So, 2022 Looks a Little Busy

First, 2022 is not a real year. It’s science fiction. Blade Runner took place in 2019. Soylent Green takes place in 2022. But I’ll play along and pretend that it really is the Year of Our Lord 2022. If that’s the case, what will I be up to?

When it comes to the dreaded Day Job, there are two big creative projects in the pipeline.

We have signed a contract for The Long-Distance Team. Kevin Eikenberry and I have contracted with Berrett-Koehler publishers for another book. We’ll be following up The Long-Distance Teammate, Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership and The Long-Distance Teammate, Stay Engaged and Connected While Working Anywhere.

The Long-Distance Team, which is about designing the work culture you really want, is under construction. It will be officially out on January 22, 2023, but available for pre-order before the end of the year.

Also, it’s likely I will be doing a podcast. It won’t be the late lamented Cranky Middle Manager Show, but it will be informative and snarky. Details to follow.

On the fun, creative front look for the second in my werewolf detective series. Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker will be out before the end of the year from Black Rose Writing. The third book in the series is under construction so it won’t be 2 years between installments, I pinky swear.

Check out my latest novel, Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk. It will give you something to do until your next WebEx meeting.

You can find out everything that I’m up to creatively by signing up for my infrequent but action-packed email newsletter. Use the signup box on the side of the screen.

Johnny Lycan 2 is finished. Kind of.

I just put finished to the second book in the Johnny Lycan series. Well, an ugly, squawling, half-assed first draft anyway. Our boy finds himself in Las Vegas, and faces, among other things: a megalomaniac rancher, a honest-to-god Berserker, an ancient relic that may or may not be from Earth, a coven of bad-ass witches, and more about himself than he wants to know.

Believe it or not, book 3 is already outlined and will be started soon. Sorry about the delay between books. Turns out that between buying a house, navigating a global pandemic, a demanding day job and the general yukkiness in the air, I’ve learned something important. Existential dread is not great for the creative juices. You may quote me.

It’s aliiiiiiiive

Watch for Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker coming in 2022 from #blackrosewriting (blessings upon them)

If you haven’t read Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk, there’s still time to be one of the cool kids who find stuff before everyone else and lords it over them. Read it here

John Wing Jr and a Car to Die For

My stand-up comedy days are long behind me. In fact, a quick check of the math says I started in 1979 and hung up my mic in 1996. But I still remain friends with many of the people I went through the trenches with.

High on the list of talented folks who have stuck it out wayyyyyy longer than I, is John Wing Jr. He is still grinding it out, most notably as a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent. But he’s also a podcast host, a poet with ten collections under his belt, and a new novel.

It’s a good read, and after knowing him for over 35 years (note to self: stop doing the math), it’s clear there’s a lot of him in it. Seemed like a good time to introduce John to you lot.

What inspired you to tackle a novel?

 I have always been a writer. I was a writer first. The first thing I ever tried to write was a novel, or a short story. So it wasn’t too outlandish to try again in my late fifties. I’d tried a few other times but I’d always gotten bored and decided the story was boring. Plus I wanted to see if I set a particular writing regimen, could I finish a novel in a set period of time.

I get that. Count of the Sahara started as a bet with myself. A Car to Die For might seem a surprise to those of you who know you through your standup. Where’d it come from?

I had the bare bones idea of the story — the small-town lawyer who is kind of a gumshoe — for a very long time. The character is based on my father. The main case of the burglar was a case my father had in the 70’s. And there were aspects of the man who keeps others’ secrets that I decided were very interesting.

There’s humor in the book but it’s not necessarily funny. Was it hard switching gears?

I wanted to have as much humor as I could find, but there were no intentions with regard to writing funny or not. I was trying to tell the story. If opportunities for humor came up, great, as long as they moved the tale along its way. I had a few jokey lines that I took out in the rewrite because they seemed contrived. (The draft took three months. I tried to write three pages a day (single spaced). Some days I wrote more, and only two or three days I didn’t make three pages. The rewrite took a year.)

