Absolutely fucking incensed by this ad. I can get unlimited months of unlimited reading and listening through Libby on my phone you dumb sack of shit Amazon I will not let you kill libraries I will not let you kill libraries I will not let you kill libraries
Listen to me. You can read any library’s digital collection via Libby in America and apparently in uh 78 other countries. If that doesn’t do it for you, the internet archive has two million digitized books you can access for free. The only thing I can’t help you access is books self-published through Amazon but even then sometimes they’re ALSO published through separate websites. Do not fucking give in to this amazon bullshit. Amazon has a vested interest in destroying libraries and replacing them with for-profit bookstores or book rentals. Do not fucking let them do that. It’s up to us to support libraries and keep literature free and accessible and we have to do everything in our power to act in that vein
Amazon can afford to throw money from exploited workers towards random shit like making an MMO and trying to destroy libraries. Libraries cannot fight that kind of financial might. It’s our job to see amazon, tell it no, and choose libraries instead. As often as we can.
If anyone has info on other ways to ethically access self-published books on amazon feel free to add it
Project Gutenberg is also a really useful source for free ethical eBooks! They’re volunteer run, and have free PDFs and eBooks for any out of Copyright book– both fiction and non fiction! So if you’re after a copy of Pride & Prejudice, or The Great Gatsby or The Communist Manifesto, that you want to download and keep – check them out!
If you do self-publish, you can go through Draft2Digital as well as Amazon and D2D will make your books available via lending sites such as Biblioteca as well as alternative sales sites. And they’ll provide you with a universal URL so that your readers can choose where they want to spend their money (in case it’s not with Mr. Bezos).
You can even use D2D to sell on Amazon, but be aware that there are drawbacks to this approach (like delays in printing and no advertising availability). The best approach, generally, is to sell directly on Amazon and also with D2D, and just tell D2D not to make the book available to Amazon. You can still include the Amazon URL in your universal URL, and as long as your prices are the same, Amazon is fine with this approach.
In recent years, there has been increasing attention within both ecocriticism and horror studies to the intersections between the two fields. The country/city split and the civilized person’s fear of the wilderness and rural spaces, key issues for ecocritics, also loom large over the horror genre.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Furthermore, there are entire horror subgenres dedicated to the revenge of wild nature and its denizens upon humanity. As Rust and Soles write, ecohorror studies “assumes that environmental disruption is haunting humanity’s relationship to the non-human world” as well as that ecohorror in some form can be found in all texts grappling with ecocritical matters (509-10).
Them! (1954)
There have been some critical examinations of this intersection – e.g., Ecogothic, edited by Andrew Smith and William Hughes (2013); an ecohorror special cluster in ISLE, edited by Stephen A. Rust and Carter Soles (2014); Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen by Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann (2016); and Plant Horror: Approaches to the Monstrous Vegetal in Fiction and Film, edited by Dawn Keetley and Angela Tenga (2017) – but we feel that it is time for a fuller examination of ecohorror as a genre. To that end, we invite submissions of approximately 6000-7000 words to be included in the first edited collection devoted exclusively to ecohorror. Because our interest is in the genre as a whole, there is no limit on time period or medium; we want this collection to explore the range of ecohorror texts and ideas.
Chapters may consider the following:
How is human violence against the natural world represented in such texts? Or, vice-versa, how is violence against humanity by the natural world represented? What effect does this violence have on the relationship between human and nonhuman?
How do ecohorror texts blur human/nonhuman distinctions in order to generate fear, horror, or dread?
What fears of, about, or for nature are expressed in ecohorror? How do these expressions of fear influence environmental rhetoric and/or action more broadly?
How are ecohorror texts and tropes used to promote ecological awareness or represent ecological crises?
Submit completed chapters to Christy Tidwell ([email protected]) and Carter Soles ([email protected]) by May 14, 2018. We are requesting submissions of completed chapter drafts to be considered for this project rather than abstracts. Please feel free to reach out with questions and/or ideas before submitting a completed chapter, however; we would be happy to provide feedback or guidance.
Frogs (1972)
CFP: Edited Collection on Ecohorror In recent years, there has been increasing attention within both ecocriticism and horror studies to the intersections between the two fields.
For Halloween, I’ve written a Checklist for Edge Effects presenting creature features that illustrate key elements of ecohorror. Lots of fun and scary movies to watch!
[Hey! I’m publishing my first book! You should get it!]
Tell someone you’re divorced and they look at you differently. The pity, shame, and sense of failing at something that was only supposed to end in death can be a heavy burden to bear.
But it doesn’t have to be.
This book collects essays written by divorced writers exploring what led them to divorce, how they lived through it, and, perhaps most importantly, who they are now that it’s over. Where often divorce represents loss and a feeling of defeat, these essays provide an alternative: divorce as a catalyst in gaining a new sense of self and the discovery of new ways to define success.
It’s not a how-to guide, but many of the essays provide examples of how life after the end of marriage can still be satisfying despite complications, joyful despite awkwardness, or revelatory despite grief.
Featuring established and emerging writers, the one thing all contributors have in common is they’ve lived through divorce and have offered for this collection moving, challenging, sad, funny, heartbreaking, self-aware reflections of that time in their lives. The writers are from diverse backgrounds and provide essays that are true stories of grief and parenting; of queerness, kink, and compromise; of artistic differences and academic dissonance; of mental health and addiction.
