Leanna's DragonCon 2021 Schedule!

OMG! DRAGONCON! I'm fully Vaccinated, I've got cool new gothy masks for safe fashion statements and I'm ready to Con!

Here's where I'll be! Come say hello! I'll have my latest books available for sale and signing! Come check out my latest novel, A SUMMONING OF SOULS! 

Any time I am not paneling I'll be with my bestie Kelley Hensing at the Art Show, we're in the Hyatt, Booth 208!! Stop by and treat yourself to COOL art! I'll have my books on hand everywhere I go and when helping Kelley, I'll have some of my vintage restored and vintage reimagined jewelry available for sale as well! 

Here's my SCHEDULE! Check it out:

Title: Writing Historical Fiction for a Modern Audience

Description: So you want to write a tale where Hitler took over, or where JFK was never shot? Or perhaps where Charlemagne never united Europe? But how do you keep your readers interested? Listen to our master authors & learn their tips & tricks.

Time: Fri 11:30 am Location: Macon - Sheraton (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Back in Time: Historical Urban Fantasy
Description: Our panelists explore supernatural beings & magic occurring in historical real-world settings.
Time: Fri 04:00 pm Location: Chastain 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Through the Veil: Ghosts & Spirits in UF
Description: Ghosts in Urban Fantasy take many forms & have a variety of goals & purposes. Our panel will discuss those they employ in their work, as well as others they admire.
Time: Fri 10:00 pm Location: Chastain 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Spooky Tales & Haunting Music, Part II
Description: Our group of authors will each read a scary story & the time in between each presenter will be filled with atmospheric music by Victorian Chamber Metal virtuosos, Valentine Wolfe.
Time: Fri 11:30 pm Location: Chastain 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Her-Storically Speaking: Women Who Beat the Status Quo
Description: If you loved the Queen's Gambit, join us as we take a look at the real-life women who challenged the boys at their own game. We'll look at what it's like to break glass ceilings & how these women had to fight for their positions in the world.
Time: Sat 02:30 pm Location: Macon - Sheraton (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Thrills & Chills in Young Adult Literature

Description: YA can be suspenseful & even terrify you. Whether knife-wielding killers, pandemics & plagues, or werewolves & vampires, come hear about what gives us chills.

Time: Sat 07:00pm Location: A707 - Marriot (Length 1 Hour)

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Title: Mindbending: Psychics in UF
Description: Psychics serve differing purposes in Urban Fantasy tales. Our panelists will describe how their characters use their abilities & how that impacts the stories they tell.
Time: Sun 11:30 am Location: Chastain 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Gumshoes, Shadowy Figures, & Meddlesome Kids
Description: There are hundreds of books out there about the sleuths & spies that have changed the course of history, both real & imaginary. Gather with our panelists will discuss some of our favorite sleuths & their wildest cases.
Time: Sun 02:30 pm Location: Augusta - Sheraton (Length: 1 Hour)
Moderator / MC for panel

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Title: Scandalous: Unearthing Historical Gossip
Description: Some of our favorite authors share secrets they've uncovered as they researched for their books & stories. Bring the tea, because these authors will spill it as they reveal the hidden side of history.
Time: Sun 07:00 pm Location: Macon - Sheraton (Length: 1 Hour)

Again, come say hello! Please pick up a signed book! If I'm not paneling I'm helping out at Kelley Hensing's Art Table at the Art Show in the Hyatt, Booth 208!! We both really appreciate your support! Cheers and Happy Haunting! 

Updates, Asimov's Magazine Review, Appearances, Dreadpunk and more!

Darlings!

The whirlwind paces continue! DragonCon and Space Coast Comic Con were really wonderful across the board, amazing panels and audiences! I signed tons of books and sold a great deal of art! The rest of the month has seen me busy restocking and working on a few short stories, with Eterna Files book 2 edits up ahead.

This month, as you all should know, it is Halloween Awareness Month! And I'm all over New York City and the surrounding environs in really amazing capacities, whether giving ghost talks at local libraries (Hoboken, East Meadow) or signing books and selling art at amazing festivals in incredible historic, haunted locations (Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Morris Jumel Mansion) check out the upcoming APPEARANCES here on the website and come get a signed book and some one of a kind jewelry and art!

