DemiCon and a Brand New Interview at Up Around the Corner

To say things have been busy is an understatement. As many know, I am an active part of the public relations outreaches for Seventh Star Press, working with C.C. and the others who help in this area. This month involved the launch of Jackie Gamber's Redheart, the first YA fantasy novel for SSP. As most of you probably know, YA, or Young Adult, literature is huge. The outreach took a herculean effort to reach out to the great number of potential reviewers and sites with possible media opportunities for Jackie.

All of that was piled on top of doing full time hours for the broadcast team at Keeneland, working hard every morning on the third book of the Rising Dawn Saga, and duties as the programming director for the Writers Track at Duckon and the Literary Track at Fandom Fest.

Has been a little crazy, the average night of sleep was around 4 hours, and I apologize for being sporadic lately on the blog. Thankfully, Monster Energy keeps me rollin'! :)

I will be hitting the road hard again starting this weekend at DemiCon in Des Moines, Iowa. The four week run at Keeneland wraps up this week and I am heading out for my second visit to DemiCon. This Con was superb to me when my mother went into the hospital with an emergency health matter last spring and I had to cancel with only a few days notice. They invited me back, and we're first class and understanding about my situation. I just love this crew for how cool they've been. A couple of them, Mandi and Rachelle, even got together a large number of SCA clothes to lend to the production of Swordbearer!

I am looking forward to seeing two very special author friends, Lettie Prell and Shirley Damsgaard. Lettie hosted me on my trip west to Beaverdale Books for a signing later in the summer last year, and Shirley has been a very dear friend, and a person that I consider a mentor in many ways. Shirley's just a great lady, and she's got some big things on the horizon. It will be a lot of fun to see both of them!

There will be a screening of Swordbearer on Saturday, and I will be doing some panels and a booth this weekend. Can't wait to get back into the DemiCon groove. if you are in the area, and can make it, I recommend this Con a lot. Very enjoyable and run by some really first rate individuals. www.demicon.org is the address.

I also wanted to post a link to a brand new interview that went up today at Up Around the Corner. It is a really nice interview, with a good overview of my work and some excellent questions, given to me by fantasy author Terry Ervin. If you do check it out, please leave a comment to let Terry know that you stopped by!

here's the link: http://uparoundthecorner.blogspot.com/2011/04/interview-with-sffantasy-author-stephen.html

Don't forget to keep passing the word out that the Seventh Star Press eBook sale (Try Seventh Star Press for Two Dollars) is still going! Just $1.99 for Crown of Vengeance and The Exodus Gate (as well as Jackie Gamber's Redheart and Steven Shrewsbury's Thrall), and $2.99 for The Storm Guardians and Dream of Legends. And that's for all formats...Kindle, Nook, iPad, and Sony.

here's the link to the sale:
http://seventhstarpress.com/documents/ebooks.html

That's all for now, but i will check in shortly with some DemiCon posts!

Troy Book Lover's Festival Report! A Good One!

(me with Sue Cantrell, of Around About Books and the leader of the Troy Book Lover's Festival. She's got some pretty cool Fires in Eden and Thrall buttons on in this pic too!)

Had another adventure this weekend, this time at the Troy Book Lover's Festival in Troy Ohio. I thought getting to Dayton from Lexington was going to be quick, and for once the weather was clear, but lo and behold, a semi truck broke down on the bridge into Cincinnati, and construction issues clogged up the passage through Dayton. This extended what should have been a 2 1/2 hour trip into a 4 hour one!

I did get to the event on time. I checked out Around About Books first. They are the folks that put on the festival, and they have a really superb independent bookstore right by the central town square in Troy. It is a 2 level store, and they have entire rooms devoted to both fantasy/sci-fi and horror, which I thought was really cool.

The event was held in the Franklin Masons Lodge, and featured about 20 authors from all genres. I was so glad to see Bonnie Stewart, an Ohio based horror author that I had met back at Scarefest last fall in Lexington. Bonnie's quite the rockstar, lively, engaging, and full of flair! Her sister was with her helping out with things, as Bonnie was recovering from a recent surgery.

Bonnie unveiled a new t-shirt for Dark Days Publishing, done by Joe Garcia from Fast Custom Shirts, the same gang that does the great shirts we have at Seventh Star Press. the new shirt looked awesome, and I hope Bonnie is going to sell them at FandomFest, as I definitely would buy one.

I met some fantastic other authors, such as Stephen Hines and Terry Ervin. Stephen's got some great things going in the graphic novel area, and Terry's bookcover for Flank Hawk features a WWII era German Stuka flying right towards a dragon!


(Me with author Terry Ervin)

(Me with authors Stephen Hines and Bonnie Stewart)

I got a chance to screen Swordbearer on Friday night, and participated in a panel on Fantasy/Horror on Saturday. We then had a three hour signing/selling period, at which I met some great new reader-friends, and sold several books. Many thanks to those that picked up books and are diving into the mayhem of my fantasy worlds!

The festival provided wonderful hospitality, including a welcoming dinner on Friday, breakfast Saturday morning, and a dinner to end the day on Saturday. I really enjoyed meeting Mike and Dave, two guys from Around About Books who were very instrumental in the festival. I'll end with this cool pic of myself with these two, as the week beckons, and Millennicon is right ahead in Cincinnati next Friday through Sunday! :)