I am so happy with my Melissa Allen covers. The cover art was done by Ryan Truso. I don't know the model's name. I wanted a corn fed farm girl from South Dakota and that's what I got. An actual teenager on my YA series. I love this.

October 13, 2015 – Never Let Me Sleep (Set in the town of Onida, South Dakota. The nightmare begins and Melissa has to stop the apocalypse from happening.)

November 10, 2015 – Never Let Me Leave (Set in an underground lab in North Dakota where Melissa discovers she's not the only one to save the world... and that someone on the inside wants to kill them all.)

December 8, 2015 – Never Let Me Die (Set in Richland, Missouri. This is my favorite cover. Melissa has had enough. It's been well over a year since that day in South Dakota and she lost everything. She's gained some of it back but now someone else wants to take it all away from her again.)

January 26, 2016 – Never Let Me (The Melissa Allen Omnibus with the extra story. The extra story "Never Let Me Feel" gives you a hint of what's to come for Melissa after the events of Never Let Me Die.)

I'm talking about this series on a couple of upcoming podcasts.

Q: Now that the Hugos are over, how do you feel?
A: I feel fine.

Q: Really?
A: Yes, really. Yes, of course I’m sad I didn’t win—it was a beautiful award and I worked really hard. I wanted to win, but as I said on twitter, I’m happy people voted the way they felt they needed to. There are other nominations and other Hugos. All voices need to be heard. I don’t want to dwell on anything else. It’s done for me.

Q: What about the numbers?
A: The numbers came out exactly as I thought they would. Without “No Award,” Mike Resnick would’ve won.

Q: What about the nomination numbers, discounting the slates?
A: I saw that I probably would’ve been 6th or 7th nomination place in Best Editor, Short Form. Respectable. More importantly, I saw that CHICKS DIG GAMING got 92 nomination votes in the Best Related Work category—second only to Jo Walton’s WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK SO GREAT. Which meant, incidentally, I lost a second time on Hugo night. I lost an Alfie to Jo. Still, that means I probably would’ve been nominated for a Hugo whether there was a slate or not. So, I’m feeling pretty good about things.

Q: Alfie?
A: Go ask GRRM. It was a kind gesture.

Q: Hey, in and around the Hugo stuff, I saw that you’ve become the Managing Editor of Evil Girlfriend Media. What happened to Apocalypse Ink Productions?
A: It’s still there. I’m still the Creative Director of AIP. I’ve just added the job of Managing Editor of EGM to my roster.

Q: Can you do both?
A: Yes. I'm talented that way.

Q: So, what are you going to do now that the Hugo stuff is over?
A: Keep on keeping on. I’ve got my YA SF-Thriller series coming out in October, starting with NEVER LET ME SLEEP. I’m editing NAUGHTY OR NICE: A HOLIDAY ANTHOLOGY for EGM. I’ve signed a contract for something very, very cool that will be announced soon. I’m working on the outline of my next tie-in novel. I’m a busy-busy freelancer. There are some great things to come.

Q: Did you bring home anything cool from the con?
A: I did! Cat Rambo gave me a SFWA 50th anniversary coin. Howard Taylor gave me a couple of “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.” coins. I bought a print by Rob Carlos, the newest Ken Scholes fiction collection, and Apparitions, a book of translated Japanese ghost stories. Also, of course, my little Hugo rocket pin—I earned that sucker.

Q: Are you sure you’re okay?
A: Yes. I promise. I'm okay. I appreciate everyone’s care and concern. I get the warm fuzzies when people tell me how much me and my work meets to them. Yes, I lost three awards this year but I won one and that’s awesome.

Q: Anything else you want to say?
A: Yes. Thank you to everyone for your support. I want to give a special shout out to Howard and Sandra Taylor, Kelly Swails, Jonnalyhn Wolfcat, Minerva Zimmerman, Sarah Hendrix, and Seanan McGuire who were heroes behind the scenes, super kind, and helped keep me relatively sane.

Publication: "Rune's Avatar Cafe" has been published in the Shadowrun Worlds of Shadows anthology. It came out at Gen Con. I haven't seen a link for it yet. I'll post it when I do.

Sold: I sold my story "Feathers in Need" to the latest Valdemar anthology called Crucible. It's also the opening story in the anthology. I'm super happy about that. I will note that it is a happy story, unlike "Written in the Wind."

Kickstarter: Women in Practical Armor. I have nothing to do with this anthology except to cheer it on because I work for Evil Girlfriend Media. It's already funded and it is awesome! I'm all about cheering this one on.

