Going Bats!

Back at Halloween, my second anthology with Coming Together was released. Coming Together: Strange Shifters, is a collection of erotic short stories featuring shifters of another sort.

Werewolves, like vampires, are the monsters of the moment, and probably much like you, I was getting a bit tired of them. Surely there were other shape-shifters in the world that could use some love.

A few years back, I read a really cut novel that featured a were-Chinchilla... as the fur-mommy of two adorable chins, myself, I found the writer's portrayal of the sometimes human / sometimes Chinchilla to be just spot on. The character had a lot of the personality traits that I see in my boys, and it was just an all around great read.

So I started seeking out other shifter books; harder than you might think, altho I did come across a few.

As I've been told several times: If you can't find the book you want to read, write it.

~~~~

There are a lot of great charities, and I work with several of them, donating time, or money, or both... One of the ones I'm particularly fond of is Bat World Sanctuary. I stumbled across them on Facebook, started following the page, and fell in love with the little creatures there, and the people that help them out.

I've always been fond of bats -- someday I'll tell you a funny story about my grandmother and trying to get a bat out of the lake cabin -- and thought they were misunderstood creatures.

So I wrote to Bat World to see if they'd want to receive the donations from our collection of smutty stories. Because their Facebook page is considered family friendly, they can't really advertise our book, but they have a burlesque group that does a fund-raiser for them once a year... and that decided me... We'd support Bat World...

And a few weeks ago, I got two of these little babies in the mail as thanks for our donations and time... isn't she cute?

So, I have a signed copy of Coming Together: Strange Shifters (signed by Nickie Jamison, Elizabeth L. Brooks, Lynn Townsend, and T.B. Bond,) as well as one of these little batty babies to give away.

So, leave a comment on this blog. Leave a comment on my blog, "like" me on Facebook, follow my Amazon profile, or follow me on twitter (Let me know on my Facebook page, or in your comments that you did these things -- sometimes they don't notify me.) between now and April 1st, and you'll be entered to win... you'll get an entry for each one of these tasks!

Spooky Stories for your Kindle

Coming Together: Strange Shifters is a collection of shifter erotica edited by Lynn Townsend. Sales proceeds benefit the Bat World Sanctuary.

Werewolves get all the glory and attention. What about the shy were-deer or the aggressive were-badger? Where are their stories? Calling all skin-changers. There's nothing sexier than a lover who isn't afraid to let their inner animal out!

You can pre-order Strange Shifters today and have it on your kindle Halloween!

Amazon Buy Link

or

Smashwords Buy Link

The paperback copies should be available for pre-order before next week. Remember that all proceeds go to Bat World Sanctuary and you can like them on Facebook.

Bats are highly sensationalized and misunderstood creatures, but for the most part are very sweet and very useful. If for no other reason, we should all help them out because they eat thousands of POUNDS of bugs every year... can you imagine what a summer evening would be like without bats?

I'd like to take a moment to thank all my wonderful authors and contributors; Jaap Boekestein, Lukas Scott, Lisabet Sarai,  Adrik Kemp, Delilah Night, Elizabeth L. Brooks, Emma Whitehall, Leigh Ellwood, Lynn Townsend, Daniel Burnell, Marie Piper, Nickie Jamison, Lily Malone, T.G. Haynes, T.B. Bond, and Margot McGuire. A special thanks also to Alessia Brio, who continues to take in my crazy anthology ideas, and also Jenn Nixon, who helped me get our cover art situated, and especially to every reader out there who takes a chance on my stories and anthologies. I hope you love this collection as much as I do.

Coming Together: Strange Shifters Cover

Coming Together: Strange Shifters -- Table of Contents

I've got all the contracts back, done all the editing, and am awaiting like 2 stories left for final versions...

Which meant that it was time for me to buckle down and set the order for the stories, which can be a really tricky task. You want to start with a bang and end with a boom, and keep the tension up for the entire book. It's tough, and it's a skill I'm still not sure I've mastered -- this is only my second anthology, after all...

But, here's what we got....




Introduction: The Animal Inside...                            

Bored in Heaven                                      Daniel Burnell
A Hand Outstretched                       Elizabeth L. Brooks
Gator Tail                                                 Leigh Ellwood
Mine                                                     Emma Whitehall
Small Change                                              Adrik Kemp
Moonlight Ride                                            Marie Piper
Water & Fire                                          Jaap Boekestein
Circus                                                      Nickie Jamison
The Storyteller                                            Tony Haynes
The Dive                                                       Lukas Scott
A Reindeer by Any Other Name               Delilah Night
Tar Pit Triage                                               Lily Malone
Valkyrie                                                  Nickie Jamison
Champ                                                  Margot McGuire
Woman without a Shadow                          Bruce Meyer
Rezoned                                                          T.B. Bond
Mouse Games                                       Lynn Townsend
Snowbound                                                Lisabet Sarai
                               
                                                                   Author Bios

Call for Submission: Strange Shifters... a Shape-Shifter collection to benefit Bat World

Coming Together: Strange Shifters is a collection of shifter erotica edited by Lynn Townsend. Sales proceeds benefit the Bat World Sanctuary.

