We're down to the FINAL 24 hours of the Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 campaign, and what an incredible journey it has been! Thanks to your amazing support, we've reached $7200+ surpassing our initial goals and unlocking one stretch goal so far. I'm really happy we reached the coloring book goal.

Tomorrow, Thursday, April 25th from 11am - 12pm Eastern / 8am - 9am Pacific, I will be live on Twitch with Rem to celebrate and countdown to the final moments of my first Kickstarter campaign. Come join us at there: twitch.tv/masterofrem

Last Chance to Back Dear Penpal
With less than 24 hours left, now's the perfect time to back Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 or increase your pledge. Don't miss out on some of our unique rewards and the chance to be part of the Dear Penpal community.

I am grateful for each and every one of you who has backed, shared, and cheered us on throughout this campaign.

Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 is in its last full week. The campaign ends at 9am (Pacific) on April 25th. We are funded, and the first stretch goal has been met. Coloring pages in every letter! I’m excited, and I know my artist, the talented Elizabeth Guizzetti, is excited as well. Other stretch goals include, a 25th letter from present-day me (and maybe my sister Shannon) and a 30-day emailed ghost story set to run in Oct 2024 called “The Old House on Highway 109” that will be free to Spooky Fun Pack tiers and above or available as an add-on for the lower tiers.

I thought I’d talk about some of the different packages and who they are for.

Paranormal Package – All 24 letters in a single package. This is for the person who prefers “one and done.” It is a single mailing, mailed when the 24th letter is mailed. You want the story. Then you’re good because you get to choose when to read each letter.

Bimonthly Phantom Post – 2 letters a month for 12 months. This is the core experience of Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980. You will receive two letters a month for a year and will experience the story as it was originally conceived. Plus, you get to come to the Zoom calls and find out what actually happened because a lot of the story is true.

Spooky Fun Pack – 2 letters a month for 12 months and all the extras. This includes the core experience, but if you are a curious person like me and want to know more esoteric details of life in Belgium, you get to hear the songs I listened to, see some of the photos and items I still have from Belgium. Plus, there are stickers! Who doesn’t love stickers? This tier will also get extra bits from the stretch goals we reach.

Haunted House Calls – This is the highest tier with limited spots available. At the time of the posting, 2 of 4 slots were still available. Backers get everything in the Spooky Fun Pack and this tier includes 24 one-on-one calls (2 a month). This one is for the backer who wants my full attention. Want me to be your mentor for a year? Or want to give the gift of a writing mentorship to a loved one? That could happen. Want me to teach a writing class for homeschoolers? I can do that. Run co-writing sessions for you and your writing group? Be your critique partner? All of these things are possible. We’ll talk about it and come to a happy accord. (Note: If this is a gift for a minor, their guardian/parent needs to be present for the opening discussion at a minimum.)

I hope this gives you a better idea of what you will receive when you back my passion project. I’m so happy to have this kickstarter funded. I’ve got so much to share with you. Won’t you be my penpal? Thank you.

Running a kickstarter is not for the faint of heart, lemme tell you that. I am one giant Muppet flail right now. But “Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980” is 31% funded as of the uploading of this blog post. I am beyond thrilled that we’ve come so far. Of course, I’m nervous as hell that we won’t make it. I just gotta believe in this passion project of mine.

The Husband wrote his own blog post for our launch that I didn’t see until it went live. It made me feel a little sappy (Facebook link). I have the best husband ever!

Also, I have a post over on Cat Rambo’s blog, “On Eating Frog Legs and White Asparagus.” It’s all about me learning to be fearless when encountering foreign food while I lived in Belgium.

As I’ve said before, this project is near and dear to my heart. I’m excited to be able to send you my epistolary story and to bring joy to your mailboxes. Yes, actual snail mail that’s not spam, bills, or politics! Keep spreading the word. I know we can make it to $5,000 and I hope we get to unlock some fun stuff for everyone with our stretch goals.

“Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980” is a cozy, middle grade-appropriate, ghost story, loosely based on fictionalized me at ten years old while living in a 300-year-old manor house in Belgium. The story will be told through 24 physical letters (already written) over a one-year period. This is the kind of odd project I could never sell traditionally, so I’m rolling up my sleeves and doing it myself. Won’t you be my penpal?

Leeloo is waiting for you to support her servant so her servant can get back to servant duties…

The holiday season is upon us. Gift giving can be stressful or fun or both. If you want to get signed and/or personalized books from me, but haven’t seen me at one of my in-person events, I’ve got a solution for you. One that will work all year round and for any of my new physical book releases!

Introducing Brick & Mortar Books (Redmond, WA). They are a wonderful and friendly indie bookstore that is close to me that works with willing and available local authors to get signed/personalized books. Whether or not a book is physically at the store, as long as it is available through their site, customers can place orders and either have the book(s) shipped to their address or held for pickup at the store. All the books go through Brick & Mortar Books proper first before they’re shipped out or held, so the signing process is the same for local and long distance orders.

Once you decide on the book(s) you want, there is a Notes field available when customers place orders through the store’s website where they can indicate if they want their copy signed and/or any personalization requests. Once Brick & Mortar Books has the book(s) they will contact me and arrange a time for me to come in and sign/personalize the books. 

If you don’t see the book you want on the website, you can call or email the bookstore and request it. They will take it from there. Signed books sorted! Please support your indie and local bookstores.

There are many, many projects in progress even if it seems calm above the surface of the water. You know I'm padding like hell underneath.

Article: Stop Multitasking by Cat Rambo. I say “Multitasking is doing many things badly.”

Classes: You know that I teach online classes at the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, right? Did you know the academy has a long list of on-demand classes?

Release: Shadowrun: The Kilimanjaro Run ebook novella. YA Shadowrun goodness set in Tanzania! The Transporter meets E.T. in the Sixth World.

Release: The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek ebook. First time in ebook format. Just in time for spooky season!

Laud the Artist: This Ukrainian artist, Kateryna Shelyhina (SeaStainedGlass on Etsy), has some of the most beautiful works of art I’ve ever seen.

Shout out: Fabulous Raven Oak has a new kickstarter. The Bell Ringer is filled with holiday stories and art written and drawn by her!

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

Surprise Book Release! Technically, it is on the 21st of the month but everything just kinda happened. I knew this was coming. We’d planned it. But, with Gen Con and all of my projects landing at once, it slipped off the radar. Of all the balls I’m juggling right now, this one isn’t too bad to recover from.

TL;DR: New flash fiction collection from me (Jennifer) called The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek is available to order! It also includes my flash fiction chapbook Mastication. Not only that, The Karen Wilson Chronicles will be on sale for $2.99 from Saturday (9/16) at 1 am PST until Midnight PST on Thursday (9/21).

How this came about...

From 2014 to 2015, Jennifer Brozek wrote an “Author Story Card” for every convention she went to. On one side would be a piece of flash fiction: The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek: [Convention Name Year]. On the other side was a list of her currently available books and a QR code on where to find them. They were free for the taking and were a huge hit.

(A fact that still occasionally disturbs the author.)

With this edition, all of the convention story cards have been gathered up into a single collection, for the first time in ebook format. It debuted in the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium limited-edition ebook bundle to benefit Symposium writers and programs. Now it is available for you to enjoy.

Also included is Jennifer Brozek’s chapbook, Mastication. A chapbook created for Gen Con 2009 in an act born from desperation and a lack of experience because none of her books arrived in time to be sold at the convention.

(Aug 22 update - It's live and in the wild now!)

My fourth YA Shadowrun novella, The Kilimanjaro Run (Amazon link), is available for pre-order right now and will be released on August 22nd. I had so much fun with this novella. I think this cover (by Jori Bolton) is one of my favorite to date. It is so good. I mean, see for yourself.

Pre-Order Shadowrun: The Kilimanjaro Run here from your favorite ebook shop. (Books2Read link)

AN UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE…
Charlotte lives with her expatriate family in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. While visiting her best friend Neema, a hippopotamus shaman, a commotion next door interrupts their weekend plans. Neema’s older cousin has been arrested, leaving her younger cousin Elijah responsible for a “job.” Charlotte insists on helping Elijah complete what seems like a simple task: drop off a car in a parking lot. Simple, easy, and doesn’t piss off the wrong people, right? Reluctantly, Neema agrees, and they set off.

On the road, they get a message from BlotterBabe, a known fixer, that they aren’t just delivering a car—they’re perpetrating a horrendous crime. Together, the trio must make a choice to do the job as they were told—and keep their cousin out of trouble with the worst of society—or do the right thing.

In the end, there is no choice. Charlotte, Neema, and Elijah do the only thing they can do: make a run for it…and hope they’re not too late to save a strange visitor to their world…not to mention themselves.

“The Kilimanjaro Run is a wildly entertaining story that takes us on a supernatural road trip from the urban sprawl of Dar es Salaam to the rocky slopes of Africa’s tallest mountain with a motley and lovable group of characters. It’s thoughtful, it’s fun, it’s The Transporter meets E.T. set in the fascinating world of Shadowrun served with a healthy portion of its own special sauce. Readers are in for a good time.” ~Wole Talabi (author of Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon)

I had the great joy of writing a mosaic novel for the FiveFold Universe called Tear of Perseus. It is a single story told across 300 years from six different points of view along the timeline. I wrote the first one, Truumeel’s Light. It includes the first part of Kevin J. Anderson’s Gateway series that is told throughout all the novellas.

Is This the End of Humankind, or the Beginning of Something New?
Humanity spread to the stars as soon as they broke the FTL limit, but a thousand lightyears weren’t enough to separate them from their natures. As a series of small incidents lead Earth and its colonies toward a galactic civil war, it’s up to people and AIs of good intent to pull us back from the brink.