In spectacular Industry review news: I'm honoured that in the September issue of Asimov's Magazine I was given this truly incredible review for Eterna Files, I'm so humbled and in awe of the beautiful things said:

Eterna Moonshine of the Spotted Mind

The alert book-shopper will find an advance-publication quote from me adorning the front cover of Leanna Renee Hieber’s novel The Eterna Files (Tor, hardcover, $24.99, 320 pages, ISBN 978-
0-7653-5674-5). Without much real acquaintance with the author, I was motivated to provide a quote based sheerly on the high quality of the book. So I thought I would use a small amount of this column to explicate my admiration further.

The novel falls squarely into the steampunk genre, but exhibits a richer helping of metaphysics than is common in that game, and a bit more gravitas. Hieber’s MacGuffin is the quest for immortality,
surely a subject that can bear the symbolic weight. In the wake of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a small group of eccentric talents are given the assignment of learning how to defeat death. Chief among these is our heroine, Clara Templeton, a psychic. We pick up her tale when the project is at a crisis point after many years. Several of the researchers have been brutally murdered, including Clara’s lover. Is the project doomed, or so close to success that it has aroused great powers?

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the British government has learned of the Eterna project and decided to steal or preempt it. They have assigned London detective Harold Spire to the case, and given him the assistance of the redoubtable Rose Everhart. Needless to say, presented with such a formidable array of allies and antagonists, many sparks, supernatural and otherwise, are going to fly. Hieber’s approach to the “science” of anti-death protocols is fascinating. (She even gets in a nod to Clarke’s Third Law: “All sciences, at their zenith, create what is tantamount to sorcery.”) Blending a kind of alchemy with unique “patriotic magic,” the pursuit assumes epistemological magnitude.

Says Louis, Clara’s lover (who continues to play a role as a ghost), “The key of Eterna, ma cherie, is to determine the boundaries of meaning. Nothing that may have meaning in terms of life can be overlooked.” This is a wide remit, and eventually Clara comes to wonder if they have bitten off more than they can chew. “Eterna was full of the restless living and the restless dead. It needed to die once and for all.”

Rich in conceits as anything from Alan Moore, Hieber’s novel mixes action and the emotional lives of its characters into a fascinating stew. Anyone who enjoyed Paul Cornell’s London Falling and The
Severed Streets will certainly cozy up to Hieber’s parallel depiction of questioning savants and heroes versus the forces of anarchy and despair." Asimov’s Magazine - September 2015 - Paul Di Filippo

(More about The Eterna Files here)

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In GENRE news: I was also really psyched to be a part of the first ever DREADPUNK panel at DragonCon, "Dreadpunk" being a new word to talk about some of the great things happening in the Gothic Genre today, and to talk about those trends in new ways. Considering I exist under similar parasols as Steampunk and other retro-futurist genres, "Dreadpunk" helps me express the Gothic Horror underpinnings of a lot of my work and inspiration, without being beholden to the traditional feminine issues represented it traditional Gothics. The Daily Dot did an incredible article about the Dreadpunk panel and I was fortunate enough to be very featured. Check it out here.

Book Stuffs: THE DARK NEST CHRONICLES are now out across the boards; digitally, each as separate novellas 1-3, Dark Nest, Dark Nest: Reckoning and Dark Nest: Song of Saire or in the compilation The Dark Nest Chronicles, AND they have all been collected in a paperback edition available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, so if you haven't taken a turn to this lesser-known Space Opera series of mine, go forth! These are action-packed quick reads with inspiring psychic characters you'll fall in love with and root for as they try to save their people from genocide.

O Ye Lovecraftian Devotees! I'm also quite pleased to have been asked to contribute a chilling and very strange (even for me, so that's saying something) piece for THE BOOK OF STARRY WISDOM, an amazing new high-end and very artistic Lovecraft volume currently funding HERE. The book features newly edited editions of the main cult of Cthulhu stories as well as original fiction from a slew of talents. I'm really thrilled to be in amazing company of artists and authors here, it's going to be a must-have volume for any Lovecraft fan. If you get a copy, everyone wins as the stretch goals will also be amazing!

Lots of new things up on the Etsy store! Tons of new Poe pieces honouring my favourite author and foremost inspiration (my best selling items!). Everything is one of a kind and original, never are two pieces alike so if you see something you like, pick it up before it's gone and never made again! (Commissions are welcome). BLOG10 is a coupon code for you fine folks, so don't forget to use it!

