Cris Game

***As I mentioned elsewhere on my blog, Squidoo - a site where I had previously published a number of articles - has gone the way of the dodo.  (Or rather, they will in the very near future - I think they shut down on October 1.) That being the case, I've been transferring some of that content to my blog here, including this post. Disclaimer: this is several years old and has not been updated, but I don't think much has changed. Paranormal is the New Normal There was a time in the not-too-distant past when reading paranormal novels - outside of Dracula and Stephen King books - was something other than mainstream. Now, thanks to the success of series like Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse novels, there's a glut of them. So many in fact, that there's an entire section at Half-Priced Books devoted to this new genre called "Paranormal Romance." (And it's a big section.) Still, a deluge of paranormal novels doesn't mean that they're all great reads, ...

It is confirmed! We are heading to Seattle at the end of August for PAX Prime! Our booth will be in the Indie MEGABOOTH area, booth #7 . Map Soon! If you will be there, please let us know - and come by the booth! We will have some fun giveaways and merchandise too. We are planning to run the booth similarly to our GDC Play Booth . Things We Learned A couple things we learned from running the last 2 booths (and how we will attempt to improve upon them): Info Pamphlets! ($14) You generally spend time answering the same 5-6 questions for each person that comes to the booth. This time, we will try to alleviate that (and save our voices) with these handy dandy brochures. ( 25ct Brochures for $14 on Vistaprint sale ) We hope that these will allow us to have people read the basic information about the game, and then ask us other questions that they might have. We are only printing 25 of these, and will laminate them to discourage people from taking them. That way, they should easily last al...

I am without question a scifi/fantasy devotee.  Thus, my love of the genre - combined with an inherent affection for Marvel comics - meant that going to see the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie was almost mandatory for me.   Thankfully, the film did not disappoint. From my perspective, it contained an entertaining dose of the requisite elements required in such movies: action/adventure, comedy, special effects, etc.  Apparently, lots of other people agree with my assessment; thus far, the movie has cleaned up from a fiscal standpoint, raking in over $400 million at the global box office. However, despite all those other pleasing qualities, what I found the best - and most surprising - feature of the movie was actually something I usually don't give a great deal of thought to with respect to films: the soundtrack. Sure, there are movies which will contain a song that will hit you in the gut or make sit up and you take notice because of the way it captures your fancy or s...

I've been fortunate enough to be tagged as the next contributor on the Speculative Fiction Blog Hop, wherein individual authors discuss and provide an overview of their writing process.   I was tagged by the uber-talented Cora Buhlert, who was born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today - after time spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently working towards her PhD. She has been writing since she was a teenager, and has published stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. When she is not writing, she works as a translator and teacher. Visit her on the web at www.corabuhlert.com or follow her on Twitter under @CoraBuhlert. As part of the blog hop, each participating author answers four questions about their writing process, which are as follows: I. What Are You Working On? There's an entire heap of projects (in various genres) that I've actuall...