Murder at Avedon Hill Ep. 42 – Chapter 42 and 43

0:00 – Intro

• DYH “Network ID” – Michael Spence
• Intro Chatter
  • Welcome to the final episode of the MaAH podcast novel!
  • We’re jumping right into the narrative. You’ve waited long enough.

(more…)

MaAH Special Edition: Parsec Finalist Mur Lafferty

As promised, I decided to interview the other four finalists in the Best Audio Drama Long Form Category at this year’s Parsec Awards. While I’m ultimately hoping to sabotage all of my competitors by getting them to admit to something horrible… like drinking Miller Lite… or kicking puppies… I’m afraid all I’m really good at is making sure people learn more about these wonderful creators.

Here is the second of my four interviews, this one with Mur Lafferty creator and writer of The Takeover. (Yes, I kn0w at the beginning of the interview I say this is the LAST interview. I’ll be releasing more interviews between now and Dragon*Con).

Mur Lafferty is one of my heroes, as you know, and we talk about The Takeover, about Her Side (the fiction/photography collaboration with the incomparable J.R. Blackwell), the Heaven Series, World Con, and The Parsec Awards.

Enjoy!

Music: Grande Rue De Pera – Ruben van Rompaey, courtesy of Magnatune.com

Promo: The Takeover

Promo: Tales of the Children

Short story in The Sovereign Era: Year One

Matthew Wayne Selznick wrote a wonderful novel called Brave Men Run. In fact, it was the first podcast novel I listened to when I started listening to podcasts back in 2006. In June of 2008 (if I remember right) Matt asked if I would write a short story for a live web-a-thon he was planning to do the day of his book release. I was so excited I wrote a first draft that was almost 10,000 words… hmm… he wanted 3-4K. Oh well.

I edited it down to 5-6K, I believe. It was definitely the longest story in the web-a-thon (Matt read seven stories I believe during his live show). I was very happy with the response I received from people about the story.

Flash forward to Friday, April 10th. The text that follows if from Matt’s website:

I’m very pleased to announce the release of “The Sovereign Era: Year One,” an anthology of seven tales written by authors who are pretty well known in certain circles — folks like J. C. Hutchins, Mur Lafferty, P. G. Holyfield, Nathan Lowell, Matt Wallace, J. R. Blackwell and Jared Axelrod!

This collection has its origin in the all-day web-a-thon I produced on the occasion of the Swarm Press release of “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” On that day, I read each of these stories live on streaming video… but they’ve never been seen in print until now.

As of right now, the collection is available on this site in a bundle of eight DRM-free e-book formats and from Amazon.com for the Kindle. Soon enough, it will also be available in paperback in every online bookstore you’d care to patronize. To be honest, if you like e-books, I encourage you to purchase it in that format, since the authors involved stand to earn more of a percentage from each e-book sale.

In “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights,” we’re seeing a little of what happened in the months before the Sovereign Era began. The Sovereign Era’s beginnings are depicted in “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” I hope you’ll purchase “The Sovereign Era: Year One” and take in seven different glimpses into how things went in the months that followed. On behalf of the authors and cover artist Jeffrey Himmelman, I thank you very much!

For those of you that haven’t read Brave Men Run, it feels like a teen movie mixed with a superhero novel… The Breakfast Club and X-Men all rolled into one. Please go check out the anthology, and listen to or read Brave Men Run.

As for The Sovereign Era: Year One – electronic versions are already available for the book, and the print version should be out in a few days!

And the winners are…

I held my drawing this evening during a live stream on Stickam. We gave out fifteen prizes to people that supported me and Murder at Avedon Hill this weekend during the Amazon Rush. I wish I could have given everyone a prize, but as it is I believe I spent more on prizes than I will probably make in royalties

People who purchased a print version, a Kindle version, and/or wrote reviews on Amazon and sent me an email about it were entered. Here are the winners (and what they won), based on numbers called out by my Vanna White in the Chatroom, Mistress Jett!

Rob Stauffer – MaAH Mousepad
Joe Mieczkowski – MaAH Mousepad
Kristin Mayo – Signed copy of Murder at Avedon Hill
Tim Dodge – The Rookie signed by Scott Sigler
Shawn Murphy – POD version of Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps
Beth Case – MaAH Mousepad
Cathy Monblatt – MaAH Mousepad
Cliff Lowe – POD version of Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps
Kevin Crosby – Signed copy of Murder at Avedon Hill
Michell Plested – Samson CH700 Headphones
Paul Fischer – MaAH Mousepad
Scott Roche – MaAH Mousepad
Terri Flynstress – Signed copy of Murder at Avedon Hill
Ed Parrot – Matthew Wayne Selznick prize pack – BMR, The Sovereign Era- Year One, Anyman: The John Smith EP from CD Baby.
Michael Spence – Framed Study, acrylic/water color, the initial painting that was a test for the original POD cover of Murder at Avedon Hill.

A lot of these folks will be at Balticon, so they’ll get their prizes there. The rest will have their prizes sent to them through the mail. Congrats to those that won prizes; you made this weekend an unforgettable one for me, that’s for sure!