Announcements

Wings Unseen is Released!

Wings Unseen, my debut epic fantasy novel, is now available at bookstores and libraries and everywhere online! Here’s a perspective you don’t see of the cover often, the full front and back:

If you’d like to see it in paperback near you, request to have Wings Unseen ordered at your favorite store. Such requests are much appreciated! And so are online orders. You can get it from any of these retailers in paperback or ebook forms:

I would absolutely love it if you would rate and/or review the book after reading as well – ratings are life for authors! We all know we are swayed by them. 😉 So a big virtual hug from Mazu for those of you able to do so.

To celebrate the release of Wings Unseen yesterday, I thought I’d do a reading on Facebook Live…but I have a ton of Wings Unseen readings coming up, so I thought it’d be more fun to share some of my earliest short stories instead. And by early, I meant second to fifth grade. You can watch the video by clicking through to Facebook or click the video to play below:

Ah, elementary school storytelling. I was so precocious. You can also follow the Wings Unseen Blog Tour–full of interviews, guest posts, excerpts, and reviews of Wings Unseen from book blogs–over the next three weeks! Find the full schedule of tour stops here at the Xpresso Books tour page .

Upcoming Readings and Appearances
To promote and celebrate the publication of Wings Unseen, I’ll be reading at or participating in several events over the next few months, and hopefully, one of those will be near you! Here’s the list of where you can find me coming up, including 4 Bay Area appearances in the next two weeks:

8/25, 8 pm, Feminist Spec Fic night at the Liminal Center, Oakland, CA
8/26, 4 pm, Wings Unseen Book Launch, the Octopus Literary Salon, Oakland, CA
8/27, 3 pm, A Trilogy of Shivers, Adventures, and Fantasy, Borderlands Books, San Francisco, CA
9/2, 1 pm, A Reading from the East Bay Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Meetup Group, Mad Monks Center for Anachronistic Media, Berkeley, CA
9/10, TBD, SF in SF, Location TBD, San Francisco, CA
9/16, TBD, Shades and Shadows Podcast, The Mystic Museum, Burbank, CA
9/19, 7 pm, An Evening of Speculative Fiction and Fantasy, the Regulator, Durham, NC
9/23, 2 pm, Barnes and Noble, Cary, NC
10/20, 3 pm, interview with the Speculative Fiction Cantina
10/20, 7 pm, At the Inkwell Short Fiction Night, Alley Cat Books, CA
10/24, 7 pm, Liminal Series, Flywheel Press, San Mateo, CA
10/26-10/29, SirensCon, Veil, CO

Events with more information available online are linked – I’ll be adding links as I get more details ironed out as well! I would love to see you in the crowd, and of course, to sign your book! I think I’ll also be posting some musings about the process of book publication once I get the chance to breath…which may not be until October. 😅

Thank you for your support, dear readers, and I hope to see you in the world of Lansera soon!

Catch the Hydra (and me!) Reading on 10/25!

Last week, I was invited to join the Hydra literary series for their spooky Halloween reading, and of course, I said yes. Read my horror? I look forward to any spine-chilling I can cause!

What: The Hydra #7 Reading Series!
Where: Woods Bar & Brewery, 1701 Telegraph, Downtown Oakland
When: 7 pm.

More details at the Facebook event page!

The Hydra is hosted by the Association of Black and Brown Writers, an affliate of Oakland’s own Nomadic Press. The series is inspired by the six-headed creature of myth, woken from beneath Mt. Diablo as the Bay Area burst into the poetry scene! Knighted keeper of the beast, Ursula K. Le Guin, declared “With the popularity of poetry readings in the Bay Area, the heads of the beast are growing back at an alarming rate, and the only thing that will slow down the beast is the inclusion of more fiction in the literary scene. We need stories of mythical beasts stronger than the Hydra. We need stories of worlds that is not the world it remembers, or maybe stories of lands the Hydra knows all too well. We need stories of heroes that can destroy it, and villians greater than it. We need experimental stories, we need short stories, we need fiction. Fiction is the only thing that will down the beast for once and for all. Counteract the poetry that is making the beast grow, and do it now.”

I am happy to do my part in this battle against the Hydra and will be reading at least two short stories as my weapons. And if we can get it right this time, Ben will Facebook Live it as well. 😉

But an in-person audience is always best! Hope to see you there.

