Have you discovered Nick Savage?
If you have not grabbed up one of the books from Nick Savage you are missing out!
Nick Savage lives in the Orlando area with his wife and 2 cats. He is an award winning & best-selling author who writes both Modern Romance and Contemporary Fantasy. He is also an artist, and video game nerd.
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You can order this book in all formats directly from our 4HP Website and receive 10% OFF using coupon code 4HP10!
Have you discovered Lou Kemp?
If you have not grabbed up one of the books from Lou Kemp you are missing out!
Early work was horror and suspense, later work morphed into a combination of magical realism, mystery and adventure painted with a horrific element as needed.
I’m one of those writers who doesn’t plan ahead, no outlines, no clue, and I sometimes write myself into a corner. Atmospheric music in the background helps. Black by Pearl Jam especially.
More information is available at LouKemp.com. I’d love to hear from you and what you think of Celwyn, Bartholomew, and Professor Xiau Kang.
Milestones:
2009 The anthology story Sherlock’s Opera appeared in Seattle Noir, edited by Curt Colbert, Akashic Books. Available through Amazon or Barnes and Noble online. Booklist published a favorable review of my contribution to the anthology.
2010 My story, In Memory of the Sibylline, was accepted into the best-selling MWA anthology Crimes by Moonlight, edited by Charlaine Harris. The immortal magician Celwyn makes his first appearance in print.
2018 The story, The Violins Played before Junstan is published in the MWA anthology Odd Partners, edited by Anne Perry. The Celwyn series begins.
As of 2022, 4 Horsemen has reissued books 1 through 3 of the Celwyn series. Book 4, The Pirate Danced and the Automat Died and The Sea of the Vanities have been published. Book 5, The Wyvern, the Pirate, and the Madman will be reissued in January 2024 where readers will see more of Pelaez, another immortal magician and Celwyn’s brother.
You can order these books in all formats directly from our 4HP Website and receive 10% OFF using coupon code 4HP10! Check out all their work here:
Have you discovered C.R. Rice?
If you have not grabbed up one of the books from C.R. Rice you are missing out!
C.R. Rice is a fantasy/sci-fi writer, currently immersing you in the Realm Series. As someone who grew up in a small town, she has always loved escaping into the world of fantasy, paranormal and legend. C.R. has dedicated herself to creating that same opportunity to anyone who wants to escape the boring reality of real life. Through the years, she has traveled to dozens of different states and countries, has lived in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and now Florida! While they all have their own unique treasures, she admits to favoring the sunny southern states over the chilly northern ones, though there is nothing like curling up with a wonderful book by the fire as the snow falls outside the window.
Some of her favorite reads are Terry Pratchett’s Disc World series, The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld, and The Hallow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle. When she is not reading or writing, she enjoys spending time with her husband.
You can order their books in all formats directly from our 4HP Website and receive 10% OFF using coupon code 4HP10!
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I’ve always been drawn to the scary side of life. Weird and spooky things have always sung to my soul. The darkness calls to me on windy, moonlit nights. I can’t explain why or how, but it’s always been a feeling I’ve had for as long as I can remember. Yes, I was the gothy, witchy girl in elementary school. I was the freaky outcast in high school. I was the loner in college… all of it. But for me, it never was a fashion statement or a temporary phase. There’s always been something in the pit of my soul that growls.
Fear is one of the most basic, primal emotions, yet it is so complex. Some people genuinely freeze when they are afraid, while others thrive off it. Fear can either repel or fuel us, and for those of us who are captivated by it, I whole-heartedly believe that we are just wired-differently than others. Whether it’s environmental, spiritual, or encoded in our DNA, horror fanatics look at the genre as a mirror of humanity reflecting back our greatest terrors or our darkest desires (or a little bit of both).
My mother believes I was cursed by a witch. While that’s the opening line to my occult horror novel Witch of the Black Circle, there are far more realistic implications to the sentence, ‘cause I’m pretty sure she did. She kinda told me once or twice or thrice about the creepy kids she used to babysit and their creepy, witchy mom in their Satanic-like apartment when she was seven months pregnant with me (spoiler alert** Chapter 11 in the book tells that story). So, who knows if that somehow affected me in utero. I like to think so. Makes for an interesting life story, I suppose.
