Scarlet Letters

It's early! THE COLD ONES is now available on GenreMall. It looks very shiny! I don't know that it's going to be available on Amazon, so if you're not buying from me, buy it from them! If you're excited about it, go to their blog post and thank them for carrying it! And spread the word! Anywhere and everywhere. Let people know it's available! Yes, I get paid if you buy it from them, so feel free. Support small press, buy THE COLD ONES and aim for the head!

Before I had this blog, I had the Scarlet Letters. I wrote a regular column in college and later for my first paper. Then I went online, writing my own webzine with a weekly column, news roundup, quote of the week... sound familiar? :) Anyway, I recently found the Scarlet Letters. Wow, I was YOUNG. Because I live to humiliate myself, I think I'll share some of my columns from the dim dark years of my youth. Dr. Mom, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Rain (c) 1998 Rain makes me think about my mother. Whoa! Stop, don't run away yet. I swear, this isn't a whiny, Freudian, weirdo-on-the-analysis-couch rant about my mom. I have a point here. Bear with me. When I was a kid, I noticed that my mom was always in a good mood when it rained. I'd be sitting at the kitchen table after school, staring out the window with that woe-is-me expression that can only be mastered by bored kids, and she'd be baking something and humming perfectly in key (Mom is a musician) an...

One of my least-kept secrets is that I am a former actress/singer. Back in the dawn of time when dinosaurs walked the earth and I was a young lass, I had stars in my eyes. I fell in love with the theater when I was thirteen. Because I had a deep voice, they always cast me as the mother, the adult in the crazy crew. But I really wanted to sing and dance and fall in love and die tragically on stage. Preferably all at the same time. In retrospect, I think I always wanted to tell stories. Sing and dance them, write them, true or false, just so long as I could spin the story for you. My love affair with theater was genetic - my parents met on a production of "Arsenic and Old Lace," and my family's history with music and the stage goes back generations before them. I grew up listening to my mother's piano downstairs, and would make up stories to match the music. (Which was inconvenient when she stopped mid-song and I had to rewrite quickly.) I tried out for every play in ju...

Let me be clear right up front: I've never self-published and never thought I would. The closest I've ever gone is the short story I write once a year to raise money for the American Cancer Society. It's hard enough to get a shred of respect in the publishing world as a) small press, b) a woman and c) a horror writer who dared to put sex in two of her books. Every time I've pitched a bookstore on carrying my stuff I've had to prove (practically by blood oath) that it wasn't self-published. I've had my bio changed to call me an "aspiring author" after I had two books on the shelves at Borders, I've been sneered at and mocked to my face at conventions, and naturally, I'm broke. But there was a panel at Dragoncon that has been weighing on my mind lately (and yes, I know I'm almost a month late in doing a DC write-up; I was deathly ill, sue me). It was the panel on the future of publishing, and I was going into it yawning because at every s...

Because there have been questions... If you ordered DREADMIRE and indicated you wanted the first edition, you should have received it by now. If not, please contact us at booksales@elizabethdonald.com so we can spank the postal service and get you a new copy. If you ordered DREADMIRE and indicated that one or more copies should be the second edition, however, your order has not shipped. The second edition has not yet been released by the publisher. As soon as we have the books in hand, your orders will ship. We have not forgotten you! If you had other things with that order, we have been holding them. If you would prefer we send them right away, please email us and we'll get that done. I appreciate your patience with the second edition. I've seen the cover art, and hopefully it'll be worth your wait. I love that book and I know you guys will enjoy it when it finally comes out. I'm in contact with the publisher and keeping tabs on its availability. Regarding THE COLD ONE...

Sometimes memes are nice, when they work as writing prompts instead of lists. There's one running about selling your first short story. Mine is weird. I belong to Writing.com, only back then it was Stories.com. Back then you could still get quality critiques of your work, because the site wasn't the size of MySpace. I got a lot of critique that helped build me into a better writer. And it happened, the way people think it might happen and it almost never does. Someone stumbled across my portfolio, found a piece I'd written and asked to buy it. It was the New Jersey Self-Assessment for eleventh-graders. You know those reading comprehension tests, where you read something and have to answer five questions about it? That year, the New Jersey juniors read my piece. I was paid $75. Not bad for a first sale. I photocopied the check before I cashed it, intending to frame it, but of course I lost the photocopy. I keep thinking it'll turn up someday... Two years later I sold NOC...

Whew. Not bad for 45 days. That's an average of 912 words per day, which isn't Nano speed, but I'll take it, particularly since that included two conventions, three illnesses, four parental crises and a partridge in a pear tree. I forgot what this part was like. The part where you can't stay away from the book, where everything (including food, sleep and the company of other humans) is a distraction from THE BOOK. Can't sleep, book will eat me. Come to think of it, did I eat dinner today? Last Friday I got amazingly, catastrophically sick. And you know what pissed me off the most? That it hit in the middle of a really good scene. I don't know if the book is Good Enough yet. But I've always known this was the book I was meant to write. Whether anyone else in the publishing world will agree with me, whether the readers will find it as fun and heartwrenching and exciting and goddamn fantastic as I do, whether it will ever become the book I want it to be - I don...

Okay, I've (barely) survived the latest round of travel fun, and I'm so pleased with the responses to THE COLD ONES! Special thanks to the fine folk who hung in there at my Dragoncon reading for an hour and a half - they didn't even fidget. :) I'm pleased to announce that THE COLD ONES will hit shelves on Oct. 2, courtesy of Sam's Dot Publishing. I'm further pleased that it will cost all of $6. That's just a titch more than a venti Frappuccino, folks. Because we've had some difficulties with preorders this year, we're doing things a little differently this time. You may reserve a copy of THE COLD ONES in advance, but you don't pay until shipping. Send an email to booksales@... and you'll get your copy reserved. You'll get a bill in your inbox before shipping, and you can choose your method of payment. But please, do reserve your copy! I need a headcount so I know how many to acquire for my readers. Naturally, it will be available from the...

There have been some changes! Here's where to find me in the week o' crazy: FRIDAY 4 pm Autographs in Marriott 301-304 Show up! I'll sign whatever you've got. Trust me, it'll be the shortest line you'll stand in all weekend. :) 10 p.m. Little Deaths in Hyatt (Montreal/Vancouver) The ubiquitous sex-and-horror panel. SATURDAY 2:30 p.m. Reading in Hyatt (Marietta) Reading from THE COLD ONES! There will be chocolate and prizes! BE THERE! 5:30 p.m. Vampires vs. Zombies in Hyatt (Montreal/Vancouver) I'm not sure which side I'm supposed to be on in this one... I for one welcome our new undead overlords. 8:30 p.m. Undead in Dixie in Hyatt (Montreal/Vancouver) I want to suck your blood, y'all. Watch me try to hide the New England accent as I talk about infesting Memphis with vamps. 10 p.m. Zombie Prom (My presence has been requested. I do not dance in front of humans, so I can only assume I am to be zombie chow.) SUNDAY 11:30 a.m. The Sacred & The Profane...