Moving. The thought of it makes me shudder. I’ve often joked that it would be simpler to just set everything on fire and start over.
But, you know, that’s expensive, and I’m kind of attached to some of my stuff. OK, a lot of my stuff. So, that’s just not an option.
That sentiment comes from moving a lot, I think. Not as much as some, of course. Military families, for example, move all the time. But I had my fair share of location upheaval in my youth. I lived in six different towns and residences by the time I graduated high school. Two different states. Four different school systems. Again, not as much change as some, but enough to be a bit unsettling.
After high school, and before moving to Lincoln City, I lived in ten different places (in five different states). Lincoln City is the place I’ve lived in the longest. I’ve lived in my house for 12 years (if you don’t count the 10-month period where I moved out of my house only to return to it three moves later, but that’s a long, complicated story…)
As you can see, I have some experience with moving. And I can say with some authority that it’s hell. I can count on pretty much four to six months of lost productivity (except for the moving thing).
Which is why I’m so amazed at the latest project Dean Wesley Smith has embarked on.
Dean and his wife, Kris, are in the process of moving to Las Vegas. They’ll still have a home base here, but much of their time will be spent there, and they won’t need their rather large house here anymore. And so Dean is in the midst of dismantling said house to complete the move.
And because he’s Dean, he decided to throw in a writing challenge for good measure. Thirty short stories in thirty days.
Did I mention he’s moving???
Well, he’s on day nine already and going strong. Oh, and he’s writing a nonfiction book while he’s at it called How to Write 30 Short Stories in 30 Days While Moving.
If I’ve learned one thing in my six years running this business, it’s that when Dean sets his mind to something, it usually gets done.
If you want to follow along from the start of this adventure, click here to go to Dean’s first blog post about it. He posts a new blog every day with an update.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a ton of new covers to do…
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
But it’s funny the specific memories that stand out. I remember being in junior high school and discovering the Sweet Valley High series, scanning the shelves for the latest release. They published those on a rapid schedule, but certainly not as fast as I could read them. (Remember back when you only knew what books were available by going to the store?) And I remember being in high school (when I developed a deep love for Shakespeare and Wordsworth, among others), browsing the classics shelves of the B. Dalton in the Bridgewater Mall.
I’m not sure exactly when the trend of putting coffee shops and bookstores together started, but I discovered them when I was in college. I had developed a taste for coffee while spending time in Madrid and although the American version of café au lait didn’t hold a candle to Spanish café con leche, it was lovely to have a warm mug of sweet, creamy coffee while I sat reading. The aroma of roasted beans mixed with paper and leather to create what seemed a most literary perfume.
Bookstores feature prominently in my life, obviously. I witnessed the rise and fall of Borders. I started shopping at Amazon.com in 1999. I’ve watched more independent bookstores come and go than I can count.
I even fantasized about running my own bookshop/coffee house one day.
But I thought my imagination was where that particular daydream would stay.
Until recently, when WMG bought a bookstore.
And not just any bookstore: one founded by the great Sheldon McArthur (after he sold the Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles and “retired”).
Now, WMG can not only sell the books it publishes online and in brick-and-mortar bookstores, but we can sell them in our own bookstore…and we can sell lots of other books, too.
Our bookstore, North by Northwest Books in Lincoln City, is well-loved but well-worn. The building that houses it has sat in the harsh coastal air for many years, and it needs work. So, we’re running a Kickstarter to jumpstart the repair process. Our first goal was to raise enough funds (our goal was $5,000) to remodel an unused room in the bookstore to expand our offering of indie books. We hit that goal in less than 48 hours. And we’ve already hit our first stretch goal, too! Plus, we made Kickstarter’s “projects we love” list on it’s very first day.
But now, we’re working on our next stretch goals. The more we raise, the faster we can achieve all of the renovations needed to expand our selections and modernize our ordering systems. Here’s a video we made about those stretch goals.
Plus, we’ve got some very cool rewards, including bags of books, writing workshops, and even the option to buy books to donate to libraries or schools throughout the continental US.
You can read all of the details here. But you’ll need to act fast. The Kickstarter ends at 9:33 p.m. on February 28.
So, thank you to all of our current and future supporters. We couldn’t do this without you.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
The year 1991 was a very important year for me. It’s the year I graduated from high school. It’s the year I started college. It’s the year I turned 18. Really, it’s the year I became an adult.
It was an important year in US history, too. The Cold War ended. The first Gulf War began. We watched a videotape of LAPD officers beating Rodney King, and police brutality became a national discussion topic.
And in the publishing industry, a publication called Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, edited by Dean Wesley Smith, was launched.