Poetry, jokes, and now a novel. How is writing each different?

 Jokes and poetry are very similar in the writing. A visual picture and some powerful words, good-sounding words, and done as quickly as possible. Fiction is completely different, since you have to weave many strands of the story into the main story by the end. It’s the reverse of a comedy act, which is a river with many tributaries you can choose to go down or not. The novel has to flow into the main river by the end. Narrative is very unforgiving when compared to jokewriting or poetry, which have fewer rules.

Growing up in Canada, we had some different influences than American kids. I also know that you read even more eclectically than I do. Who did–and do–you read?

The two writers I read the most were Philip Roth and Mordecai RIchler, both dead. I read more non fiction now, a lot of scientific stuff, my favorite being David Quammen, a Montana-based writer. I like pulp, too. Stephen King, occasionally, (reading one of his now — The Institute), Thomas Perry, Michael Connelly, and I confess that I’ve read all or most of the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child.

Where can people follow you and all you’re up to?

@johnwing5 on Instagram and Twitter, The Bad Piano Player Podcast on Spotify or wherever you get yer podcasts, dude.

Check out my Amazon Author Page for all my fiction and non-fiction work, especially Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk.

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The Count of the Sahara Turns 6 Years Old This Week. (The Book, Not the Guy)

6 years ago today, my life changed forever. My first novel, and 6th book overall) The Count of the Sahara was published by Erik Empson (peace be upon him) at The Book Folks in the UK.

For the uninitiated, this is the real-life (mostly) story of a character I’ve been obsessed with for years: Count (cough, cough) Byron Khun de Prorok. He was an amazing mix of ambition, brilliance, talent, chicanery, and failure. How many archaeologists from the 20s have their own IMDB page?

For those of you who haven’t read it, it’s a pretty ambitious first book. It alternates between the imaginary story of Willie Braun, a young German-American teenager who becomes the driver and assistant for a charismatic archaeologist on a tour of the US Midwest in 1926. Then it flashes back a year to an ill-fated, well-documented expedition to the Algerian Sahara. We see how the tale de Prorok is spinning doesn’t quiiiiiite match the reality.

In the 6 years since publication, a lot’s happened. I’ve written 2 business books, The Long-Distance Leader and The Long-Distance Teammate. I’ve also written 3 more novels ( Acre’s Bastard and Acre’s Orphans, as well as Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk) and the sequel to Johnny Lycan is almost finished. You can see them all on my Amazon Author Page.

Whenever I beat myself up for not being faster, I allow myself to think about putting out 6 books in 6 years. I’m not James Patterson, but not bad for a 60-year-old with a day job.

Byron has given me the chance to speak and be interviewed dozens of times on the subject of this fascinating character. My favorite moment was when I heard last year from his Grand-daughter, thanking me for telling his story (as warts-and-all as it is.)

This book began my career (or whatever this is) as a novelist and I’m not stopping anytime soon.

If you have read the book, a million thanks.

If you haven’t, what’s keeping you? You can order it directly from the publisher, you can find it on Amazon worldwide.

If you want a SIGNED copy of the paperback, please drop me a line. You can get one for $15 plus shipping (if you’re outside the US it ain’t cheap) and you can pay me by Paypal or Zelle. The same is true if you want signed copies of any book, but today is about giving Byron his due.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. I ain’t done yet.

Werewolves Run Amok in Northern Ireland- Iain McLachlan

If you survived the great vampire boom of the 90s and early 2000s (Twilight, Pure Blood, The Lost Boys) you lived to tell the tale. We seem to be going through a similar thing with werewolves. All the tropes are being reexamined. Lycanthopic romance is a thing (seriously, a lot of women are hot for Lycans. It’s also big in gay erotica), legends are updated to a thoroughly modern world like Steve Morris’ Lycanthrope series (you can read the interview here), and some for a mix of humor, detective noir and horror like Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk. But if you never thought of Northern Ireland as werewolf territory, you need to meet Iain McLachlan.