Werewolves get all the glory and attention. What about the shy were-deer or the aggressive were-badger? Where are their stories? Calling all skin-changers. There's nothing sexier than a lover who isn't afraid to let their inner animal out!

Paranormal writer, Lynn Townsend, is looking for your best were-creature stories: were-foxes, shape-shifting llamas, or even were-men, beasts who come out of the forests to assume human shapes and walk among unsuspecting mortals.

The final book will contain the best of erotic shape-shifter tales (tails?), a wide range of characters, pairings, ideas, and situations, exploring what it means to be human... and what it means to be beast.

Standard Rules apply:

No underage, no non-consensual, no scat, incest, or necrophilia. The nature of the anthology allows for some bestiality, but keep them all sentient beasts. Any pairings or groupings accepted and encouraged. Heat level, medium-warm to nuke my brain! Happily-Ever-After or Happy-For-Now not required. I'm looking for satisfying stories and incredible sex first and foremost.

Deadline for submissions is August 1, 2015.

Send double-spaced, 12 point font (Times New Roman or Georgia) in .doc or .rtf format, 2,000 – 4,500 word stories to lynntownsend.writer@gmail.com, with “ATTN: Coming Together, your pen-name, your story title” in the subject line. Indent the first line of each paragraph, do not add extra lines between paragraphs. US English grammar please. Double quotes around dialog. (If your story requires non-comprehensible speech, other punctuation may be acceptable, brackets, etc. Consistency is key.)

Only submit your final, best version of the story; do not send multiple versions of the same story. Up to two stories will be considered from each author. Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable and be clear which one is which), mailing address, and up to 250 word bio. You will be notified as to the status of your story by no later than September 1, 2015.

This is a charity anthology. Contributors will receive ebook copies of the publication. Additional compensation in karma and tax-write offs. Bat World Sanctuary will benefit from all proceeds. Bats are clean, gentle and intelligent, they are vital to the ecosystem, and they enhance our lives in many ways. Insect-eating bats are literal vacuum cleaners of the night skies, eating millions upon millions of harmful bugs. Bat World Sanctuary cares for and rehabilitates bats who have been retired from zoos, harmed by industry, or who need to be relocated from human spaces. Find out more at batworld.org

ABOUT THE EDITOR:

Lynn Townsend is a geek, a dreamer and an inveterate punster. When not reading, writing, or editing, she can usually be found drinking coffee or killing video game villains. Lynn's interests include filk music, romance novels, octopuses, and movies with more FX than plot. She grew up half in central Virginia, half in way-upstate New York and went to college at William & Mary, where she met and later married a guy who grew up half in Kentucky and half in Utica. They have one child, one murder-death-cat, a turtle, and two chinchillas.

January in Review

For the last two years, I've done these Year in Review things around November because I get frustrated with my seeming lack of progress...

I know that sounds weird to people who view my output as some incredible thing--just remember, things look different from the inside--but I have a lot of trouble seeing what my life looks like. I feel like I spend a lot of time screwing around. And as a note, my house is still not even remotely clean, altho having just read about a fellow writer/editor's problems with hoarding, I can feel comforted that at least I don't have that problem.

In any case, I've been feeling a little slack recently and thought I'd go through and list what I've been up to for the last month...

Accomplishments in January

- I wrote about 10,000 words on Sins of Angels, not as much as I'd wanted to do, but the project--which is already contracted for publication in March of 2016, doesn't actually need to be finished until, meh, September? That'll give me enough time to get it edited, redrafted, and turned in by January of next year. (I just turned in the finished draft of Howling Bitch to my editor).

- I did a full second draft of Howling Bitch and turned it in.

- I spent some time in Facebook Jail (two weeks, to be precise) and I think it's really hurt Blues' sales... unlike Roll last year, Blues hasn't yet hit the best seller list. Which means people who haven't thought about the book since last year are still not thinking about it.

- I wrote a short story called How 'Bout Them Apples (5,600 words) and turned it in for a February 15th submission call.

- I wrote a proposal for Coming Together: Strange Shifters and got it approved. I'll be posting the call for submissions as soon as I get cover art. All proceeds will be donated to Bat World Sanctuary.

- I wrote 9 entries for this blog and probably another 6 for other blogs. I'm still technically on my blog "tour" but most of those posts were generated a week or more ago.

- I wrote 1,000 words on a side-story for the Rainbow Connection universe.

- I attended a convention and did almost exactly no work. I didn't even remember to drop off my business postcards on the tables around the dealer's room. Spoke briefly with my con-chair about MERW.

- I submitted a short story for an audio book

- Hosted and enjoyed a release party for Blues, and hosted an hour for Indie Author Support Week.

- solved two computer problems without resorting to turning it over to my more computer-savvy husband and saying "Here, fix this."

- read and reviewed 2 Indie novellas, read and reviewed one Indie Short story, read and reviewed one Hugo Award Winning Science Fiction novel.

- read 2 new romance novels just for fun, and re-read the 6 novels in those series, because I knew that was a goal I wasn't going to be able to keep. (Julia Quinn's Smith-Smythe Quartet and Sarah MacLean's Rules of Scoundrel series)

Goals for February

- write 20,000 words on Sins of Angels

- write short story, