Banned Books Week

It's Banned Books Week (September 21-27.)  From the American Library Association website for banned books:

Over this recent past decade, 5,099* challenges were reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom.

• 1,577 challenges due to "sexually explicit" material;
• 1,291 challenges due to "offensive language";
• 989 challenges due to materials deemed "unsuited to age group";
• 619 challenged due to "violence"' and
• 361 challenges due to "homosexuality."

Further, 274 materials were challenged due to "occult" or "Satanic" themes, an additional 291 were challenged due to their "religious viewpoint," and 119 because they were "anti-family."

As a reader, my first response when I hear about people trying to ban books is of course, go fuck yourself, you can't tell me what to do.  But as a writer, I think how nice it must be to have someone so outraged by something you've created that they take it upon themselves to try and prevent other people from reading your work.

And I'm not talking about writing a bad review because you didn't like a book, or telling your friends not to bother reading it, but actively trying to stop every other person from reading what they might enjoy specifically because you object to the content (likely without reading it in the first place.)

I'm sure that the authors whose names end up on these lists didn't set out to write something controversial, but I tip my hat to them anyway.  If you're pissing off some close-minded person, you're probably doing something right.

More death!

It's been awhile since I posted a hit, so here's a new one and now I'm back to work on book three.  I'll have more updates on the spinoff in the near future.

Bake him all the pies!

I just have to share this, and give a shoutout to supergirl (as seen here*)

who loved the Chance Assassin series so she Mailed.  Me.  A.  Pie.  Georgia peach, a la Maggie Evans.  And Snickers.  And gummy bears.

In bubble wrap so it wouldn't fall apart all over the box

Excuse me while I go run around on a massive sugar (and sheer joy) high.  Kaesha dearest, you rock.  Even if your face is half green on webcam.

*not really supergirl, it's a meme with art originally from Hyperbole and a Half, which you should totally check out.

And now for something completely different...

Okay, not completely different but it's always nice to reference Monty Python.

Anyway, I've been hard at work on this spinoff book, which I'm really excited about.  I was planning to get book three of Chance Assassin out beforehand, but things haven't turned out that way.  This character popped up out of nowhere while I was working on Les Recidivists and he did end up in the book just briefly.  Then the first draft of this spinoff was done within a few months of publishing Les Recidivists, and now it's getting a couple additional changes before it'll be off to beta readers.

There are a few minor spoilers here about Les Recidivists, so if you haven't read it you may want to turn back now.

This character appears as an anonymous sniper in Les Recidivists.  He has origins within the assassination empire that Angelo Silva helped form, but unlike Frank or Bella, he didn't start out as a criminal.   His story takes place mostly during the interim between the books of the Chance Assassin series, and it's a bit different than my usual as it's told in two mostly linear narratives.

That's all I'm giving away now, but it will almost certainly be out later this year.  I'll keep you updated once I have an official title and all the rest of it.  Until then...I must get back to killing.  Frank and Vincent have a whole book to work through.  :)

It's that time of year again

It's summer.  Blue skies, warm weather, feeling like you're in a FUCKING OVEN ALL THE TIME.  Yes, I hate summer.  A lot. 

I moved to Oregon because I was promised 280 days of clouds a year.  280 days.  I feel totally ripped off.  Another major thing I hate about the summer is my birthday.  Another year older, another year closer to spinsterhood and owning six hundred cats.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I'm actually looking forward to it in a way.  I will be an awesome old lady.

See?  They love me already!  I only need 598 more of them to be complete!

Getting to the point, to celebrate my birthday Les Recidivists will be free this weekend (July 26-27) so please pick up a copy at Amazon.com if you haven't already.  I'll just be over here eating massive amounts of ice cream cake.

Ask the Author

So a couple of months ago Goodreads piloted this program called Ask the Author, where Goodreads members were given the opportunity to (you guessed it) ask authors questions about their latest books, writing in general, etc.  It's now been opened up to other authors as well, and it's a great opportunity for authors as well as for readers if you're into that sort of thing.  Your favorite authors may be answering questions now, and I personally love hearing from readers, so if anyone has questions that's a good place to do it.  And as always, I respond to comments on my blog as well.

Things I've learned about book covers

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but to a writer, the cover can be one of the most important aspects of publishing.  I'm fortunate enough to have very talented friends who are not only artists, but professional photographers.  They took this sketch

and transformed it into the cover for Chance Assassin.

Then they once again worked miracles and turned this unsightly atrocity

Aren't I so talented?

 into the cover for Les Recidivists.

Here are a few things I've personally learned about the cover art process

1)  It's a lot easier to paint a heart of fake blood on a wall than it is to paint it on two trees.  Trees do not like being painted with fake blood.

2)  Poison oak is bad news.

3)  Fake blood is edible* and biodegradable.

4)  Bryan and Vita Hewitt of Hewitt Photography can do anything.  Seriously.  If you're in the Marin/Sonoma region of Northern California, hire them.  For weddings, portraits, or bloody book covers.  You can contact them and view their website here.

* Edible is a matter of opinion