Monkeying Around in a Good Cause...with Benefits

See this monkey here?  (No, it’s not me. I didn't grow a beard overnight. Hush!) This monkey marks the start of a new Silence in the Library project: Monkeying Around fora Good Cause: The CJ Henderson Benefit Anthology.

If it were just an anthology, Dance Like A Monkey would be awesome.  The list of contributors at the basic funding level includes some of the biggest names in the industry: Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, Maggie Allen, Jack Dann, Ed Greenwood, Joe Haldeman, Nancy and Belle Holder, Tanya Huff (insert fan girl squee here—I’m in a book with Tanya Huff and Jack Dann!), Gail Z. Martin, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jean Rabe, Mike Resnik, Hildy Silverman, Janine Spendlove, Michael A. Stackpole, Anton Strout, Kelly Swails, Robert E. Vardeman, Elizabeth A. Vaughan, Bryan Young, Jean Marie Ward, Gene Wolfe, and Timothy Zahn. And, of course, CJ Henderson. 

The artists contributing to the project include Christina Yoder (who drew the wonderful dancing monkey topping this article), Alan M. Clark (who contributed the beautiful cover shown below), Mark Dos Santos, Ben Fogletto, Thomas Nackid and Matt Slay.

But wait!  Like the classic TV commercial says, there’s more!  Beyond the Veil’s own Sheryl Nantus is one of the stretch goal authors for the project. Yes! If you contribute now—and we make our stretch goals—you’ll receive another book’s worth of wonderful stories, including Sheryl’s!  And you know she writes wonderful short stories.  If you don’t believe me, check out the selection on her website.

The other stretch goal authors ain’t exactly shabby, either: Aaron Rosenberg, Alan M. Clark, Allan Gilbreath, Alma Alexander, Tera Fulbright, Cynthia Ward, Davey Beauchamp, Dylan Birtolo, James Chambers, Jeff Young, Jennifer Brozek, John Hartness, Maxwell Alexander Drake, John L. French, Jonathan Maberry, Keith R.A. DeCandido, KT Pinto, Michael Ventrella, Misty Massey, Patrick Thomas, Pete Prellwitz, Stuart Jaffe, David B. Coe (aka D.B. Jackson), Vicki Steger, and Mike McPhail. 

And every single story by every single author will feature a monkey.  Even I got in the act, as you can see from the excerpt of my story "Burning Down the House" here.

Why? One of CJ's favorite sayings is "I'll dance like a monkey for a nickel."

But why CJ? Why now? And what makes this project any different than any of the other crowdsourcing projects I've been involved with recently? I think Silence in the Library publisher Ron Garner said it best:

“The purpose of this anthology is to provide...support to author CJ Henderson. Let me start off though, by saying that this is not charity. We are not simply collecting money and handing it off to a needy individual to help pay medical expenses. No, what we are doing here is endowing a grant. A grant that will allow CJ to continue to produce the kinds of stories that CJ writes. Stories with the power to entertain and captivate us all. We are making an investment in CJ."

An investment with dividends for you.  Are you an aspiring writer, or do you know one?  Bestselling author Gail Z. Martin and writer/publisher Janine Spendlove are offering mentoring programs.  Both programs include an in-depth review of the first 200 pages of your novel-length manuscript.

Or how about a short cut to immortality?  You can be Tuckerized--have your name and characteristics assigned to a character in a published story.  Monkeying Around offers three Tuckerization options.  You can get written into anthology editor Jean Rabe's next novel, The Cauldron, or Danielle Ackley-McPhail's upcoming novel, Daire's Devils.

You want more?  How about a certain author and her equally demented spouse doing their best to live up to the anthology's title?


How about making them stop?  

I thought that would do the trick. J Just so you don’t have to scroll back, the URL is: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/monkeying-around-for-a-good-cause .  

Click it.  Share it.  Help out.  I guarantee you won't be sorry.

Jean Marie Ward

Definitely Loud, Definitely Proud

By some strange coincidence, I find myself kicking off two of BtV's monthly themes in a row.  This time it's "Loud and Proud: LGBTQ Characters, Themes and Plots on Page and Screen".  Unlike fan fiction, this is an odd fit for me.