And of course, there was the time when my mom brought me to the movies when I was about five years old. The film? Creepshow! Mommy dearest thought I was sleeping the whole time, but as a child, I distinctly remember covering my eyes, but looking through my fingers so I could see what was happening! I was both horrified and enthralled at the same time (especially during the cockroach segment). But that film awakened me—opened my hiding eyes to a world of mystery and terror. And I knew I wanted more… so much more.
For me, writing horror is a journey into the dark corners of the mind, a dance with the unknown, and a deep dive into the emotions that make us who we are. Through horror, I find not just fear, but also but also understanding, and a connection with my readers. I enjoy pushing certain storytelling boundaries, making the familiar unfamiliar, making the comfortable unsettling, and most of all—making my readers feel the wide range of emotions associated with the genre in general.
Writers write about what they know. So, it seemed only natural for me to express myself in horror.
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I’ve written a lot. Professionally and as a hobby. Easily over five hundred million words—though that’s a rough estimate. I have no idea how I’d even try to check that. The point is, you would think, after all of that, I would’ve found “my voice.”
You know the concept of a writer’s voice, I assume. It’s a series of vocabulary choices, pacing choices, sentence length, and rhythm decisions that make your art feel like yours.
But I never found it. The writing voice that comes out of me doesn’t feel innate. Perhaps it does for others. I have to assume it does for others. But, for me, even in this article you are now reading, I am deciding what my voice sounds like.
There’s a way I like my writing to read.
Part of this is rhythm. I like my writing a little fast-paced. Go back and look, and you’ll see that I put a lot of short sentences around long ones.
This isn’t always uniform, though. In my fiction, I like for more otherworldly and cosmic horror events to be more descriptive. I use specific words in those scenes. I save them for when I need to make a big impact.
But here’s where I flip this on its head. Because isn’t what I am doing still my writing voice? I’m honestly not sure. Voice is supposedly this innate thing. A way of writing that occurs without thinking. Does it still “count” if it’s chosen?
And yes, this is going to be a little existential. I do write existential horror, after all.
Because, to go down this line of thinking, we are essentially talking about the version of me that is writing and the version of me that is editing. I do make that distinction. I almost think of them at war. Or perhaps in a begrudging working relationship. Is the tempering done by the part of me paying attention to sentence length more or less my “voice” than the raw creativity before that tempering?
Perhaps the true question to determine this is consistency. If voice is the art we cannot help but produce, then—by the nature of me always wanting to edit my work to a certain style—this controlled version of my creativity, what you are reading, is what’ll always happen. The rough drafts could be argued to contain more of my voice, but I hate my rough drafts. That’s ultimately what inspired me to pay so much attention to composition. It could be argued to be the catalyst for defining a style for myself.
Now, as is the case for a lot of these sorts of questions, I don’t actually think there’s a true answer. I don’t have one at least. The term “writing voice” is a vague enough term that someone may have already disagreed with my initial definition. And I wouldn’t blame them.But, as some form of a conclusion, I do believe that there’s something that changes in you when you’ve written enough. Your connection to words and sentences and stories becomes both more mechanical and more like sorcery. That is likely true of all art though, no matter the medium. And, frankly, that’s kind of wonderful. Let the mystery of voice continue, if only so we can try to understand it even more.
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Yo-yo dieting is exhausting (I should know- I started when I was 13 and didn’t stop for well over a decade).
As isolating as those years of counting calories and restricting carbohydrates were, I now know I was not alone in my battle with disordered eating. As a registered dietitian, women from all walks of life have shared their struggles around food, dieting, and body image with me on a regular basis.
Kendra, a 42 year old stay at home mom, has been trying to diet off the same 10 pounds since she had her second baby in 2012. She can’t remember the last time she ate a slice of pizza and didn’t worry about it ruining her progress.
Lucy eats clean all day- no bread, no dairy, and certainly no sugar. At night, she binge eats saltine crackers dipped in peanut butter, oatmeal smothered with dark chocolate chips, and shredded cheese melted on tortilla chips. She believes she needs more discipline, but I say she needs less restrictions.
Nellie lost 30 lbs doing keto. She gained 35 of them back. She tried keto again but now, it’s not working. She feels confused and frustrated at her body.
So why don’t extreme diets work? There are a few reasons…
Not to mention, extreme diets don’t teach you how to eat for regular life (but they do train you to fear food and distrust your body). What’s the point of starting if you can’t stick to it for the long haul?
As tempting as extreme approaches and quick fixes may sound, you have to stop dieting if you want to stand a chance at getting results that last and improve your relationship with food.
In my book How to Eat Like A Normal Person: A Guide to Overcoming the All-or-Nothing Mindset with Food & Diet, I’ll teach you how to adopt a balanced and nutritious approach to eating. Through six stories of my real life clients, I’ll share the eating and mindset strategies that helped them find peace with food and feel confident in both their body and choices. You won’t get a list of foods to avoid or restrict. Rather, you’ll learn what to eat more of so you feel more in control of food.
After reading How to Eat Like A Normal Person, you’ll never have to diet again!
Written by Kait Richardson, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and author of How to Eat Like A Normal Person: Guide to Overcoming the “All-or-Nothing” Mindset with Food & Diet. You can follow her on Instagram @kaitrichardsonrd.
The first volume of Haunter’s Tale is crawling to life with its release date set for October 31, 2024, by Accomplishing Innovation Press. This spine-chilling anthology promises to haunt your nightmares and transport you into a world filled with ghoulishly original stories, true ghost accounts, eerie artwork, and terrifying backstories. It’s not just a book; it’s an experience that will leave even the bravest readers questioning what is real and what is fiction.
James-Michael Roddy, the fiendish genius behind some of the most notorious Halloween events, has announced the launch of Haunter’s Tale Volume I. With this anthology series, Roddy promises to take fear to new heights by bringing together talented horror and haunt designers alongside their devoted fans. The anticipation among the horror community is palpable as they eagerly await this collection of terror-inducing tales.
Haunter’s Tale Volume I offers a unique collection unlike any other. Each page is filled with dread-inducing content that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Here’s a glimpse of what you can expect:
Original Stories: Immerse yourself in ghoulishly original tales that will send shivers down your spine.
Fear-Filled Film Scripts: Explore scripts from the minds of the best horror writers, guaranteed to give you goosebumps.
True Accounts of Famous Haunts: Discover the chilling true stories behind some of the most infamous haunted locations.
Ghostly Photographs: Be captivated by unsettling images that capture the essence of the supernatural.
Haunting Artwork: View haunting artwork created by esteemed artists in the genre that will linger in your mind long after reading.
Volume I of Haunter’s Tale features an introduction from none other than renowned horror legend, Tom Savini. Known for his groundbreaking special effects work in horror films, Savini’s introduction sets the tone for the spine-tingling journey that awaits readers.
Just a Book…or Something More?
As you immerse yourself in the pages of Haunter’s Tale, remember to keep reminding yourself, “It’s only a book.” This anthology is designed to push the boundaries of fear and blur the lines between reality and fiction. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that will leave you breathless and questioning your own sanity.
Enter the World of Haunter’s Tale
Do you dare enter the world of Haunter’s Tale? This is more than just a book; it’s an experience. It’s a celebration of the horror genre and the talented creators who bring it to life. With each volume, Haunter’s Tale aims to provide a platform where horror enthusiasts can come together, share their work, and inspire one another.
The Podcast: Expanding the Horror Universe
Along with the book series, a new hour-long podcast will also be launched. This podcast will further expand the platform for creators to showcase their dark creations and insights. Each episode will feature interviews with horror creators, discussions about the genre, and readings of original works. It’s a must-listen for any fan of horror.
Haunter’s Tale Volume I is more than just a book; it’s a gateway to a world of terror. With its release on October 31, 2024, by Accomplishing Innovation Press, this anthology series is set to become a cornerstone of horror literature. So, gather your courage, turn off the lights, and enter the world of Haunter’s Tale… if you dare!
