Greetings!
Some news and announcements to start off:
I’ve signed contracts with Curiosity Quills to publish The Harmony Paradox (sequel to Virtual Immortality), and Dead Man’s Number (Book 3 of the Roadhouse Chronicles). Release dates have not been set yet (at least not that I am aware). The first book in the Roadhouse Chronicles series (One More Run) is due to release December 2016.
Also, my next release is nine days away – The Far Side of Promise, is an anthology of my short stories due out on the 14th of November. This collection is the result of a combination of my overactive imagination and a suggestion from CQ. Back in 2014, they put out a call for short story submissions for the Chronology antho. At the time, I hadn’t done much in the way of short story writing, but I decided to give it a go.
I sat down and tried to think of a story idea… and got a pile of them. Being on the indecisive side, I wound up writing all of them and sending them all in. Lisa from CQ remarked that I sent them so many stories they should print an anthology of just mine. (Which we wound up doing).
Initially, Emma and the Banderwigh was a short story included in this batch. One of my beta readers adored it so much they asked me to expand on it and turn it into a full novel. While CQ was processing all the short story submissions for the Chronology antho, I wound up doing that and wrote the novelized form of Banderwigh.
I spent about a week or so hemming and hawing about having both a short story form and novel form of Banderwigh, and I ultimately decided to drop the short story from the Far Side of Promise anthology and replace it with something else. I batted around ideas for other short stories, but one concept kept coming back to the forefront. I wound up writing Innocent Deception to replace the Emma and the Banderwigh short, and sent it to CQ fully expecting it to be too late for Chronology, and as part of my antho.
Turns out, CQ liked Innocent Deception the most, and that’s the story that got in to Chronology alongside quite a few other wonderful writers (including Piers Anthony).
The Far Side of Promise antho has been in production for quite some time. Due to that, more of the stories within it wound up getting made into full novels. One More Run started off as a short story, but a fellow CQ author, Will Stanton read it and suggested that I expand that concept into a novel. (If you like post apocalyptic fiction, check out his book – The Artful),
Initially, I novelized One More Run starting where the short story left off… but beta readers had some confusion issues, and it didn’t seem right to send people hunting for the short story to read before the novel… so I wound up putting the short story into the front end of the novel.
Daughter of Mars (a short story in FSOP) grew into The Hand of Raziel (book one of the Daughter of Mars series.)
(A similar situation arose with Innocent Deception when CQ asked me to write more in that setting.) The novel Heir Ascendant is a continuation of the short story, but the short is embedded at the front of the book so people who haven’t seen Chronology (or Far Side of Promise) get the whole story.
Other things
I’m offering signed paperbacks of The Summer the World Ended for a limited time at $10 each (plus $3 shipping). For more information, please email me at mcox2112 (gmail).
Emma and the Silk Thieves (Book 2 of Tales of Widowswood) is done with proofreading and on its way into the production queue for a January 2017 release date. The third book in the series (Emma and the Silverbell Faeries) is currently with CQ’s beta reader.
That’s about all I can think of as being new for the time being…
Happy reading all 🙂
-Matt
