Sunday, February 5th, 2012 | Author: jmward14 | Blog | 6 Comments
In honor of February’s big day, I plan three Six Sentence Sunday excerpts from my Valentine’s Day romance, “Hoodoo Cupid”, a short romance published by Red Rose and available wherever fine ebooks are sold. As the blurb says:
Maggie Scanlan’s voodoo was a bust until she took her scissors to a poppet on Valentine’s Day. She never expected professional rival—and voodoo victim—Dan Constantine to break his leg, much less sweep the rug out from under her in an Emergency Room. Her brain says, “Run!” Her heart…
“Hoodoo Cupid”
The tattered rag doll flopped on the brushed metal table as Maggie Scanlan wrapped a thread thrice around its stubby legs.
“Let’s see how you like being cut off at the knees, Daniel Curtiss Constantine!” she shouted into the doll’s expressionless face.
A raw, exhaust-scented wind skittered under her hair, raising goose bumps across the back of her neck. She paid the goose bumps no mind. She wasn’t scared. It was just the cold.
#
More next week!
Posted 1 day, 4 hours ago at 8:00 am. 6 comments
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 | Author: jmward14 | jean marie ward | No Comments
The behinder I get. At least, it sure seems that way.
It’s taken me way too long to update the front page with the cover and jacket copy for Hellfire Lounge 2: Rat Pack Redux. If you like your horror served sardonic–and occasionally laugh out loud funny–this is the anthology for you. It features stories by my old friends C. J. Henderson, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, R. Allen Leider and Robert Waters, as well as new colleagues James Chambers, John L. French, KT Pinto, Patrick Thomas and Paul Kupperberg, and amazing art by Ben Fogletto (check out that cover!), Ed Coutts, Ben Fogletto, Denny Fincke, Jason Whitley and Paul London. Yeah, I’m in there, too, with a little story called “Billy’s Monster”. And when I say little, you know I mean it.
Also criminal is my failure to blog more about my interview at Carma Spence’s Genre Traveller. Carma did a great job with the interview, but the thing that knocks me out is the interactive content. It’s worth it to check out the page just to see her linky goodness. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
Happy Ground Hog Day!
Posted 4 days, 1 hour ago at 10:35 am. Add a comment
For the regulars here, this story is old news. But it’s only six sentences long, and for Six Sentence Sunday, I couldn’t resist:
“He came in through the window,” the princess said. As if that explained everything.
Fortunately, for her father the sultan, it did. The sultan ordered the harem eunuchs to remove the corpse of the Byzantine ambassador’s brash young son, and the wedding went forward as planned.
Nine months to the day, the caliph’s beautiful new wife delivered to her aged husband a fine, lusty son. The boy’s eyes were the same shade of pale green as the caliph’s–well, close enough.
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago at 8:00 am. 14 comments
This week’s Six Sentence Sunday feature is the opening of a story I just finished. It was timely when I started it, but even more so now.
“What do spells, copying and writing have to do with pirates?” Lord Bai, White Dragon of the West, whined—no, repined in a light baritone befitting his human form.
“Not ‘copying and writing’—copy rights,” hissed the sorcery student sitting next to him. “Like Professor Yeoh said: All magicians are endowed as creators with certain unalienable rights, among them the right to profit from all copies of their spells, amulets and charms.”
“Even if somebody else does the copying?”
“Exactly.”
Posted 2 weeks, 1 day ago at 8:00 am. 8 comments
Saturday, January 21st, 2012 | Author: jmward14 | jean marie ward | No Comments
Hard to believe, but the release date for The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity is only six weeks away! Things are heating up on the promotional front, too. (Yes!)
Jessica at Waiting on Wednesday has listed The Modern Fae’s Guide as one of the books she wants to read, because it sounds like fun and offers stories from a lot of new-to-her authors. Hoping the book satisfies on all counts, Jessica.
Meanwhile, you can win a copy of your very own from Goodreads. A great book, for free! It simply doesn’t get better than that.
And while we’re on the subject of great reads, don’t forget Leaves of Flame, Benjamin Tate’s follow-up to his excellent Well of Sorrows. Benjamin, in case you don’t know, is who Modern Fae editor Joshua Palmatier is when he’s not at home. You won’t be disappointed!
Posted 2 weeks, 1 day ago at 4:41 pm. Add a comment
Spacer
This week’s Six Sentence Sunday offers offers the opening of a story you can read right now, “Billy’s Monster” from Hellfire Lounge 2: Rat Pack Redux. If you like your horror with a big helping of humor and fun, this is the book for you. I haven’t posted my usual information slug on the main page only because resizing the cover is giving me grief. The delay is killing me, too. In addition to great stories by C.J. Henderson, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, KT Pinto, Robert Waters and our fearless editor (and he has to be!) Rick Allen Leider, the book features a fabulous cover by Ben Fogletto and amazing interior art by Ed Coutts, Ben Fogletto, Denny Fincke, Jason Whitley and Paul London. (Face it, I’m all about the pictures. 
)
“Billy’s Monster”
Billy was six years old when he brought home a monster. It had sharp, pointed teeth all around its mouth like a possum. Two rows of three stubby horns each grew from its forehead. Its spotted feathers were as soft as bunny fur, and it churred when Billy rubbed its tummy and fingered the satiny leather of its wings.
Billy’s parents didn’t know what to make of it. But it wasn’t too big, and they never did see a creature better at catching the mice and other varmints around the farm.