Any author knows that an important part of crafting a solid story involves a decent amount of research. Facts, figures, locations, language, environment, time… the devil is in the details. And having all your proverbial ducks in a row can give your audience a truly immersive experience whether you’re writing something realistic or in your own fantastical world. Well-researched content adds depth to a story and in a way, gives more credibility to the author as an expert on a certain topic (yes, even in works of fiction!) What’s the saying? Writers write about what they know? So, if you haven’t done your homework on a specific subject, why would you attempt to write about it? Even in the realms of fantasy, readers tend to feel more comfortable and connected when they are grounded in some tangible form of reality, so it’s important to have your world have logic and rules and consistency. A little bit of research can definitely go a long way.
My Dawn of the Blood Witch saga is purposefully crafted around events in history. I take my characters all over the map, and through many different eras of time, using real stories as the backdrops for my plots. The research can get intense because I don’t want to have any inconsistencies or have anything misrepresented (witches are very serious business, ya know). I include infamous serial killers, ancient Christian practices, the Salem Witch Trials, widely known kidnappings, cults and exorcists (to name a few things) throughout these books and the amount of hardcore research I’ve done to get things to fit ever-so-perfectly has been a daunting task. I often find myself going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole chasing ghosts and legends so that it not only makes sense for the reader, but also in my in my head, and within the context of the overarching story. There are a lot of moving parts in this series, so it’s important for me to be precise.
While it’s another form of work—of the entire process—researching your topic can actually be fun. Yes, I said fun! All the little tidbits and additions to each book help to tie everything together. I love dropping Easter eggs and when readers reach out to me and say things like, “Oh my God! You said that in book 2, and then it like happened in book 4, but book 4 takes place before book 2!” Mind-blown moments like that make the tedious research so rewarding. Or when someone tells me they have a kinda-obsession-kinda-crush on Ricky Kasso, too… makes me feel like I’m not the only weirdo in the world.
The bottom line is this: know your stuff. Know what you’re talking about. Present the information in your world in a well-prepared and logical way. Readers will pick up on it and have a stronger attachment to your characters and story. As the author, proper research can empower you to produce work that is meaningful, respectful to your readers and subject matter, and will make your audience want to dive into your entire catalog!
It was 1995, and my wife and I were on a carriage tour around Mackinac Island when I thought, “What would happen if the island got cut off from the mainland? How would they cope?
Mackinac Island is notable in that there are no cars allowed on the island, only horses and bicycles. If you wanted to go anywhere, you rode a horse, rode a bike, or walked.
There are no bridges. The only way to cover the eight-mile distance to the mainland was by ferry or a private boat between Mackinac Island and Mackinaw City. Or a snowmobile in the winter if it got cold enough.
We visited Fort Mackinac, the Iroquois Hotel, the Pink Pony restaurant, and the Grand Hotel — the place where Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve fell in love across the decades in Somewhere In Time.
The question pinged around in my brain over the weekend. How would people get food? Would they still be able to leave the island? Could people bring in supplies? Would smugglers bring in groceries? Would they build a self-sufficient economy where they didn’t need the outside world?
Vacation ended, but the question never left me. We went back three or four more times, staying in different inns and hotels, and I pondered it for the next 14 years.
Finally, one day in 2014, I started writing:
Pete stared at the fussy man in the gray wool suit sitting across from him. The man constantly adjusted and touched his glasses, and Pete wanted to rip them off his face and stomp on them.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about this,” said Pete. “It sounds like your problem, not ours.”
“Well, this affects us both, Mr. Bidwell,” said the man, touching his glasses again. “And it affects everyone who lives on this island, visits it, or has business interests on it.”
“I don’t see how. It’s a 200-year-old treaty that’s been sitting in a dusty old office somewhere.”
The story didn’t come easily — I’d had 14 years to think of it, but honestly, I hadn’t gone past the opening scene and a few additional scenes that happened later in the story. So I started writing and waiting to see what happened as the story developed — “pantsing” it, as it were.
It was a slog, and I eventually got stuck on chapter 4. I had no idea what should happen next or how the story should progress. I had mentally certain scenes much further into the book, but I had no idea how to get there.