Website: If you love the rain and miss it in this heat, Rainy Mood is the perfect soundtrack for you.

Cover Reveal: Here's the cover for NEVER LET ME SLEEP! It's the first book in the Melissa Allen series. Is it not the best? I have an actual teen on my YA book and she's not a stick figure.

I am home now from five weeks of travel and events (3 conventions, 2 readings, 1 wedding). I ended with LepreCon in Phoenix, AZ. Yes, it was hot. Really hot. Like 110+ degrees hot. However, it was a great convention. Highly recommended. Small, enthusiastic, and great guests of honor.

In particular, I was pleased to meet Dayton Ward, whom I know from IAMTW, and David Gerrold (most famous for “Trouble with Tribbles.”), who soothed all my fears about the Sasquan Hugo Awards ceremony. After talking with him about my concerns (David is the host), I feel like I can relax and just enjoy the ride. That’s a huge deal for me.

Also, I got to meet my Shadow Minion, Sarah Hendrix, who is as awesome in person as she is online. She took to being my in-person assistant like, well, my shadow. She got me to where I needed to be (Seriously, I have the direction sense of a stoned newt. I couldn’t find my room even once without her.), made me eat, even when I was cranky, found out all the answers, and even played in my Big Demons in Little China game. There’s already an offer on the table to bring the both of us to an LA convention.

Then, on the way to the airport, I discovered that Chicks Dig Gaming: A Celebration of All Things Gaming by the Women Who Love It has been nominated for an ENnie award for Best RPG Related Product. Ya’ll have no idea just how happy I am about this. I joke that this means I have four awards (2 Scribes, 1 ENnie, 1 Hugo) to lose over the next two months, but I really am honored by the nomination. We worked hard on the anthology and it deserves some love and recognition. So, yay!

Now, I have a month to whip NEVER LET ME DIE into shape while fielding the edits of other projects from various publishers. Then, off to Gen Con as part of the Writers Symposium and as one of the Industry Insider Featured Presenters.

My life is boring from the outside. All I can talk about is what I've edited or written. I'm in a groove of work and not much more right now. A number of projects are falling in my lap all at once.

I just finished the final edits of my Shadowrun novella, Doc Wagon 19. It's been officially accepted and all that. I also just turned in Never Let Me Sleep (Permuted Press), the first book of the Melissa Allen series, my YA SF-thriller where I kill a whole state in the first chapter. Today, I'm working on the page proofs of Shattered Shields and I know page proofs for Chicks Dig Gaming are on their way.

Now, I'm shifting to writing-writing-writing. I'm working on Chimera incarnate (Apocalypse Ink Productions), the final book in the Karen Wilson Chronicles. Then I will be all about Never Let Me Leave, which is Melissa Allen #2. I also have 3 short stories due by the end of the year. So, my days will be marked by word counts, revisions, and page proofs. It's boring from the outside but awesome for me. I'm busy but I'm happy.


Still to be released in 2014

• August, Doc Wagon 19 (Catalyst Game Labs)
• October, "Dreams of a Thousand Young," Jazz Age Cthulhu (Innsmouth Free Press)
• November, Shattered Shields  (Baen Books)
• November, Chicks Dig Gaming  (Mad Norwegian Press)
• December, "Written in the Wind," No True Way and Other Tales of Valdemar (DAW)
• December, Apocalypse Girl Dreaming (Evil Girlfriend Media) - Though, this may move to early 2015

I’ve been sitting on some big news as all the details were hammered out. While I was at Origins Game Fair, I got an offer from Permuted Press for the first three books my young adult SF-thriller series. The Melissa Allen series (Never Let Me Sleep, Never Let Me Leave, Never Let Me Die). As I told my parents… “It’s the kind of stuff I wished early Stephen King would have written for teenagers. So, yay! Only 7.5 years after I became full time freelance author!”

I’m super excited to be part of the Permuted Press family and I have to thank Tim Long and Katie Cord for making sure me and the head honchos from Permuted met.

Here’s a bit about the first book:

NEVER LET ME SLEEP
Troubled teen, Melissa Allen, wakes to find that everyone in her house, on her street, and in her town is dead. As she learns that the unexplained massacre expands well beyond her town, she discovers she is not alone and what hunts her isn’t human. With her only support the voice of DHS Agent David Hood on the phone, Melissa must survive long enough to break the signal that murdered everyone she ever knew and stop the creatures before their plans succeed.