Month: July 2013

Sneak Peek: Return of the Falcon

Today we have a sneak peek from Return of the Falcon, the hard-boiled mystery novel by author Don Satalic.

The year is 1946. Chicago private eye Joe Ganzer, a haunted former WWII espionage agent, is about to take a case he doesn’t want from a mysterious Russian beauty he doesn’t trust to locate an uncle whose story he doesn’t believe. And a two-time loser from the past will ask Joe to get him out of a treacherous jam. If he helps him, they may both end up dead. Joe Ganzer becomes tangled in a web of espionage and Nazi collaborators and stolen art and murder– and at the center of it all is the infamous Maltese Falcon.

This book is available from Amazon, Smashwords, and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from Return of the Falcon…

Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Return of the Falcon”

Flash Fiction: Let the Voting Begin

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time once again to choose. Who will be the next Flash Fiction Star? We had a number of great submissions this week. Kudos to all the entrants. Check out this week’s entries here. Vote for your fave then use those share buttons at the bottom of the post to spread the word.

Remember, all our winners will be included in the next edition of the IU Flash Fiction Anthology. So, support your fellow writers and participate in this week’s voting, then spread the word, bang the drums, and share the link to let everyone know the vote is on.

Polls close tomorrow at 5 PM.

 

Who will be our next flash fiction star?

  • Yvonne Hertzberger (29%, 12 Votes)
  • Brianna Lee McKenzie (22%, 9 Votes)
  • Jon Jefferson (15%, 6 Votes)
  • Sherry M (15%, 6 Votes)
  • Krista Tibbs (10%, 4 Votes)
  • AL Kaplan (10%, 4 Votes)

Total Voters: 41

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NOTE: Entrants whose submissions exceed the 250 word limit are eliminated from the poll.

Creating Names for Fantasy

Guest post

by Gordon Long

Okay, in real life I’m terrible with names. I get introduced to someone, and the last thing I remember is his or her name. I like to think it’s not laziness. I know that a person’s name bears no relationship to what that person is really like. It was chosen for them before they were born, and has had a minor influence on the shaping of their personality. “A Boy Named Sue” excepted. All those prejudices that people have about people’s names are just that: prejudices. So when I first meet someone, I am looking to other clues as to his or her personality.

However, when creating names for a story, the situation is completely reversed. If I’m creating a character to meet my readers, suddenly all those prejudices become really important. I want a name that clicks immediately. If I want a he-man character, I want a name that says so. An evocative name is worth more than a thousand words of description. Continue reading “Creating Names for Fantasy”

No Paragon

Sooner or later any writer on the web (especially on Linked In) will run into mega-spammer Paradon Books (a revolution in publishing they will tell you) or Indie Writers Support. They exist, they say, only to help you get to be a star. But there are a few problems… like they don’t seem to actually exist.

This innovative publisher—though it’s hard to pin down what is so revolutionary about them, or what they actually publish–lists a PO box in Great Falls Montana, and sometimes a street address there: 804 47th Street S, Great Falls MT. And a photo of their huge glass building with their name on the front. But Google Street reveals that address to be a small residential building, and the big glass skyscraper doesn’t exist. At least not in Montana. The post office box is unconfirmed and their phone number is an 866 non-geographical toll-free. Which does not answer, or even ring (sometimes it returns a “fax screech”.) All email addresses for the company and people associated with it are hotmail or gmail, none use their own “names” in the addresses. If you Google them up, you run into a chorus of deep suspicions, including mentions on “419” sites that have reason to suspect them as originating from that area code—Nigeria—which is richly associated with email spamming and scamming. Continue reading “No Paragon”