J. M. Levinton

When You Need It to Be Creepy – Guest Post Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin

• October 24, 2016
• Blog
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With Halloween coming up, who else to write a spooky post but a horror writer? Luckily, Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin, author of Snare, graciously agreed to offer her thoughts. Enjoy!

When You Need It to Be Creepy

 

Last night, flashlight in hand, I took our puppy Boomer for a walk. It was perfect Halloween weather, sharp and chill, with an edge of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Little yellow leaves blew across our path, pursued by the unseen. The ping! of acorns falling ricocheted everywhere in the dark. And the faulty aerator light in a nearby pond pulsed like a malignant sea creature.

To tell you the truth, I was relieved.

You see, the month leading to Halloween has always been magical for me. Why wouldn’t it be, for a writer of horror and other shadowy things? The fake cobwebs in bushes, the small ghosties fluttering from branches, the pumpkins with their evil grins—what’s not to love?

But it hadn’t been so this year. Don’t know why. Maybe a bunch of stresses were catching up. I was starting to get worried. After all, the Season of the Witch usually provides me with inspiration that lingers through the bleak winter. Did this mean I’d spend the next five or so cold gray months feeling like a flat landscape?

When my nephews were very young, my husband and I accompanied them on their trick-or-treating. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and people really got into decorating for Halloween. One house I’ll never forget had a long, winding driveway and a wooden bench set near it with jack-o’-lanterns, large spiders in fake webs, and a stuffed ghoul. But the ghoul stirred when you walked by. And it was a human stir that made you realize someone had been sitting there the whole time, watching, waiting, patiently stalking disbelief.

Thank goodness I found no such ghoul last night—it’s not quite Halloween yet and that would have been a little too weird even for me. But he came to mind in the gusty dark, as did memories of holding my nephews’ hands as they tried to understand what was real and what wasn’t. The fact that I was at last tingly watching Boomer sniff and jump at things I couldn’t see or hear made me feel all is well again. So did Cthulhu throbbing in the pond.

May your Halloween, dear friends, be filled with wonder and delicious shivers.

 

You can find Carrie at www.cvnelkin.com, on Twitter at @cvnelkin, and on Facebook (Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin, Author)

 

The Strange Side of the Writing Life

• October 17, 2016
• Blog
• 4 Comments

Author Carmel Berman Reingold told me this story years ago: She ran into a friend one day and they chatted a bit before the friend said, “Are you still writing?”

Carmel smiled sweetly and (thinking of her many magazine articles and books) replied, “Yes, I am.”

“Oh, that’s good,” the friend chirped. “As long as you’re keeping busy.”

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5 Authors Who Love Going Indie

• October 10, 2016
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Smoke: Tales Between Dark and Light

 

Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin

 

There’s a long, respected history of indie filmmakers and indie musicians. Now indie authors, too, can play with concepts that are on the edge. I love the ability to be a hybrid author—to traditionally publish some things while stretching into what is sometimes less-charted territory with other pieces. Indie entrepreneurship allows a collaboration that’s not always available otherwise. Our Penhead anthologies, Smoke and Hunger, arose from that kind of creative centrifuge.

 

J. M. Levinton

 

For me, there are two kinds of time to being an indie author. The first is obvious—my timeline is my own. How long it takes me to write and edit and work with the people to create a cover and paperback formatting—all this happens when I’m ready to do it. But the other kind of time, the time I’m saving, is the speed with which I publish. I don’t need to wait to find an agent or publisher and then wait a year or more before my book goes public. That freedom is what I love about being an indie author.

 

R.G. Emanuelle

 

There are advantages to being published traditionally, and having worked with several different houses, I know what those advantages are. But being an indie author gives you the freedom of doing what you feel is right for your book. I’m not impossible to please, but I do have strong feelings about things like layout, cover design, release dates, etc. As an indie author, I can make those decisions and work at my own pace to reach those goals. And, ultimately, I reap the majority of the rewards for my hard work.

 

Anne E. Wagenbrenner

 

I never set out to be an indie author. My vision was to travel the traditional route: traditional agent, traditional publisher. And, as a new author, I’m still trying to attain that. But I’m often tempted to ditch the whole traditional thing and go totally indie. The reason is this, and only this: Artistic freedom.

 

Arielle Prose

 

What I like about being an indie author is that you don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself—and maybe to your writer’s group if you have one, which can be an advantage to an indie writer. It’s an added bonus if you have a writer’s group that you trust. There are pros and cons to indie publishing, (read my fellow Penheads’ comments), but the element of trust is essential. And you don’t always have that with a publisher of your work, especially when you’re starting out. To me the biggest advantage to having a publisher rather than being a publisher is that the publisher already has an audience for you, presumably, whereas being an indie you have to do all the work of finding that audience.

 

Why do you love going indie?