October will see the re-issue of my short story "Sea-Found" in Fantasy Scroll magazine, there will be an audio edition starring yours truly that will accompany the reissue as well!

As always, there's a lot going on in the Hieberverse so I shall try to keep you all updated here as best I can, thanks for being a part of these worlds! Happy Haunting!

DragonCon Schedule! Space Coast Comiccon! New Ventures!

Dear Readers,

I've been busy promoting Pre-Orders for the amazing STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL new edition! Formerly The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and sequel, the two volumes are now one, freshly edited and spruced up in many new way. Now up at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and wherever books are sold. (Yes, please do go forth and pre-order this beautiful new edition with NEW SCENES and extra content! It's a whole new book done exactly as I've always wanted it! The Pre-Order price is at a handsome discount so please support these books of my heart, and their resurrection back into print after many years out of print, thank you!)

And I'm hard at work on the ETERNA FILES world as I get ready to edit book two, titled, ETERNA AND OMEGA, which will release next summer!

And yes, it's that crazy time of year when the preparations for the madness that is DragonCon is in full swing!

DRAGONCON:
Be sure to note Princess Alethea's Traveling Sideshow, you really don't want to miss this performance on Friday, I have something wonderful cooked up and the whole team has a Fairy Tale Rant lined up that will be legendary. Plus you get lots of FREE GOODIES! Come! And then after the Sideshow we're doing an impromptu signing! See times below. ALSO note my reading on Sunday, as there will be new exclusive content to readers' ears plus MORE GOODIES.

DRAGONCON 2015 SCHEDULE:

Title: Faces of the Tarot: Penny Dreadful's Monsters & Magick
Description: Fans discuss the Showtime series that updates classic horror's most enduring archetypes
Time: Fri 05:30 pm Location: Peachtree 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Corvis Nocturnum, Cherie Priest, Leanna Renee Hieber)
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Title: Princess Alethea's Traveling Sideshow
Description: Readings, music, & more from a motley band of costumed authors, plus swag!
Time: Fri 07:00 pm Location: A707 - Marriott (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Alethea Kontis, Leanna Renee Hieber, Gray Rinehart, Lisa Mantchev, Delilah S. Dawson, Zac Brewer, D.B. Jackson)
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Title: Blending History & the Fantastic
Description: Panelists discuss both the challenges and advantages of using historical settings and events in speculative fiction
Time: Fri 08:30 pm Location: Chastain ED - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Delilah S. Dawson, Clay and Susan Griffith, Cherie Priest, D.B. Jackson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro)
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Title: Magepunk: Sorcery as Technology
Description: Alchemical rules or arcane industrial revolution? We focus on media depictions of magic as technology.
Time: Sat 05:30 pm Location: Augusta 3 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
Moderator / MC for panel
(Tentative Panelists: Leanna Renee Hieber, D.B. Jackson, Aristotle Christopher Pramagioulis, Cherie Priest)
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Title: The Demimonde and Dark Victoriana of Penny Dreadful
Description: Demimonde = fringe people; penny dreadfuls = cheap fiction. How this relates to the show.
Time: Sat 08:30 pm Location: Augusta 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Leanna Renee Hieber, Aristotle Christopher Pramagioulis, Ciara Knight, Nick Valentino, Elizabeth Valentino)
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Title: Historical Horror
Description: The usage of history in horror fiction
Time: Sun 11:30 am Location: Peachtree 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Anya Martin, Leanna Renee Hieber, L. Andrew Cooper, Kenneth Mark Hoover)
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Title: The Source: Folklore & Mythology in UF
Description: Urban fantasy is rooted in age-old myth, legend, and folklore. Authors discuss influences.
Time: Sun 01:00 pm Location: Chastain ED - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Alethea Kontis, Leanna Renee Hieber, Jean Marie Ward, Jonathan Maberry, Valerie Hampton, Samantha Sommersby)
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Title: Reading: Leanna Renee Hieber
Time: Sun 02:30 pm Location: Vinings - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Leanna Renee Hieber)
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Title: Dreadpunk: The Gothic Horror Revival
Description: A discussion of the Gothic Horror Revival in contemporary pop culture
Time: Sun 08:30 pm Location: Peachtree 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Leanna Renee Hieber, Cherie Priest, Delilah S. Dawson, Clay and Susan Griffith, Aristotle Christopher Pramagioulis)
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Title: Realms of the Dead: Ghosts and Spirits in UF
Description: Panelists discuss the various types of ghosts and spirits found in the genre
Time: Mon 10:00 am Location: Chastain ED - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Jim Butcher, Leanna Renee Hieber, Gail Z. Martin, D.B. Jackson, Karen E. Taylor, Myke Cole)
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WHEW! Busy! And the fall is only just getting started! MORE EVENTS:

Post DragonCon, Dear Florida, marks a return to the glories of the Eterna Files book tour!

