Subtitle: A case study of “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
 
The plan:
Buy WorldCon membership eight months prior to event to get the early bird discount - Check
Get plane tickets and hotel reservations for self and hubby months in advance - Check
Apply for and achieve being a presenter at WorldCon (a first) - Check
Get epic fantasy novel The Halfblood War published in time for WorldCon - Check
Get ARCs of a forthcoming book While Gods Sleep printed in time for WorldCon - Check
Apply for and achieve a spot at the SFWA book table to promote said books - Check
Schedule many get togethers with friends at WorldCon - Check
Plan vacation up the Northern Calif coast with hubby to follow WorldCon - Check
Car rental, AirBnB cabin in the woods, places to see on vacation - Check
Schedule meet ups with friends I’ve not seen since I moved away from N Calif. 15 yrs ago - Check
 
What actually happened:
The afternoon before leaving for WorldCon hubby is exposed to chlorine gas.
I spend 6 hours in 2 different ERs and hubby spends 2 days in hospital.
We keep thinking we’ll salvage bits of the trip until we get realistic and admit defeat
Nine hour wait with him for his discharge from hospital.
Spend the remaining days of vacation retrieving his car, dealing with work comp, following up with doctors, and helping my 100-year-old live-in mom to have her beloved elderly dog euthanized.
 
In summary:
Things could have been much worse. The gas was diluted and exposure was limited. The big picture turned out as well as it could have. I still have my husband and my husband is back at work on full duty.
Snapshot of the past week: the week sucked.

​The first time Ty died he was five; the second time he was seven. He’s always believed his third death will be the final one. Now he may find out.
 
Greece, 1958. More than twenty years after his near-death experiences and the visions of terrifying gods that came with them, Ty leads a quiet life as a locksmith. His ordinary existence is shattered when he’s persuaded by a client to play an ancient game of throwing bones. Entering the world of obsessive gambling that he’s despised since childhood, he finds himself manipulated into borrowing over his head. Now, deeply in debt, his life and death hang in the balance once more.
 
To repay his money-lender, Ty is forced to descend to Erebus, a mid-world that lies between the surface and Tartarus. His task is to steal an item from Eros' daughter, but to do that he’ll have to find a way to survive the demi-goddess as well as monsters he’d believed existed only in myth. Once in Erebus, those considerable dangers are eclipsed by far greater ones; he discovers the item he seeks is tied to the fate of the sleeping gods, the powerful factions that seek to control them, and an enemy that could destroy them all. Ty must make the biggest gamble yet, betting his life to save his own world and the underworlds below it.

I'm very happy to say that my novel, The Halfblood War is out now from WordFire Press. If you enjoy capricious and dangerous fae, star-crossed lovers, and the intrigues of nations on the brink of war, I hope you'll enjoy this stand-alone epic fantasy.

A sweeping story of love and war, prejudice and acceptance...

Tirren, heir to the ruler of Thiery, has raised his half-Elven son in a land that hates and fears the Elves, but his son’s struggle for acceptance is only one source of Tirren’s pain. The other is his unfading desire for Yslaaran, the Elven woman who eighteen years ago captured him in a spell, seduced him, and vanished. She returned only once more—to hand him his infant son. 

When a neighboring ruler attacks the land of Thiery, Tirren rides to battle with his half-breed son at his side. Learning of the war, Yslaaran fears the conflict will unravel her long-laid plans for the boy. If she doesn’t interfere, he could die before his time, but if she reveals her hand by meddling, her own people could rise up against the humans they despise—and that will trap the land between two deadly enemies. 

The fate of two races hang in the balance, but only Yslaaran knows that both humans and Elves risk a future more devastating than war.