Well, I'm definitely loud.  All of my friends and family would agree on that point. But I'm not Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans or Queer.  I've got friends who qualify in every category--some more than one--but I'm vanilla.  Even in my fanfic days, I didn't write m/m.  It wasn't that I didn't read it.  It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it.  In fact, some of the descriptive passages I read in those days were hot enough to melt steel, to say nothing of me.  But it just wasn't my area of expertise, so I didn't even try.

Until I did.  "Personal Demons", my contribution to the lesbian fantasy anthology Hellebore and Rue, recounts the story of a tantric sorceress and her lover dealing with demonic possession in contemporary Alexandria, Virginia.  I told the story behind the story when the anthology first reached the virtual shelves.  Even though the story behind the story had a happy ending, it showed that prejudice against LGBTQ characters remains, even in the "anything goes" world of science fiction and fantasy.

But support for LGBTQ fiction is strong and growing stronger among the reading public.  Hellebore and Rue soon made it to print and remains available in paper format, despite the shuttering of our original electronic publisher, Drollerie Press.

Furthermore, the anthology didn't just hang on.  It prospered, winning a 2011 Rainbow Award for Best Science Fiction and Anthology.  It was also named a 2011 American Library Association Over the Rainbow LGBT Book for Adult Readers--an honor shared by less than 75 books out of roughly one million books published in English each year.   To say nothing of more than a dozen reviews, with more appearing each month, a full year after the book's publication.

This tells me that things are getting better.  Every day people grow more accepting of and receptive to the fictional representation of alternate life styles.  Much as some pundits try to deny it, the real world follows fiction.  Life does imitate the good things in art--maybe not as closely or as often as we'd like.  But there's no denying it does, which gives me hope for our nonfiction future.  And something more.

As someone who fought the good fight for two LGBTQ characters, it makes me proud.  Most definitely proud.

#

Jean Marie Ward

Time to Get "Fixed"

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to announce that the DAW anthology, The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, has hit brick-and-mortar and virtual bookstores everywhere.  In addition to featuring authors like Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Jay Lake and Jim C. Hines, the collection contains my first story in a mass market paperback, a little (ahem) tale about a cat shifter trying his darnedest NOT to get “Fixed".

My contribution is a comedy, but the anthology has something for everyone.  To quote the jacket copy:

 

What if the fae were still here, living among us?  Perhaps living in secret, doing their best to pass for human?  Or perhaps their existence is acknowledged, but they’re still struggling to fit in.  How have they survived?  Are they outcasts clinging to the edges of society, or do their powers ensure success in the mortal realm?

Here are fourteen fabulous stories by Seanan McGuire, Susan Jett, Kari Sperring, Juliet E. McKenna, Avery Shade, Kristine Smith, Barbara Ashford, April Steenburgh, Anton Strout, S.C. Butler, Jean Marie Ward, Shannon Page, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear and Jim C. Hines—ranging from humor to dark fantasy—that explore how the creatures of the fae are fitting into the modern world.

And to whet your appetite, here’s a little taste of “Fixed”:

There were lots of advantages to being a part-time cat. Being chased by a Rottweiler named Bitsy through Holcomb Creek Park wasn’t one of them.

Heart pounding, chest heaving, Jack Tibbert raced down the bike path, insensible to the late November cold, the people on the path, or anything except escape. Bitsy’s heavy grunts grew louder as she closed the gap between them. His imagination added the heat of the dog’s breath on his neck as her massive jaws closed in for the kill. He had to take cover—high where her crushing teeth couldn’t reach. But where? To his right the ground dropped sharply to the creek. The leafless saplings mask­ing the fall were barely up to Jack’s feline weight. They’d never survive the dog. The only trees worth climbing grew on the left side of the path. To reach them he’d have to cross a field of dead grass set with exercise equipment too low to fend off a Chihuahua. It was gonna be close.

He feinted right. With a triumphant woof and the crackle of dead weeds, his pursuer plunged into the brush. Jack veered left, gaze locked on the outdoor bal­ance beam. If he could run the dog into the log…

“Look out!” a female voice screamed.

He turned just in time to see a bicycle twice his height tearing up the center of the path. Instinctively, he jumped. The wheel clipped his shoulder. He tumbled across the pavement and kept rolling until one of the saplings knocked all the wind out of him.

It took him a minute to put the world back together. Had to get up. Dog. Too close. Yelping? He shook his head.

“Are you all right?”

The light girlish voice seemed to come from heaven, which had dropped to a few feet overhead. The angel kneeling beside him had a perfect oval face, almond-shaped eyes and windblown black hair streaked with rusty brown. She looked about sixteen, maybe a year younger than him—the kind of girl you see in all those dumb TV shows set in high school but you never meet in real life.

Small teeth raked her plump lower lip. “Don’t scratch me, okay? I need to touch you to see where you’re hurt.”

Sugar, you can touch me wherever you want.

Somewhere in the background, Bitsy started to whine. Her owner wailed, “But it’s the cat’s fault!”

“Not if Bitsy was off her leash and chasing him,” Jack’s vision shouted over her shoulder. Foxy chick was a cat person, too. He purred, arching his back into the hand she trailed along his fur.

“Spine and hips, good,” she muttered to herself. She found his tail. He flicked the tip playfully. “All right. Any­thing else we can fix.”

She flinched at another blast from the Rottweiler’s owner. “Just keep her calm, Mrs. Saar. It’ll be okay. I’ve got my phone. 

“It’s not like it hasn’t happened before,” she added under her breath.

She couldn’t keep her hands off him. Swearing at the hit-and-run cyclist, dialing her phone—the whole time, one of her hands was stroking him or scratching the sweet spots behind his ears and between his shoulders. He rewarded her by turning the baby blues on high. They worked their usual magic. Her bright brown eyes and pretty pink mouth got all soft. She forgot the phone pressed to her left ear. When the call connected, she bounced in surprise. Ev-er-y-thing bounced.

With a grin as wicked as feline lips allowed, Jack rolled his shoulders and hauled himself to his feet. Joints popped. A dozen different muscles and tendons hummed with pain. He tottered a couple steps, wincing at his scraped fore pads, and collapsed dramatically across her jeans.

To find out what happens next, you really need to read the book.

Yes, I am evil like that.  Why do you act so surprised?  ;-)

Jean Marie Ward

Back to the Future, Again and Again

Rather than give you my thoughts on futuristic fiction, I thought it'd be more fun to post some. Happy tomorrow!

Jean Marie's Happy Dance

Bianca isn’t the only one with good news to share this week. Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier announced the table of contents for their new fantasy anthology, The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, coming from DAW Tekno Books in March 2012. And the writers are:

Introduction by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier

"We Will Not Be Undersold" by Seanan McGuire

"Changeling" by Susan Jett

"Water-Called" by Kari Sperring

"The Roots of Aston Quercus" by Juliet E. McKenna

"To Scratch an Itch" by Avery Shade

"Continuing Education" by Kristine Smith

"How To Be Human™" by Barbara Ashford

"How Much Salt" by April Steenburgh

"Hooked" by Anton Strout

"Crash" by S. C. Butler

"Fixed" by Jean Marie Ward

"A People Who Always Know" by Shannon Page & Jay Lake

"The Slaughtered Lamb" by Elizabeth Bear

"Corrupted" by Jim C. Hines

Yes! That’s me on that list! “Fixed” is the story of a teenaged cat shifter who gets taken to an animal shelter while wearing fur. Needless to say, he really REALLY doesn’t want to get “Fixed”.

Although you won’t be able to hold the book (or the pixels of the ebook version) in your hands until March, The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity is available for pre-order on a number of sites, including Amazon. Buy, buy, buy! In multiples, if you can. Patricia and Joshua were so much fun to work with, I’d love to do it again.

Meanwhile, I’m grinning from ear to ear.

Shameless Self-Promotion: New Short Story Sale

"Personal Demons", a tale about demonic possession and tantric sorcery in Alexandria, Virginia, has been accepted and contracted for Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff. (Insert demented happy dances here. :D) I've loved this story for ages, but people told me it would never sell because my protagonist happened to be a lesbian. Just goes to show the story (and its magically gifted heroine) knew better than anybody. They were waiting for the right home, and what a lovely home it will be. Like Samhain, Drollerie Press has a rep for fantastic covers and amazing content. I can't wait to read the other stories in the anthology. Fortunately, the wait won't be too long. The editors and Drollerie Press hope to issue the ebook in time for Halloween. This year! Color me thrilled.