The Hencha Queen by J. Scott Coatsworth

Hello, Happy Wednesday everyone. I hope you are having a wonderful week. Today I’m thrilled to share that my good buddy, J. Scott Coatsworth (find out more about Scott here) has a wonderful new book out; The Hencha Queen. This is the third book in his The Tharassas Cycle.

Here is the blurb for The Hencha Queen:

SILYA COMES INTO HER OWN, BUT WILL SHE BE ENOUGH?

Silya finally has everything she always wanted. She's the Hencha Queen, head of the Temple, and is working to master her newfound talents. So why does the world pick now to fall apart?

Her once-nemesis Raven is off riding dragons, and their mutual friend (and her ex) Aik is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, a new threat menaces the Heartland from the East, and if she can't convince a reluctant Gullton city council to prepare for the worst, she may lose everyone and everything she's ever cared about.

As she uses her magic-like abilities, wit and sheer determination to try to save the city, she's joined by Raven and his new friends. Will their help tip the scales? And will they finally find out what happened to Aik as a dark storm threatens to sweep them all away?

Forget messy. Things just got apocalyptic.

Buy your copy here.

Here is the series blurb:

The Tharassas Cycle is a four book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.

That’s all for today. Until next time have a great week.

The Gauntlet Runner – Book Launch

Happy Wednesday Scribblers, I hope you’re having a great day. This week I’m thrilled to share my good friend J. Scott Coatsworth’s newest novel: The Gauntlet Runner. This is the second book in his speculative fiction series; The Tharaccas Cycle. If you haven’t read the prequel or the first book, then you are missing out, but luckily Scott is offering both the prequel and book one for $.99, so you can get all caught up and enjoy this terrific young adult series.

Let’s jump in to the details, here is the blurb:

A GUARD AND A THIEF. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Aik has fallen hopelessly in love with his best friend. But Raven's a thief, which makes things... complicated. Oh, and Raven has just been kidnapped by a dragon.

Now Aik is off on a quest of his own, to hunt down the foul beast and make them give back his ... friend? Lover? Soulmate? The whole not-knowing thing just makes everything harder.

Meanwhile, the world of Tharassas is falling apart, besieged by earthquakes, floods, and strange creatures no one has ever seen before. Aik's ex, Silya has gone back to Gullton to do try to save her people as the Hencha Queen, and Aik's stuck in a caravan with her mother and a damnable magical gauntlet that won't let him be. He has to find Raven, before it’s too late.

Things were messy before, but now they're much, much worse.

Here is the series blurb:

The Tharassas Cycle is a four-book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.

Buy the new book here.

Pick up both the prequel and book for just 99¢:

Click here for Tales From Tharassas.

Find The Dragon Eater here.

Here is a bit about J. Scott Coatsworth:

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.

He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

You can find Scott here:

Click here for his Author Website.

Find him on Facebook (Author Page) here.

He’s on Instagram here.

This is where you can find him on Goodreads (click here).

Don’t miss out on The Gauntlet Runner and don’t forget both the Prequel and Book One are on sale for $.99. You really don’t want to miss out! That’s all I have for this week, until next time have a great week.

The Dragon Eater by J. Scott Coatsworth

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you are all having a great day. It’s time for another book announcement. No, not mine. This week I’m pleased to share with you one of my author friends newest Sci-Fi/Fantasy works. Today we have J. Scott Coatsworth here to chat about his new book, The Dragon Eater, and to share with us his thoughts on dragons in general. Let’s not waste any time and jump right into the world of dragons.

The Dragon Eater

Raven's a thief who just swallowed a dragon. A small one, sure, but now his arms are growing scales, the local wildlife is acting up, and his snarky AI familiar is no help whatsoever.

Raven's best friend Aik is a guardsman carrying a torch for the thief. A pickpocket and a guard? Never going to happen. And Aik’s ex-fiancé Silya, an initiate priestess facing a magical crisis, hates Raven with the heat of a thousand suns.

This unlikely team must work together to face strange beasts, alien artifacts, and a world-altering threat. If they don’t figure out what to do soon, it might just be the end of everything.

Things are about to get messy.

Pick up your copy here.

What Is it About Dragons?

I’ve loved dragons since I was nine or ten, when I first discovered Anne McCaffrey on my mom’s sci-fi bookshelves. My mother was (and maybe still is?) a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, and new books showed up regularly in her mailbox, to end up on the imposing built-in bookshelves on what we called the “spare bedroom.”

When I discovered The Lord of the Rings on those shelves, it opened a window into a new world for me, a world where magic was possible, where starships could carry me from here to a world so far away even light would take a thousand years to get there. And there was a dragon in The Hobbit – the infamous Smaug – but he was in many ways a traditional one, hoarding gold and killing knights... even if those knights were dwarves.

And then I found Pern.

I remember the beginning as if it was yesterday, Lessa working as a drudge and caring for the watch wher, and meeting Flar for the first time. The amazing ability of McCaffrey’s dragons to travel between anywhere on the planet in just three seconds, and the fire lizards. I was hooked.

These dragons bonded with their human counterparts, even during sex, and there were gay dragonriders!

