Friday, December 26, 2014

Outpost on Amazon

I've set up an author page on Amazon, for those of you who shop there. There's a "Follow" button on the left, where you can sign up to get an e-mail notification whenever I have anything new out that's available through Amazon. That's pretty neat; I didn't know they did that.

I hope everyone's having a great holiday, whatever it is you celebrate, and wish you all a great 2015!

Angie

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Young Explorer's Adventure Guide Cover

The Young Explorer's Adventure Guide anthology successfully funded its Kickstarter, so the ball is rolling. We have the final cover, with my name on it, yay. :)

 photo YoungExplorers2015Cover.jpg

I don't have a publication date yet, but I'll definitely be posting when it's released.

I love this cover. The art is great -- genre-specific enough to communicate "Hey, this is SF!" without focusing on a particular subgenre that'd let out a lot of stories, or trying too hard to be too many things and thus likely failing at everything. Good stuff.

Angie

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Young Explorer's Adventure Guide

The Young Explorer's Adventure Guide is a science fiction anthology for middle grade readers featuring a diverse range of characters. From editors Corie and Sean Weaver:

Sally Ride, first woman in space and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, famously said:

“Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can’t be what you can’t see.”

Girls need to read stories where any number of possible roles are modeled for them. Just as importantly, boys need to read stories where girls are active participants in adventures. And children of all colors and backgrounds need to know the future includes them.

According to a 2011 study of 6,000 children’s books, only 31 percent had central female characters, and even fewer featured main characters of color.

A genre that’s supposed to inspire us towards a bright future isn’t making space for half the population’s dreams. Boys go and have adventures, girls are to be defended, or prizes to be won, and the landscape is very, very white.

It’s time for a bigger universe.

Corie and Sean are running a Kickstarter campaign to raise some of the money for the project. Note the "some" -- they're not counting on Kickstarter funds for their entire budget. Acquisition and editing of stories has been on-going for some time now, and the list of writers is looking good.

I have a story in the book -- and am excited to be sharing a TOC listing with Nancy Kress, a great writer whose work I've loved for many years -- along with other folks I know and whose work I enjoy. This is going to be a great anthology, and it's well worth supporting. As of this morning, they're over 70% of their way to funding, with 25 days to go. Head over and check it out.

Angie

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Fiction River

The Fiction River anthology series is doing a subscription drive on Kickstarter, and they're already into stretch goals. They're offering various subscription levels at various prices, including a single electronic issue for $5, some multi-issue genre packages, up through a year's subscription in electronic or print or audio. Some packages come with extra stories -- electronic or print -- by anthology authors, and one lets you choose a character for each of three anthology stories Dean will write for up-coming issues.

There are also special packages left for writers that bundle some online lectures in with your Fiction River subscription. One that lets you choose a future anthology theme and co-edit it with Dean has already been snapped up, as have all the subscription-plus-online-workshop bundles.

If you're looking for a new tablet anyway, there's a Kobo special package that comes with a Kobo tablet, codes to download the previous ten volumes of Fiction River, plus ARCs to the two Kobo special edition issues coming up (with extra stories), plus three up-coming issues.

And like I mentioned above, they're already into stretch goals.

Since they passed $7500, everyone who supports the Fiction River subscription drive at the $5 level or higher will receive one additional electronic copy of Fiction River from the second year.

They hit $10,000 recently, so they'll create a special edition of Fiction River called Debut Writers’ Showcase. This will be a separate ebook of Fiction River authors who were published first with us. Plus, we’ll extend their biographies and ask them really cool questions such as, “Since you’ve been published in Fiction River, what’s happened in your writing career?” One of the goals of Fiction River is to bring you fresh voices in storytelling. We’ll send this edition to everyone who supports the Fiction River subscription drive at the $5 level or higher. (I'm one of their debut writers, so that'll be fun to do. :) )

This is a great project, with a lot of awesome writers. It's well worth supporting, especially since you're already getting a couple of extras. Check it out.