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year to All who celebrate

• October 02, 2016
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There will be no blog post this week due to the holiday. In the meantime, I’m baking a honey cake, and please, if all you’ve ever tasted were the ones from the supermarket, find an easy recipe and make one. The difference is HUGE.

Can You Unplug For One Day?

• September 26, 2016
• Blog
• 4 Comments

Photo by FirmBee (Pixabay)

 

That means no Internet. No email, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other social platforms you’re on, no looking up the weather or searching for whatever information you want to know immediately.

For one day.

Can you do it?

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Seeking Wonder: Inside United House Wrecking, Inc.

• September 19, 2016
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When I was growing up, my parents played a game that my brothers and I loved. They’d utter the words “We’re going for a drive,” and we’d stop whatever we were doing and scramble into the back seat. Because we never knew where we’d end up.

On one of the trips, my parents and I drove until we were in Connecticut. My father picked an exit at random and we got off the highway and found ourselves traveling a deserted road.

“What is this?” my mother wondered. I could hear the slight worry in her voice.

And then we saw it. The most amazing place. A junkyard filled with antiques and glass bottles and doorknobs and statues. It was a world of magic and imagination.

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Good Food, Good Company (and a recipe)

• September 12, 2016
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On Friday afternoon, a writer friend invited me for lunch. Along with homemade gazpacho soup and slices of tomato with fresh basil leaves and mozzarella, there was insalata di fagiolini, patate e pomodori (green bean, potato and tomato medley) from Roberta Roberti’s cookbook Vegetarian Italian Traditions (Volume 1).

With Italian bread on the side, it was a simple and sublime meal. The perfect meal for a hot and humid day, bolstered up with friends. With the author’s permission, I’m including the recipe here:

Insalata di Fagiolini, Patate e Pomodori (Green Bean, Potato and Tomato Medley)

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients

2 pounds new or red potatoes, unpeeled

1 pound fresh green beans

4 medium tomatoes, cut into bite-size chunks

½ cup chopped red onion

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

¾ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ cup balsamic vinegar (optional)

Cut potatoes into bite-size chunks; place into a pot and fill with enough water to cover. Cover and cook over medium heat until just tender but firm when pierced with a fork, about 15 to 20 minutes. Drain in a colander and cool off under cold running water. Drain well and place in a large serving bowl. (If you’re using vinegar, do not use an aluminum bowl.)

Meanwhile, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Snip off ends of green beans. If beans are very long, snap in half. Add beans to boiling water and cook until crisp-tender, about 10 to 12 minutes. Drain and cool off under cold water; drain well.

Add green beans to potatoes. Add tomatoes, onion, and oil. Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and mix well. Add vinegar, a little at a time, until it’s to your liking.

Gently toss, cover bowl, and chill for about 2 hours. Allow to come to room temperature and toss again before serving. Taste for seasoning. Add a little more oil if it’s too dry.

Keep leftovers tightly covered in the refrigerator up to 5 days.

TIP: If the potatoes get a little mushy after cooking, lay them out on a baking sheet and place in a 350° oven for about 10 minutes to dry them out.

The thing about this recipe is how flexible it is. My friend used cherry tomatoes, cut in half. The seasonings (including a splash of balsamic vinegar) were added right before serving, so while it might not have had the intensity it would have after being in the fridge for two hours, it had a nice little zing. I look forward to making this next summer.

And while I love Italian food, I’m also looking forward to something different with Roberta Roberti’s new cookbook, World Party: Vegetarian Appetizers, Hors D’oeuvres and Party Plates. It’s coming out soon and I expect to be doing a lot of cooking.

Buon Appetito!

 

Smoke: Tales Between Dark and Light is Here!

• September 05, 2016
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An anthology of short stories written by The Penheads, five writers of wildly diverse genres bound together by a single theme. Horror, urban fantasy, lesbian romances, and contemporary fiction wrap up in the nebulous aspect of…smoke.

At Amazon: myBook.to/Smoke_Tales

It’s Here! Smoke: Tales Between Dark and Light

• September 05, 2016
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Go to myBook.to/Smoke_Tales.

My story “In the Smoke,” was a stranger creation than I expected. I wrote some of it in a daze, fueled by blues music in the background. And only after it was completed and I reread it did I realize exactly what I had written about. (No, I’m not going to tell you. It will mean whatever you decide it will mean. That’s the joy of reading.)

May you emerge from the smoke into clarity and peace.

 

Smoke: Tales Between Dark and Light

• August 29, 2016
• Blog
• 2 Comments

The Penheads have a new anthology coming out soon!

Five diverse writers cover the same theme with wildly different takes on it. Horror, urban fantasy, lesbian romances, and contemporary fiction wrap up in the nebulous aspect of…smoke.

Stay tuned!