MGOC Editor Event: Heidi Ruby Miller at Frostburg Creative Writing Center

Gerry LeFemina, Michelle Yost, and Nina Forsythe honored Many Genres, One Craft co-editor Heidi Ruby Miller as the guest at their May Coffee with an Author at Frostburg State University's Creative Writing Center. Contributor Jason Jack Miller was also in attendance.

Heidi read from "The Surrender," a flash piece originally published at Every Day Fiction then picked up for the 2008 Best of Every Day Fiction anthology; Ambasadora, her thesis novel from Seton Hill's Writing Popular Fiction program; and "The Islands of Hope," a short story originally published in Fantasist Enterprises' Sails and Sorcery anthology and recently resold to Galaxy's Edge, edited by Mike Resnick.


This July Heidi will be teaching Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror at the Nightsun Writers, four-day literary conference and workshop sponsored by Frostburg State University.

For more information about Nightsun and Frostburg State, please visit them online:
http://www.frostburg.edu/cwcenter/workshops/nightsun-writers-conference/

Support the Fridge of the Damned and Get Instigation Prompts

Many Genres editor Michael Arnzen has combined forces with indie publisher Raw Dog Screaming Press and horror flash fiction site Microhorror.com to launch a Kickstarter campaign to make The Fridge of the Damned -- a twisted refrigerator magnet poetry set -- a reality. Help fund the fridge and get some fun word magnets to mess with...and an ebook filled with offbeat writing prompts (Arnzen's trademarked "Instigation") to inspire your fiction! Pledges need to be received before February 1st, so don't delay.

MGOC Contributor: Penny Dawn

PENNY DAWN

EXCERPT from "eFabulous: Publishing in a Paperless World" by Penny Dawn in Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction

In the early 80s, the Betamax went the way of the dinosaur. For those of you who weren't around to witness the war between Beta and VHS, these were home video media, predecessors of the Laserdisc (an obscure, LP-sized video alternative the size and shape of a frozen pizza). The Laserdisc, while wildly popular in Japan, didn't hold consumer interest in the United States, and was replaced by hip, smaller DVDs, at a time the word Blu-Ray might have conjured images of marine life. With the emergence of internet streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, the Blu-Ray may soon find itself a shell on a sandy shore, too. You have to roll with the changes, baby.

It's easier said than done. I confess I still house my collection of original Disney masterpieces on VHS, as well as the platinum, anniversary releases on DVD. And while working in the field of home interiors, I still design, upon request, entertainment centers housing slide-out shelves for these bulky dust-collectors. Yet there will come a time when even the few lingering, diehard fans of these should-be-bones-by-now media will eventually forfeit their relics for one reason: no one produces VCRs anymore. Nothing lasts forever.

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Penny Dawn is the author of seven novels, seventeen eBooks, and countless poems and trade articles. She teaches her craft at two colleges in the Chicago suburbs, volunteers at elementary school writing centers, and edits the work of hopeful writers through The Calliope. When she isn't writing, or teaching others to hone their ability to do so, she immerses herself in other passions: parenthood, the discipline of dance, home improvement, and her yellow lab. Visit her online at www.pennydawn.com.

MGOC Contributor News: Pictureless Books Videos

Many Genres, One Craft contributors Adrea L. Peters and Teffanie Thompson White, owners of Pictureless Books, just released some wonderful new videos:

Arnzen's New Book Features "How-To" Articles and Dark Prompts

A quick note from Many Genres co-editor, Mike Arnzen...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Many thanks to everyone who has read Many Genres, One Craft over the past six months, and who has been posting reviews, sharing comments, and sending feedback. As editors, Heidi and I are thrilled that the collection has received awards but it is even more rewarding to us to know that the book is making a difference in writers' lives.

