Welcome to the WordCrafter Haunted Halloween Holiday Book Blog Tour, in celebration of this delightful new children’s Halloween adventure by Robbie and Michael Cheadle. This is going to be a wonderful tour with a guest post from author Robbie Cheadle and a review at every stop. Today will be a real treat with not one, but two tour stops, but you may comment on either stop here. Instead of making Robbie sit through another tedious interview, we will have each tour stop host ask her two questions, so you can learn more about her at every stop if you follow the tour, and she also has a great giveaway.
Tour Schedule
(Links won’t work until the post goes live.)
Monday – October 3 – Double Stop Day! – Guest Post & Review – Writing to be Read
For a chance to win one of three US$10 Amazon vouchers or one of three paperback copies of Haunted Halloween Holiday just leave a comment to show you were here.
Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win.
The prizes will be given away in a random drawing.
About Haunted Halloween Holiday
Count Sugular is delighted when the Sugarpop Bats invite his family to a Halloween party at the Haunted House. He and his wife, Witch Honey, decide to hire a caravan and enjoy a weekend away with their family.
Includes some fun limericks to introduce the various characters.
Question: You illustrate your children’s books with elaborate fondant scenes, with buildings and characters which are very detailed. How long does it take you to create a whole fondant scene for illustration in one of your stories?
Answer: The fondant and cake illustrations are time consuming. The amount of time required depends on the number of flowers and figurines I include and their complexity.
Each figurine takes, on average, between 4 and 5 hours to complete. I always start with the heads. Some of the figurines have detailed facial features including teeth, lip detail, and layered eyes and these take a lot of time and effort to make.
Hair is also time consuming, especially curly hair, as each strand is wound around a cocktail stick and allowed to partially dry before it can be attached to the head. Timing is important because if the fondant hair strand dries to much, it wont stick to the head.
My next step is usually the body and shoes, and that is followed by the arms and legs. Attaching arms and legs can be tricky as you have to keep them in the correct positions until they dry. Standing figurines are much more difficult to make than seated ones. The legs have to dry completely before you can attach the weight of the head and body to a standing figurine or the legs collapse.
Flowers are also made in layers. I start with the centres and leave them to firm up before adding the second layer of petals. Flowers are also tricky from a timing perspective as the petals must firm up enough to hold their shape but not dry so much they crack or break.
From a cake perspective, sponge cake assembly is not that difficult for me. The carving and assembly of shaped cakes isn’t that difficult if you have an eye for proportions which I do.
The gingerbread caravan that features in Haunted Halloween Holiday was difficult to make because I had to bend the gingerbread to make it harden in a curved shape. I did have to make adaptions to my initial plan and I created the sides and top of the caravan in two parts instead of one as I’d originally planned. I did have to redo that piece of gingerbread. You have to bend it while it is still hot but not so hot it collapses (or burns you) but before it starts to harden or it cracks. Another tricky timing situation.
The windmill was complex to make because of the blades which I made separately from fondant and attached to wooden kebab sticks. The entire bladed structure had to then be attached to the gingerbread windmill structure. It was a great challenge and I was delighted at how both of these structures came out.
Question: You have done many collaborations for anthologies, and you also co-wrote a book with your mother. Do you have more fun collaborating with your son Michael on the children’s books than you do with your adult collaborators on adult themed works? Why or why not?
Answer: The children’s books are fun to write and illustrate. The text for the Sir Chocolate and other children’s books is much less, 600 words or less for the Sir Chocolate picture books in line with the industry standard, than books for older children or adults.
My collaboration with Michael involves conversations and chats about characters and ideas for story lines as well as the illustrations. This makes the entire process fairly easy and companionable.
Writing While the Bombs Fell was a more difficult collaboration because I was writing my mother’s memories. I had to coax the memories from her, research the details and historical context of the time period and lay them over her personal timeline. It was an interesting and rewarding process and I learned a lot more about my mom’s early life and my own family.
