Jennifer Brozek | July 2018

Gen Con 2018

Next week is Gen Con. I'm not officially on any panels, but I'm in the Authors Avenue in the Dealers hall, Booth AL, right across from Extra Life. I'll be there for most of the Dealer Room Hours. I've got morning breakfast meetings set up, and I will be attending the "What's New with Catalyst" panel. Other than that, my evenings are free. Let me know if you'd like to get together. Otherwise, come see me at my booth and say hello!

I'll have copies of:

  • The Prince of Artemis V (new to Gen Con).
  • A is for Apex (debuting at Gen Con).
  • BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident (new to Gen Con).
  • Arkham Horror: To Fight the Black Wind (new to Gen Con).
  • The Last Days of Salton Academy (out of print).
  • All the AIP books.

Hope to see you there!

Another First: An ABC Book for Little Mad Scientists

Sometime, long ago, I had the idea for an ABC book. It was dark, creepy, and awfully cute. However, I have no skill at art. Thus, A is for Apex sat in the "hiatus" file for years. Then I met Elizabeth. I liked her art style. I liked her. I thought we might work well together. We auditioned each other on The Prince of Artemis V, a comic book version of my most popular YA short story to date. We liked it and thought, why not do another project together. Rubbing my hands together, I asked, "Have you ever wanted to do an ABC book?" The gleam in her eyes was answer enough.

May I present to you, A is for Apex!

Learn the English alphabet with this one-of-a-kind book for the little ghoul in your life. Monsters, mayhem, graveyards, and a zombie named Oscar, mixed with a little bit of science, come to life in charming rhymes and illustrations. Each letter receives its own two page fun illustration to spark the imagination of you and your little ghoul. There are many details to be explored during every read.

This book is dedicated to all the little mad scientists out there, especially those who like the creepy stuff.

I hope you all love this book.

Amazon ebook, physical | Barnes & Noble ebook, physical
Release date: 1 August 2018

 

Life Update

Life has been busy, busy, busy, but good.

Writing
I've finished Rogue Academy: Iron Dawn, polish-edited it, and turned it in. I feel accomplished and actually pretty good about the manuscript. Of course, now I’m in that “I finished a novel, now what?” flail. It’s not that I don’t have stuff to work on. I do. It’s the fact that it feels like I’m doing “procrastination work” – which is what writing flash fiction, editing, and outlining is while I’m novel drafting. I’ll shake my brain out soon enough.

What am I working on now?

  • Shadow Bytes – five pieces of Shadowrun flash fiction for a podcast.
  • Editing the stories for A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods Lovecraft anthology.
  • Prepping to write a Shadowrun novella, A Kiss to Die For.


What does my brain want to work on? After a call with my agent, a far future oceanic novella that I've been noodling over for about a year now. It might become a good Wit'n'Word writing group project.

Conventions
August – I have two major conventions coming up in August: Gen Con and WorldCon. I am a dealer at both and a panelist at WorldCon. I’ll find out this week if I have any panel things to do for Cat Labs at Gen Con. I’ve got my house/cat sitters in place. I’ve started my plans for packing. Gen Con will be more complex than WorldCon, but all of it is doable.

September – I’m participating in the North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference. I’ll be reading Friday night, 21 Sep, and teaching two workshops on Saturday, 22 Sep.

Household Stuff
Back patio – Our house is 30+ years old. We’re the second owners. We’re slowly making it look less like a 30+ year old house. The latest project is replacing the back red-brick patio with pretty grey paver stones. The Husband did most of the work. It’s involved and still ongoing. There’ll be a blog post about it soon. It’s not done because it includes replacing the deck stairs on the patio side of things.

Eating from the pantry – Twice a year, the Husband and I do what we call “eating from the pantry.” We don’t eat out. We don’t grocery shop except for fresh veggies and milk. We eat from what we have in the pantry and the deep freeze for the full month as a way of cleaning out the older / soon-to-expire dry goods. It’s also a way to save money. Of course, this means we end up with some strange meals by the end of the month. Bubble-and-Squeak for the win!

Kitties
All four of them are fat and happy. I’m sure you can see that from my Twitter and Instagram. Feel free to join us there.

The Jennifer Award for June 2018

From now until I decide I want to stop doing this, I will be giving out a monthly “Jennifer Award” for the best new-to-me thing I read that month. This can be fiction or non-fiction. It can be an essay/article, a short story, a novelette, a novella, or a novel. It doesn’t matter when it came out. It only matters that this is the first time I read it and I thought it was the best thing I read all month. Yes, it is completely subjective and biased towards what I like to read.

The winner will receive a shiny digital badge and a $5 gift card.

The winner for June 2018 is Daddy’s Girl” by Jennifer R. Donohue. You can read it now on Syntax & Salt Magazine. This is the kind of short story that I adore. The end was a gut punch. It was so unexpected and yet… unsurprising when I thought about it. The clues were there. It’s rare that I reread a short story immediately after I just read it, but this one I had to. The story was good. The craft was better. Well done, Jennifer.

2018
Jan: Godfall and Other Stories by Sandra M. Odell
Feb: “When We Fall” by Kameron Hurley
Mar: The Alastair Stone Chronicles by R.L. King
Apr: Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys
May: “The Soul of Horses” by Beth Cato
June: “Daddy’s Girl” by Jennifer R. Donohue