Now, 26 years later, I’ve found myself reconnecting with classmates I haven’t talked to since high school and college. Topics such as the Cold War, the Gulf War, and police brutality continue to make the news. And Pulphouse Fiction Magazine will soon return to print.
And although time changes all things, many aspects of Pulphouse will remain. Dean remains editor, so the tone of the magazine will remain very similar to its original incarnation. And Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who edited Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, is tied to this new project, too.
Despite the fact that WMG didn’t exist during the magazine’s first run, we will honor all unfulfilled Pulphouse subscriptions with either a four-volume ebook subscription (no need to figure out how many issues you had left…you’ll automatically get a full year) or a lifetime ebook subscription (for lifetime subscribers). Just email us at subscriptions@wmgpublishingmail.com.
We’ve been working on this for a while, and I’m thrilled to add this magazine—a three-time Hugo Award finalist—to our product line.
The first release will be a limited edition Issue Zero, which will be available only via Kickstarter later this year. So, stay tuned.
And if you read this blog regularly, you might remember me mentioning I was surrounded by some amazing authors and editors a couple of weeks ago. Well, while other WMG editors bought stories for seven new volumes of Fiction River, Dean bought stories for five issues of Pulphouse.
See, I told you it was exhausting and exhilarating around here. My brain is still recovering, but I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you about Pulphouse. You can read more about the history and future of Pulphouse in Dean’s blog here.
And really, you should.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
I have to admit, I’m not much of one for marathons. I’ve never been fond of running. Sure, I ran track in high school, but I was a sprinter. And really, sprinting is a life skill. I really only believe in running if something is trying to eat you.
But I know lots of runners. And while I think they’re mildly insane <grin>, I respect their commitment to the sport.
But Dean Wesley Smith has taken the marathon to a new level in his latest Seeders Universe novel, Star Fall. This race spans the entire length of the ship. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, this ship is as big as the US, and the race is like running from the Oregon Coast to the Jersey Shore and back again.
See what I mean. Now, that’s crazy. Which means it makes for crazy good reading.
Here’s the synopsis:
Seeders never do anything in a small way, including their sports. Matt and Carey, the chairmen of the Starburst ship Star Fall started a yearly relay race from the very front of their ship to the tail and back again. An extreme relay of over nine thousand kilometers run by ten-member teams.
But before the race could start, a scout ship vanishes inside a shielded galaxy. Who could put a shield around an entire galaxy? And why?
A galaxy-spanning tale of adventure, suspense, and the vast possibilities of space.
If you haven’t checked out the Seeders Universe yet, you should. It’s an incredibly rich world. And couldn’t we all use an escape to a different world right about now?
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
Tomorrow marks the launch of the final book in Kristine Grayson’s Interim Fates trilogy, Brittany Bends, and I feel as giddy as I did the day I graduated high school. Now if only I had a tasseled cap to throw up in the air…
The Interim Fates trilogy incorporates humor, magic, misunderstandings, and the central theme of finding one’s own identity—the core of the high school experience.
The three books—Tiffany Tumbles,Crystal CavesandBrittany Bends—tell the story of the Interim Fates—Tiffany, Crystal and Brittany—who were first introduced in Grayson’s bestselling Fates Trilogy(Simply Irresistible, Absolutely Captivated, Totally Spellbound). The three teenagers are now mortal and struggling to fit into a world without magic—and without each other.
And now, we finally learn Brittany’s fate:
Brittany misses her sisters—and her magic. After being fired from her job as Interim Fate—which she only had because her dad, Zeus (yeah, the Zeus), tried to get rid of true love—Brittany finds herself living with her mom and stepfather in someplace called Superior, Wisconsin. Oh, and her eight half and step siblings live there, too.
Eleven people, one house, and a whole lotta new things to learn about. Things like snow and sunburn and, well, being mortal.
But that might prove harder than she thinks. Because Zeus wants his daughters back. Three of them, anyway. The three former Interim Fates: Tiffany, Crystal, and Brittany.
Tiffany and Crystal already made their choices. Now Brittany must decide whether she will fight for what she really wants—if she can even figure that out—or bend to the will of her powerful father and the allure of magic.
I hope you’ve been enjoying this series as much as I have. Kristine Grayson’s writing is truly magical.
And speaking of magical writing, stay tuned till next week, when I’ll have an announcement about her Christmas stories…
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about high school and Kristine Grayson’s new young adult trilogy called the Interim Fates. You can read that blog again here.
In it, I announced the launch of the first book of the series, Tiffany Tumbles, as well as promise to reveal the new branding for Kristine’s other Fates series books.