But what if it’s already too late? As the super artificial intelligences sound the death knell of the galaxy, a few humans and machines struggle against the tide, to save their ship, their farm, their families, and their cause. In humanity’s darkest hour, the lives of a few heroes might make the difference, or serve as an epitaph for our species.

Buy it today to find out how we survived and if the beings that emerged from the nuclear fire were worth saving. Features an additional foreword by D.J. Bodden and three short stories not included in the individual novellas.

Tears of Perseus is one cohesive story told in six parts by six authors:

Truumeel's Light: A high-risk first-landing on an unsettled world.
Falk's Claim: A retired cybernetic soldier defending his claim against offworlders.
Mercia's Hammer: A daring prison escape, striking a blow for freedom in the colonies.
Metzler's Mistake: A final mission given to the Federal Fleet's craftiest admiral.
Raden's End: A surprise attack from a new enemy, forcing old foes to fight together.
Halloway's Charge: A choice to turn on each other or rise together from the ashes.

Written by Jennifer Brozek (Shadowrun, Battletech), Kevin Steverson (Salvage Title, 4HU), William Alan Webb (The Last Brigade, 4HU), D.J. Bodden (FiveFold Universe, Viridian Gate Online), Kevin J. Anderson (Star Wars, Dune), and Kevin McLaughlin (Starship Satori, 4HU), this omnibus combines life in the third millennium with all the space, air, and land high-tech combat you can handle.

Wrapping up stuff that happened at the end of 2022 and started this year. Releases, reviews, and interviews!

Miscellaneous: I finally made a linktr.ee site. https://linktr.ee/JenniferBrozek Just cause.

Release: My new FiveFold Universe novella, Truumeel’s Light, has been released!

Review: Review of Truumeel’s Light. They like it. Yay!

Review: A lovely compliment about me as a BattleTech author. Sometimes all you need is a brief, unexpected compliment to make an author’s day so much better.

Release: My latest Shadowrun YA novelle! Shadowrun: Unrepairable. This is my third standalone YA Shadowrun novella. Gotta tell you, things don't look good for the home team in this one.

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

Video Interview: This was on GenConTV with Rem Alternis interviewing the entire FiveFold Universe author crew. It was good fun.

Per usual, I like to round up the year to see what I accomplished as an author, editor, and media tie-in writer. This year was a bit unusual. Year three of the pandemic and I knew I needed more rest than normal because of the general trauma of it all. Between that and anniversaries of my parents’ deaths and a whole host of other things, I structured the year a bit differently.

First, the cold hard numbers…

• New words written: 94,100.
• Words edited (for me and others): 342,000
• Works submitted: 13
  • Acceptances: 10 (76.9%)
  • Rejections: 1 (7.7%)
  • Still out: 2 (15.3%)
• New works published: 1 novel, 2 novellas, 8 short stories, 1 anthology, and 2 books re-released (1 fiction collection, 1 novel)

New words written thoughts: For the first time in a very long time, I wrote less than 100K new words in a year. When I first saw the numbers, I was startled and a little upset. Then I thought about the three month writing break I put in the middle of the year because I needed it. Then I looked at how much I had edited: 2 novellas, 1 novel, and 2 anthologies. That was where my time went and why my “new words” number seemed low to me.

Sometimes authors put too much emphasis on quantity over quality. It’s a bit like watching the scale and wondering why you’re not losing pounds while you are lifting weights and gaining muscle mass even as your waist line shrinks. I keep track of the numbers to tell myself about how I worked and what affected me where. Travel, grief, other work, teaching classes. All of it counts. This is why I keep track of everything I do in a day. I can always tell when I had to stop and spend an hour looking at a contract rather than writing. Or when the words wouldn’t come because I was grieving. My Freelancer Summary is invaluable to me. I’ve had enough people ask me about it that I’ve created a blank 2023 RTF document for people to download and use as they will. (Direct Download Link.)

This was an excellent year for submissions for me. I don’t think I’ve had such a high acceptance rate before and that makes me feel good. I like to get my short fiction out there. I like it more when it is accepted. I will never get over the rush I get at an acceptance.

New works published: I had a Shadowrun novel, Elfin Black, and a Shadowrun novella, Unrepairable, published along with a FiveFold Universe space opera novella, Truumeel’s Light, published. Then there were the two re-releases: Apocalypse Girl Dreaming and Last Days of Salton Academy. Also, I’m quite proud of the anthology, The Reinvented Heart, I co-edited with Cat Rambo. Yeah, 2022 was a good publication year.

I’ve forced myself to take an actual break for the last two weeks of 2022. It’s been good but weird. Part of me is desperate to rest. Part of me is desperate to get back to work. I think 2023 is going to be interesting in a good way and I’m looking forward to it. There’s a lot to think about and a lot to plan for. However, that is for 2023 Jennifer to deal with. 2022 Jennifer is in “potato” mode. In the meantime, I’ve got a fiendish puzzle from my sister to work on.

Thank you to every single one of you who reads me and enjoys my work.
I hope you have had a lovely holiday season and I wish you the brightest new year.