Mazu gives away the ending of one of my tales…

“Good Genes” Forthcoming from the Future Fire!

Announcements of upcoming short story publications don’t normally take me right up until they’re available, but … I’ve been busy, y’all. Busy in the greatest of ways, career-wise, which is a wonderful feeling but also means I don’t keep my various websites as updated as I’d like with the most current information. So forgive me for posting this announcement just a couple of weeks before the story itself will be available…

Issue #37

…that said, I am so excited that “Good Genes” has found a home in upcoming Issue #38 of the Future Fire! This magazine has been running strong since 2005, making it quite long-lived among electronic fiction magazines, no matter the genre. “Good Genes” is one of my favorite short stories, though it’s had a bit of a struggle to find the right publisher as, at 10,000 words, it’s much longer that many magazines are willing to publish. I am excited that the Future Fire has no fear of lengthier short stories, and I hope you all will enjoy this horror and Weird West mash-up tale in which a modern-day family and a group of 1850s settlers find out that a chosen place of refuge is sometimes scarier than the danger left behind.

Here are your teaser first few lines:

$450. 2 BR, 1 BA, 800 sq. ft. Available now. Enos. 555-987-0342.

Rockie halted her clicking of the refresh button, the advertisement text cutting her free from the train tracks. Her cellphone’s touchscreen confounded her shaky fingers, but after three tries she pressed the right keys. Ten minutes later, grateful the landlord had asked as few questions as she had, Rockie refreshed the webpage. The text disappeared from the screen and her frantic packing resumed.

I will also tell you that this short story was inspired by an experience the parents of one of my best friends in high school had, driving along a very small town very late at night to find many of its residents strangely standing outside in their front yards as they passed. Let’s just say I am never going to pass that way myself. Here also are a pair of photographs to set the mood.

I’ll let you know as soon as I do once “Good Genes” goes live at the Future Fire, along with a handful of what’s sure to be exciting stories from other speculative fiction authors. Stay tuned!

Fall Workshops at Liminal

I concluded my writer-in-residency at the Liminal Center in June, but I am still fully in support of this awesome, communal, feminist space for women in the creative arts to come together to learn and grow our talents together.

Fall Workshops Offered

One of Liminal’s primary purposes is to provide hands-on writing workshops for writers who identify as female. These six-week sessions provide valuable instruction from experienced writers and instructors in small groups, and they are starting soon! The full list is here, but sign up before these classes begin on 9/18.

May I recommend Origin & LIMINALITY: Experimental Writing with Gina Goldblatt? It’s one of two workshops Gina is leading, and as the founder of Liminal, you’ll get a great view into the heart of this organization. Learn to write subversively while exposing truth through fiction.

Liminal stalwarts Terrilynn Cantlon and Brenda Usher-Carpino are both at the helms of workshops as well. Terrilynn will be Silencing the Critic Within, an essential dragon to tame for anyone seriously venturing into the creative arts. Brenda will delve into the Art of Dramatic Dialogue for character development in the dramatic arts.

The Liminal Fall Workshops are offered on a sliding scale of $200-$320 — Pay what you can afford to support this awesome literary organization! Liminal also reserves two spots in its workshops for participants who can’t pay at all. Contact Gina at gina@theliminalcenter.com if that’s your situation.

One Day Intensive Workshops

For the first time, Liminal is offering one-day writing seminars, which I personally think is a great idea as that’s the commitment level I can handle. The first one is happening tomorrow, September 10th, and it’s not too late if you’d like to Get Into the Writing Groove with Jenee Darden. Just head here to sign up and get the full list of one-day sessions offered this fall.

There is a great set of one-day classes on the agenda throughout the fall, including how to Write Characters of Social Action with Jasmine Wade, creating the heroes we need to see in fiction these days. Jasmine is also teaching the Wonderland of Myth: Writing into the Past and Present, which I would love to take if I were in town that day. *cry* Sessions on grief writing, healing from trauma through writing, and writing about negative experiences are also on the agenda.

Pricing for the one-day intensive sessions depends on the length of the course, whether a couple of hours or a full day. Again, head here for the full list!

Whatever course or workshop you choose, Liminal will greet you with welcoming, supportive arms. Or at least that was my experience co-working at Liminal with these lovely women this last spring.

Coworking at Liminal with Aqueila and Terrilyn!