Iain, what’s you’re story?

Well, I live south of Belfast in Northern Ireland, I was raised here and moved back home three years ago from living in London. I started writing my first book back in 2008, but work kept me away form it so it was 2017 when I went back to it with the decision ‘right, I WILL do this’ and I have not looked back. I love traveling, and apart from one, all the locations in my stories are all real and I try as best as I can, to do them justice. I love it when I get feedback from people who know the locations who tell me that they can picture exactly where the character is standing at the point in the story.  

What’s the story behind The Moon Dancing series?

I have looked at the genre of ‘werewolves’ but from a scientific point of view and not a ‘myth and fantasy’ one. I spent eighteen months before I started writing volume one doing research to see if this was possible in nature, and I discovered that theoretically, DNA can change shape, but (very big but) if this was real, what we see in stories and films would take nearly eight months for a person to change into a lycanthrope, not sixty seconds! So, I did take a bit of literally licence   

My story in Moon Dancing Volume one is about a pack of werewolves in modern-day Northern Ireland, they have done a very good job at hiding from modern society when (in volume one) a small pack of wolves from a different pack arrive .. and start to cause trouble.

I look at how the pack reacts to more wolves in their territory, how the police would have to investigate a series of brutal murders and the evidence that they gather and how a local journalist reports what she is seeing and discovering through her job.

The story was first going to be a trilogy but I am now looking at at least six books over the story line.

What is it about werewolves that is so fascinating? Belfast doesn’t seem like prime loup-garou territory.

I have always loved the idea of werewolves, but when I look at them in legend, I spotted major differences between central Europe and here in Ireland, for example, the witness descriptions from central Europe, drooling mouth, blood shot eyes, rage … I spotted that these were also the signs and symptoms of the disease RABIES. There has never been rabies in any of the British Isles (Ireland both north and south, and Great Britain) and the descriptions of werewolves in Irish legend were all of tales of ‘protectors’ and good tales. I found several legends that pointed to tales of the old kings of Ireland, that in times of war, would hire the clan of werewolves (or dogmen as they were also called) as bodyguards. They were known as fierce warriors and very loyal, totally different to Central Europe.

I’m always interested in who you read for fun. I get the sense you are kind of old school.

I have always loved reading, my list is varied and includes, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Keri Arthur, Patricia Briggs, Maya Angelou, David Niven, Claire Savage, Ernest Hemingway just to name a few.

Where can people learn more about you and your work?

I am on Good Reads, Volume one and Volume two of Moon Dancing are available on amazon, I am on social media as well,

www.instagram.com/iain_mclachlan_author

Moon Dancing Volume three is due for release in June 2021.  

Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk is now available in paperback and Kindle, and available almost anywhere from #BlackRoseWriting. It’s an American Book Festival Finalist for Best Horror of 2020. “Like Dresden Files with Bite.”

Send in Your Johnny Lycan #Bookselfie and Win

If you’ve bought your copy of Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk since pub date, you’re probably in the middle of it now. Send me a selfie with the book (or your Kindle, I trust you!) and you might win one of 3 “Don’t let Shaggy run the show…” coffee mugs.

Adam Larson and Astrid are reading in Minneapolis

Of course, you can always send a pic AND leave a review as well, like Ariana in Las Vegas did…

The deadline to enter is December 11th. Don’t delay.

You can order it anywhere books are sold online, but here’s the purchase link to Amazon and to Black Rose Writing.

If you want a SIGNED copy of Johnny Lycan, drop me an email and we’ll hook you up.

Chicago, The Ghost of Jamie McVay, and Ray Ziemer

Whoever said writing is a solitary activity is doing it wrong. Yeah, I said it. Typing, actually putting the words on paper or the screen is a lonely business but writing activities like getting feedback, brainstorming ideas, and hanging with other smart people is social. One of my favorite writerly people is Ray Ziemer. He’s a teacher, poet, novelist and all around good egg.

