Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

I've been working with Mike Corley, the awesome artist who has done the art for so many great indie books, on the cover art for Hoodoopocalypse, and who is doing the art for the Apocalypse Weird project I'm a part of. Let me drop this small hint: it's gonna blow you away. It's amazing, and I can't wait to see it in full color (that's the last thing that is in the works). The black and white version I've already seen is just too, too cool. The "Big Five" launch that happened last week, and the Red King cover, are all in the video, below, and mine is similar, but different. A lot of the other authors have picked what's called "hero pose" and I picked "bad guy pose." Y'all just wait!! OOOOh!

My book takes place in Shreveport a little, but the main action is in New Orleans. So in discussing the cover with Mike, of course I had to include the French Quarter, and magic, and Hoodoo. Hoodoo is the "Southern U.S., homegrown" version of Voodoo, with a little less of the religious practice that the more properly Haitian brand has. Root work, folk magic, etc, are all a big part of the story, and there is this amazing Hoodoo shop that people will forever be looking for when they go to New Orleans now.... but you'll have to wait til March 10 to get more details of that. Or, sign up for my newsletter and get ARCs of it very, very soon. See that little box up above this blog post that says "Mailing List"? There you'll get the Hoodoopocalypse delivered for free right to your email before it's available on Amazon. I'll also send future deals, freebies, etc. I don't over-mail, so I promise you're not gonna hear from me every day. But it's a great place to make sure you hear my news, because the old "Book of Face" often filters things it deems to be "business" and they get lost from your news feed.

Anyway. Long story short (too late) this cover is going to rock your socks off. (I know it's knock your socks, but this one is so rock n roll you just have to go with me on the shift. Besides. I have a poetic license.)

Oh, and also, check out the interview on my friend Elena's blog Chimeras, about one of the AW founders Rob McClellan. And check out my past interview with T.J. Redig, and wait til next week when I do another one related to the Apocalypse Weird project. (And also-- I'm such a fangirl I squeeee'd when I saw I was near Kameron Hurley on the podcast!)

GO forth, friends, and wait til next week when ARCs are ready and cover art will be revealed. (Also I'm annoyed I lost half of this content & had to rewrite it cause of some weird glitch... computer gremlins-- begone!)

Limited Time Sale!

Psssst. The boss is away and we're having a sale. (That's how you do those ads, right?)

This Friday-Saturday, Mariposa: A Love Story will be on sale for FREE on Kindle! Go pick up a copy. Read it! LOVE IT!

The Art of the Indie

One of the things that I found out when I first decided I wanted to be an indie publisher of my work was that as an indie, you have a lot of freedoms that traditional publishing won't go for. Like art work.

I've already talked about the cover art I'll get at the end of this month, and shared other amazing covers from my friends' books. I've been like a kid waiting for Christmas over that, for sure, and as soon as its ready it will be here on the blog. But I also commissioned two pieces of art that illustrate parts of my story, Hoodoopocalypse, from the amazingly talented Ben Adams.

I gave him my ideas for what I wanted in a long email and waited impatiently. I'm ridiculously visual with my writing, so I had a Pinterest picture for each idea. I don't know if that's helpful to the artist or not, but I do know it means that what I got today in my inbox was absolutely perfect. Just--so perfect. I saw a couple of teases, which is what I'm going to post here from Ben's Patreon page. (And by the way, I already posted that Patreon is one of those things you can do for the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you can support artists so they can keep making amazing things. I'm going to become one of Ben's Patreon's, too).

The first image is a snap from a 6 panel "Graphic novel style" piece he did of a moment in the story where one of the characters' quests comes to its watery end:

copyright Ben J. Adams, 2015.

Things I love about this include the "Hanged man" pose he caught for Marine Lance Corporal Jarrod Knighton, the guy in the center. And if you look up, there's a tiny little human shape above him. That's a voodoo doll that Knighton was delivering to the Gulf of Mexico, and the doll mirrors the "sacrificial" pose perfectly.  Didn't know there were mermaids down there at the tip of Louisiana's boot, did ya? Y'all be careful down there. 

This gorgeous image below is of my protagonist, Marie French. She's amazing and strong and I'm so glad I met her. She's got more adventures to go on, too.... you have to read and review the first of my books if you want to get the sequel though, cause that's the way this project works.... Let me just say, she's going to Memphis, eventually, and there may even be a King sighting in my magical apocalypse. But that's for later. For now: ART! 

This image is a very small snip of the overall picture cause I don't want to give away too much and "spoiler" you. But it takes place in Jackson Square, New Orleans. When you read my book in under a month (squeeee!) you'll get to see more amazingness from the picture. 

When I got the full versions today in my inbox I really did just cry. There is something so amazing about this. It may not have been a full on "ugly cry" but it was teared up, crying, happy. I never really thought about the impact that art can have on your novel. How it feels to have your ideas, which didn't even exist six months ago. 

I do, however, remember as a kid reading books and just pouring over the images in them. My favorite ever version of Little Women was one that had illustrations of Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth, some in color. I would stare at them and just take in everything. I loved that darn book. I even wrote my Master's Thesis on it. It's meant a lot to me, and I have to say that I think something to the artwork might have triggered that love, that belief in the power of beautiful images. The dog chewed that hardback library book up, actually, and I had to buy it from the library. I was actually kind of happy about that, to be honest. 

Most "grown up" books don't include graphics like this, and I think that's really a shame. And it's part of why I'm really proud to be producing MY work, my way. Yes, it's a little bit more expensive to commission a piece of artwork for your novel, but I can promise you, these are getting framed and put up in my house. And I think there are going to be t-shirts. And whatever else I can think of. It's all part of what is great about indie publishing. We can break rules. And innovate. It's going to change the world.  

And I really do love it. It's a little bit different as apocalypses go (apocalypti? tuses?) so you're going to have to trust me on the magic stuff. But I think you're going to love it too.   

the Hoodoopocalypse is coming

So my novel, Hoodoopocalypse, set in New Orleans & Shreveport, is set to launch in less than a month now! EEK! The deadlines & artwork & edits are in the works. That means a lot of it is currently out of my hands.

It's such a neat story. Beta readers have loved it, and I'm really excited about sharing it with a wider audience. This picture isn't the cover art, just something fun I kicked together for my FB banner. But I really love my sad little voodoo doll.

About Hoodoopocalypse

Kalfu, the ultimate evil-twin and Voodoo Loa of the afterworld and crossroads kicks off his plans for possession of the Southern Mississippi corridor.  Dark half of Papa Legba, Kalfu sets off events that cripple New Orleans, tries to take control of the over 9 million visitors to the Big Easy a year, and seeds his Hoodoo mafia, the Guédé, across Louisiana and the world. If the fire, category HUGE hurricane spawned by magical means, and roving mobs of mayhem-inducing zombi astrals don’t get you, the angry goddess and nuclear meltdown might. Laissez the End Times Roulez, y’all. The Apocalypse just came to the South.

A Writer's Lament in Winter

I tried to be a gardener.

Planted pink and yellow flowers,
arranged pocked-white limestone rocks
in spiral patterns, dreaming of fibonacci,
a big Zen fountain in the middle.
There was beauty for a while.

Spring and Fall and another Spring and Fall have come
and the garden is more weeds than not.
Moss pokes through the holes in one of the white rocks.
I tuck my head down,
ignore the mess and run away inside to the words.

Words. I can cultivate those. Prune here. Plant a seed
that will take root and life and spring up
there.

Pull the flowers out
cover it with grass
because I do not care what the neighbors think of
my green thumb.

These thumbs are bleeding ink.

KAW
Feb '15