I'm on to SpaceCoast ComicCon to be a special featured guest alongside my bestie and fey alter-ego Alethea Kontis Sept 11-13 - come see us on panels and at our tables for signed books and amazing handcrafted art!

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MORE ART:

On the handcrafted art side of my world, as many of you know, I am a renaissance creature of many talents. I've very recently gone into Steampunk medal-making and brooch creation, as I've not seen anything like what I create out in the marketplace online or in person, so I've been welcomed to an Etsy shop run by fellow artisans where I am responsible for the Neo-Victorian, Steampunk, Gothic and Historical Inspired jewelry and accessories on the site, do take a look! Specially for you, Dear Readers: Enter the code BLOG10 for 10% off your purchase from now until Halloween!

Cheers and as always, HAPPY HAUNTING!

Leanna

Fun at New York Comic Con: Panels, Entertainment Weekly, A Daft Punk music video...



Leanna & Bruce Boxleitner

As my readers know, I do a lot of conventioning and costuming. For me, it really isn't costuming. It's just me. Who I am, what I do. This year has been no exception to enjoying conventioning in full regalia. As I'm very active in the Harry Potter fandom, you should also know by now I answer to Lady Malfoy or Narcissa at any given convention. This year's New York Comic Con brought so many amazing opportunities. Day 1, I was lucky enough to be on Diana Pho's Welcome to the Brass Screen: Steampunk in TV and Film panel, along with Babylon 5's charming and charismatic Bruce Boxleitner who was there to present the amazing Lantern City project with his talented fellow co-creator and executive producer Trevor Crafts. Joined by Thom Truelove of the fabulous Crypto-Historians, I was there, as both an author in the genre and an actress, to discuss my involvement with the fascinating and high-concept short film Obolos currently in pre-production. Our panelist rapport was stellar and a clip of Bruce beside yours truly in full Neo-Victorian regalia even made the NYCC Day 1 recap! (Seen at 1:26):


And THEN, while dressed as Narcissa Malfoy, alongside fellow writer and critique partner Cas Johnstone as Bellatrix Lestrange of Harry Potter, Entertainment Weekly featured us in their Costumed Women of NY Comic Con 13 feature!

Earlier that day we'd taken part in New York Comic Con's official 2013 Daft Punk cosplay music video, you can see my Narcissa in full runway mode, alongside many core members of The Group That Shall Not Be Named, the largest Harry Potter group in the world. Check out our video, which is quite amusing if I do say so myself. Thanks NYCC staff for making it so much fun to be a part of.


And now back to work on the next novels... Thankfully all my work and play are so gloriously entwined!

Authors After Dark NOLA

The Authors After Dark convention was a great deal of fun, in one of my most beloved cities, New Orleans. I am slammed on deadline, so here's my quick and dirty wrap-up. It is really hard to wrap my brain around all the events, visits, panels and sights, so forgive me if I miss a detail or two. I have my head in two different fictional worlds right now, as well as filming, so I'm a bit scatterbrained.

I feel so very at home in New Orleans, it is a city of great power for me. You may recall the last time I was in NOLA, this past February, and my amusing incident as a "Legit Vampire". I am pleased to report that my Vampire Legitimacy continued this trip. As I went into the Boutique du Vampir, the woman behind the counter looked up at me and asked "are you a local? You seem like a local."

I take that as a compliment. I got a chance to meet a whole bunch of new friends, spend time with fabulous folks like con organizer Stella Price and my steampunk peeps A. L. Davroe, PJ Schnyder, the hysterical Tee and Pip Morris (stay tuned, I'll eventually have some upcoming business with those two fabulous hooligans) and Lia Habel. One of the delights of the convention was the Steampunk Tea where my fellow authors and attendees really got into some gorgeous costuming. Well done, friends.  I finally got some quality time with the utterly magical Theresa Meyers who is kind, lovely and so very talented. She taught us numerology and that was just plain awesome. Fellow Apocalypsie Danny Marks delighted me (as usual) and I was very pleased that there was a growing space for Young Adult Lit at the convention.



