the league of reluctant adults

So if you haven't heard by now, the CarniePunk anthology officially has a cover and a release date of July 2013! Featuring several of our own Leaguers, we've got some delicious short urban fantasy stories for you to read! A star-studded urban fantasy anthology featuring bestselling authors Rachel Caine, Rob Thurman, Seanan McGuire, Jennifer Estep, and Kevin Hearne, whose stories explore the creepy, mysterious, and, yes, sometimes magical world of traveling carnivals. The traveling carnival is a leftover of a bygone era, a curiosity lurking on the outskirts of town. It is a place of contradictions—the bright lights mask the peeling paint; a carnie in greasy overalls slinks away from the direction of the Barker’s seductive call. It is a place of illusion—is that woman’s beard real? How can she live locked in that watery box? And while many are tricked by sleight of hand, there are hints of something truly magical going on. One must remain alert and learn quickly the ...

I can't tell you exactly how the word Zaomancer first popped into my head, but I can give you a good idea. Usually those moment of character creation happen very much on the back burner for me. Eric Courtney, from my Void City series, came from some point between High School and college when I was playing in a friend's roleplaying game. Eric's mad, murderous daughter Greta just showed up on the page as I wrote, but the protagonist of my new novella happened on a three-way call one afternoon. I'd just heard about the death of a very cool guy in fandom. Giving his name might be a little disrespectful as I'd just met him and spoken with him for all of thirty minutes (valuable minutes I hope readers will find once they see the epic fantasy I've had lurking on my WIP list for the past several years). My friend Rob and I were talking about random stuff and my friend Richard cursed. "What's wrong?" I asked "I have to resurrect a database," h...

Cross-posted from the Thrillionth page... So, as I told everybody in tarnation on Wednesday, Mr. Real got an awesome new cover! And now I’m not going to use it!! Not the new cover anymore! I was so excited about the cover, too! Because the angsty guy image captured the sweaty and muscular and tortured nature of my athletic hero, Paul. My fabulous designer and I were so psyched to find him. ( Su of Earthly Charms , who I can’t recommend enough! She is amazing!) We got the angsty guy image from a royalty-free stock site, where you look for pictures you like and then pay for the rights to use them. It’s where pretty much everyone who doesn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a live model shoot or exclusive custom art or photography gets their images. The thing is, different people can pay to use the same photo. That’s why you often see the same images on different books. And why you see funny posts like this one that my naughty friend Ch...

Where have I been? Trying to stay alive, brothers and sisters. Big secret project numbero uno: Working on the next Felix Gomez story. To be published as an ebook, soon. Title: Rescue from Planet Pleasure Big secret numbero dos: My YA novel, t he University of Doom, with its own website, ribbed for your viewing pleasure . Depending on the breaks, expect the manuscript to to be published with fanfare worthy of the Second Coming! Or as an ebook. I'm juicing the buzz with these Lego videos.

I've been so excited about THE HALLOWED ONES, the debut YA novel by author and pal Laura Bickle featuring an Amish heroine fighting terrifying vampires. And yesterday was her release day! And today she's here.   A bit about the book:  Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers can get a taste of the real world. But the real world comes to her in this dystopian tale with a philosophical bent. Rumors of massive unrest on the “Outside” abound. Something murderous is out there. Amish elders make a rule: No one goes outside, and no outsiders come in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man, she can’t leave him to die. She smuggles him into her family’s barn—at what cost to her community? The suspense of this vividly told, truly horrific thriller will keep the pages turning. Welcome, Laura!  CC: Laura, first, congratulations on the great reviews! All I hear is that it’s just riveting...

Several of us (including my fellow Leaguers Kevin Hearne, Mark Henry, Jackie Kessler, Allison Pang, Nicole Peeler, and Jaye Wells) have been sitting on this news for a few months now, and it's finally time to spill the beans! From Publisher's Marketplace: Fiction: Sci-Fi/Fantasy: CARNIEPUNK, an anthology which combines the carnival setting and the world of urban fantasy, a place of deception, where monsters wait silently in the dark, featuring short stories by authors Rachel Caine , Jennifer Estep, Seanan McGuire , Rob Thurman , Delilah Dawson, Kelly Gay, Kevin Hearne, Mark Henry, Hillary Jacques, Jackie Kessler, Kelly Meding, Allison Pang, Nicole Peeler and Jaye Wells, to Adam Wilson at Pocket , for publication in August 2013, by Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media . I'm so excited to be part of this anthology with so many other amazing authors!  And the concept was a lot of fun to work with.  My story is called "Freak House" and is s...

Hey everybody! I've invited my lovely author pal Jeffe to guest post for me, not just because I'm in deadline hell, but because she is funny and an awesome writer, even though I'll have you know I have never been a cheerleader as she implies, and in fact, was soundly rejected from both cheerleading and pom-pom girls. Sending me on a sad downward spiral that ended here. At the league. And now, allow me to hand it over to Jeffe, who has agreed to join us in our writerly abyss.  Hi and welcome Jeffe Kennedy! ************************** When fabulous author, friend and CP, Carolyn Crane, invited me to guest post here today, I confess I got all a-dither about it. It’s like the head cheerleader, who’s a really nice person and is willing to talk to me in English class, invited me to come sit with the Popular Kids at lunch. What do I wear? What do I say?? I mean, I’m not a shlep. I blog quite a bit. But I wanted to say something interesting, relev...

Today we welcome friend of the League and awesome urban fantasy author Suzanne McLeod to dish about her upcoming release, THE SHIFTING PRICE OF PREY. And look--she brought cupcakes, candy and bacon! I guess we'll have to forgive her now for her very odd (read: British) spelling habits.  # Hello, and thanks to Jaye and the Leaguers for having me over to visit. Like any good guest I come bearing delicious sugary comestibles! Food is something I like to have fun with— no, I don’t mean in that way! And don’t give me those innocent looks; I know what y’all are like over here. *g* Right, back to food and having fun . . . in the writerly way, which for me is when what a character likes to eat (or read, or wear, or whatever) is the result of deep authorly reflections on worldbuilding and hours of internet procrastination, err, I mean, research! So first up, bacon! Mmmmm . . . Bacon . . . Well, it’ll come as no surprise to fellow bacon lovers that Genny...