I’ve often said that there are ten thousand right ways to write a story. Unfortunately, there are a million wrong ways to do so. That’s why I’ve found when editing stories for anthologies or judging contests, about 90% of them don’t make the first cut. Here are some easy ways to avoid getting rejected.
1) Use proper proper English. If I see that you have a large number of typos, poor grammar, or incorrect punctuation on the first page of a manuscript, I will reject the story. (I lump all such errors into the category of “boogers.” This also includes things like coffee or cat pee stains on manuscripts.) I may forgive one mistake on a first page, or even two, but not three. Small errors suggest sloppy work throughout the tale.
2) Beware of starting your story with profanity, sex, or extreme violence. As an editor and writer, I want my books to appear in national markets. So I want librarians and school teachers to pick up the books and recommend them wholeheartedly. With rare exceptions, books that sell well tend to have something of a PG rating.
Recently I received a story that had a picture of the author attached. She was young. She was gorgeous. She had only three marijuana leaves covering her body. Don’t send me such pictures.
3) Do not write query letters that insult the editor. Letters that suggest that “My property is so much better than anything else you fools have published” will guarantee a rejection.
4) Don’t start off by telling your editor that you are planning a book/movie/videogame empire. Some editors will reject a work specifically because it looks “too much like a movie.” I’ve received submissions that contain photos of every star that the author plans to use in his first movie, along with a breakdown of the 400-million dollar budget. I often get such packages with release forms attached, so that I have to promise not to steal the author’s ideas before I open it. I understand that the author is excited, but it really does look silly.
5) In your query letters, do not offer bribes to editors. I once had an editor friend who got a letter with a penny, an aspirin, and a condom in it. The young writer said, “There, I’ve offered you sex, drugs, and money—now will you accept my proposal?” The editor was not amused. On one or two occasions, I have heard of editors who actually were offered bribes, but the editors didn’t take them. However, that makes me wonder. If an editor did take a bribe, would he ever tell anyone? And how much do you need to offer an editor? They get paid less than church mice. Hmmm … maybe that explains some of those poor books I’ve seen…
6) Never put a cover illustration in with your manuscript. If you’re writing a fantasy, it is all right to put in a map, but make it a good one.
Now, you might say, “But what if I’m an illustrator too?” The truth is, even if you’re a professional illustrator, you don’t want to put on a cover. The book’s prose needs to stand on its own. When it is time to get artwork done, you can submit your artwork separately, but recognize that the art director for the publishing house will normally be very leery of using your art. I have seen only a couple of illustrator/writers who have ever pulled this off.
7) Format your manuscript properly. A lot of authors don’t bother to format their manuscripts properly. Years ago, I used to think: “Okay, so these writers are novices. They don’t know the rules. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.” But over time I learned that people who hadn’t learned to write in manuscript format usually had fatal flaws in their story. They hadn’t practiced the craft enough to become publishable. So when I see a manuscript that isn’t formatted properly, it raises a red flag.
8) Never start a book with a list of twenty or thirty characters, or a list of every place in the book, or a dictionary of special terms. Your tale should instruct the reader well enough so that it can be enjoyed without those things.
9) Never try to sell a story based upon copyrighted material. For example, publishers must reject song lyrics every time, so don’t insert lyrics to recent songs. I’ve seen some great fan fiction. For example, in Writers of The Future a few years ago, I got a touching story about Gomer Pyle coming back from the war in Vietnam, but it can never be published in a major magazine. The same is true if you write a Star Trek, Star Wars, or Twilight story. Writing such stories is a waste of your time. Write your own fiction.
10) Don’t waste an editor’s time. Don’t send “true” stories to fiction markets. Don’t send your doctor’s thesis, or private letters telling the editor about your rough childhood. If my guidelines say that I want science fiction, don’t send me a mainstream story. If I tell you that my length limit is 7,000 words, don’t send me your novel. With Witers of the Future, we can’t have the author’s name on the manuscript. If you put them on, I must reject the manuscript, even if I love it.
—
A past student, Shawna Reppert, has her award-winning novel Ravensblood, up for free this week. It won the 2014 Global Ebook Awards for contemporary fiction.
In a life of impossible choices when sometimes death magic is the lesser of the evils, can a dark mage save the world and his own soul?
Corwyn Ravenscroft. Raven. The last heir of an ancient family of dark mages, he holds the secret to recreating the Ravensblood, a legendary magical artifact of immense power.
Cassandra Greensdowne is a Guardian. Magical law enforcement for the elected council— and Raven’s former apprentice and lover. She is trying to live down her past. And then her past comes to the door, asking for her help.
As a youth, Raven wanted to be a Guardian but was rejected because of his ancestry. In his pride and his anger, he had turned to William, the darkest and most powerful mage of their time. William wants a return to the old ways, where the most powerful mage was ruler absolute. But William would not be a True King from the fairy tales. He would reign in blood and terror and darkest magic.
Raven discovers that he does have a conscience. It’s rather inconvenient.
He becomes a spy for the council that William wants to overthrow, with Cassandra as his contact.
Cass and Raven have a plan to trap William outside his warded sanctuary. But William is one step ahead of the game, with Raven’s life, his soul, and the Ravensblood all in danger.
![[Hey! I’m publishing my first book! You should get it!]Tell someone you’re divorced and they look at](https://64.media.tumblr.com/eff036dfa63888414130b01be243f1dc/tumblr_on2y81PdG61qzo2pmo1_1280.jpg "[Hey! I’m publishing my first book! You should get it!]Tell someone you’re divorced and they look at")
