The Dark Province: Son of Duprin is an epic fantasy novel by William H. Johnson. The sprawling adventure is set in an originally created world and follows the journey of Calvin Gooding, a man forced to deny the strict religion of his homeland to follow his faith. It is his only hope to save his dying sister’s life.

Release Day: Saturday, March 13th at 12:00am EST.

The Story:

Sitting in the honored stalls of the Crystal Sanctuary, Calvin Gooding should be rejoicing in the message he receives from the Holy King of Duprin. But his heart is heavy. He awaits the carriage in which he must ride to deliver the fated news to his family. Time has run out.

In the midst of sorrow, exhaustion, and uncertainty, a sorceress from the Dark Province appears to Calvin. She promises to make his terminally ill twin sister, Marilyn, well again. As twins, Calvin and Mari share a special bond, and Calvin will do almost anything to save his sister’s life. But in order to free Mari from death’s grip, the sorceress claims that Calvin must travel to the Dark Province–a land where souls and flesh are devoured by the lawless and the spirit of man is bound in shackles. It’s a reckless land dominated by morally corrupt warlords and open sexuality.

Wrapped tightly in his religion, Calvin must make a life-altering decision. He can choose to follow the sorceress into the sinful abyss to save his sister, or he can accept a life of guilt and certain torment over her death.

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Once again, I learned about something amazing via social networking. A couple of days ago, I saw that namenick of PasswordIncorrect and a number of my #weblit acquaintances were tweeting about #ebookweek. It turns out, this awesome event has been around for years and I was just hearing about it for the first time.

Read an Ebook Week is a week-long annual event that runs from March 7th thru 13th. Many major ebook retailers and writers participate by sharing information about ebooks and offering massive discounts–up to 100% off numerous ebook titles.

Coincidentally, I already had a FREE ebook offering in the works. I only had to speed things up a little bit to make it available, in time for this week’s event.

Fancy a Free Ebook?

Download EARTHBOUND EXOTICA

EARTHBOUND EXOTICA is a small selection of some of my urban fantasy flash fiction and short stories. These stories are already available for online reading at www.tonyamoore.com but I wanted to make a small sampling of my favorite Urban Fiction pieces available for Free download.

You can download your very own copy in the format of your choice from Smashwords and it should soon be available from Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo (formerly Shortcovers) and Amazon.

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Nobody writes werewolves like Naomi.

Her style and her unique stories and striking characters are unforgettable. SILVER KISS, the brand spanking new novel by Naomi Clark follows somewhat closely on the heels of the success of the QUEER WOLF Anthology which includes her story, WOLF STRAP.

In “SILVER KISS” by Naomi Clark…

Ayla Hammond has come home. After years as a lone wolf in a self-imposed exile she’s rejoining the pack and trying to mend fences with her parents. She’s convinced them to accept her girlfriend, but can a lone wolf change her ways?

As if homecoming wasn’t hard enough, Ayla also can’t help getting involved in a missing person case.
With pressure to solve the case mounting from the pack alphas, Ayla is starting to question where her loyalties lie – and if a return to the pack she left behind is really what she wants.

Silver Kiss is now available from Queered Fiction.

Today is the big Release day, so don’t miss the Twitter release party for SILVER KISS. Tweet about SILVER KISS using the #silverkiss hashtag and you could be in for an awesome treat. Gifts include tarot readings, ebooks, and print books.

Now, I haven’t read SILVER KISS yet but that’s only because I am determined to hold out until I can get may hands on my very own print copy. Can I do it or will I break down and get the ebook before the week is out? Stay Tuned.

In the meantime, here are some essential links to get to know this awesome author a little better:

SILVER KISS Blog Tour Schedule | Naomi’s Homepage | Follow Naomi on Twitter

While it should be well known by now, that I’m personally an advocate of all manners and new mediums for presenting fiction, it’s only fair to give a nod to good old fashioned Literature at its finest.
In the spirit of encouraging and promoting the Art of Writing, The MAG has brought forth it’s first annual Short Story Writing Contest. The contest which is open to all genres of fiction, will focus on the talent of participants and the quality of their entries.
This is a great opportunity for writers who are seeking to garnish a little literary cred. I hear there may be a small bundle of cash for the winner too. The Short Story Writing Competition will run from 10th January 2010 to 31st May 2010. Visit The MAG’s  Short Story Writing Contest page for more information.

Cassandra Baron is the star character of my NaNoWriMo novel, tentatively titled CASSANDRA.  In this second novel of a series Cassandra Baron, becomes infatuated with a human named David Kilpatrick.