Final Liminal Writers in Residence Reading 7/8

This Friday night, you can catch me reading as part of the final reading session for the Spring group of Liminal Writers in Residence!

What: FINAL Reading – Spring Writers in Residence and Workshop Attendees
Where: Liminal, 3037 38th Avenue, Oakland
When: Friday, 7/8, at 7:00 pm

I will be reading from “Garbage,” a humorous sci-fi tale that I’ve been chipping away at for quite a few years, including during the last two months at Liminal. It never fails to draw laughs from readers, so I’m pretty sure an audience will react the same! I’ll be going on right at 7:30 pm, when the actual readings start, but I’ll be sticking around throughout the night’s program, as listening to this diverse and talented group of writers is always a worthwhile evening.

Here’s the Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1761472000741686/

I will not be continuing with the Liminal Writers in Residence co-working program after this, as I am shifting my focus to the speculative fiction community in the Bay Area, but I will make sure to come out and support Liminal’s events whenever possible. There’s always something happening at that great space for female writers of every stripe and background.

Liminal Oakland artwork

Hope to see you Friday!

Hear me at the Inkwell’s Leap Year Reading!

At the Inkwell Website I am excited to announce that I’ll be participating in a literary reading in one week with At the Inkwell! Giving readings is one of my favorite parts of being a writer, though I also get just a little bit of stage fright before it’s my turn at the mike, so familiar faces in the crowd are always helpful. I am one of five authors reading on 2/29 at Alley Cat Books (3036 24^th Street, San Francisco) from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

I’ll be sharing “No Crossing,” the prologue to what will eventually become my third book. The theme of the reading, appropriately, is Leap Year. I considered writing a personal essay for it, seeing where inspiration led. But then I remembered “No Crossing” patiently waiting in my virtual manuscript shelf for me to write the rest of the book. It’ll have to keep waiting for that narrative, but the prologue ties in wonderfully to the Leap Year theme, with a giant canyon to surmount and the shattered and re-building faith of a young girl learning that adults don’t always tell the full story. Regina takes a leap at the end into what will someday be her own story … when I write that part. 😉

Full information on the reading, along with my bio and those of the other authors, can be found here. Let me know if you plan to come!

The One Word Story Project

In November, I stumbled across Rob Kristoffersen’s (@kristoffrable) One Word Story Project while browsing my Twitter feed. A group of authors writing stories each inspired by one word? Sounded like a lot of fun!

I’d been looking for ways to share my fiction more often, as I had limited myself to publishing stories only with professionally rated Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America outlets, and I wasn’t feeling satisfied by the awesome, yet limited, opportunities they provide. So Rob’s project seemed perfect! As he’s a contributor at Team Hellions, a geek website covering a wide range of fandoms (even wrestling!), the stories will be hosted there.

And the first one is up today! Fittingly, the series begins with Rob’s story, “The Home is Where the Haunting Is,” which is inspired by the word epicedium: a funeral dirge. Click on over to read this tale, which, like my own, is a haunting story with marriage at its forefront. Rob’s tale is an affecting look into the aftermath of divorce, and it ends especially strong.

There will be a new One Word Story up at Team Hellions every weekday for a month, through 2/11/2016. My own is inspired by misogamy: a hatred of marriage, and I’ll tell you when it’s up, of course! But I’ll also point you over to the site whenever I especially enjoy the other writers’ stories.

Ad Astra: The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook for Sale!

What’s that? I share a contributor credit with such famous speculative fiction writers as Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Chuck Wendig, Mary Robinette Kowal, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Jim C. Hines?

You bet I do! The Ad Astra 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook came to be when a few fellow illustrious Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America members decided it was high past time for another cookbook to come forth from our midst. Cat Rambo and Fran Wilde volunteered for editing duties and managed to gather up 150+ recipes along with some bonus specialties with ingredients that may be hard to find…

I’ll let the Foreword speak for itself to give you a better idea of what this cookbook entails:

Within the science fiction and fantasy community, writers work wherever they can find a table, often among friends, virtual and face to face. It’s a blend of friendship and business, of celebration and craft. It’s messy sometimes. It’s beautiful.