A friend taught me how to plan out the story on index cards, writing one plot point per card and organizing them into chapters and storylines. I learned that little trick about a week before I entered the Kerouac House in Orlando to be the Spring 2016 writer-in-residence, so I knew what I had to do once I got there.
I was dealing with a major case of impostor syndrome when my residency started, and I was sure the board was going to realize they’d made a mistake in choosing me because I wasn’t a “real writer” and were going to kick me out.
So, I buckled down and got to work. I plotted out the entire book on index cards in two days, spent a third day organizing them into chapters, and writing the outline. After that, I got to work.
I wanted to get as much done as I could because any day, the board was going to show up and kick me out. I wanted to be able to say, “No, look! I’ve been working really hard. I got a lot done. Can I please stay?”
But they never came.
They never showed up, never knocked at the door, and never asked me to leave.
In fact, they did the opposite: two months later, they asked me to join the board.
I spent the next three months working on my novel and completed half of it during my time. Then, in 2017, I didn’t touch it. At all. Ever.
Not even to look at it, gaze at it in the moonlight, or stroke its cheek and say, “Soon, my darling.” Because it was on my computer, and that would be weird.
Then, in 2018, I decided, “I’m fucking well sick of this!” and worked on it every weekend. I hung out at Vespr Coffee in East Orlando for four hours every Saturday and Sunday night and pounded away at the book, trying to finish it before the end of the year.
In September, I thought, “I must be halfway finished with this by now.” A first novel is generally about 60,000 words long, and I thought, “Surely, I’m at 30,000 by now.”
I counted up the words for each chapter and discovered I was at 90,000 but still had half the outline to go.
Uh-oh.
I started hacking up the outline, removing sub-plots and minor characters’ storylines, and was able to knock it down to five chapters to go.
I managed to finish the rest of the book before the end of the year and clocked in at 128,000 words.
I self-published the book in April 2019, and four years later, it was picked up by 4 Horsemen Publications, given a brand new cover, and they’re now producing my next novel, Whither, Utopia, while I’m in the middle of writing my third.
I’ve been writing satire and humor ever since a banned books poster told me not to read Slaughterhouse-Five and Catch-22, and I went and read them. Ever since then, I’ve always wanted to write books that make fun of people in power and that contain a lot of swear words.
Little did I know that one of my favorite vacation spots and an idea that bubbled and brewed for twenty years would end up becoming my most favorite book I’ve ever written. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed writing it.
“The Black Dust fell, and the world changed…”
Welcome to the world of THE JUNGLE SERIES.
As an author I followed one of the main tenets in writing, and that is, always write about what you know. Though the JUNGLE SERIES is a work of dystopian fiction, all four novels are set in the “real” world, the world I grew up in.
Southeast England is a beautiful part of the United Kingdom, the places I write about are real places, though some of the names have been changed. The same with the third novel, [LINDA’S STORY] which is mainly set in Ireland. The fourth novel [GENOCIDE] incorporates most of the U.K. especially Scotland, a wild, exciting land.
A lot of the characters are based on people I have met, people that have stuck in my memory. I have a lot of fun giving them new personas, making them dance to a new tune. Turning them into heroes or villains, colourful, whimsical characters that inhabit a real world, my world.
The world[s] I create have to be real, they have to resonate, give the characters stability, a purpose, and a home. It gives them a reason to fight.
You are invited into my world, come meet Adam Blake, Linda Stephens, Charlie… They’re just ordinary people like you and me, in an extraordinary situation. You probably already know people who are just like them, everyday people, until they’re not.
This new world is a dangerous place, every day is a fight for survival, death lurks behind every tree, every bush. Real monsters lurk in the woodlands, in the forests, the plant life seeks your death, sentient, evil, patiently waiting for the unwary.
It’s also a beautiful place, where true friendships are born, where everyone comes together with one purpose, one goal, working together, for the common good. Love blossoms, bonds are forged, despite the terror that continually assails them. They are strong in the knowledge that whatever challenges they face they will face together, as friends, as brothers and sisters, as a family.
Welcome to my world, make yourself at home, I will tell you a story….
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