CONTEST for free book

CONTEST for FREE Download

I am offering contest to win a free PDF download of my newly released horror novel, “Beckoned”. It is open to everyone. To win, you need only send to me on one of the following sites the answer to this question.

Where did I get the symbol that appears on the cover of “Beckoned”? I’ll even give you two hints

(1) an unaltered image of the original symbol can be seen on, http://ronaldscala.blogspot.com/

(2) Released September 1970

If you think you have the answer, send it to me at the Blog or to my email address ronaldscala@gmail.com

Art Imitating Reality—or Vice Versa?

A feature in today’s New York Times reported overweight people are resisting entreaties to become rail-thin. “Blogs written by fat people—and it’s fine to use the word, they say—have multiplied in recent months, filling a virtual soapbox known as the fatosphere.” The bloggers (Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose at www.kateharding.net has 3,710 hits per day) resist the notion that a St. Bernard has to become a greyhound.

Hurray! “Laura Lard Takes No Prisoners,” one of my stories in Cruising the Green of Second Avenue (published by Wild Child, of course) has our eponymous heroine telling a waitress, “[Salad] is not the food of my people. Where I come from, a decent meal should be heavy enough to hold down a circus tent in a hurricane.” She has enough confidence in her image to make the cosmetics sales ladies at Bloomingdales wet their panties.

I’m a skinny guy, so maybe my opinions don’t count. Laura’s story line, however, is that her being fat is an attribute, and she defends it by doing an Elliott Ness against the Prejudice Mafia. Writing this, a part of me expressed a strong belief that public sentiment wants to remake the obese, corpulent, oleaginous, turgid, stout and plump minority into the size, shape and silhouette of the chosen. Health and science demands it, the evangelists say.

That scares me. It’s just a matter of time until I become a target because I’m a casual smoker, whiskey drinker, book reader, fiscal conservative and social liberal. Oh—wait a minute! I already am a target! Beware the Prejudice Mafia. They’re watching you.

Full Moon at Midnight

Amazing night. I went outside around midnight. Waxing toward Full Wolf, the moon illuminated the backyard, the trails and the woods and cast deep shadows. Already below 10 degrees, I wanted to check on my dogs, Yukon, who is half wolf, and Kato, my Husky. Though the near-full moon was bright, I could see brilliant stars, even next to it. The air was crisp and fiercely cold and the ground rock solid. The crust of snow crunched beneath my boots and I imagined this might be what it would be like on one of the moons of Jupiter; cold, sterile, brutally beautiful. Everything was so still, like the cold had frozen even time. Amazing.

G'morning from Cambridge (Mass., not U.K.)

As the new guy on the block--er, blog--let me say hello. Recent fiction credits include “Call Him Lucky” in the April 2007 issue of Northwoods Journal, “Big Willa and a Push Toward the Edge” published by Lunch Hours Stories in July 2007, “Not My Wife” in the September ‘07 issue of Mouth Full of Bullets , and "Dreaded Conversation " in the Oct. 15 issue of Every Day Fiction. Upcoming issues of MFOB, EDF, Written Word and Bewildering Stories will also carry my short fiction. I didn't pay attention in history class, so have tried to regain an education by writing for Military History Online, Copperfield Review, Whim’s Place and other print and online venues. My collection of short stories, Cruising the Green of Second Avenue, has just been published in two volumes by Wild Child (http://www.wildchildpublishing.com). Earlier, I directed corporate communications at Fortune 500 companies in New York for more than 30 years--and therein lay my misspent youth that resulted in the Cruising stories.

Greetings

Hi, all. I’m Ron Scala and I am new to this Blog. In fact, compared to most of you, I am new to the field. My first novel, Beckoned, was just released on Jan-2 by Wild Child Publishing (Thanks, again, Marci.). It’s a horror tale with just a bit of paranormal romance that hopefully will make it interesting to folks inclined to either genre. It was expertly edited by M.E. Ellis www.meellis.blogspot.com to whom I am indebted. Please visit my Blog at http://ronaldscala.blogspot.com/ .

Ronald Scala

Hello, All.

Hello All. I'm Jack Maeby, musician and writer, new to this blog site. Please check out my website at www.jackmaeby.com
I'm trying to get the word out about my newly published novel "The Thorazine Mirrorball". Advice welcome, thanks.

Are You Superstitious?

Are you superstitious?

If Friday the 13th is so bad, then why was last Friday worse? (Knock on wood.) LOL

Seriously, last Friday was a nightmare for me. The old Murphy's Law seemed to have taken up residence in my life and touched every aspect of it. I was more stressed than a chair with a 40 ton truck on it. Somehow, I managed to survive without a heart attack. And thank goodness for that or I wouldn't have experienced these last two days of awesome news.

As many of you know, if you've read this Gather article, one of our titles, Fade To Pale by James Cheetham, was picked up by the biggest Canadian book chain McNally & Rand. Not only that, they bought twelve copies, with eight pre-sold. A huge coup for us as a relatively new, small press. (This title will be available on Amazon in a few weeks.) Mr. Cheetham has also had Fade To Pale mentioned on three radio stations (one was an interview) and a newspaper article interviewing him (Selkirk Journal in Canada).

Then today, I put in a call to an ex boss. I worked for two years at my hometown library as the senior librarian assistant while I got my masters degree at the local university. I have stayed friends with my ex boss, and, when we published Pervalism in print (available at Amazon as well as at Wild Child Publishing), I donated a copy to my hometown library. (This was back in December 2006.) I called because I had checked the online catalog system last Friday, and the title still wasn't there. My ex boss, Barbara, told me that she really didn't know what had happened to it. Perhaps they'd lost the book in processing.

Hm...well, you can imagine my response. She wondered if I wanted to donate another copy. Since I was originally from there, the book would have a better chance of passing through the library committee.

Now, people, I ask you, would you donate another copy if it could possibly get lost in the shuffle again? No, it's not a great deal of money for one book, but as a small press, every cent counts.

Barbara agreed to talk to the manager of the adult services department at the downtown library to see what happened to the book. As the last time took a while, I didn't imagine she had an answer on the issue, but I called her about something else entirely. Imagine my delight to hear that the manager decided to just purchase a copy for my hometown library, but not just one copy of Pervalism. The library system bought THREE copies! One for my old library, one for the main library, and one for the book mobile.

For some of you, you might be saying, "What's the big deal?"

Honey, breaking into the library systems is a big deal. It's the exposure, the possibility of getting some local newspapers to run stories on our little publishing company, and getting our books out there. It also makes it possible for me to approach my local library again, Culver City branch, which is part of the Los Angeles County Library system, to see if they will carry not just Pervalism, but Fade To Pale, Iron Horse Rider, Conspiracy of Angels, and Dreams & Desires: A Romance and Erotica Anthology. See, I can say that the Fresno County Library system has ordered three copies of Pervalism. It was approved by that system, surely it would be okay for ours.

And now that we have one title in that system, the possibility of us getting more in is much, much higher. You can bet I will be in contact with the manager of adult services for Fresno County Library to see if they would be interested in any of our other titles.

Not only that, because of this, my hometown newspaper has agreed to do a feature article on the local girl who did good. (grin)

Friday the 13th a problem? Not for the Irish. (grin)

Marci Baun
Editor-in-Chief