I wanted to let you all know about something special in my newest book, The Gorelets Omnibus, which is a "collected works" volume of all my twisted horror poems from gorelets.com and elsewhere over the past decade. I'm proud of the book, which includes not only hundreds of pages of short-short horror poetry (reminiscent of the flash fiction from my book, 100 Jolts), but also -- available only in the special hardcover edition -- a variety of miscellaneous pieces that should inspire anyone who is interested in writing dark fiction or adding a little strangeness to their work.

For instance, there are five articles written by scholars from America and the UK, analyzing what makes the poems tick and what makes today's "new media" horror special. There is also a collection of "how to" articles on the crafting of horror poetry that I've published over the years. And -- perhaps best of all for the creative writers reading this -- this book includes the entire collection of my "Instigation" prompts from over the past ten years (including the impossible to find Instigation columns from Hellnotes magazine from years ago).

In other words: though it isn't apparent on the cover, the hardcover edition of this book hides a short-course from me in writing horror. If you're a horror/mystery/dark fantasy author, I think this book will prompt your dark imagination in ways you might appreciate, even if you have no interest in poetry. (Though look out, future Poes and Lovecrafts -- this collection might change your mind!)

End of the sales pitch. Go check it out at Raw Dog Screaming Press (if you act quick, you might be able to get a collector's item bonus for pre-ordering!) or sign up for my newsletter on gorelets.com for insight into what this book has to offer.

Welcome to Many Genres...

Welcome!

Now that we have turned the manuscript in to the publisher, it seems a fitting time to launch this weblog.  We're currently on schedule for a Spring release of MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction (Headline Books, 2011) -- an amazing anthology of instructional articles for fiction writers looking for advice on how to improve their writing and better navigate the mass market for genre novels.

Sure, lots of how-to books are out there already, offering to help writers improve.  Ours is different.  Here's what makes MANY GENRES unique:

• This book is like a genre writer's workshop in a bottle!  Every contributor to this book is a seasoned veteran in the industry or a hot new writer...and many are bestsellers who have won multiple literary awards for their potent and entertaining genre fiction.
  
  
• But more than that, these contributors know how to teach genre fiction. They are all trained teachers, visiting authors, or published alums from the MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program offered by Seton Hill University -- the only grad school dedicated to writing commercially-viable genre novels of quality.
  
  (But this is no stuffy textbook...MANY GENRES is full of chatty advice from writers who love to tell stories in their genres, and are passionate about passing on their practical wisdom and strategies for success.)






• The book is a hefty volume, with over 130,000 words devoted to genre fiction writing.  It is divided into three parts, with an average of 20 articles about each:  CRAFT, GENRE, and THE WRITER'S LIFE:

• The GENRE section includes an array of articles about each popular genre in the marketplace:  romance, Women's fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense thriller, mystery, children's and young adult.  There are even articles on manga to magic realism, short fiction to media tie-in books.  And broader discussions of genre, the marketplace and originality. Whether you want to specialize in one genre, write for several, or develop cross-genre hybrid fiction, this book will help.
• The CRAFT section looks at each element of fiction (character, plot, setting, etc.) with plenty of examples from genre texts, with smart tips on how to revise and self-edit in order to satisfy editors in the commercial marketplace. 
• The section on THE WRITER'S LIFE offers practical advice on how to maximize your genre writing career, with essays on learning (workshops, grad school, research), working (time management, finding an agent, landing a teaching job) and promoting (reviews, press release, guerilla marketing, and genre conventions).  