Well, the time has come. Tomorrow marks launch day for Tiffany Tumbles. And the Fates series books have a brand new look. And I can’t wait to tell you about and show you both.
I’m going to approach this chronologically, in a way.
If we’re going in reading order, the first project up is Completely Smitten, in which Darius meets his true love, Ariel. The pair, along with Blackstone and Nora from Kristine’s Charming series, appear again in the first book of the Fates Trilogy: Simply Irresistible. Here, we’re also introduced to the Kinneallys, who must help the Fates regain their powers and save true love. And the Kinneallys might just find their own true loves along the way. Absolutely CaptivatedandTotally Spellbound round out the series. Or you can buy all three in The Fates Trilogy ebook bundle.
These are sweet magical romances about Greek gods, Greek mythology and witches, with a bit of superhero and legend thrown in. They’re a refreshing deviation from the standard fare of today’s magical fantasy romances (although we publish those, too, of course), so the rebranding of these posed a challenge. There’s just not a whole lot of consistent branding out there. You can read a lot more about that in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog about the subject, here. But I’m pleased with what we came up with. I hope you are, too.
So, why the change? Well, covers, like fashion, age. The covers we had on these books worked well at the time, but they were outdated. They needed a makeover. You’ll see more of that coming this year, as well. But that’s for future blog posts.
Back to the topic at hand. The Fates Trilogy also introduced us to the Interim Fates: Tiffany, Crystal, and Brittany. If you’ve read the Trilogy, you know where we left the Interim Fates. If you haven’t, beware a few spoilers.
Now separated from each other, mortal, and back with their biological mothers, they must learn to adapt to a world unlike anything they’ve ever known.
The first book in the new trilogy tells Tiffany’s story. Here’s the synopsis:
Recently fired from her job as an Interim Fate, one of the most powerful people in the world, Tiffany VanDerHoven must move in with her mother in Eugene, Oregon. Tiffany finds living without magic hard enough, but high school? Not even movies or TV prepared her for that.
Tiffany has tumbled into “the real world,” and it baffles her.
To make matters worse, she can’t talk to her sisters Crystal and Brittany (the other two Interim Fates)—except for an hour or so, on the weekend, under strict parental supervision. Parental, meaning their mothers’ supervision. Because none of the girls can talk to their father, the Greek God Zeus, who started this entire mess when he wanted his daughters to use their Fateness to get rid of true love.
Tiffany needs to face her future, but first she must decide what kind of future she wants. One with her crazy magical Greek God family? One in the “real world”? Or can she discover the strength to straddle both worlds?
Whatever Tiffany decides will impact not just her own fate but her sisters’ fates, too.
The final books in the series, Crystal CavesandBrittany Bends, will be released in September and October, respectively. Like we did with Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Anniversary Day Saga, we’re actively encouraging you to binge read. After all, it expands your mind, but not your waistline <g>.
And one final note: Although I’m labeling the Interim Fates Trilogy as young adult, like any great YA writing, these books will appeal to readers of any age.
So, if you haven’t yet discovered the magic of Kristine Grayson’s books, I can think of no better time to start.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
My daughter turns 13 this week. And while I can’t quite believe she’s a teenager already, she is taking this harder than I am. She told me this birthday is making her sad. She doesn’t want to be a teenager yet. She doesn’t want all the pressure and responsibility that comes with the teenage years. She said next year, she’d have to get a job already.
I don’t know where this is coming from. It’s certainly not coming from me. The job part is probably coming from the fact that we live in an economically challenged community, like pretty much every tourist town everywhere. The people with money are the ones who visit or have second homes or own the businesses where the majority of the community’s residents work for minimum wage (or these days, the minimum the market will bear). Most of her classmates come from homes that support tourism rather than profit from it. Those kids all need jobs as soon as they can get them.
That makes me very sad. School takes a back seat before these kids even start high school.
The rest of Nola’s anxiety, I can’t fully explain. But it’s something I’ll be working hard to get to the bottom of. She puts far too much pressure on herself sometimes.
It’s frustrating for me that as hard as I work NOT to put pressure on her, to let her enjoy her youth, we’re still here. But, of course, I’m not the only influence in her life. And these days, with as interconnected as our kids are to the world, that pressure is everywhere.
Which is probably why I find myself thinking of one of international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s most haunting novellas, Coolhunting, which was a Locus Award finalist, and winner of the Science Fiction Age Reader’s Choice Award.
Here’s the synopsis:
Steffie makes her living as a coolhunter—someone who discovers an interesting look and makes it fashion, often overnight. She managed to escape her stifling upbringing, but her sister KD—genetically altered to remain a child—remains trapped.
