News

January 22, 2008

The Prologue to THE COMMANDING STONE is now online! More details here!

November 2, 2007

The book signing at the Cloak and Dragon in Bloomsburg is scheduled for Saturday, November 17, from 1 to 3. Hope to see you there!

The Cloak and Dragon is located at 12 East Main Street, Bloomsburg, PA 17815.

September 16, 2007

I've set up a second signing at the Borders in the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing, on Saturday, November 10, from 1 to 3 pm. The address of the mall is:

1665 State Hill Road, Wyomissing, PA 19610

CORRECTION! The Wyomissing book signing has been moved to Saturday, December 8, from 1 to 3.

I'm also working on a signing in Bloomsburg at a specialty store called the Cloak & Dragon. Again, I'll keep you posted once I have the date set.

September 9, 2007

The first book signing for THE WORDS OF MAKING will be at the Borders Bookstore in the Capital City Mall on October 27, from 1 to 4 pm. I hope you can make it, and bring some friends!

I'm working on some other signings within about an hour's drive of Harrisburg and will let you know as soon as I have them set up.

August 4, 2007

A brand spankin' new messageboard is now live! Old posts are lost forever, alas and dammit, and for that I sincerely apologize. The good news is that these new boards should be much more stable.

You can find the new boards here.

July 27, 2007

The cover art for THE WORDS OF MAKING is now online. Tristan Schane did an exemplary job with it. I loved the first book's cover, but I like this one even more. Feel free to drop him a quick message at his website if you like it. I know he'd appreciate it.

The forum is still dead, alas and dammit. I have tons of brief book reviews to get out, but I'm switching to a new PC and I'm going to lose some connectivity for a while until everything is switched over and working right. It's a huge pain but something of a necessity -- the old one was really starting to fall apart.

I will do my best to have a new forum up before THE WORDS OF MAKING is published, so check back when you can for info. Thanks!

May 29, 2007

The forum looks to be dead at this point. My ISP cannot recover it. I am not sure what I'm going to do at the moment. I'm up to my eyeballs in other work and this just isn't a priority. I will have something going before THE WORDS OF MAKING comes out in October, but it might be toward the end of the summer before another forum appears. Sorry!

In other news, I've seen the cover art for THE WORDS OF MAKING and it's even better than the cover for the first book (and that's saying a lot). Tristan Schane really outdid himself. I do not yet have an electronic copy or permission to show it, but as soon as I do I'll get it up here for everyone to see.

I finished the outline for THE COMMANDING STONE and have written about 60 pages so far. It's going to be a wild ride. THE WORDS OR MAKING is a very linear story. This one is crazy -- there's all kinds of incredibly strange stuff going on. Can't spill the beans on anything yet (and it wouldn't make sense, since it builds on what happens in book two). I would say by the end of the year I'll have the prologue posted.

Finally, my best friend, Eric DeWalt, opened a coffee shop here in Mechanicsburg called Your Daily Grind. It's on the Carlise Pike in the Carpet Mart Plaza. Stop by and have a cup of joe and a sandwich or two!

April 4, 2007

Yes, the forum is down. I am not sure what happened. My host made some changes to their servers and when I checked on the site it was unavailable. I tried their suggested changes but nada so far. They are working to fix it but at the moment I have no ETA for when it will be back up. Sorry. (Not like it's been getting much activity lately anyway, except from the freakin' porn spammers....)

March 28, 2007

I just turned in the copyedited manuscript for THE WORDS OF MAKING. I really like it, and I hope you enjoy it. It's very different in plot and tone from THE AMBER WIZARD. I had no desire to repeat myself, and this may throw some people off. It is a much more linear plot, with a high-stakes chase occupying a good bit of it.

It looks like the publication date is October of this year but I do not have a specific day yet. As soon as I have it I will let you know.

I know updates have been few and far between. I will have a few new books reviewed in the "What I'm Reading" section in the next few days, and I'll make a valiant attempt to update my blog. So check back in a couple of days to see what's changed.

February 7, 2007

Here is Chapter One to THE WORDS OF MAKING.

February 3, 2007

Here is the Prologue to THE WORDS OF MAKING. Chapter One will be up soon!

February 2, 2007

Hey, finally, the first post of the new year!

The second draft of THE WORDS OF MAKING was accepted by my editor as "final," so it has moved into the copyedit stage. I still do not have a publication date but I will post it as soon as I know it.

Sometime in the next few days I will be posting the Prologue and Chapter One of THE WORDS OF MAKING, so check back if you're interested!

December 27, 2006

I know it's been a hellishly long time since I last updated this place, and for that I really do apologize. 2006 was definitely one of those best of times/worst of times for dear old me.

I keep most of my personal life offline, but for those who are curious, I got divorced at the beginning of the year after twelve years of marriage. This necessitated me moving out of the house that my ex-wife and I had built and also finding a full-time job again, since writing was not and is not yet earning enough to pay the bills (though I hope to get to that point within five years). I moved into temporary housing (thanks, Mom!), where I stayed for five months before buying and moving into a new house. And those of you who are homeowners know that houses are never-ending black holes of projects. Oh, and I was trying to revise THE WORDS OF MAKING at the same time, after receiving my edit letter in early August.

On to book-related news...the leaner, meaner second draft of THE WORDS OF MAKING is now back in New York. Much of the revision was simply cutting out lots of overwriting, but I also changed a few of the characters around a bit, decided to kill off a fairly major player, and added a cool demon-like entity who makes a pretty kick-ass cameo.

I'm taking a break and doing some painting around the house (I finished my son's room last weekend, with two walls blue, two walls green -- very much a little boy's room!), and am going to do the foyer next. Woo hoo!

I hope everyone has a great New Year.

July 22, 2006

My publisher has put out their own blog, with information about who they are and links to their various writers. It looks like it will become a good place to get "insider" information about the publishing biz from the publisher's POV. (It's also nice that they listed their authors alphabetically, which puts me sixth down from the top!)

You can check it out here. My editor, if you were wondering, is Diana Gill.

July 5, 2006

One of our cats, Odie, died last week. I don't have the energy to go into it again here. You can read about her on my blog if you'd like.

May 4, 2006

I've finally got a PDF of my son's story about his teddy bear, "Little Friend Gets Lost." (Thanks are in order to Lori Baker, a friend and graphic designer, for the help!) This is a really cute little story. When my son's first grade teacher read it to his class they all burst into applause at the end. Check it out!

You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view the story, which you can download for free.

April 3, 2006

Tomorrow night, April 4, is the book signing at Barnes & Noble at the Camp Hill Shopping Center. It starts at 7:00, but feel free to come a little later if that works better for you. I expect to be there around two hours. I'm going to be speaking to and answering questions from a writers' group that meets there once a month. So come on in and get your copy of The Amber Wizard signed!

April 1, 2006

Yeah, I know, I can't believe I'm late updating my own website about the release of my own damn book, but there you have it -- I am. So, without further ado... It's in stores now! What are you waiting for?! Run out and buy a copy (or three!) ;-)

Honestly, when I walked into a Waldenbooks on Monday and saw copies on the shelf in the "featured" section (they had it out a day early), I stopped like someone had clobbered me on the head and couldn't stop grinning like a fool. This is something I've worked toward my entire adult life, and for many years I didn't think it would ever happen. It was one of those defining moments I won't ever forget.

March 20, 2006

Lots of great stuff over at SFFWorld.com. An interview with me, a review of The Amber Wizard, and a contest to win a free book! Head on over to check it out! (And thanks to Rob and Pat for putting it all together!)

March 17, 2006

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone! Today, thanks to my friend Google, I stumbled across another review of The Amber Wizard. Check it out at the Barnes and Noble website.

Less than two weeks to go until it hits the stores!

February 6, 2006

This is for all you Pittsburgh Steelers naysayers: BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

January 29, 2006

The first official review of The Amber Wizard has been posted by Patrick over at Pat's Fantasy Hotspot. I'm happy to report that he really liked the book (though he did have several nits to pick, and I can't really say I disagree with them).

January 27, 2006

If you're interested in winning a free copy of The Amber Wizard (cheapskates -- just kidding!), head on over to Pat's Fantasy Hotspot. His contest just started, and all you have to do to enter is e-mail him. (It's also a cool fantasy and science fiction review site, so take a look around while you're there.)

January 26, 2006

I found out that the first three books in The Osserian Saga have been sold in Germany! I don't know the publisher -- my agent wasn't sure, not that I would recognize them anyway -- but I thought it was really interesting that a non-English-speaking country would snap up the rights before a place like the UK. (Though I have heard comments from other writers and readers that there is enough "home grown" fantasy in the UK that publishers don't need to buy as much from overseas).

January 23, 2006

The Steelers are going to Detroit! Watch out Chickenhawks, Big Ben is coming to get you!

January 15, 2006

The Steelers beat the Colts! The Steelers beat the Colts! (Despite every effort of the goddamn ref squad to hand the game to Indianapolis....).

Happy Steelers fan here (though I feel like I had a heart attack)! On to Denver....

January 14, 2006

I finished a final line edit of The Words of Making last night and e-mailed a copy to my agent. The first draft was 230,000 words long. This version is down to 187,800 words, much more in line with what my editor wants. I'm a big over-writer in my first drafts, so it's pretty easy for me to cut the size down in subsequent drafts. There was also a plot arc that didn't work out the way I had envisioned, so I simply jettisoned it rather than trying to force it where it didn't really belong.

December 29, 2005

For those who just can't get enough of blogs (and you know who you are), there's an interesting site at SFNovelists. It's an aggregate blog site for nineteen (and counting) science fiction and fantasy novelists. These are all people who have either had a novel published by a major publisher (and been paid an advance) or have a novel scheduled to appear within the next year (like me). I'm part of the site, so every post here is fed over there. If you're interested in reading the blogs and journals of some up-and-coming SF and fantasy novelists and don't want the hassle of navigating to a bunch of different sites, this might be for you. Check it out!

December 28, 2005

First book signing scheduled. My first book signing will take place at 7:00 pm on April 4 at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in the Camp Hill Shopping Mall in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

Also, there is an interview with me over at the Malazan Empire website. I did the interview a few months ago, but it was just posted. Check it out!

December 27, 2005

The forum is now live. I'm new to the whole forum admin thing, so if you find problems or quirks please let me know.

December 23, 2005

Chapter One of The Amber Wizard has been added to the site.

December 22, 2005

The Amber Wizard will be published by Eos Books on March 28, 2006. You can read the prologue here, and view the map here.

For those who have read the book and might be interested in a more comprehensive glossary than what was published, go here.