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago at 8:00 am. 11 comments
Sunday, January 8th, 2012 | Author: jmward14 | Blog | 6 Comments
Welcome to my first Six Sentence Sunday (you have no idea how many times I’ve written that “Six Second Sunday” lol) Today’s excerpt is from a little story called “Burning Down the House” commissioned for Hellfire Lounge 3: Jinn Rummy. Take a New York nightclub, combine with two feuding sorcerers and one large jinni–and get the hell out of the way.
“Look, Eddie, I wasn’t born yesterday, or yester-century, for that matter. You’ve got another bottle hidden in that bundle of fabric you’re holding. You want me to show you how I fit into a bottle ‘no bigger than…’ by turning myself into smoke and popping down in there so you can slap one of those extra Seals of Solomon you brought with you over the top. The beer bottle or whatever you scrounged on your way over here won’t hold me as well as a charmed number, but you figure it’ll last until you can get it enchanted. Like I’m gonna give you the chance.”
“But it always works in the stories.”
Posted 4 weeks, 1 day ago at 8:00 am. 6 comments
Saturday, December 24th, 2011 | Author: jmward14 | Blog | No Comments
Since I was evil enough to post a picture of Annette’s Apple Pie, it seems only fair that I provide the recipe. This is taken from an old Samhain fantasy blog that’s still out there, somewhere… Consider it my little holiday present. May Christmas find you warm, happy and healthy with all your loved ones around you.
Apple Magic
Forbidden fruit and food of the gods, the apple has a hell of a rep to live up to.
I can see why the Greeks and the Norse made golden apples part of the minimum daily requirement for immortality. People have been talking about the health benefits of apples ever since there have been people talking. Plus, in a climate cold enough to grow them, properly stored apples will last longer than almost any other fruit. Dried apples last even longer.
The whole forbidden fruit gig, however, seemed way off-base. The Bible never specified the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Why decided it was an apple? Apples are hard. Why not something fleshy and sensual like a peach or a nectarine? Or that eternal naughty, the cherry?
Some scholars think the Romans are to blame. The Latin word for apple (malus) is very close to the Latin word for evil (malum). The sources for the two words are completely different. But medieval and Renaissance painters of the Garden of Eden didn’t know malus came from the Hittite word for branch and malum from someplace else entirely. The mythological connections probably didn’t help either. If a Greek nymph used it to keep her girlish figure, it had to be bad for your soul. Look what Eris did with her golden apple. One little beauty contest later and Troy was history. From there it was only a little step to wicked stepmothers and Disney dwarves.
Much as I’d like to think an apple a day would keep me young forever, I can’t see it happening. But I do think the fruit is magical, especially at this time of the year when farmers markets and roadside stands offer them by the bushel. Especially in a pie.
With that in mind, I offer Mom’s Apple Pie. No really. This recipe comes from my husband’s mother, and it’s the surest way I know to make bushels of apples vanish. The rectangular pan specified in the recipe became a family tradition because the standard-sized, round version of the pie never lasted long enough for leftovers.
Annette’s Slovak Apple Pie
Ingredients:
(Recipe amounts based on a rectangular pan, roughly 12 by 8 by 2 inches.)
Crust
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
½ lb butter
1/3 – ½ cup cold milk (or more, as needed)
Additional flour for rolling dough
Filling
6 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced (or enough to fill the pan with a little mound in the center)
½ cup unseasoned cracker or bread crumbs
1 – 1 ¼ cup sugar (depending on the sweetness of the apples)
2 tbsp butter
Cinnamon
1 – 2 tbsp flour (only if the apples are very juicy)
Directions:
Start the crust by sifting the measured flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and sugar together. Add the butter. Mix together with a pastry cutter or two knives (one held in each hand) until the mixture is reduced to even bits of dough about the size of peas. Sprinkle the milk over the dough until you can pat the dough into a large ball. (This part can be done with your hands if you work fast.) Wrap the dough in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill for at least a half hour before rolling the crust on a generously floured surface. Use about 5/8 of the dough for the bottom crust, and don’t be afraid of pushing and patching it in the corners. Return the rolled top crust to the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
Begin filling the pie by sprinkling the breadcrumbs on the bottom of the crust. Starting with a layer of apples, fill the crust with alternate layers of apples, sugar and cinnamon. Add a light dusting of flour if the apples are very juicy. Dot the final layer of sugar and cinnamon with butter. Cover with the top crust and seal the edges. Vent the crust by slashing or pricking it in a decorative pattern. Bake at 350 degrees until the apples are tender and the crust is brown, usually between 45 minutes and an hour. Let cool as long as you can stand it before cutting. Enjoy!
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago at 1:37 pm. Add a comment
Not only does my new anthology The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity have one of the world’s most gorgeous covers, it now has its very own web site, thanks to Joshua Palmatier (who also writes as Benjamin Tate), one of my two fabulous editors for “Fixed”. You can check it out here. Now to fill that events calendar!
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 9:52 pm. Add a comment
Friday, November 18th, 2011 | Author: jmward14 | Blog | No Comments
Tonight my darling spouse learned exactly how good the Captain Blood costume I made for him twenty-five years ago really was. He’ll be at AnimeUSA tonight, cosplaying at the con ball, dressed as Fuhrer King Bradley from Full Metal Alchemist in a quite spiffy costume made by a friend–a costume with no elastic secreted in the waistband to accommodate (ahem) changes in manly girth, no pockets.
No fly.
Tee Hee.
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 9:44 pm. Add a comment