Leanna Renee Hieber, Lia Habel and Pj Schnyder at the Masquerade


I hung with my beloved Jennifer Armintrout and Bronwyn Green and laughed until my sides hurt (in a corset. It really hurt. But it was so worth it). I met new readers, bloggers, industry professionals and helped lead a parade of beautiful masquerade-clad ladies and gents after I'd danced to Depeche Mode alongside the fabulous Jessa Slade. Jade Lee and I exchanged our usual love-fest upon seeing one another and I was delighted by the surprise arrival of Barbara Vey of PW's Beyond her book. Some of my fave bloggers got a chance to snag the last physical ARC copies of The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart and I was able to introduce Darker Still: A Novel of Magic Most Foul to a new host of readers and enthusiasts. I so dearly appreciated readers and bloggers bringing me copies of my Strangely Beautiful novels, I almost cried to see them, I can't tell you how much that support means to me considering they are currently out of print and authors are receiving no royalties from the now defunct Dorchester Publishing. I am VERY excited to say that we should have some exciting new news on the further life and resurrection of that series, so stay tuned!

And did I mention I love dressing up? It is my very favourite of activities. :) It's become something I'm fairly known for at conventions and events at this point, and I embrace it with all the love and fun with which it's meant. As a professional actress as well as author, I just can't say no to theatrical dress. It really isn't a costume at this point, folks. These are my clothes. It's the way I love greeting the world and it serves as a way, a bridge that brings my own Gothic fiction into the real world in a way that is tactile and inhabited. I hope people have as much fun with it as I do. Rule # 1 is never take yourself too seriously.


Goth in Hot Weather. St. Louis Cemetery 1 

A whole wonderful crew of us went to St. Louis Cemetery #1 and I had a lovely time (if withered by the heat). Goths in hot weather. Oy. Thanks Bronwyn for the photos! Please see Jess Haines' fabulous wrap up of the convention, replete with some of our very fun adventures together as I spearheaded a trip to visit the ghosts at Lafitte's Blacksmith shop and my introduction of Absinthe to the uninitiated. And then there was tht thing where her phone went in a crypt. (!).
While taking a few moments alone to gather the sacred energy of that amazing city I love so much, I felt the history moving in me. Alive in me. I chose the New Orleans home of my Dupris brothers, characters in my upcoming Eterna Files saga with Tor/Macmillan, on my favourite street, Rue Royale, right next to the gorgeous 19th century Court of the Two Sisters. I love it when historical research and fun go so naturally together!

I miss you so much, NOLA, I'll try and return to you soon! Much love. Back to deadline!

My schedule for RT 2012 in Chicago!

Hello friends! I'll be returning to the Windy City as part of RT Bookreviews' Annual Booklover's Convention! Before Chicago I'll be stopping off and participating in Barbara Vey's Reader Appreciation event in Milwaukee! Very excited. I'll be tweeting @LeannaRenee and hashtag #RT12
Here are my events / panels at RT:

Wednesday, April 11
3:30-4:30pm
LOVE, MONSTERS and MYTHOLOGY Panel
Location: Capital Room, Lower Level

11:45-1am!
YA MIDNIGHT SLUMBER PARTY!
Join an amazing list of YA authors: Ann Aguirre, Josephine Angelini, Brodi Ashton,

Charlotte Bennardo, Anne Greenwood Brown, Zoraida Cordova, Kady Cross, Bree Despain, Debra Driza, Cole Gibsen, Rachel Harris, Leanna Renee Hieber, Nancy Holder, Tara Hudson, Colleen Houck, Sophie Jordan, Suzanne Lazear, Lea Nolan, Jana Oliver, Amy Plum, Jeri Smith-Ready, JA Souders, Natalie Zaman - for prizes, games and fun!

Location: Entry Level, Grand Ballroom A, B and C

Thursday, April 12

10-11am

Publisher Spotlight: Sourcebooks

Location: Lobby Level, Midway

2:45-3:45pm

STEAMPUNK GASLIGHT GATHERING

Join Steampunk and Gaslight Fantasy authors for a fun party of prizes, snacks, visits and fabulous costuming.

Location: International E 

Saturday, April 14

10:45 - 2pm

The MASSIVE BOOK FAIR!