There were some difficulties, especially around the structuring of the story and the fictionalised elements. My mom didn’t always agree when I filled gaps in her memory with information based on historical research to give the book a little more meat. In the end, we came to a meeting of minds and were both happy with the book. The difficulties with writing someone else’s memories is one of the reasons why the sequel, After the Bombs Fell, is not finished. My own writing process has changed and it’s more difficult for me to work with someone else now.
Thank you, Kaye, for these great questions and for hosting my post.
About the Authors
Michael Cheadle is a student at a high school in South Africa. His favourite subjects are IT, and History and he enjoys creative writing, especially writing poetry. In his spare time Michael enjoys computer games, boxing, tennis, and sleeping.
Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with eleven children’s books and two poetry books.
The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie and Michael have also written Haunted Halloween Holiday, a delightful fantasy story for children aged 5 to 9. Count Sugular and his family hire a caravan to attend a Halloween party at the Haunted House in Ghost Valley. This story is beautifully illustrated with Robbie’s fondant and cake art creations.
Robbie and Michael have also written Haunted Halloween Holiday, a delightful fantasy story for children aged 5 to 9. Count Sugular and his family hire a caravan to attend a Halloween party at the Haunted House in Ghost Valley. This story is beautifully illustrated with Robbie’s fondant and cake art creations.
Robbie has also published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.
Robbie Cheadle contributes two monthly posts to https://writingtoberead.com, namely, Growing Bookworms, a series providing advice to caregivers on how to encourage children to read and write, and Treasuring Poetry, a series aimed at introducing poetry lovers to new poets and poetry books.
In addition, Roberta Eaton Cheadle contributes one monthly post to https://writingtoberead.com called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends which shares information about the cultures, myths and legends of the indigenous people of southern Africa.
Haunted Halloween Holiday is a ‘just a little scary but lots and lots of fun’ kind of story. Fans of the Sir Chocolate books by Robbie and Michael Cheadle will not be disappointed as the mother and son duo write and bake their way into reader’s hearts with this delightfully delicious story. Stuffed full of delectable fondant illustrations, highlighted with lovely rhyming verse to tell the story of an unique holiday celebration.
This book is a bit longer than previous Sir Chocolate formats, and contains less verse, but it’s a delightfully fun adventure to please readers both young and old. Who could resist all the colorful characters who attend this festive holiday party? Count Sugular; Baby Howler; Skelly the Skeleton; Teddy the posessed teddy bear; the Trolls – Tar and Liquorice; Toot, the clown who smiles upside; Witch Goody; and Jack Frost all help to make this Halloween celebration one to be remebered, and enjoyed over and over, every time you pick up the book.
That wraps up this stop on the WordCrafter Haunted Halloween Holiday Book Blog Tour, but be sure to drop in to Undawnted for another great review of the book. Join us tomorrow over at The Showers of Blessings, for another guest post by Robbie and a review by Miriam Hurdle.
Thanks to contributing author Joseph Carrabis giving us a taste of the stories in the new Visions anthology from WordCrafter Press. Follow the link to learn more.
Thanks to contributing author Joseph Carrabis giving us a taste of the stories in the new Visions anthology from WordCrafter Press. Follow the link to learn more.
Booked to the Gills by Aisley Oliphant is designed to help those participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in thirty days. Many writers who would like to be more prolific may find the advice and strategies outlined in this book to be quite helpful. In fact, many of the time management tips, such as time blocking, can come in handy for any writer who juggles several projects along with a day job, and relationships with family and friends, and ‘me time’.
For many of us, that ‘ me time’ is what is forfeited when things get to hectic. And the author openly admits that she has not a fun person to be around during previous NaNoWriMo challenges. For others, relationships might be strained when family and friends are put on the back burner and writing takes the forefront. And the author openly admits that she has not been a fun person to be around during previous NaNoWriMo challenges. This book is packed full of strategies to salvage relationships and keep your sanity, while still cranking up the word count.
Topics which are covered include time management, setting boundaries, adjusting wordcounts, prioritizing…
I have mentioned before that I am not a prolific writer. Authors such as Kevin J. Anderson, who can crank out right or ten books in a year, totally blow me away. But in these pages are strategies which will certainly be useful in increasing my writing output and helping me be a more productive writer, as well as giving me organizational tools that will be helpful in managing the numerous writing and publishing projects which I always seem to have going.
I attempted the NaNoWriMo challenge once, back in 2010, and failed miserably. When I picked up this book, doing this challenge was the furthest thing from my mind, but thinking about putting some of the strategies in Booked to the Gills to the test, I’m thinking it might be worth another try this year.
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
Good things happening with WordCrafter Press in October.
Refracted Reflections Book Blog Tour
And the winners are:
We had a great tour last week for Refracted Reflections including a fantastic giveaway for, not one, but three digital copies of the anthology. Congratulations to Kay Castenada, Christy B., and Mae Clair!
If your name appears above, please contact me at kayebooth@yahoo.com and let me know if you prefer PDF or epub. (Amazon will no longer convert mobi files.) Thank you all for joining in on the tour.
An author’s visions are revealed through their stories. Many authors have strange and unusual stories, indeed. Within these pages, you will find the stories of eighteen different authors, each unique and thought provoking. These are the fantasy, science fiction, paranormal, and horror stories that will keep you awake long into the night.
What happens when:
An inexplicable monster plagues a town for generations, taking people… and souvenirs?
A post-apocalyptic band of travelers finds their salvation in an archaic machine?
The prey turns out to be the predator for a band of human traffickers?
Someone chooses to be happy in a world where emotions are regulated and controlled?
A village girl is chosen to be the spider queen?
Grab your copy today and find out. Let authors such as W.T. Paterson, Joseph Carabis, Kaye Lynne Booth, Michaele Jordan, Stephanie Kraner, and others, including the author of the winning story in the WordCrafter 2022 Short Fiction Contest, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, tantalize your thoughts and share their
Visions
From Kaye Lynne Booth, editor of Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales & Folklore,Refracted Reflections: Twisted Tales of Duality & Deception and Gilded Glass: Twisted Myths & Shattered Fairy Tales.
WordCrafter Visions Book Blog Tour – October 17 – 24
Visions Book Blog Tour
The WordCrafter Visions Book Blog Tour will run from October 17 – 24 with guest posts from eight contributing authors, two double stop days featuring an interview by me with the author of the winning story in the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest, Roberta Eaton Cheadle and contributing author Sara Wesley McBride interviews me. So join us here on the 17th to follow the tour to enter the giveaway, or pre-order your copy today.
WordCrafter Haunted Halloween Holiday Book Blog Tour
Haunted Halloween Holiday Book Blog Tour
The WordCrafter Haunted Halloween Holiday Book Blog Tour will run October 3 – 7, featuring the latest children’s story in the Sir Chocolate series by Robbie and Michael Cheadle. Meet Robbie through her guest posts and a tour wide Q & A, when she answers two questions at each stop, and learn more about the book with five different reviews.
For a chance to win a free digital copy of Refracted Reflections, just leave a comment to show you were here. Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win. Three copies will be given away in a random drawing.
On today’s tour stop, we have a guest post by contributing author Elisabeth Caldwell, who talks about the inspiration for her story. Her’s is a unique tale about that starts off the anthology with a bang. So, without further ado, I’ll let her tell you about the inspiration behind “The Mirror Guardian”.
“Mirror Guardian” Inspirations
Several years ago, I was in the shower washing my hair and noticed multiple dark strands of hair wrapped around my hands and fingers. Everyone loses hair when they wash it. But this was too much hair. And it kept happening. After multiple visits to various doctors, a dermatologist declared I had female pattern baldness. I would never recover the hair I had lost, but minoxidil would, hopefully, help slow the balding process.
Terror struck me, and my mind raced. What if the medicine didn’t work? How much hair would I lose? How fast would it fall out? If I lost too much hair, what would I do? Would I shave my head?
Night after night these thoughts kept me awake, and I started to try to envision what it might be like to be bald. How would people see me? Would they look at me or avert their eyes? How would I see myself? Would I be afraid to look in the mirror? Would I bravely go out in the world? Or would I hide myself away like a princess in a tower? Would a prince come to save me? Or would I be strong enough to save the prince?
I was organizing my bookshelves right around the time a friend forwarded me the call for submissions for mirror-themed short stories, and I came upon my favorite fairytale book that I had saved from my childhood. These were the same fairytales I had read to my daughters – daughters who are now teenagers barraged by social media full of air-brushed beauty. My girls scroll through image after image of seemingly perfect people leading seemingly perfect lives and are saddened by their own imperfections.
I am old enough to know that no person and no life are perfect.
Sitting with that worn and weathered book in my hand thinking of Maid Maleen who sat for seven years in a tower waiting to be rescued, I realized my girls deserved a fairytale of female strength. I wanted to give them a heroine who didn’t fit the traditional mold of beauty. Who didn’t let everyday conceptions of what she should be and how she should act define her. A heroine whose beauty shone like moonlight on her bare head. A heroine who didn’t sacrifice her happiness because it was expected of her.
And from this came Kella. I hope you enjoy her story!
About the Author
Elizabeth Caldwell grew up a Philly (and suburban Philly) girl with thick glasses and her nose buried in a book. When she was 12, she fell into the yellowed pages of one of her grandmother’s Mary Stewart novels and has been obsessed with reading and writing ever since. She sees fairies in the trees, mermaids in the ocean, ghosts peeking out the windows of sprawling Victorians in Cape May, and a story behind every couple that walks by holding hands. She writes poetry, short stories and novels.
Elizabeth lives in Bucks County, PA with her three vibrant children, a husband who is her soulmate and best friend, and one very sweet, albino corn snake. She practices law by day, writes by night and daydreams every chance she can get.
About the Book
Refracted Reflections: Twisted Tales of Duality & Deception
Refracted Reflections: Twisted Tales of Duality & Deception
Refractions and Reflections…
A reflection can be revealing or deceptive. What stares back at you when you glance into the mirror?
A prison, designed to trap you and take away all that is dear to you?
A portal to another dimension? Another time?
An evil twin, luring you to the other side?
Your loved ones with a fond farewell?
A distorted version of yourself? A person you no longer even recognize?
A protective savior?
Do you dare to gaze into the looking glass?
Will what you see save you…, or haunt you forever?
If you liked Gilded Glass and Once Upon an Ever After, you’ll like Refracted Reflections: Tales of Duality & Deception.
Thanks for joining us today for Day 3 of the WordCrafter Refracted Reflections Book Blog Tour. I hope you enjoyed meeting Elizabeth and learning more about her outstanding story. Follow the tour for a chance for a free digital copy of this exceptional anthology, Refracted Reflections: Twisted Tales of Duality & Deception, or pick up your copy at the link above. Below are the links to the previous stops, in case you missed them:
Tuesday – September 20 – Guest Post by author Ligia de Wit & a review on Carla Loves to Read
I hope you’ll join us again tomorrow on Roberta Writes, with a guest post from Valerie B. Williams about the inspiration behind her story, “The Tinker’s Gift”. Until then, Happy Reading!
We finished up the WordCrafter Once Upon an Ever After Book Blog Tour on Saturday, and I do hope you all joined in. It was a great tour and we held a giveaway for three digital copies of Once upon an Ever After, and every comment earned an entry.
Now, I am pleased to announce that the three winners of the anthology giveaway are Liz Gauffreau, Annette Rochel Aben, and Sara W. McBride!
(I need to make contact with each of you to find out which digital format you prefer. If you don’t hear from me, please contact me at Kayebooth@yahoo.com.)
Ask the Authors 2022 has received a lovely review from Alex Norton on the Likely Story blog.
” I found it to be both interesting and useful, answering questions I didn’t even know I had and giving me different perspectives to ponder as I move forward on my own writing journey.”
You can find Alex’s full review here. I hope you will check it out.
.The first review is out on Goodreads, from Madelon’s Reviews. Madelon does a nice job of making a brief statement about each story, as well as a review of the overall anthology, which states in part:
“Overall, REFRACTED REFLECTIONS provides a glimpse into the writing styles of authors you may want to read again.”
Thank you all for following the WordCrafter Once Upon an Ever After Book Blog Tour. We’ve had a great tour, with two reviews, my interview with Robbie Cheadle, and guest posts from five of the contributing authors. We had a great group of authors contributing to this anthology and I want to thank authors Sarah Lyn Eaton, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Olivia Merchiston, Linsay Elizabeth Gilbert, and A. E. Lanier for sharing their story inspirations. If you missed a stop, you may still visit it through the links below.
Tour Schedule
Monday – August 22 – Opening Day Post – Writing to be Read – Intro. & Guest Post – Sarah Lyn Eaton
Tuesday – August 23 –Patty’s World – Review & Guest Post – Robbie Cheadle
Friday – August 26 – Zigler’s News – Review & Guest Post – Lyndsay Elizabeth Gilbert
Saturday – August 27 – Closing Post – Writing to be Read – Guest Post – A.E. Lanier
Digital Giveaway
For a chance to win a free digital copy of Once Upon an Ever After, just leave a comment to show you were here.
Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win.
Three copies will be given away in a random drawing
Today, we’re wrapping up the WordCrafter Once Upon an Ever After Book Blog Tour with a guest post from contributing author A.E. Lanier, who wrote “The Fourth Spire”, a haunting tale of knowledge lost. It’s a thought provoking tale of a burning library within a castle spire with a genuine fairy tale feel.
Excerpt from “The Fourth Spire” by A.E. Lanier
The Fourth Spire
Like most bookish people, I love a good library. Whether real or fictional, I like the idea of many books gathered in one place, the physical monument to the pursuit of knowledge, the fantasy of actually getting work done.
There have been many wonderful libraries–both real and fictional–in my life. I adored my local library as a child and ,like many people, was fundamentally changed by the library in the 1991 Beauty and the Beast. But my favorite library growing up was the one from Avatar the Last Airbender. A single tower reaching up out of the desert, hiding floor upon floor of mystically curated information, briefly discovered before vanishing below the sand once more–buried forever.
There is a romance to the destruction of a library. It feeds into the idea that there were things we once knew and never will again. The hope that perhaps we can relearn, tinged with understanding that the struggle between loss and rediscovery will cost us. It is nostalgia and a love of books and lost places all tied up in one.
“The Fourth Spire” came from my fascination with the aesthetic of the burning library. I wanted to explore what was valuable in mourning the destruction of a library and to consider whether there was something dangerous in romanticizing it. It was, in many ways, a question I was asking of myself.
I am the kind of person that watches an action film and winces harder when a scroll is burned than when an unnamed character is killed. At the end of the day, neither the character nor the scroll is real. But the scroll feels real in a way the character does not. And I sometimes find that impulse within myself disturbing. Books and artifacts are valuable and important, but I will mourn an unknown book in a way that I will not mourn an unknown person; its possibility is somehow more tangible to me.
“The Fourth Spire” is about that tendency to appreciate books more than people. And about the ways in which the knowledge we have lost is often more captivating than the knowledge we still have. I am not certain the story provided answers for me, but then I’m not entirely convinced I was looking for them. Certainly, it provided a feeling. A set of questions. And what more can we ask, really, of a burning library?
A.E. Lanier
A. E. Lanier is a writer, educator, and chronic overthinker living in Central Texas.She enjoys caves, silent reading, and other people’s cats. Her work has appeared in The Arcanist and Daily Science Fiction.
