Cover reveal for EMMA TREMENDOUS

My young adult shapeshifter novel Emma Tremendous, which is due for release soon (in hardcover, trade paperback, and e-book formats), now has a cover!

Snow Globe Coming Soon! (Book Trailer Below)

Hello, friends. I know it's been some time, but I assure you my absence has been with good reason. You see, I've been writing. A lot. Just not, you know, here.

You see, I've been hammering out novels, the first of which is due next month. It's titled Snow Globe and will be available for purchase on the 15th. Until then, please enjoy the book trailer:

Dear Editor: Thank You For Your Rejection!

Hello everyone.  A couple months ago, I posted about an obnoxious response I received from an editor after submitting a short story for consideration in an anthology his imprint was publishing.  If you missed it and wish to read its complete lack of professionalism, please do so here.

But for every barb, there is a bouquet. And that came in the form of the absolute best rejection I've received to date. This is a true gem and it was almost better than getting accepted. Here it is:

Dear Aaron,

Unfortunately, your submission, "Little Bone Joey" has not been accepted to be included in the anthology. I really would like to thank you, however, for your consideration to be a part of this project.

I appreciate the amount of time and work that you invested in this story and I am certain that you will be able to find a publisher for this elsewhere.

Technically you have written a nice story and I enjoyed reading it. Please know that I am not rejecting this work due to any flaw of your own ability.

Aaron, I hate to have to pass on this submission. Yours is one of those stories that, if I had more room in the book, would definitely be in. I liked this story a lot and it's been at the top of my consideration list since I received it. I particularly enjoy the uniqueness of your plot - it's thoughtful, intriguing, and told through a powerful voice in your character, Joey. You have a great talent for emotional and descriptive prose.

Unfortunately, I simply received a number of other stories which also held positive attributes of their own. Due to the sheer volume of submissions, I am only able to select a small amount which most closely matches the overall character of the anthology.

I received about 350 submissions for this anthology. The final Table of Contents, though not yet finished, will probably number about 26 - 29 stories.

I learned a new term that was shared with me in a rejection I recently received, and I think it's appropriate for me to share with you. For my anthology, I received an "embarrassment of riches." Meaning, I received SO many fantastic stories from SO many fantastic authors that it is truly embarrassing to have to tell most I cannot accept their writing for this book. This includes friends, peers, and authors such as yourself, whose strength of writing and accomplishments far surpass my own.

Keep writing - You have gained a fan in me, and I look forward to reading more material from you in the future.

Warm regards

Wow. A writer, by default, must have skin thick enough to absorb rejection. They cannot get discouraged. They must persevere if they are to have any measure of success. Reading such a note re-established my faith in the publishing industry. This is the anti-form rejection. It truly made my day. Thank you, dear editor. You rock. That felt like a daub of salve on this thick skin.

15 Best Opening Lines In Books

Being a voracious writer makes me a voracious reader by default.  Reading and writing go hand in hand; to be an effective writer, one must read.  A lot. 

I have compiled a list of the top 15 lines from scores of books I've devoured in my brief time on the planet.  Each of these awakens something in me and, I imagine, any true lover of books.  In no particular order:

1. Call me Ishmael. - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

2. Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure. - Albert Camus, The Stranger

3. The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. - Stephen King, The Gunslinger

4. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. - Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

5. 124 was spiteful. - Toni Morrison, Beloved

6. It was a pleasure to burn. - Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

7. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - George Orwell, 1984

8. All children, except one, grow up. - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

9. A screaming comes across the sky. - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

10. All this happened, more or less. - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

11. Through the fence, between curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. - William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

12. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. - Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

13. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. - Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

14. In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit. - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

15. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

Honorable mentions:

To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black. - Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. - Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY. - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Did I forget some?  Got your own?  Disagree?  Let me know.