When I still lived in the suburbs of Chicago, we were both members of the Naperville Writers Group and I was lucky enough to see this book, The Ghost of Jamie McVay being workshopped. Now it’s out in the world. Any excuse to talk to a buddy.

Ray- tell folks what they should know about you.

I’m South Side of Chicago born and bred. Funny when I look back and realize I’ve spent most of my life now in the suburbs, but my youth in the city left me with an accent, an attitude, and a certain psychological shape. When I left the south side, I grew in many ways – in liberal views, intellectual range, hunger for landscape — but at my core, there is always the bungalow under the elms in the old neighborhood near Marquette Park.

Ghost of Jamie McVey is a good YA read. What’s the book about?

The Ghost of Jamie McVay is a classic ghost story of redemption and atonement, set in a contemporary suburb of Chicago, a world of young adult tribulations — bullying, first love, family dysfunction. The narrator uncovers family secrets,  weathers father-son conflict, and clue by clue unravels the mysteries of the ghost of Jamie McVay.

You really capture the Western Suburbs of Chicago in it. Where’d the story come from?

The story came out of regular bike rides and walks with my sons on the Illinois Prairie Path, a disused railroad right-of-way turned bike trail. I fantasized about old railroad disasters, which led to stories about ghost trains and hauntings along the path. When I first conceived the story, I was teaching junior high English, and I always felt there could be more and better novels for adolescent boys to read. So I tried to imagine a first-person narrator for that audience to relate to, and a strong female character everyone would like. Some might suspect there’s a dash of autobiography in there somewhere, too.

Totally unfair question. What’s your favorite scene?

Through multiple rewrites and revisions, two things that never changed were the beginning and the ending. The most dramatic scene is the climax at the end, when the main characters — and the ghost of Jamie McVay — confront each other on Halloween night, with explosive action and (I hope) satisfying resolution. 

That’ll work. You’re a poet and short story author as well as a novelist. Where can people learn more about you?

My author web page, with samples of my poetry and other fiction, is https://rgziemer.com

The book is for sale on Amazon.com  and Barnes & Noble.com. I also have a Goodreads and Facebook author pages.

SHAMELESS PLUG FOR MYSELF: So I am hanging tight for more reviews of Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk, which I’ll gladly share. But if you want to help spread the word, I’m having a contest. Send me a picture of you with your copy of Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk and where you’re at. You’ll enter a drawing for a Johnny Lycan, “Don’t let Shaggy run the show…” coffee mug. (Yeah, I know, it’s missing an apostrophe. Call it a collector’s item…)

Storm’s Child with John Ortega

Everyone has their thing, especially in genre fiction. I’m going to be honest, one of my least favorite groups of characters in Urban Fantasy are the Fae. Fairies, Pixies, all that stuff. That said, they are important to the world of UF like spunky female detectives and magical runes. It can’t all be werewolves and ghosts and hot vampires, and if you like Irish music and culture even a little, then they are just part of the landscape. Some people get it right. John Ortega has successfully tackled the whole Faerie thing head-on in his latest novel Storm’s Child.

John, tell us about you.

My love for fantasy started at a young age. To be honest I never liked reading, hated it to the point where I asked my mom to read my school assignments and give the bullet points later. Then one day I walked from a movie into borders and saw the Percy Jackson Series and it blew my mind. It was a complete change from running like hell from a book to devouring three and four a day. My mom thought I had been switched for a pod person. One thing led to another and soon I found myself reading about every mythological creature and story out there. From Greek to Norse to Celtic. Then as I got older my appetite got bigger and I would read Sci-fi, crime. Basically fantastical or magical that would catch my eye I would buy.

During the day I work in the customer representative department for a health insurance company and every other hour of the day I spent it either writing, reading, or looking up stuff that sparks my imagination.

What’s your book (and future series) about?

Storm’s Child is an urban fantasy novel where we meet Nathan, the owner of an inn for supernatural creatures in Portland, Oregon. He lives a quiet life with his dog Sabine until one of his employees is found dead under strange circumstances that prompts Nathan to do his own investigation that leads him on a collision course with the Fae. An ancient magical race that has a sordid history with Nathan and thinks he is dead. So he has to make a choice to risk exposure or let the killer go free.

Despite his troubled past, Nathan is optimistic at heart and likes to see the bright side of life but also its not above getting his hands bloody if the situation calls for. I’ve always been fascinated by the original version of famous fairy tales, The Grimm’s Brothers, Edmund Spencer, William Shakespeare and that led me to create a fae-centric world with a characters that had intimate knowledge of the fae, what they’re really like and what we humans have gotten wrong at the behest of the rulers of their race. You’d be surprised how much of our knowledge has been molded by them. 

But while the fae are an integral part of the world, we see magic everywhere. I wanted to explore a rich magical community so we see mages, shifters, nature spirits and how they interacted with the world around it. Storm’s Child is an urban fantasy story but it has elements of a murder mystery and a smidge of romance. So while we only explore a bit of the world as we follow Nathan in his investigation you get the sense of the larger world or worlds I should say.

Running a hotel is a great hook for a series like this since you need a good reason for all these creatures to cross paths. Where did the idea come from?

The basis of the story comes from the Irish myth of Tír na nÓg, the land of young. I was driving in my car one day and was listening to Youtube and the song Tír na nÓg by Celtic Woman came on and the story sang impacted me so much I researched the myth behind it and it’s the love tragedy that this human falls in love with a fae woman and goes to the land of the fae but after years he wants to go back and his love tells him that the world has forgotten him but he insists and goes back to the mortal world where centuries had passed and he dies as time catches up to him. So I asked myself what would happen if a mortal that lived with the fae for so long escapes to the mortal world and doesn’t die. What would that do to their psyche? Would they consider themselves human or something else? All those questions came to mind and the road to the story just appeared on my mind. 

Since you weren’t much of a reader as a kid you’ve obviously changed your ways. Who do you read that people should know about?

As I mentioned before, I started with Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series and while I go back to him at times. I immensely enjoy Ilona Andrews (a must read for any Urban Fantasy fan) as well as Patricia Briggs, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Jeaniene Frost, Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearne, Kevin Hardman and Peter Clines. 

Of course I can’t leave the Bard out as well as Spencer and the Brothers Grimm whose stories I’ve read time and time again. 

Not to hijack the interview, but if folks love Jim Butcher, you’ll probably enjoy Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk, which is like Dresden Files with no Fae and more teeth. (It’s available for preorder now, just saying.)

Where can folks learn more about you and your work?

Storm’s Child is my debut novel and you can find it on Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Kobo.

As for the easiest way to find me would be: 

Amazon Author Page: 

Goodreads: 

Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk is coming out November 19TH. Join my newsletter now to win a fabulous prize. Also, if you are a reviewer and want an advance e-copy of the book, drop me a line and let a brother know.

Cover Reveal: Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk

While there are far more consequential things going on in the world, I have news: Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk has a cover. If you WERE to judge the book by the cover, you might think this book is pretty cool.

Johnny Lupul is riding high. He’s got a PI license, a concealed carry permit, his first big payday and a monster of a secret. After rescuing a bookie’s daughter from Russian mobsters, the newly-minted PI catches the attention of a rich, mysterious client.

At first, it’s easy money. After all, magic isn’t real and those “occult” objects have to be fakes. But while chasing an Egyptian relic, an obsessed enemy from his past emerges. Johnny learns that the world is much stranger—and more dangerous—than he ever suspected.

Being a werewolf may be the most normal thing he has to face on this case.

This baby is out November 19 from Black Rose Writing, preorders available soon.

Demons & Being In the Wrong World at the Wrong Time with Amanda Fleet

Not to make this all about me, but I am incredibly nervous about my first Urban Fantasy novel coming out in November. After all, up til now, most of my work has been nonfiction/business-y stuff or Historical Fiction. This week’s guest, Amanda Fleet, has gone through a similar journey, what with the launch of her new Guardians of the Realm series. The second book comes out March 7.

I know you’re a bit of an over-achiever. Tell us about yourself.

Oh, toughest question first! I’m not good at talking about me!

I’m a writer, living in Scotland. I used to be a university lecturer, teaching physiology to medical students (and science students in the early days). At the start, teaching the students was fun and the non-teaching bits were okay too. But after a couple of decades and a series of terrible managers, although the students were still great fun, the job was literally almost killing me (serious arrhythmia and a breakdown), so I left. I now write as my ‘job’ though the pay and conditions suck. ?

I’d like to say “When I’m not writing, I like to…” but I’m always writing. Or thinking about writing. But I can multitask, so I can think about writing while walking, running, or gardening, all of which I enjoy. Living in Scotland, we have some amazing countryside, right on the doorstep. You’d have to be spectacularly unimaginative, not to be inspired by it.

What is your current series about?

The current book – Aegyir Rises – is about a life-stealing demon who’s accidentally freed from his prison on Earth. He’s determined to have revenge on the people who put him there and is convinced that a local woman, Reagan Bennett, is his nemesis Aeron. She thinks she’s Reagan Bennett, although she is plagued with dreams of a different world where she’s called Aeron. And someone keeps leaving her odd things on her kitchen table – things that only she can read, or things that could be used to defeat the demon – if she is Aeron. Can she defeat the demon before he kills everyone she loves?

What is it about that form of magic or character that appealed to you? What are the roots of the story?

There’s not actually any magic in it, per se. I’ve always loved the idea that the antagonist is the hero in his/her story. Aegyir – the demon – thinks he’s absolutely in the right. And for a long time, I’ve played with the ideas of parallel worlds and people being in the wrong place. These all came together to some extent in the Guardians of The Realm trilogy. Aegyir Rises is the first book in the trilogy. The second book, Aeron Returns, comes out next week!

As someone who has written in other genres first, and now has branched into this crazy world of UF, what has been your biggest fear and what has surprised you?

I’ve written in a number of different genres now, from medical thriller, through women’s literature, crime, and now urban fantasy. There’s not really been a plan to it. I write the stories that are burning a hole in my head. So, in many ways, the only fear has been the normal one of “Will anyone ever buy these books?” And as ever, the surprise is that, yes, some people do!

I suppose the biggest difference moving from crime-writing to urban fantasy is the level of description. My crime publisher pared most descriptions back and just wanted plot and action. My fantasy editor wanted much more detail – of characters, surroundings etc. That was a difficult shift in some ways.

Which writers inspired you?

As a child, I was obsessed with Gerald Durrell’s books, and a series of books written by a vet – James Herriot. After that came an Agatha Christie phase, interspersed with Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Bronte sisters. By the time I was at university, I’d shifted towards Terry Pratchett, and an author whose name I wish I could remember – she wrote fantasy books about a parallel world accessed via specific portals, and the books were humorous.

More recently, I’ve devoured pretty much anything written by Patrick Ness, and a lot of Neil Gaiman’s stuff. Crime-wise I would read anything by Harry Bingham – his Fiona Griffiths character is fantastic. Chris Brookmyre is great, as is C.L. Taylor. I’m currently impatiently waiting for Hilary Mantel’s third book about Thomas Cromwell “The Mirror and The Light” (the final part of the Wolf Hall trilogy) to come out in paperback.

Where can folks learn more about your work?

Website: https://www.amandafleet.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaFleetWriter/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amanda_fleet1

Book Bub: @AmandaFleet

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/amandafleet

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandafleet/ (though yet to post anything!)

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/amandafleet (though I don’t like Goodreads and am never on there…)

NOTE FROM WAYNE: In a month or so I am going to be offering a FREE story, not seen anywhere else, for subscribers to my newsletter. Please use the form on the side of the page to get on board and learn more about my work, including the upcoming novel, Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk.

And if this is your first introduction to me and my work, check out my novels on Amazon.