• The scope of the book is stunningly wide, with articles ranging from "How to Get an Agent" to "The Element of Surprise in Horror, Thriller and Mystery fiction" to "Put a Little Love in Your Plot."  You'll learn about how to craft great opening lines, how to handle "alpha male" characters, and how to run a Virtual Book Tour...and much more. To get a better sense of all that you can learn from this remarkable book, read a sneak preview of the table of contents on scribd.com.
• The book's 60+ contributors are the voices you trust from the bestseller lists and new writers with something fresh to say about the unique needs for the genre marketplace today.  Chances are good you'll recognize one of these names, but if you don't, you will.  Keep coming back to this page to learn more.  Here's the full and final list of our contributing writers: 

Michael A. Arnzen Rebecca Baker Shelley Bates Michael Bracken Gary A. Braunbeck Crystal B. Bright Jennifer Brisendine Sally Bosco Christopher Paul Carey Ginger Clark Lawrence C. Connolly David J. Corwell Susan Crandall Kaye Dacus Penny Dawn John DeChancie C. Coco DeYoung Matt Duvall Natalie Duvall Ron Edison Elaine Ervin Timons Esaias Tess Gerritsen Venessa Giunta Leslie Davis Guccione Anne Harris W.H. Horner Lee Allen Howard KJ Howe Russ Howe Scott A. Johnson Nancy Kress Chun Lee

Patrice Lyle Susan Mallery Dana Marton Lee McClain Mike Mehalek Sharon Mignerey Barbara Miller Heidi Ruby Miller Jason Jack Miller Mary Ann Mogus Thomas F. Monteleone David Morrell Catherine Mulvany Nicole Peeler Adrea Peters Patrick Picciarelli Steven Piziks Rachael Pruitt Lynn Salsi Mary SanGiovanni David Shifren Randall Silvis Lucy A. Snyder Maria V. Snyder Victoria Thompson Diane Turnshek Tim Waggoner Albert Wendland Teffanie Thompson White Karen Lynn Williams Ryan M. Williams K. Ceres Wright

Bookmark or follow this page. And tell your writer and teacher friends. We've got a LOT planned for this website in the months leading up to the official launch of MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT in bookstores, including author features, excerpts, news about workshops in your area, and more!

***

About the Editors

Michael A. Arnzen is a college teacher by day and a horror writer by night. He has been educating novelists since 1999 as faculty in the Writing Popular Fiction graduate program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA, where he is currently Chair of the Humanities. Arnzen's energetic workshops on genre fiction writing have been popular at Odyssey, Alpha, World Horror Convention, Context, Pennwriters and the Horror Writers Association's annual Stoker Weekend event. His often funny, always disturbing horror stories have won four Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild award, and several "Year's Best" accolades. The best of his short work is collected in Proverbs for Monsters, which won the Stoker award in 2007. Always exploring new media, Arnzen has experimented with flash fiction (100 Jolts), musically-enhanced readings (Audiovile), short film (Exquisite Corpse), and twitter poetry before there was a twitter (Gorelets), in addition to his horror novels (Grave Markings, Play Dead). To see what he's up to now, subscribe to The Goreletter: an award-winning newsletter of the bizarre, hilarious, and pithy -- which features creative writing prompts for other writers of the strange -- available free at http://gorelets.com.

After obtaining undergraduate degrees in Anthropology and Geography with specialties in Spanish and Tourism, Heidi Ruby Miller pursued several career paths, just not at the same time, including contract archaeology, foreign currency exchange at Walt Disney World, secondary foreign language teacher, and Educational Marketing Director for a Frank Lloyd Wright House. Now she is adjunct faculty at Seton Hill University, where she graduated from their Writing Popular Fiction graduate program the same month she appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Her fiction is in various print and online publications. Among them are: "The Islands of Hope" in Sails and Sorcery: Tales of Nautical Fantasy (Fantasist Enterprises Ed. by W. H. Horner), "The Surrender" in Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 (Ed. by Jordan Lapp, Camille Gooderham Campbell, and Steven Smethurst), “Mr. Johnson’s Boy” and "Sounds in the Jungle" in Eye Contact. Her spy thriller Atomic Zion is available at Amazon.com. She is a member of The Authors Guild, Pennwriters, and the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Visit Heidi's weblog for news and inspiration.

To learn more about Seton Hill University's unique MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, visit http://fiction.setonhill.edu. A weblog of news about SHU writers is available on the WPF Livejournal and the Asylum of WPF Bloggers. posted by mike