Steffie left KD behind once. But when KD asks Steffie to help her run away from home, Steffie must decide whether to help or to abandon her sister for a second time.
In celebration of my daughter’s apparently bittersweet birthday, I offer this to you free for one week. Click here to download this powerful novella.
Meanwhile, I’ll be doing my best to make sure my daughter enjoys her birthday. A trip to the trampoline park is just the beginning…
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
My daughter has a busy week involving two different kinds of artistic endeavors.
First up is her school district’s centennial concert celebration. Nola plays several instruments: alto sax, tenor sax, euphonium and tuba. For this performance, she’ll be complementing the low brass section on the euphonium.
She loves playing her instruments, and she takes very good care of them. She’s even brought her euphonium and tuba home for baths (these are school instruments, but no one has maintained them; don’t even ask what we found inside the tuba once we got it apart…).
I played tuba in high school, but I’d never given one a bath before. It’s an adventure.
Needless to say, she’s one of her band teacher’s favorite students.
And two nights after the concert are her final two performances as Queen Aggravain in Once Upon a Mattress. She’s in good company in that role. Carol Burnett played the role in the 2005 Disney 2005 TV remake of Once Upon a Mattress. (Fun fact, Carol Burnett played the role of Winnifred, the princess, when the show opened on Broadway in 1959. You can read more fun facts about the Broadway production here.)
Once Upon a Mattress was inspired by a book, of course: “The Princess and the Pea” fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Don’t all good things come from books?
We obviously think so here at WMG. In fact, I’m in Las Vegas this week for the Romantic Suspense Craft Workshop, which is taught in-person by the amazing Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The study along version, writers do from the comfort of their own homes (or wherever they park their computer), is taught by the also amazing Dean Wesley Smith.
And while it’s too late to sign up for this particular workshop, it’s not too late to sign up for the other study along workshop options we have this year. Just click here to see all that’s on offer.
And don’t forget all the other workshops we have available on our Teachable platform.
Who knows where that next story will take you!
The Year of the Rabbit hasn’t even started yet, but WMG is already hopping!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
March is Women’s History Month, something that gets more important to me as I (and my daughter) get older.
We’ve made progress as women, of course. Just check out all the amazing women’s history resources that can be found here.
But there’s still much work to be done. And it’s up to all of us to do it.
We start with our kids, of course. We’ve been careful to demonstrate to Nola since she was a baby that she can be and do whatever she wants.
When she was little, I didn’t surround her with all pink and girly things. I incorporated primary colors whenever I could. She had pink princess stuff, of course, but she also had red, blue, and green blocks and toy cars. She watched Sofia the First and Handy Manny.
As she got older, I let her choose where her interests would take her. She did T-ball one year and cheerleading the next. Now, she’s a green/brown belt in karate and a member of a girls volleyball tournament team. She’s also the lead villain in the high school musical and plays the tuba.
She’s a remarkably versatile kid, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.
But it’s not just real-world people she can draw inspiration from. Fictional characters can open whole new worlds to young women who don’t have the same exposure and opportunities that my daughter does.
And it’s not just young women that fiction can inspire. I find myself gravitating more and more to strong female characters.
It’s why I love Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Diving Series so very much.
Her main female character, Boss, is seriously badass. (Kris, by the way, is pretty badass herself.) If you haven’t been introduced to Boss yet, start with Diving into the Wreck.
Here’s the synopsis:
Boss dives derelict space vessels, for money, yes, but more for their historical value. So, when she uncovers the find of a lifetime, she enlists the best divers she knows to help her pursue it—off the grid and under the Empire’s radar.
Boss’s discovery leads her and her team to the Room of Lost Souls. Boss remembers the Room. It haunts her. Her mother died there. Now, a client wants her to go back to help uncover the Room’s mysteries. But the truths they discover might destroy everything Boss holds sacred.
Because the more they discover, the less they realize they know—and the more it will cost them all.
An Asimov’s Readers’ Choice winner and RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice pick.
And if you’re already familiar with the series, but missed our recent Kickstarter, you can now preorder The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades. Boss isn’t in this one, but there are other badass women.
Here’s the synopsis:
The Renegat Renegades finally learn their fate in New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades, the gripping new novel in her award-winning Diving series.
As the surviving crew of the Renegat face court-martial for mutiny—100 years in their future—the case makes everyone nervous. Prosecutors worry the survivors will prove too sympathetic to convict. The defense worries about the reliability of the defendants. But the survivors worry about what might happen should the truth—the whole truth—finally come to light. Set in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s expansive Diving Universe, The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades adds rich new background to this powerfully written series.