And though the Pern books were sci-fi (with a clear scientific basis for the origin of these great beasts), they were also in some ways fantasy, with the aforementioned dragons, with magic (the ability to travel between) and with a medieval setting worthy of an epic fantasy novel. That heady blend of fantasy mixed with technology and scientific advancement makes me swoon.

So maybe it’s not just dragons, but dragons of a very particular type.

When I began writing The Dragon Eater, I admit my new charges were influenced by McCaffrey’s beautiful beasts. But they’re also different, creations of a natural world and with a kind of “magic” all their own.

I hope you enjoy my dragons, aka verent. I’m so happy to see them fly.

About J. Scott Coatsworth:

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.

He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Where to Find Scott:

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

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

Mastodon: https://mastodon.lol/@jscottcoatsworth

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jscottcoatsworth/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth?from_search=true

QueerRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

LimFic: https://www.limfic.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

LimFic: https://www.limfic.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-scott-coatsworth

I hope you’ll go and grab a copy of The Dragon Eater as the novel promises to be a lot of fun and Scott always crafts great stories. Until next time have a great week.

Save the World – Anthology Out Now

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. This week the anthology I’m part of; Save the World, is out. I’m so excited to share this new anthology with you all today. This anthology is all about hope and ways to fix our planet. Given all the negativity surrounding us daily, this book is an enjoyable break from all the ‘doom scrolling’ around us. Meet twenty authors who have taken different looks at how to save our world. This is the second book in a series of anthologies to share optimism and give us faith in each other.

Book Blurb:

Climate change is no longer a vague future threat. Forests are burning, currents are shifting, and massive storms dump staggering amounts of water in less than 24 hours. Sometimes it’s hard to look ahead and see a hopeful future.

We asked sci-fi writers to send us stories about ways to save the world from climate change. From the myriad of stories we received, we chose the twenty most amazing (and hopefully prescient) tales.

Dive in and find out how we might mitigate climate change via solar mirrors, carbon capture, genetic manipulation, and acts of change both large and small.

The future’s not going to fix itself.

Doesn’t that sound amazing? Just the blurb gets me pumped and excited for what we all can accomplish when we put our minds to it!

The story I contributed to this anthology is called; The Interview, and today I’m excited to share the blurb with you:

Saving the planet isn’t cheap, and it’s not something everyone thinks about. We can’t only rely on the government, so who are the nameless donors and funders that bring green technologies to fruition? What kind of person spends their personal fortune on ways to clean the environment, and make our planet a better home? Find out who in The Interview.

Having this story selected out of over 300 submission is quite an honor and I’m ecstatic the judges decided my story had enough merit to make the cut. I’ve had time to read some of the other stories, and I know several of the authors who are part of this anthology, and I can say for certain that this is a book you don’t want to miss.

You can get the book here or if you want a signed copy, from me, and you live here in the United States, you can pick up a copy here on my website.

Well, that’s all for this week. Please pick up your copy of Save the World and see all the creative ways people have offered to help us save our planet and make our home a better place for everyone. Until next time, have a great week and Happy Pride 2022.

Virtual Readings, Virtual Events, Anthology Coming Soon

Happy Wednesday Scribblers, I hope you are all having a wonderful week.  Can you believe we are little over a week away from Christmas and fifteen days from the start of the new year? What an insane 2020 we’ve had and I would be lying if I said I’m gonna miss this year. Despite the long road ahead, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and 2021 will be a good year, fingers crossed. Despite 2020 being a less than stellar, there have been some high points. My publisher NineStar Press has picked up two more of my books; The Called and Conspiracy-A New World (Book 3). Also, this month has been busy for me and my writing. Let me share the highlights with:

December 4, 2020 started my month off with a virtual reading with the gang from Queer Sacramento. It was a wonderful virtual event with some fantastic authors. I’m happy to join these great writers, we always have a blast.  Here is where you can find the whole group of readings:

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On December 6, 2020, I was invited to take part in the 8th annual LocalLit 202 event jointly hosted by the San Jose Public Library and San Jose State University. You can find out more about the event and all the other authors here . I was asked to be part of the SciFi and Mystery Panel. You will be able to view the whole event on YouTube here once they upload the video.

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Then on December 12, 2020, the amazing authors of the Bay Area Queer Writers Association (BAQWA find out more about the group here), celebrated their one-year anniversary with a virtual reading event.  You can check out the readings here.

Up next on December 14, 2020, my short story, A Dragon for Christmas (check it out here) was selected by Nobody Reads Short Stores (learn more about them here) to be their end of year reading performance. After the reading by the amazing cast, I was part of a live Q&A. It was so much fun.  Check out the video performance here.

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Lastly, this December, 2020 A More Perfect Union Anthology (A Voting-Themed Romance Anthology benefiting Fair Fight learn more about Fair Fight here.) will go up for preorder, with a release date of January 18, 2021. A More Perfect Union is a series of short stories that has been put together to benefit Fair Fight in Georgia all funds raised from the sale of this anthology will go to Fair Fight. I was honored to be asked to provide a story for the anthology. My short story is called: Election Night.

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Election Night – Blurb

Elections are stressful enough, and none more than this one. With so much riding on the vote this year, Sammy needed involvement to get her candidate elected and into the Whitehouse. Now on election night she’s had a terrible day, but plans to work until the bitter end. Already late for her volunteering, Sammy rushes for the ancient building elevator, mercifully being held for her by an attractive stranger. More than an election is held in the balance when the elevator gets stuck between floors and Sammy finds out that the woman stuck with her works for the enemy camp. Who will win the election, and how will these two women make it out of the elevator in one piece?

Learn more about the anthology and the authors here. You can learn more about the short story I contributed to the anthology here. You can preorder the new novel here.

Well Scribblers, that has been my month, so there has been a lot going on. Thank you all for continuing this journey with me. Without your love and support I wouldn’t be able to keep going.

Do you want to learn more about my two novels coming out in 2021? Check out The Called here and Conspiracy-A New World(Book 3) here.

That’s all for this week. If you have questions or want to learn more about what I have coming up next check out my events page here. If you have any questions please drop them in the comments below. Please consider sharing this post it really does help, as does clicking on this little heart below. Don’t forget you can buy signed copies of my books here (at this time I can only ship in the US). Until next time have a great week.

Podcasts and More

Here we are, it’s Wednesday again Scribblers. I hope you are having a great week. This week, I wanted to give a shout out to some of my favorite podcasts. If you don’t listen to podcasts you need to start, they are fun and a great way to keep up with the topics you find most interesting. I also love that they make my commute to the office and back home bearable.

Here is my list of favorite podcasts in no particular order:

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WROTE Podcast: WROTE is a weekly podcast where the hosts Baz and Vance chat with guests about LGBTQ storytelling in all genres and mediums. However, there podcast isn’t just about LGBTQ storytelling, they talk to all kinds of LGBTQ content providers and consumers.

What I love about Vance and Baz is how lively the conversations are. You can tell they have fun with their guests. You never know where they conversation will go, but you will have a great time getting there. I can’t tell you how many wonderful new authors I’ve learned about thanks to this podcast. Each podcast is about an hour which is nice.

Find the WROTE Podcast here.

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The WritesCast Network: This podcast is a writing-podcast collective for writers, by writers, with the mission to gather all of your favorite writerly audio on one convenient RSS feed. The Writescast Network started with the R. R. Campbell writescast, which features author, editor, and agent interviews full of writing wisdom from storytellers across the globe. They have expanded to include Biblio Breakdown and Novel Approaches, both of which are more craft-intensive.

R.R. Campbell and his co-host Sione Aeschliman are intelligent and great to listen to, as a writer, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what they share and taking mental notes on how to improve my writing.  As a Reader I love R.R.’s one-on-one conversation with authors, it’s a great way to find out about books and new authors I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. The Writescast Network episodes are about a half hour and the indebt writing conversations on Novel Approach last bout an hour. Both are high quality and very informative.

Find The Writescast Network here.

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GayTalk 2.0: The Ultimate PodCast: Is a group of three friends that come together every Monday to provide listeners with hilarious commentary on all the current events of the week.  The hosts sit around the table with cocktails in hand bringing the latest on art, current events, news, music, and other topics that impact the LGBT community.  The show consists of several segments that are chosen to provide listeners relevant, current, informative content with a funny gay twist. Most topics discussed on the show are those that closely affect the LGBTQ+ community. The hosts don’t shy away from any topic; Sex, politics, alcohol, addiction, fetish, gossip, celebrities, or tragedy. They cover it all.

The banter, oh my goodness the banter. Tom, Chris, and Nick (or Trish) are funny as hell. These guys are great. I may not always agree 100% with them, but if you are looking for conversations on current events that are discussed with a lot of heart (and seriousness when applicable) then you have to check out this podcast. I can’t recommend them enough. This podcast hovers around an hour to an hour and a half and it’s worth every minute.

Find GayTalk2.0 here.

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Queer Words: Conversation with queer-identified authors about their works and lives.

That really sums it up, Wayne Goodman is charming and welcoming to his guest, who are all authors. Wayne will have them answer a few questions and then do a reading from one of their works. It’s another way to find some amazing books and learn about some fantastic authors. The podcast typically goes anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes.

Find Queer Words here.

You really need to check out these amazing podcasts, they are always a wonderful break from your day-to-day.

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As a reminder, this week I have two events coming up. First, Friday (August 16th) at 7 p.m. I’m going to be part of a Meet the Authors event here in San Jose at the Billy DeFrank Center.

I’ll be joined by the amazing J.Scott Coatsworth, the outstanding SA ‘Baz’ Collins, and the brilliant Jeanne Marcella.

Find more information by clicking here.

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Second, this Saturday at 11 a.m. I’ll be live on Facebook with A. F. Stewart for their live stream Between the Pages. We’ll be chatting about my Sci Fi series and my upcoming work. Check out the details here.

A lot is still going on. I hope you check out these podcasts they are all top quality and every entertaining. I learn a lot from each of them and wouldn’t miss a week. Do you have any favorite podcasts? What do you listen to on the drive to and from work? Let me know in the comments below. In the meantime have a great week and see you next time.