David happens to be the right hand man for Dominic Locke, the interim leader of the ancient race of predecessors to werewolves, known as the Rath. She becomes embroiled in the internal conflicts of the Rath and soon find herself facing off  with Dominic’s daughter, who is destined to be another new Power in the world.

Origin & Circumstances

Cassandra’s mother was the progeny of an amphibious civilization, long gone. Her father is the human musician, Jonathan Baron who discovered that his mother was a sea-dwelling, aboriginal remnant of that ancient race. Her genetic makeup was determined by the avatars of an ancient race of sentient ships known as the Vorsha. She was designed to be their perfect creation.
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In two days, National Novel Writing Month will kick off for the 10th time. Many of us will immediately launch into the writing-frenzy and use this momentum to get as far ahead with our word-counts as we can. Invariably, some will stall out at the very beginning and find it difficult dredge up the will to continue or catch up. It can happen to anyone.

It happens to me more frequently than I’d care to recall. It might be more of a problem for NaNoWriMo beginners than those who’ve done it a number of times already and are familiar with the pitfalls of taking on such a huge personal challenge.

For most, the greatest hindrance is a lack of confidence in their ability to bring such a complex web of ideas to life. For some, the prospect of meeting the thirty day deadline is simply too daunting.
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In early October of 2005, someone on my LiveJournal “friends” list mentioned something called NaNoWriMo. I became curious about this “National Novel Writing Month” that a bunch of people were suddenly talking about and decided to check it out. I was blown away by the idea of trying to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I was amazed at the fact there seemed to be a worldwide movement of sorts, as thousands of people were participating in what had somehow become a global event of unbelievable proportions. I decided at the very last minute that I would hop on the bandwagon, as well. My first attempt at NaNoWriMo was a bust. Nevertheless, I had a blast. With the exception of 2008, I’ve been throwing myself into the NaNoWriMo fire with fervor, ever since.

I’ve decided to not let the life and health issues that bogged me down last year, prevent me from participating this year.  Maybe I’m being grossly optimistic–but hey–isn’t that what this whole thing is all about? Maybe I’ll write something nebulously macabre and witty, thereby purging all of this darkness festering inside.
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Writers are natural stalkers. Sure, it’s a little creepy but that’s what makes it fun–I mean, er… Educational. Productive. Absolutely not criminal. Think of it like being on a safari or bird-watching. See? Totally harmless.

It has been said that a story isn’t just an art. It’s a wild beast that we must hunt down, capture and make a meal of, if we must. Figuratively, of course. We’re not complete psychopaths, are we? Are we???

Most creative individuals are in the habit of observing the people and things around us. We’re not even usually conscious of what we’re doing. We study people, the way events unfold. We do this intently and unthinkingly. We become avid spectators in an arena that offers up infinite degrees of wonderment.

Humans make for irresistible subjects, to begin with. They’re mystifying and amusing. They are self-contradictory and xenophobic oddities. They say they’re wrong and they say that they’re right, believing both equally. They embody a multitude of mysteries that inspire an incredible array of possibilities.

Every unsuspecting passerby becomes fodder for our fictional machinations. They are our hapless accomplices in an endless parade of imaginary atrocities and epic deeds of heroism. We find a wealth of inspiration in the mundane. With no solid basis upon which to build our suppositions, we psychoanalyze complete strangers and invent convoluted histories and personalities for them.

Little does the kindly old lady walking her chihuahua down the street know, that she is destined to be– in some form or another–the dastardly culprit who devours the scrawny rebel zipping by on his skateboard. This will be at the behest of her four-legged Little Precious, who happens to be the Devil… who happens to be an extra-terrestrial entity that crash-landed on earth eight billion years ago.

No way am I going to write that. It’s just silly. Really. Except for the part about chihuahuas being the demonic incarnation of aliens. That, I have always suspected.

Let’s forget about the gut wrenching part of ending the existences of fictional people. Whether it’s a character to whom you’ve grown attached or one that you despise, once you get down to the business of plotting his or her demise, things get pretty interesting. I dare say… fun?

One of the biggest challenges to a Spec-Fic or Horror writer is making death fascinating. The macabre needs not be senseless or excessively bloody to grab the reader’s attention. Even gore can be disappointing or overdone if not handled with finesse.

I won’t dispute that immolation, evisceration or decapitation makes for a far more intriguing turn of events than say… someone dying in their sleep. I can’t even remember the last time I read about a good, old-fashioned poisoning.
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Speculative Fiction by its very nature, lends itself to all manner of conjecture.  When creating fictional characters, gender is almost-always a fundamental characteristic that needs to be determined.  Some time ago, I found myself wondering why the majority of Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction writers out there seem to stick almost religiously to the standard male and female constructs.  This invariably led to the question of how much gender diversity already exists on our awesome planet.
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