With shocking secrets, a deepening mystery, and a surprise witness, this spellbinding sf mystery mixes the best of legal fiction and space opera and proves Rusch’s place as a master of science fiction.
With the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I’ve been taken back in time a lot lately to what the world was like in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. So many things have changed since then.
I didn’t get a text alert or push notification that the first tower was hit, I got a phone call from my then-husband.
He couldn’t even talk, he could only tell me to turn on the TV, because that’s how we got news immediately back then. But when I turned it on, there was nothing but static. It was tuned to ABC.
I lived in northern New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001. Our television stations (the big three: ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast from giant antennae on the top of 1 World Trade Center, the North Tower. The first tower hit.
Life changed for many of us that day. Even more so for those of us near Ground Zero.
I can’t watch the images. I saw them in real time, and they are burned into my memory.
So, this year, I focused on podcasts. Those I can handle. They let me reflect on that time period with more clarity and less trauma.
They also let me reminisce about what life was like in the years before 9/11. Before smartphones and Covid and Zoom.
What were you doing in the ‘90s? My high school graduation, undergraduate college years and first career were all in the ‘90s.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch attended hundreds of science fiction fan conventions in the ‘90s. She loved them. And she started writing short stories starring characters Spade and Paladin honored that love of the fans and the conventions.
The stories became known as Spade/Paladin Conundrums. And both mystery readers and science fiction fans loved them. She’s written eight of those short stories over the years.
When the pandemic hit, and Kris needed a place to escape the world and have fun in her fiction, she turned once again to the ‘90s and the Spade/Paladin Conundrums. But this time, she wrote a novel. It’s called Ten Little Fen.
The novel won’t officially be released until November, but you can get a copy early through our latest Kickstarter. And since the Kickstarter has already hit several stretch goals, you’ll also get electronic editions of several of the Spade/Paladin short stories (including one that’s exclusive to the Kickstarter), special pop-up workshops for writers, and a whole lot more to come.
Check out the Kickstarter here, and be sure to watch Kris’ video about the fun that is the Spade/Paladin Conundrums.
Because couldn’t we all use a bit of fun and nostalgia these days?
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
With everything that’s been in the
news lately, it can be hard to imagine what the future might hold.
I know how that feels. This time
last year, when my health was rapidly declining but we did not yet know why, I
remember confiding to my husband that I thought I was dying. I didn’t share
this with anyone else, because I didn’t want to admit how scared I was. I
didn’t want to have to explain that I could no longer sense a future for
myself—and just how terrifying that was. Particularly for what it would mean
for my daughter.
I was dying, as it turns
out, but thankfully we did discover what was wrong and after a long recovery
period, I feel like myself again. Someone who always has an eye toward the
future and what it might hold.
I grew up reading science fiction way back
in the 1950s. And from those early years, I loved it, how it showed me possible
futures, places to escape to, wonderful visions, and dark possibilities.
Science fiction took me out of a bad
childhood and let me escape, not only from my home, but from this planet. And
then, when I was in high school and college, Star Trek allowed me to escape
into a wonderful future of hope and dreams, where the good guys won.
To say I loved science fiction would be a
gigantic understatement.
And for the last six decades, I have
continued to love and read and watch science fiction in all forms, and write my
share of it as well, including back in the 1990s a lot of Star Trek.
So when chosen for the wonderful task of
putting together a bundle of stories with the title Visions of the Future, I
got excited. I wanted to find writers who could take me into their visions of
what they saw the future to be.
And if that doesn’t work to cheer you up, don’t forget to check out our Year of the Cat Kickstarter for some adorable cat videos and information about some purrfect upcoming projects you can get in on now that will be sure to do the trick!
Here’s to the future!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an
award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor
survivor.
Browse more Books Search for: The WMG Newsletter Get advanced notice of new releases, bonus content, and so much more. Subscribe Now Daughters of Zeus The Fates Universe FantasyYoung Adult Available in: ebook, $6.99 Get the ebook! The Daughters of Zeus Trilogy:A Fates...
And although time changes all things, many aspects of Pulphouse will remain. Dean remains editor, so the tone of the magazine will remain very similar to its original incarnation. And Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who edited Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, is tied to this new project, too.
But 
And now, we finally learn Brittany’s fate:
If we’re going in reading order, the first project up is 
So, why the change? Well, covers, like fashion, age. The covers we had on these books worked well at the time, but they were outdated. They needed a makeover. You’ll see more of that coming this year, as well. But that’s for future blog posts.
The first book in the new trilogy tells Tiffany’s story. Here’s the synopsis:
