Small Press Curiosity Quills Accepts SPILL

Email arrived last week:

Dear Randy,

 I've just joined Curiosity Quills and it was my great pleasure to read SPILL. I found it to be a fascinating and entertaining read. I am pleased to inform you Curiosity Quills would like to offer you a contract for SPILL. To capitalize on the marketing potential, we'll be looking to publish closer to the end of next summer, when the primary season is in full swing for the elections.

 Erika Galpin

SPILL is a political comedy, only comedy I've attempted. I wrote it out of deep frustration. Over many decades of writing fiction, with little publishing success to show for it, I thought: "Look, if you can write something that makes people laugh, you can't deny the writing is successful." SPILL—about a fired English teacher who scams the political system and gets the girl, the money, and a killer skateboard computer game—poured out of me in three months. Never written any novel that quickly. I laughed as I wrote it; many readers have laughed as they read it.

It got me an agent. We came close with traditional publishers. Here's the final rejection from an editor at Ecco, a highly respected imprint with Harper Collins. You make sense of it for me. I can't.

Thanks so much for thinking of me and of Ecco for Randy Attwood’s political satire, SPILL, which I enjoyed digging my teeth into. Fred and Zoe share a kind of chemistry on the page that goads the imagination and leads the reader to be genuinely interested in the outcome of their electoral shenanigans, and Attwood very capably lampoons contemporary aspects of America’s current political situation, like the oil industry, gun regulation, and unemployment. Unfortunately, as compelling as I found this read, in the end it just didn't capture my heart and attention to the degree where I would feel confident taking it on. Attwood has a sure command over language—my overarching issue, though, is that that language seems to be employed towards the end of being current; my instinct tells me SPILL exists less in and of itself and more for the audience it is fashioned to attract, and so I am sadly going to have to pass on this one. Attwood clearly has an accomplishment on his hands, and I wish you and him the best of luck finding a home for this debut elsewhere.

I self-published it in 2011 because editors at other traditional publishers advised my agent to encourage me to do so. It got me into this whole new business of epublishing and saved my creative life. I was really ready to just give up writing. Now I'm back at it. I haven't had huge self-publishing success, but I've got some wonderful reviews from people I don't know for my short stories, novellas and novels that are all over the genre map.

The small press Curiosity Quills picked up the dark suspense work Blow up the Roses." Then they accepted two works I have not self-published: Tortured Truths, released just this week, and Heart Chants, scheduled for Dec. 20. Both are part of a Phillip McGuire mystery/suspense series. And I was proud to be the only author to have two stories published in their recent anthology, PrimeTime.

Now they've acquired SPILL.

I have the contract on my desk to sign. When I do so, it means I have to un-publish SPILL from my self-publishing platforms.

So, if you want an early copy, here's the Amazon Kindle and paperback site.

And a favor. Although we are at least eight months away from SPILL being published by Curiosity Quills, it not too early for me to network and find nationally known political type folks who would read this comedy and, if enjoying it, provide a blurb endorsement. If you have a connection (or if you are such a person!), do please let me know. randyattwood@hotmail.com

Coffin Hop, Just in Time for Halloween

I'm doing one of those blog hop things again. This one around Halloween theme and so, of course, called "Coffin Hop."

The scariest book I've written is Blow Up the Roses. It's labeled as a dark suspense thriller. It starts off mildly enough but at the end it should have you at the edge of your seat.

I hate to give too much away, but suffice it to say that if you think a serial killer who is also a pedophile might scare you, this is the book for you.


You'll be surprised who was taken with this work: 

Kindle users here. Nook users here.

It's also on all other platforms.

Paperback through Amazon.

Other Coffin Hop participants can be found at this web site.

Coffin Hop colleagues are welcome to go here and pick one of my shorter works for me to gift to you.

And don't forget to enter the drawing for a free copy of my just release mystery/suspense novel Tortured Truths. Just look to the right.

"Tortured Truths" Now Available. First in a Series. "Heart Chants" is Next. Dec. Release

I'm pretty pumped that my publisher, Curiosity Quills, has released Tortured Truths! Here's the Kindle version. Here's the Nook version. Paperback should soon follow on Amazon.

I started the novel a long time ago, way before 9/11. I had become enthralled with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, from The Deep Blue Good-bye through The Lonely Silver Rain. I liked the books, not for the mysteries they contained, but because I wanted to spend more time with Travis. That's the kind of character I tried to create in Phillip McGuire and this mystery/suspense series. But Phil is no repeat of Travis. He's his own person with his own broken background, a burnt-out, foreign correspondent who leaves journalism to return to KU to own and run a bar. Intrigues come his way. Love comes his way.

I hope you'll like Phil enough to want to be around him again. The next book in the series, Heart Chants, will be released in late December. If you happen to be Navajo or Native American or interested in those cultures, I think you'll like Heart Chants. A lot of research about the Navajo went into it and that, alone, made it rewarding for me to write. What a people.

A shout out to Curiosity Quills and how great it has been to work with their people, from the main guy Eugene Teplitsky to the acquisition people, the editors, proofers, cover designers, and marketing folks.

I'm Offering to Gift You One of My Short Stories

Kindle readers. I want to send you a gift card for one of my $0.99 short works of fiction (one is actually 10,000 words).

Below find description of each of the four stories. Leave me a comment giving  your email address and which title you would like to have and I send a gift card to the first 50 takes. Click on the comments to be able to enter that field.

The Saltness of Time

"Randy Attwood has a gift for putting the reader into the story. I felt as though I had hobbled across the frozen ground and stood in the shadows of the cavernous old house. "The Saltness of Time" unfolds seamlessly, without distraction, from the time he presents his characters to the disturbing conclusion. When I finished reading this one I needed a cup of hot tea to warm up and reflect."

Innocent Passage

A tale of innocence lost, as two adventurous boys discover tragic hidden secrets and their own true nature. No reviews on this one yet. Be the first!

Blue Kansas Sky

"...the main gist of the story is about playing snooker. But, like all of Randy's works, that is not all there is to it. I'll say this much - I don't know squat about snooker, but he made the game - which is, I think, a metaphor for other things - very exciting. I won't tell you what I think it is a metaphor for; I'll let you draw your own conclusions."

Downswing

"This is the latest short story from Randy Attwood and will bring me up-to-date again with his works. I like to stay abreast of Randy's writings, because he has such a terrific and interesting style, each book unique but containing a familiar voice. Now, I had to wonder exactly how he would make golf interesting, especially in just eight pages, but I shouldn't have worried.

 An absolutely gorgeous story, voluptuous descriptions that just beg for someone to paint the scenes in oils. Who thought that a short story about golf could be so intense, so vivid and so engaging - I literally walked out to the mailbox with my Kindle in my hand, reading."

*I do have to set some limit on this so the offer is open to the first 50 persons who request a story.

Two Stories Included in Curiosity Quills Anthology of "Quirky" Tales

October 7 my publisher of Blow Up the Roses, Curiosity Quills, will release two anthologies of short story. Prime Time contains 19 stories. I'm the only author to have two included. After years of rejections my stories are finding homes and readers. They are The Notebook and Tell Us Everything. The folks at the small DC publishing house have been great to work with. They publish in all genres and have a stable of editors who do a superb job and a good group of cover designers. My fellow CQ authors are a helpful group and I enjoy our Facebook encounters.

CQ describes the collection this way:

"The anthology is not limited to one specific genre, but all of our novels are guaranteed to be quirky and paranormal, in some way or another.  We also guarantee 10% of every purchase will go straight to animals in need. The CQ team has selected humane societies on both the East and West coast that spend well and do not stray from the “no-kill” policies of their strays."

Quirky is a good description. Both of my stories are in my own collection called Very Quirky Tales as an paperback and 3 Very Quirky Tales, as an ebook.

Good to see that some of the revenues are going to a good cause, "no-kill" animal shelters.

Here's what the front and back covers look like for Prime Time.

Release Dates Set for First Two Phillip McGuire Mystery/Suspense Books

The first two novels in my Phillip McGuire mystery/suspense series now have release dates by my publisher Curiosity Quills, which published Blow Up the Roses last November. Phillip is a cynical, burnt-out foreign correspondent with a dark history who leaves journalism to buy and run a bar in his old university town of Lawrence, KS. Mysteries and adventures come his way as he tries to move beyond what has happened to him in his past and embrace his future, whatever that's going to be.

The team at Curiosity Quills has been wonderful to work with. Eugene Teplitsky, the publisher, has assembled a great team of acquisition folk, editors, designers and promoters. Tortured Truths will be released Oct. 22. Heart Chants comes out Dec. 20. More about these books later.

If you'd like to be notified when these are available, just subscribe to the mailing list up on top. If you're a reviewer and would be interested in an advanced reader copy, just leave a comment here with information how I can contact you.

Here are the cover reveals for the Phillip McGuire books.

Fantastic, Thoughtful Review for "Crazy About You"

This kind of thoughtful review from a reader who connected with the work makes a writer happy. For Crazy About You.

http://lmhornberger.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-review-crazy-about-you.html