I just signed the contracts for two of my stories to appear in Kris Rusch’s Winter Holiday Spectacular for 2021. This will be her third Holiday Spectacular and they are always a wonderful treat. Every day from Thanksgiving to New Years subscribers get a short story in their email and the stories are always wonderful! Plus you can give the subscription as a gift, which is what I’ll be doing this year. I have a special friend who I know will love reading the stories. I may gift it to others as well. I did that last year and really had fun talking about the stories with a friend as we read them.

After the stories are sent to subscribers, WMG publishes the stories in three anthologies.

This year’s anthologies are

• Sweet Holidays featuring romance stories that focus around the winter holiday season. My story “Stolen Kisses” will appear in this one. I don’t know how much I can tell you about it before the fact, but suffice it to say that it’s romantic fun with a special dreidel. It is one of my personal favorite stories and I can’t wait for everyone to read it.
• Mysterious Christmas features stories of murder, mayhem, and all manner of crimes set around the Christmas holiday season. My second story “Maccabees” appears in this one and I think it’s another strong story.
• Fantastic Christmas features stories with a touch of fantasy and a whole lot of creativity. Unfortunately I don’t have a story in this one but I can’t wait to read the stories she accepted. She has a gift for picking stories I like.

These are my first two professional short story sales. So it represents leveling up for me. I really feel that I’ve landed on Gimel with these two holiday stories. I hope you’ll agree.

In other news, the paperback version of Lightning Scarred is finally set up and will be available everywhere except Amazon on September 15. Right now it isn’t possible to order through Amazon and won’t be for a while as I work things out with Draft2Digital/Amazon. I’m pretty pleased with how beautiful it looks! Once it is available, I’ll post a list of where you can buy it.

The Micronomicon is finally out and it includes our micro-setting. Available only for supporters of the project is the opportunity to get a special version of Lightning Scarred with color pictures and an early release of the RPG game “Sunstones on Ice.” Don’t worry. This game will eventually go to Drivethru.com for sale, for a a bit more money.

Our book length game supplement for Steve Jackson Games, Biremes and Triremes, just went through playtesting. We are now making changes based on the amazing information we received through that process. It’s still a bit away from publication, but it is coming along.

My secret identity also has a new story out for sale in English and, coming soon, a French version of the same story. Oo la la!

I’m working on finishing up the Classic Romance course I’m auditing with a friend. Plus, I’ve started Kris Rusch’s intensive on writing romances. I finished all the reading today and am starting on the first short story assignment. The class itself starts on September 17.

I’m also working on a novel. I’ve decided that my novels work better when I don’t release too many details ahead of time, so just know that I’m writing and that something will come out the other end when it is ready.

Steve has also been doing fairly well. He had a book signing recently and it looks like another one is in the offing. He was interviewed by a number of publications, including Sports Illustrated who wanted his take on the legal issues the book discusses.

We’ve been seriously busy here with setting up our new house, writing, and other things, so if you are wondering where we’ve been and why we haven’t chatted much on social media, that’s why.

Be well, friends!