Angie

Friday, August 8, 2014

Obligatory First Post

So, I suppose I should have a blog for readers, since my other one is mostly of interest to other writers.  :)

Hi, I'm Angela Penrose.  I write mainly SF and fantasy, and so far only short stories.  I intend this to be a pretty low-volume blog, mainly a place where readers can come to see what-all I've written and where to find it, what's up-coming and when, what conventions I'll be at, that sort of thing.  I don't intend to post a thousand words of blah just because it's Tuesday, or anything like that; I don't talk unless I have something to say.

I've been writing since I was a kid, but I've never been the sort of person who had an easy time focusing on one thing.  When you're working full time, taking classes at night, publish an organization's newsletter, have a second job working online for a gaming company, and are senior staff helping run a convention or two, it can be tough to find time for hobbies -- keeping up with reading, much less baking and needlework (knitting, crocheting, sewing, various types of embroidery and lace making) and drawing and oh, yeah, that writing thing, can be tough.  For many years I did some of everything and not a lot of anything.

Finally a couple of years ago I buckled down and focused on fiction writing.  I haven't picked up a needle in years, haven't worked a con in even more years, and only occasionally make a batch of muffins for my husband.  I'm back to doing some reading, but I've written a lot of stories, and some of them have been or will be published in the near future.

I have a story called "Staying Afloat" in How to Save the World, edited by John Helfers.  It's an SF anthology, and John wanted us to focus on real-world problems and realistic solutions that normal people could enact. It forced some hard thinking, since we couldn't have benevolent aliens or a philanthropic billionaire come save the day. I've been to Mexico a few times, and have seen corn fields planted on slopes of forty degrees or more. I wondered what the farmers do when it rains hard, and what might happen if climate change makes it rain harder, more often.  Then I remembered something I learned about the ancient Aztecs when I was in sixth grade, and I had my solution, and a story.  How to Save the World came out last year, and is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Kerrie Hughes is editing a book called Alchemy and Steam, which is pretty much what it says on the tin, alchemy and steampunk together.  I wrote a story for her called "The Rites of Zosimos."  I found some info on a Greek alchemist named Zosimos of Panopolis and the alchemical principles he wrote about -- not saying what exactly, because spoilers -- and it inspired a story set in an alternate 19th century, where there's a murder at an alchemical university.  Alchemy and Steam is scheduled to be out in April of 2015.

John Helfers, again, came up with a great idea for an anthology called Recycled Pulp.  John came up with a huge list of incredibly pulpy titles -- the sort of thing you'd find in a pulp magazine in the early to mid-twentieth century -- and each writer was randomly assigned three.  We had to choose one of those three titles, and write a modern, non-pulpy story that fit the title.  Mine is called "The Crypt of the Metal Ghouls," and it's set in an apocalyptic future where a bunch of friends are scavenging in an abandoned city and find something that unfortunately still works.  It was a lot of fun to write, in a subgenre I've never tried before.  Recycled Pulp is due out in October of 2015.

Corrie and Sean Weaver are doing an anthology of SF for middle grade readers called The Young Explorer's Adventure Guide, and my story "A Smelly Problem" is going to be in it.  In a world where everyone has some kind of special power or talent, teenage Cody would rather have people think he's a neuter -- one of the few people without any special talent -- than find out what he can actually do.  Then a dumb decision at school leaves him scrambling to clean up a mess he made, and prevent the other kids from calling him "Stinky" for the rest of his life.  The Weavers are doing a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book, running through 15 September.

An editor I've subbed to before is planning a series of stand-alone SF e-books for kids, and contacted me about including one of my stories, about a little kid and his pet toad.  We're still negotiating, but I'm hoping to have some news soon.

I hadn't really intended to write specifically for kids or teens, but it looks like it's working out that way.  I write about whomever and whatever pops into my head, so if there are any more kids in there, I suppose I'll end up writing more stories for younger people eventually.

I love talking to readers -- e-mail me at AngelaPenroseWriter at gmail dot com.  I'm also at BayCon in Santa Clara every year; if you're there, come find me and say hi, or write me ahead of time and we can plan lunch or something.

Angie, heading back to work