Christmas Eve Ghost Story Reading

Since I last updated this particular blog, I've accomplished very little, I think. The cover of my upcoming hardback novella The Chronicles of Nightfire, Texas, Volume I: The Vampire Murders was published on GlennSladeClarkJr.com today. "The Briar Patch Evangelist" was reclassified as an 18 and up story, thanks to the feedback of an astute reader in regards to the graphic violence of the tale. The cover art for "The Christmas Spirit" is running behind but should be up soon.

Now for the fun announcement:

I am doing a reading of "The Ghost in the Olive Grove" on Christmas Eve. Here is the invite:

 

 

This is an experimental reading, as I have no idea what sort of attendance we will get on Christmas Eve in Dallas. If it works, I'm hoping to revive this particular Victorian Christmas tradition as an annual event. Should that be the case, we'll do more publicity for the reading next year. I've chosen "The Ghost in the Olive Grove" as this year's selection, because it is a good length, creepy as all get out (so I'm told), and it's something I can read to teenagers, should they show up, without violating any of the laws of my day job. We'll be serving cookies and hot chocolate and then darkening the room for a reading by candle light. I'm super stoked about this, and I hope to see as many of you there as are up for it. :)

It's been a great year for me as a writer! We're so close to having all of my earlier work converted and re-released for the Kindle e-book reader! Only the two novels and their tie-in short fiction left to go. The only reason that the novels haven't been re-released yet is that the entire process has proved much more involved than anticipated. I've written a new prologue for Cry, Wolf, and I want the illustrations for Metrognomes: The Shaman's Apprentice to be laid out just so. They'll be back up on the release schedule as soon as I'm happy with them. Won't be long! :D

I was very happy with the re-release of The Great Debate! That was our first hardback in this whole updating process, and it was sort of a sacrificial lamb to see how we were at designing hardbacks. As it turns out, I like the new one better than the one iUniverse designed. Even the e-book Clark Ink did is much sleaker than the one put out by iUniverse. I'm just extremely happy with the whole end result! I haven't checked to see if Amazon.com is carrying the hardback yet, but they do have the new e-book.

The dust jacket for next year's hardback collection of the first three Nightfire issues is ready and will be revealed at GlennSladeClarkJr.com as soon as the cover art for "The Christmas Spirit," which releases first, is ready. The collection is titled The Chronicles of Nightfire, Texas, Volume I: The Vampire Murders. It's not quite novel length, but I wanted it released as a hardback, since it is a full story arc in the series. The next collection will be novel length, as, likely, will be any subsequent collections as the series moves forward, so I didn't want the first storyline to be an orphan, uncollected, or to be collected with the second story arc, since they are two very distinct tales. I've been waiting to see the Nightfire series collected since I first started writing it!

Meanwhile, I may be doing a reading soon, but details are still being worked out. If it happens, it will, by design, be a very small event. I haven't done a public "appearance" as an author in a long time. Should be fun, if it comes together.

Now, who's taking bets on whether or not I blog again before Christmas? I'll do my best! :)