Feminisim, Genre, and the Apex Publications

I grew up in a matriarchal household in the San Francisco Bay Area, so my understanding of feminism is really skewed since my whole life the women of my family have always been the breadwinners, the independent types, and a grandmother who never learned to drive but always told me it was because she didn’t want to- it wasn’t ladylike. Fast forward to my writing career. (And let’s forget my unfortunate first book contract for the duration of this post, shall we?) I ended up gravitating towards Apex. Back in the day (2005) they were a small press before small presses were a Thing, they published sci-fi and horror, ran an annual Halloween short story contest, and they were known for publishing two friends-of-friends (who are both now my own friends)...

“I Get High with a Little Help from My Friends” by Jackie Gamber

Literary Underworld Blog Tour “I Get High with a Little Help from My Friends” by Jackie Gamber, author of Book I and II of the Leland Dragon Series     Yes, we all know what the Beatles meant about getting high with friends, and no, that’s not my interpretation of the title for this blog; the second in a “Friends” series for the Literary Underworld blog tour. A big thank you to Sara for hosting me on her blog!   But what is the Literary Underworld? It’s a consortium of friends–spreading the word, selling books, and helping each other. Purchases help support authors, small presses, artists and other creative folks trying to survive in trying economic times. With categories such as Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Thriller, Paranormal, and...

The relationships of writing

I think of myself as a serial monogamist when it comes to writing. I write novels, primarily one at a time. I am almost never not working on a novel. This is one of the reasons why short stories are so difficult for me. First, I tend to think large.  So my stories all want to grow up to be novels. It’s hard to keep pace and focus for me in a short piece, they are either very short 2,000 +/- word vignettes or 10K behemoths that I can’t sell because they outweigh most markets. Second, I always feels like I am cheating on my novel. I know that’s super weird, but I think I need to learn to be polyamorous with my writing.  Or at least, learn to appreciate a good one-night-stand with a short story and not freak myself out that I have somehow taken...

Review the book, win a kimono!

I am running a raffle for a beautiful vintage haori- luminous black silk with resist-painted golden, orange, and red bamboo detailed with satin-stitch embroidery dating from the 1960s-1980s. This was imported directly from Japan and has been kept in a smoke-free home protected from dust and dog hair in a locking plastic bin. How can you get your hands on this beautiful article of Japanese artistry? Simple! Review Seven Times a Woman and leave the link to your review here at this blog entry. The winner will be selected by random lot from all legitimate entries received on 1 May 2012. A legitimate entry is constituted by a substantive review in English posted on a blog- personal or professional and/or a review posted to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads,...