In celebration of fifty years of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Ad Astra: The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook has collected recipes old and new from writers across the span of its membership. But this is more than just a cookbook. What you hold in your hands is a historical document. You’ll find a history of SF/F entertaining that goes back more than fifty years. Some of it is funny; some (like the bash cake/Mars colony cake), is itself a historical document; some of it is conversations between multiple writers. Some of it is written in fanciful, or … colorful language.

Here be Dragons.

Not everyone we wished to include are within these pages. But many are. We hope many more are to come in the future cookbooks.

The introduction to my Seared Peaches with Prosciutto and Basil definitely qualifies as one of those fanciful entries. It is a tribute to the speculative fiction writers and fans of the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, which is where I began my fiction-writing career and where I developed wonderful friends and support from among many talented fellow key-pounders.

You can get your hands on this very unique, and very fun collector’s item of a cookbook straight from the SFWA website here. Click to order through Paypal. Spiral-bound print is $19.95 and e-book is $9.99. I’d recommend the print myself.

Ad Astra is available for the same prices from Amazon as well.

All proceeds from the book are going directly to the SFWA Legal Fund, which is used to help SFWA members with court costs when the need for writing-related legal action is necessary–most of us don’t make much in this gig, so the legal fund can be a career saver when our work needs to be protected.

Enjoy this fun collaboration, and I’ll enjoy my moment of glory being among this fantastic group of recipe contributors.

Nonfiction Bragging: Guest Blogging for Localwise!

About two weeks ago, my first guest blog for Localwise went up! Localwise, you say? What’s that?

Well, my friends, it’s a Berkeley-based start-up that’s essentially a classifieds board for local jobs. They began with listings in Berkeley and Oakland only, but after six months of operation, they’ve expanded to Alameda, Emeryville, and San Francisco with more Bay Area locations in the works. The site is easy to navigate and a much preferred alternative for local businesses and applicants over that other free classifieds site. You know the one.

That’s great, Becca! But what does that have to do with you? You write about food, drink, and travel, not job hunting!

So true. But one of the most appealing aspects of Localwise is their commitment to building community in the Bay Area, because knowing your neighbor and neighborhood business owner generally tends to improve everyone’s quality of life. As part of that goal, Localwise runs a blog that highlights local businesses, job profiles, and the food & drink scene. Why that last item? Because food industry positions make up around 2/3 of Localwise’s job listings at any given time. That’s right–2/3! We like to eat here, folks. We like to eat a lot.

And drink. Definitely drink too.

Perhaps you can see where I come in now? Along with a few other Bay Area food & drink bloggers, I’ll be contributing short articles to the blog on at least a monthly basis. My first one touched on three of the newest food joints in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood.

The chicken-cherry sausage at Rosamunde Sausage Grill.

It started like this….

Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood has no shortage of restaurant options, and in the last six months, it’s added three more to its roster. Two of them are brand-new locations, and one is reimagined, but all three are worthy of your gastral attention. Ranked from fastest out the door to least likely to kick you there, here are Temescal’s newest eateries:

And you can read the rest of that article over at Localwise. I’ll let you know at the Gourmez when the next one goes up!

Food, Drink, & Travel Blogging Has Moved!

What happened to the delicious posts on this site? They’ve gone back home to the Gourmez! In August 2013, when we moved to the Bay Area, I combined all my writing pursuits into the site you’re viewing now. At the time, housing them together made the most sense for my sanity–too many sites to manage was too much in the midst of such a huge life change. But nearly two years later, and a recent transition from Hayward to Oakland where my reviews are suddenly in higher demand, meant it was time to give the Gourmez its proper focus again. And thus, that new-old site has been reborn!

My fiction and entertainment publication news and life updates will continue to be housed right here. But if your stomach starts growling or your wanderlust kicks in, the Gourmez is there for you. In fact, if you click on the menu items above for food, drink, & travel, you’ll find yourself transported to that website instead. Don’t panic! Tastiness is only a mouse click away.

Meanwhile, I’ll be doing more personal writing on this site–writing related to the writing life, that is. I’ve had a few requests to share my own struggles with searching for validation in a career where that rarely equals an income, so I’ll dig into that topic soon. But mainly, I’m planning to re-focus my writing time and get more fiction under my belt. I’m currently shopping around two longish short stories and one fantasy novel. My second novel, a post-apocalyptic romance, is about two-thirds of the way through its first draft, and I have at least four other short stories in various stages of editing and initial plotting. Here’s hoping they all find a home in time!

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