This unique and imaginative collection of eleven thought provoking fantasy stories will delight readers who enjoy stories of wishes gone awry. What happens when… A woman desires to carry on her family’s legacy, uncovering a long-buried curse? A not so perfect witch casts a spell to defy age and preserve her relationship with her handsome shapeshifting familiar? A time traveler longs to be the savior of knowledge lost? An incompetent delivery boy becomes an unlikely savior of forgotten artifacts? A magic mirror yearns for a different question? A tiny story witch desires to share her stories with the world?
Spells are cast, unlikely alliances made, and wishes granted, sometimes with surprising outcomes. You’ll love this anthology of modern myths, lore, and fairy tales. Once you read these twisted tales, you’ll be sure to be careful what you wish for….
If you liked Gilded Glass, you’ll enjoy OnceUpon an EverAfter: Modern Myths & Fairy Tales, short stories with thought provoking themes, captivating characters and diverse cultures, from humorous to horrifying, from the legendary past to possible futures and back to the here and now.
Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales & Folklore
You can get your copy of Once Upon an Ever After at your favorite book distributor through the Books2Read UBL here: https://books2read.com/u/mKdWGV
Welcome to the WordCrafter Once Upon an Ever After Book Blog Tour, where we’re launching Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Myths & Folklore with guest posts from contributing authors about their story inspirations, reviews and an interview the anthology and WordCrafter Press with me, Kaye Lynne Booth. So, stick with us by following the schedule below, to learn more about this mystical new anthology and its authors. Check back daily, as I’ll be adding the links as they go live.
Tour Schedule
Monday – August 22 – Opening Day Post – Writing to be Read – Intro. & Guest Post – Sarah Lyn Eaton
Tuesday – August 23 – Patty’s World – Review & Guest Post – Robbie Cheadle
Friday – August 26 – Zigler’s News – Review & Guest Post – Lyndsay Elizabeth Gilbert
Saturday – August 27 – Closing Post – Writing to be Read – Guest Post – A.E. Lanier
Digital Giveaway
For a chance to win a free digital copy of Once Upon an Ever After, just leave a comment to show you were here. Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win. Three copies will be given away in a random drawing. (Yep. I literally draw the names out of a hat.)
This anthology was by invitation only, which means I invited the authors because of specific stories, which caught my imagination. The result is a unique collaboration with a wonderful group of authors who have been an absolute pleasure to work with.
Today’s guest post is from contributing author Sarah Lyn Eaton, who wrote the story “Old Roots, New Soil”. Her story grabbed ahold of me and stuck in my head because of the imagery of the spooky old apple orchard her words created for me and because it involves a mysterious curse which is pretty cool. What more could you ask for in a modern day fairy tale?
Finding Roots
I originally wrote the story that appears in this anthology for another submission call, looking for folk tales and modern fairy tales based on some kind of mirror imagery. My brain tends to jump outside of, but stay near to, the box and I began to consider what kind of folk magics my ancestors might have practiced, may have believed. The inspiration for this story was rather close to home.
I grew up in between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Generations of my family lived in the area and that’s where my roots are. Our family genealogy is a project my dad worked on when I was a kid, and now we do it together. Over the years I have sought out information on the history of the places our ancestors lived, how they developed and evolved. What were their industries? Their environmental impact?
This is similar to the way I layer a character and where they came from and what circumstances they find themselves in when the story opens, and where they need to get to.
On my father’s side of the family, we have mostly been on this soil since the Mayflower, if not those first 50 years of migration to the new world. And my mother’s side of the family has lines that go back that far. But she also has more recent migrations from Germany and Ireland. And one of the German names caught my eye, that of my great-great-great-great maternal grandmother Wilheminia Wernersbach.