"A grand epic fantasy in the classic tradition." D. J. Butler, author of Witchy Winter

Available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo

It took me a long time to get around to reading this classic novel from 1957, but I'm glad I did.
​

The beginning of this month saw the release of K. Bird Lincoln's novella, The Metamorphosis of Aria Mertz. A a cancer survivor herself, here she talks a bit about both her cancer and her novella:

I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma in my right breast in 2013 at the age of 41. It was my first ever mammogram. Color me gob-smacked.
I stopped writing for a while. I mean, nothing really seemed worthwhile posting about when cancer was hanging out in the back of my mind. I mean, it’s kind of silly to be all like “Ooh I wrote 100 words!” or “Takeshi Kaneshiro is really hot!” or “Check out this cool taco truck” when what I really wanted to say is “Oh my god I have cancer-- this sucks.”
So yeah, nothing.
But then a High School Friend pointed me towards comedian and TV Star Tig Notaro’s stand up set at Largo about her own breast cancer diagnosis (which fortunately coincided with the “good” week of my chemo cycle) and I found these little bits of stories I’ve been telling people randomly about my whole experience with the FunLand of cancer treatment (I did the whole slash, burn and poison) suddenly wanted to come out and be written.
So I started writing again. And it was such a relief. I owe a big debt to Tig Notaro for creating a space where the darkness of a breast cancer diagnosis is illuminated by humor.
Here’s a story just for you about Chemotherapy and Popsicles and why I stopped eating Lorna Doones.
Want to know my favorite part about sitting in an infusion chair to receive chemotherapy? Watching the nurses in the infusion center tug on big, rubber gloves before they take out the huge-mongous syringe of bright, cherry red poison (Adriamycin) they’re about to literally shove into your veins in the hopes that it will kill off all fast-replicating cells—including your tumor. The gloves are so they don’t accidentally touch it, or get it on their skin. Because it’s poison. Poison=Bad.
So one week I was sitting in my chair being a good, little quiet patient while the nurse gloved up. All of a sudden, Breast Cancer Survivor Volunteer Lady comes in with her tray of Lorna Doones and Pretzels (because we all know nauseous people REALLY want to eat Scottish shortbread) and is all like “Oh, you’re getting the Red Devil, that’s good.” I smile at her. I know she means well. I can forgive her. She’s a breast cancer survivor and I will respect her journey. She’s alive. The very air around her is a mystical blessing, right?

But then the other nurse, without the gloves, brings me a styrofoam cup halfway through the Red Devil syringe. Inside it is a grape popsicle (no way could I handle a cherry red one) because you have to literally freeze the blood vessels in your mouth with a popsicle when getting Adriamycin infusions to keep from getting mouth sores. Then the Breast Cancer Survivor Volunteer Lady was all like “Oooh, and you get a popsicle, too. That’s lovely.”  Lovely? That’s where I drew the line. I never ate another Lorna Doone again. All the Volunteers knew not to come by my chair during infusion after that.
Because yeah, Volunteer Lady, getting the popsicle TOTALLY made up for the breast cancer and the Red Devil.
 For more on K. Bird's slash, burn, and poison Breast Cancer journey, check out What I Should Have Said

Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Metamorphosis-Aria-Mertz-paranormal-thriller-ebook/dp/B07D6B5NG8/
Books2Read:
https://www.books2read.com/u/mqZprZ
Barnes & Noble Nook:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-metamorphosis-of-aria-mertz-k-bird-lincoln/1128688583
Kobo:
​https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-metamorphosis-of-aria-mertz

I spent last weekend at PPWC and, again this year, had a great time. Such an organized, friendly, and well-run conference, and I was very pleased to attend this year as a faculty member. Despite their original GOH cancelling only a couple of months ago, they pulled together four fabulous speakers - a hilarious speech by Mary Robinette Kowal, an emotional one by Laurell K. Hamilton, a rousing one by Bob Mayer, and an uplifting and inspiring send off by Jonathan Mayberry.

Over the three days, I taught a short story workshop and a 2-hour prose workshop, as well as co-facilitating a genre-roundtable on short story writing. I also had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Jonathan one evening along with other faculty, agents, and editors over the weekend, and many staff and attendees. As usual, I neglected to take photos or post during the conference, but the 2019 PPWC is already on my calendar as an event not to be missed!

Oh - and to the last two people I offered a free copy of A Borrowed Hell and then couldn't get them to you right away, I'm so sorry. I looked for you right through lunch on Sunday. Feel free to contact me through my website and I'll send them to you!

I am delighted and honored to be able to announce that my debut novel, A Borrowed Hell, has been selected as a 2018 Colorado Book Awards Finalist in the science fiction and fantasy category.

A reading by the SFF finalists will take place at the BookBar in Denver on April 6th, from 7-9pm.