Please note I will be signing DARKER STILL: A Novel of Magic Most Foul only, (No Strangely Beautiful titles due to issues with the publisher) and I'll be signing in TEEN ALLEY!

DARKER STILL is an Indie Next List recommended title by the ABA and is "Highly Recommended" by Scholastic Book Fairs!

3:45 - 4:45pm

UNDERSTANDING STEAM AND OTHER PUNKS

Location: Entry Level, United

5-6pm

ROMANCING BOOKSELLERS & LIBRARIANS

Private Party for Booksellers / Librarians with Sourcebooks authors

Location: Lobby Level, Conference Center Atrium Foyer

6:15-7:30pm

TEEN DAY PARTY

Location: International Ballroom

Cheers!

Happy 2012! Upcoming Events and Cool Cons!

Hello lovelies! I hope you all rung in the new year with lots of merriment and joy, I spent my holidays with my real-life-hero, our friends and family and made a lot of writing and artistic resolutions for the new year. And seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie several times. *swoon*

There are some really exciting conferences I'm going to be a part of!

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A FULL LIST! I'll be all over the place this year this is just starting off the next few months! :)

1. Firstly, I'll be returning to TempleCon again the first weekend in February. Huzzah.

2. Kick off March in NOLA with the
Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter of RWA!
(From the FF & P website)
Fantasy on the Bayou
March 2 - March 4, 2012 at the New Orleans Marriott
Please check the HOTEL INFORMATION page for information on booking your room. If you are interested in finding a roommate or people to carpool with, watch the Chapter loop for announcements.

FEATURED GUESTS:
Keynote Speaker - Karen Marie Moning
NYT Bestselling Novelist, author of the Fever Series.

Featured Speaker - Leanna Renee Hieber
Actress, playwright, and multiple Prism Award-winning author of the Strangely Beautiful and Magic Most Foul series of Gothic Victorian Fantasy novels
Featured Speaker - Bob Mayer
NY Times Bestselling Author.

Featured Speaker - Kristen Painter
Urban fantasy author and co-founder of Romance Divas.

ATTENDING AGENTS
Michelle Brower, Folio Literary Management
Elaine Spenser, The Knight Agency
Becca Stumpf, The Prospect Agency

VIRTUAL PITCH AGENTS
Sara Megibow, The Nelson Agency

ATTENDING EDITORS
Angela James, Carina Press
Melissa Singer, Tor Books
Liz Pelletier, Entangled Publishing
To be named from LooseId

VIRTUAL PITCH EDITORS
Renee Rocco, Lyrical Press
Donna O'Brion, Crescent Moon Press

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEES
$250 FF&P Members/Media
$275 RWA Members
$300 General Attendee
Conference registration includes all workshops/sessions, a sit-down luncheon featuring our Keynote Speaker, and a sit-down dinner including the announcement of the On the Far Side Award winners and PRO/PAN pinning ceremony. Register Now! Questions? conference@romance-ffp.com

3. Keep the muse thriving in March with the
LIBERTY STATES FICTION WRITERS CONFERENCE
MARCH 17th
Renaissance Woodbridge Hotel, Iselin, NJ
Keynote speaker Larissa Ione
Over 17 attending editors and agents
Networking and Panels
Tons of fabulous bestselling authors
And a special edition of Lady Jane's Salon!
Full Details on the Liberty States site. Check it out!

Now I'm back to work on a brand new proposal and eager to finish up edits on Magic Most Foul book II and also to make progress on the last Strangely Beautiful novel! Full steam ahead into 2012!

And lift your glass to Steampunk fiction! Just like in Victorian times, I'm serializing! Check out THE WORLD OF TOMORROW IS SADLY OUTDATED at Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders, and while you're there, be sure to subscribe in whatever format suits you so you keep up-to-date on all the installments!
Happy New Year, friends!

Authors After Dark Paranormal Weekend 2011

As my artistic cup runneth over with awesome projects and further books to write, I'm going to have to be very picky about what conventions I'm able to do. But here's one I'm going to always do my best to attend; Authors After Dark Paranormal Weekend. I attended last year, had a great time, and I just returned from this year's event in Philadelphia. The easiest way to wrap up the spirit of the weekend is that it's wonderful quality time with enthusiastic readers, bloggers and fellow authors in a fun environment filled with panels, treats for readers and bloggers, charity raffles, a huge book signing and plenty of chances to dress up. And you ALL know that's one of my very favourite things.
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Thanks to everyone who made it possible on the whole AAD team, especially Stella Price who was always juggling a million things at once. Thanks to the amazing readers and bloggers I met, the many friends I was blessed to see again, and to the wonderful fellow authors whose work I admire, some of whom I already know and love, some of whom I met in person for the first time. I was very excited to not only be signing the Strangely Beautiful series but also to be there promoting Darker Still: A Novel of Magic Most Foul. November 8th will be here before we know it! Extra-special thanks to my other half, he is SUCH a good sport, as you'll see below.