In 1836, George Arth, 35, and Wilheminia Wernersbach, 37, emigrated from Germany with sons Adam, 7, Jacob, 3, and George, 3 months. The emigration card did not list a destination. I believe they were in Antwerp for some time before coming to America. When Wilhemenia brought her sons to America, George Arth was not with them. In 1850, when they are first on record in Pendleton, NY her son Adam, my great-great-great grandfather had his own family plot, right next to her own. In fact, she saved up money to buy a third plot on the other side, so that each son would have his own land, but they would still be together.
I thought about their story and let my brain wander. I wondered what it was like for this woman to bring her children to a new world, and then all the way to the other side of New York that was still being developed. What of this land did she find strange? What of her land might she have brought with her? What customs would have been a comfort to her? What guardians might she have called on to protect her family? How might they have made their living in a new place?
When you do a lot of genealogy and you can get beyond the lists of names and dates and you start to retain details, you start to notice family patterns emerging. Generational patterns that the people toiling every day, trying to get to the next one can’t see. And sometimes you can see how trauma gets passed down, and sometimes even transposed, like in the telephone game of passing messages down a line of people, to see what it becomes at the end.
How can you undo something you can’t understand? How do you combat a family legacy that was kept hidden from you? And what if you found yourself crossing an apple orchard, about to open the door to a dark part of your family’s past?
And that was the seed that formed the first breath of my story.
Sarah Lyn Eaton
Sarah Lyn Eaton is a queer pagan writer and burn survivor. She is a life-long Star Wars geek who spends her free time rock hunting, or venturing into the woods with her camera. Her stories have been published in the anthologies Brave New Worlds, Upon a Twice Time, Unburied: A Collection of Queer Dark Fiction, Of Fae and Fate: Lesser Known Fairy Tales Retold,On Fire, and Dystopia Utopia. In 2021, Sarah Lyn was awarded The Speculative Literature Foundation’s Working Class Writer Grant.
About Once Upon an Ever After
This unique and imaginative collection of eleven thought provoking fantasy stories will delight readers who enjoy stories of wishes gone awry.
What happens when…
A woman desires to carry on her family’s legacy, uncovering a long-buried curse?
A not so perfect witch casts a spell to defy age and preserve her relationship with her handsome shapeshifting familiar?
A time traveler longs to be the savior of knowledge lost?
An incompetent delivery boy becomes an unlikely savior of forgotten artifacts?
A magic mirror yearns for a different question?
A tiny story witch desires to share her stories with the world?
Spells are cast, unlikely alliances made, and wishes granted, sometimes with surprising outcomes. You’ll love this anthology of modern myths, lore, and fairy tales. Once you read these twisted tales, you’ll be sure to be careful what you wish for….
If you liked Gilded Glass, you’ll enjoy Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Myths & Fairy Tales, short stories with thought provoking themes, captivating characters and diverse cultures, from humorous to horrifying, from the legendary past to possible futures and back to the here and now.
Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales & Folklore
Today is the last day of pre-order for this wonderful new anthology. Once Upon an Ever After goes live tomorrow. You can get your copy through your favorite book distributor with the Books2Read UBL here: https://books2read.com/u/mKdWGV
Yep. That’s me in the picture above with Kevin J. Anderson and Mark Leslie Lefebvre after my graduation ceremony. Obviously, I survived all the craziness of summer residency and graduated with an M.A. in publishing, but there were moments. Western’s summer residencies are always pretty intensive and this one was no exception. The whole week was a bit of a whirlwind. Classes began on Monday at Western State University, and I arrived on campus just in time for the first class at 9 a.m.
Kaye Wearing Cool Red Western Publishing Cohort Tee ShirtA Rising Publisher Lifts All BooksCool Western Publishing Cohort Tee Shirt
We each got publishing cohort tee shirts, which made us all the coolest cohort on campus. On the back it says, “A Rising Publisher Lifts All Books” with the image of a hot air balloon with the Western insignia on it. During the lunch break, I went and checked into my motel, before returning for the afternoon sessions, and it seemed like it was nonstop from there.
