Birds...I mean, bird OWNERS preferred comedies. Oddly enough, Stranger Things was the one show all pets agreed upon. 

I think we can all agree that sometimes, it's nice to cuddle and watch a show, and our furry friends provide the perfect snuggle partners. 

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Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. She’s been known to befriend wandering garden gnomes, do battle with metal-eating squirrels, and has been called a superhero on more than one occasion. Her fiction has appeared in Circle Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and in the anthology Champions of Aetaltis. She studied astronomy and physics at Northern Arizona University and has published some non-fiction in the field of astronomy and library sciences. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.

Alexandra Monir's THE FINAL SIX: Sci Fi Adventure, Romance, and Mystery for Teens!

Alexandra Monir faces the challenge of catastrophic climate change head on in her newest book for teens, The Final Six. The book takes place after the Earth has gone past the point of no return as far as climate change goes. The world is dying, and humankind needs to find a new home. So they set their sites on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. 

Monir says she was listening to a radio interview with an aspiring astronaut when she had a thought: "What if, due to climate change, the conditions on our failing Earth were to make this type of quest no longer voluntary--but an urgent, government-mandated mission, complete with a military-style draft? And what if those believed to have the highest odds of surviving such a mission, and remaining fertile by the time the new planet is terraformed and ready for colonization, are the teenagers?"

Thus the idea for The Final Six was born; an idea that appealed to both HarperTeen and Sony Pictures--the film studio snapped up the film rights to the science fiction thriller right almost as soon as the story hit their desk. 

This book is special to Alexandra Monir for another reason: its main character. 

"In Naomi Ardalan, I got to create a character more true to me than any I've ever written before," Monir says. "Growing up an Iranian-American teenager in a post-9/11 world, I was constantly questioning my identity and where I fit in, and I would have given anything to find a character like Naomi in on of the many books I read."

But Naomi isn't just a token minority character. She's a heroine in her own right, a girl who takes action and is in command of her own destiny, who happens to be Iranian-American. 

The Final Six has action and adventure, but also at its heart, is about relationships and love, not only between two main characters but with their families as well. There is a mystery at the book's core as well, and it's not hard to see why this book that will appeal to so many people was optioned for a major motion picture.

The Final Six is available everywhere books are sold.

About The Final Six:

Set in the near future, this action-packed YA novel—already optioned by Sony Pictures—will take readers out of this world and on a quest to become one of six teens sent on a mission to Jupiter’s moon. This is the next must-read for fans of Illuminae and The Martian.

When Leo and Naomi are drafted, along with twenty-two of the world’s brightest teenagers, into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever changed. Overnight, they become global celebrities in contention for one of the six slots to travel to Europa—Jupiter’s moon—and establish a new colony, leaving their planet forever. With Earth irreparably damaged, the future of the human race rests on their shoulders.

For Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, this kind of purpose is a reason to go on after losing his family. But Naomi, an Iranian-American science genius, is suspicious of the ISTC and the fact that a similar mission failed under mysterious circumstances, killing the astronauts onboard. She fears something equally sinister awaiting the Final Six beneath Europa’s surface.

In this cutthroat atmosphere, surrounded by strangers from around the world, Naomi finds an unexpected friend in Leo. As the training tests their limits, Naomi and Leo’s relationship deepens with each life-altering experience they encounter.

But it’s only when the finalists become fewer and their destinies grow nearer that the two can fathom the full weight of everything at stake: the world, the stars, and their lives.

About Alexandra Monir:

Alexandra Monir, Iranian-American author and recording artist, has published five novels for young adults, including her popular debut, TIMELESS. A Barnes & Noble best-seller and one of Amazon’s “Best Books of the Month,” TIMELESS and its sequel, TIMEKEEPER, have been featured in numerous media outlets and been published in different countries around the world. She followed the duology with SUSPICION and THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE, both standalone YA thrillers. Her new science fiction novel, THE FINAL SIX (March 6, 2018) was acquired by HarperCollins and Sony Pictures during the same week, in two major pre-emptive deals.

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Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy stories where heroes don't always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. She’s been known to befriend wandering garden gnomes, do battle with metal-eating squirrels, and has been called a superhero on more than one occasion. Her fiction has appeared in Circle Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and in the anthology Champions of Aetaltis. She studied astronomy and physics at Northern Arizona University and has published some non-fiction in the field of astronomy and library sciences. She's the co-editor of the anthology MECH: Age of Steel and editor of Hath No Fury, and she is a blogger and general b*tch monkey at The Once and Future Podcast.