The fabulous Mandi of Smexy Books took this at the AAD Booksigning:






















On Friday night, the Mythos Masquerade was held in mythic splendour. I could not, of course, pass up an opportunity to dabble in my own mythology and portray my version of The Goddess Persephone as I have envisioned her in The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess. She turned out fairly well if I do say so myself, pretty much just the way I hoped (save for all the special effects that would, as I've described her, have her shifting and shimmering colours all the time).


In this costume, I wanted to evoke an essence of Percy Parker but still represent this distinct being who is mysterious, magical and luminous. The shimmering fabric and a lot of glitter helped with luminosity... Isn't it amazing how the mirror has a different expression? The Goddess is magic, I tell you, she is mysterious and her own being...






















Here's my beloved at my side being a good sport and playing a rather perfect young Alexi Rychman... (note the scarlet cravat which gets its own backstory in Perilous Prophecy)... Thanks to Grace at Livre De Amour for this photo!

The Steamball was a ball between great enterainment in the Olde City Side Show, beautiful vendors and I even got the chance to get my dance on and Goth out a bit on the floor. (My booksigning outfit was my Steamball outfit. Once in regalia, I remain in regalia all day.) And then my sweetheart and I had a gorgeous Sunday in Philadelphia, despite the rain, the art museum is incredible, and so was the awesome vegetarian German food at Brauhaus. Yum.

And now, back to deadline! Magic Most Foul book II is well underway, but deadlines approach, so it will be quiet around here for a bit, but do stay tuned for my DragonCon schedule!

Cheers!

Events! The Calendar in Progress... 2011

Hello friends! As you know, I travel (a lot) to conventions, conferences, readings, etc, to talk about my books and also to support the genre that I love, to cheer on other writers, to commune with readers and also, you know, to play dress-up (the real reason for everything). Here's the shakedown of my 2011 events thus far. Events will likely add to this list, but these things are for sure thus far:

So it begins!

Feb. 4-6: Warwick/Providence Rhode Island: TempleCon! I return as a Guest Author to this lovely RetroFuturist Convention where I'll have a table with my books to sign, I'll be reading from Darkly Luminous and previewing Perilous Prophecy w/ a book giveaway: Saturday at 7pm! I'm teaching the Language of the Fan at High Tea and having a grand time!

Feb 10th: Columbus, OH - Free event! Guest at Romance Read aloud sponsored by Ohioana Library Association - Books will be available for signing.

March 25 - 27th: Nashua, New Hampshire - I'm The Literary Guest of Honor at the Steampunk Industrial Revolution! Panels, a live performance, and more! Books will be available for signing.

April 29 - May 1: New Hampshire - Aeternitas Harry Potter Convention Keynote speaker! "From Fandom to Fiction" - Books will be available for signing, as this event includes the Perilous Prophecy launch party!

May 3: Stamford, CT Connecticut Library Association Conference - guest speaker on Trends in Paranormal Fiction, books will be available for signing, including The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess.

Attn. Southern Ohio, my hometown launch party!
Thursday May 5th, 7:00 pm: Reading / Signing The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess at Streets of WestChester - Union Center Barnes & Noble in the Cincinnati Metro Area!

May 7th-8th: San Diego, CA - Guest author, Gaslight Gathering - (A Victoriana Convention!)

May 20-22: Guest author, Piscataway, NJ - Steampunk World's Fair

May 24th-26th: - NYC - Book Expo America - RWA booth and Sourcebooks booth

June 3-5 - Cincinnati, Ohio - Lori Foster's Reader / Author Get Together

June 27th: - Lady Jane's Salon special RWA edition, I'll be reading from and signing The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess

August 11th-14th - Featured author, Authors After Dark

Sept 2-5- Atlanta - DragonCon - panelist on the "Dark Fantasy / Goth" track

Sept 18th - NYC! Brooklyn Book Festival (at booth, signing)

October 28-30th - San Diego - World Fantasy Convention

AROUND THE INTERWEBS:

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- Interview and Giveaway at I'm a Reader Not a Writer (Giveaway ends 2/14)

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- Stay Tuned to WAITING FOR FAIRIES - I've written an exclusive short Valentine piece starring Elijah and Josephine, two Strangely Beautiful favourites! Follow her @Kiaras and at the site, she'll be hosting giveaways and fun goodies all February! The new short story goes up Valentine's Day!

