Land of the Purple Ring Illustrations!

The Land of the Purple Ring (forthcoming May 5th) has illustrations drawn by the talented Katie Futterwacken!

The beetle that rolls the sun

Cover Announcement: The Land of the Purple Ring

I'm happy to announce that The Land of the Purple Ring has a cover!  The design is by the fabulous Nada Orlic, Thinklings Books's cover designer.  The book will also have interior art by Katie Futterwacken.  More on that soon. :)

Forthcoming May, 2020

Immeasurable imagination. Unmitigated magic. Spectacular style.

The clockwork man is crafted, to begin with—commissioned by that terrible tyrant Time to serve as her slave for all eternity. His brain boasts balance wheels and torsion springs; he can wind himself up with a key in his side; and, most importantly, his gyroscopic tourbillon heart glimmers with pure diamond.

He is a living being and he is art, and he refuses to remain a slave forever. He therefore slips through Time’s fingers as the Sands of Time slip through the cracks of reality (at least, when the time cats aren’t using them as a litter box).

Among astounding adventures, despite harrowing hardships, and in between escaping interfering enchanters, the clockwork man seeks his imagination, his purpose, and his name.


You can read the first chapter here.

Things Change and Things Stay the Same

Winter just can’t decide what’s up.

Usually, the seasons in Montana are quite simple: you have a chilly wet spring, a hot dry smoky summer, a hot dry mosquito-filled autumn, and a cold snowy winter.  It shouldn’t be like Colorado, which is as neurotic as the brain of a bloodsucker.

(Someone other than me will find that funny.  I guarantee it.)

And yet here we are, in winter-spring and spring-winter, with snow and sun and plants that want to bloom just to die in the next freeze.  It’s a strange, transitional period.

I empathize with it.

Part of it is the forthcoming publication of The Land of the Purple Ring, of course.  I’ve just seen the first of the illustrations and the first draft of the cover, and the book is in the very last stages of editing.

Part of it is all the changes with Thinklings Books.  The Writers’ Collective, launched only a few weeks ago, is taking off, and it’s a joy to witness writers connecting and learning.  Thinklings is also acquiring new fabulous authors, extraordinarily talented writers previously unfairly neglected by publishing companies because they lacked marketing backgrounds.

Part of it is my living situation.  I may or may not be moving.  I may or may not be buying my own place.  Regardless, I will certainly need to find new roommates, as their lease ends.  (Yes, roommates; I’m not married, and I don’t like to live alone.)

This is the nature of life: undulating.  Cycling.  Some things changing in patterns or stages; some changing entirely; some staying the same.

I like the predictable and the safe, because these things don’t interrupt my writing.  And yet if my whole life were that way, my brain would dry out, and my writing gasp for water.

I want stability to return, but I do not curse instability.  It brings good things as well as bad . . . and it, too, will pass.  In the meantime, I always know my dog loves me. :)