Thursday, December 18, 2014

'Love for LAMENTATION" Day

It's "Love for Lamentation" Day here at KC&A. Joe Clifford's novel Lamentation was featured on both SFGate.com and LitReactor as a notable staff pick for 2014. 

LitReactor says, "Joe Clifford is one of the best new crime writers emerging onto the scene," while SFGate.com suggests that "Lamentation is a suspenseful page-turner that may jangle your nerves." 


To read the full review of Joe's work on LitReactor, click here.

To read the full review of Joe's work on SFGate.com, click here


Relentless storm clouds roil over Northern New Hampshire’s Lamentation Mountain as Jay Porter is called to pick up his delinquent, drug-addicted older brother Chris at the local police station. Released into Jay’s care, his brother, now a suspect in the disappearance of a friend, reveals a conspiracy involving a mysterious hard drive and the small community’s most powerful family. As Jay fights to win back his ex-girlfriend and their two-year-old son, his journey forces him to confront his own parents’ suspicious death twenty years ago as he steps deeper into his estranged brother’s addicted world—delivering him to the dark heart of a small town’s shocking secret.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Rejection and Publishing


Rejection, it's a word all writers loathe and fear. I myself have been rejected as an author by zines, agents, editors, workshops, and readings. It's a difficult road, and I feel for the thousands of writers that pass through our slushpile everyday. It's hard not to take each rejection like an arrow to the heart and I've seen writers who have become bitter, angry, sad, and then broadcast it online. They vent their frustration, believing they have been wronged, calling publishers, editors, agents alike nasty names and blaming them personally for the rejections.

One of the most important things I have learned since entering the other side of publishing is that rejection is not personal. Publishing is first and foremost, a business. The people within publishing love books (they have to, for it is rarely a lucrative career), but they are not artists per say, so they are looking at each submission with a practical eye. For example, as beautiful as your prose may be, if the book is hundreds of thousands of words long, an agent knows that a publisher will not probably not pick it up because to publish a book that large costs more money. No one is saying the writer is a bad writer for having a long book, it just means the writer probably doesn't understand the business side of publishing and is likely inexperienced.

So if you are like the average writer and wish to have a financially successful career, do your research, know the business and understand that it's similar to any other job. Your first project is your entry-level resume. You're going to have to submit it to as many places as you can, be rejected or ignored, and even if you do get hired, you won't be the CEO within the year. But if you keep honing your craft by going to school or workshops or conferences, doing online research, critical reading and practicing writing, just as you would invest in another career, your odds of success become much higher.

And you will see that rejection is just business as usual.


For more tips on writing and publishing follow Mary @Mary_C_Moore.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

'Why I'll Never Let My Children Play Football' by Edwin Lyngar

















Great article by my author Edwin Lyngar on Role Reboot about the dangers of allowing children to play football.  Parents, take heed!

To read Edwin Lyngar's article on Role Reboot, click here.