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-KUDOS to UNHALLOWED METROPOLIS; "the gas-mask chic role playing game of Neo-Victorian horror" for picking up new distributor at Atomic Overmind Press! I met this fabulous crew of visionaries, gamers and artists at TempleCon last year and I am VERY pleased to say I'll be involved with the Unhallowed crowd in the future, having written a short piece about a Neo-Victorian zombie assassin for their upcoming fiction installments. Very. Cool.

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I have joined THE APOCALYPSIES - a fabulous group of 2012 Debut YA authors and since MAGIC MOST FOUL releases November 2011 - they've kindly let me play in their End of the World Sandbox - that's so nice of them! They're the neatest group of authors with awesome books - please check out and follow the blog and their Twitter @Apocalypsies!

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Cheers, friends! Hope your February is lovely thus far, I know I'm trying to stay warm and trying not to fall into snow banks here in NYC. My beloved bought me vinyl boots. He is nice.

Stay tuned for another Marketing Smackdown column this month!

In which a grand time was had at TempleCon

How awesome was TempleCon? So very, very awesome. Beloved friend from the Goth scene back in Cincinnati back-in-the-day, incredible artist Kelley Hensing and myself packed her art, my Strangely Beautiful books, and a ridiculous amount of poofy skirts, corsetry and hat boxes into her car and drove to Warwick, Rhode Island where the moment we walked in, the magnificent Creative Director Madame Ximon recognized me immediately by my absurdly large hat and showed us graciously to our booths. She is a consummate hostess and runs a damn good convention.

As we set up our wares, we gaped and grinned as spectacular Steampunk, Neo-Victorian and other Retro-Futurist costumed ladies and gentlemen strolled by. Please visit the TempleCon site for fabulous photos of these incredible feats of costuming and imagination. (Shown here, me at my booth - with said large hat - Kelley's work to the right)

After a day of selling wares and greeting fellow gaming and fantasy fans, Kelly and I were invited by our talented booth-neighbors to their Unhallowed party and thus begun my realization that the Unhallowed crowd were just about the ultimate in cool. Unhallowed: Metropolis is a Live Action Role Playing game designed by Jason Soles & Nicole Vega and described as: a gas-mask chic role-playing game of Neo-Victorian horror. SIGN ME UP! Not only did these ladies and gents know how to dress up beautifully (a skill I hold in the utmost esteem), and throw a party, but they've tossed everything I love into one beautifully realized and inventive world. Mr. Soles and Ms. Vega have surrounded themselves with fabulous artists and authors like photographer Marc17, puppeteer and artist George Higham, and author Simon J. Berman.

The next day the Unhallowed crowd were my fellow guests (again, all of us impeccably dressed to the Victorian nines, I might add) on the Neo-Victorian panel where we all gushed (okay, I gushed, they were all much more composed) about why we love the 19th century, infusing paranormal into it, and why everyone else should be just as obsessed with it too. And then I was graciously granted the opportunity to read from The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and had (as I always do when I get to play the actress and read) a most delightful time of it. And then we relaxed with another party. A Tea Party, of course, with sumptuous trappings (and more costumes). Particular kudos to our Neo-Victorian cage match/pit-fighting discussion replete with appropriate WWF characters and etymology. Bartitsu!

Other highlights included my fantastic chats spanning 300 years of history with The Major of Big Bear Trading Co.

(pictured here in striped finery is Miss Kitty of Big Bear Trading Co. who made me an Edgar Allan Poe brooch that I'm positively in love with) The friendly people working the Privateer Press booth, and The General and his Lady, Chief Security Officer of the S.S. Icarus and the Penny Dreadfuls company. And I've more to look forward to! Continuing my Neo-Victorian / Gaslight Gothic tour, now I can't wait to be a guest author at the Steampunk World's Fair in May, where I'll see a lot of familiar faces and new friends!

Huzzah!