Gilded Glass & Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1926-27
Wednesday evening, we held our big in person book launch at the Gunnison Arts Center. It encompassed all of my cohort’s solo projects, plus the launch of the group produced anthology, Gilded Glass: Twisted Myths & Shattered Fairy Tales, which includes stories by big name authors such as Michaelbrent Collins, Jonathan Maberry, Kristine Katheryn Rusch, Allen Dean Foster, and Sherrilynn Kenyon, along with many talented new authors, for an exceptional science fiction and fantasy anthology. It was also announced that the Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years volumes that Justin Craido and I put out with Jonathan Maberry will be republished through Weird Tales and Blackstone Publishing, which makes the volumes featured for the book signing limited editions which will only be available for a short time through WordFire Press. You can still get these books or any of the books of my cohort here: https://wordfirepress.com/gpcw/ . The signing did quite well, and we sold out all of the books we brought to the event, with sales which I consider to be phenomenal, $25,000. The proceeds go to the University to fund future publishing cohorts, which is very cool.
2022 Western Colorado University graduating publishing cohort book signing – Gunnison Arts Center, Gunnison, Colorado
This was exciting for me, as it was my first book signing. I did do a poetry signing once at a all local writing fair, but it was nothing along the scale of this event. I was amazed when people came up to me, wanting my autograph on the books which I created. Wow!
Afterward, we celebrated at the Old Miner Steak House. We had the whole top floor reserved, but their grill broke, so they couldn’t cook any meals. So instead, we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The staff did a bang up job of putting together a menu of salads and sandwiches for us, and I thoroughly enjoyed a delicious French dip.
I was almost totally brain dead by the time Friday rolled around, it was time for the commencement ceremony and time to say goodbye to my fellow authors and publishers. It was emotional as my instructor and mentor, Kevin J. Anderson, offered each of my cohort a special edition, embossed copy of his Clockwork Angels story collection, which he wrote with Neal Peart of Rush. He describes these stories as steampunk Canterbury Tales, and I can’t wait to read them, although I’m almost scared to open it, because it’s so beautiful.
Kaye Ready to Graduate (or fall asleep?)
I managed to make it through the graduation despite the heat sitting in cap and gown and mask. Of course, I was my usual, graceful self, bumbling awkwardly through my commencement. When I was announced by the program director, I started across the stage, but he added in my first M.F.A., which made me hesitate and stop in my tracks. As I was the only one to have such added information delivered, I felt I should allow him to finish before going into motion. That delayed start flustered me, so when I got over to Kevin to be hooded, I forgot to bend down, but he managed to get it over my head anyway. Realizing I had messed up flustered me even more and Kevin had to tell me to come back for a hug. But I made it through to the final photos without any more blunders.
Rose Garden FlowersMulleinMonster Cherry Tomato PlantMy Garden
Saturday, I arrived home to find that there were monsoon rains everyday while I was gone, and my yard and garden had exploded with greenery and other bright colors, including one monster cherry tomato plant, which grows in a large pot on my porch and a single gigantic mullein plant that I let grow in the front yard. Oh yes, and while I was gone, the bear which has frequented my neighborhood for as long as I can remember paid me a visit and scattered my garbage across my property. He’s a big brown bear and he pulled my garbage can over my wire fence, demolishing it. So, after unloading everything, I got to drag myself out and pick up trash before finally collapsing, exhausted. It had been a long and exciting week, but it was good to be home.
Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a M.A. in Publishing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.
She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”); and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, are both available in both digital and print editions at most of your favorite book distributors.
In addition, she keeps up her authors’ blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. Kaye Lynne has also created her own very small publishing house in WordCrafter Press, and WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services, where she offers quality author services, such as publishing, editing, and book blog tours. She has served as a judge for the Western Writers of America and sitting on the editorial team for Western State Colorado University and WordFire Press for the Gilded Glass anthology and editing Weird Tales: The Best of the Early Years 1926-27, under Kevin J. Anderson & Jonathan Maberry.
In her spare time, she is bird watching, or gardening, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
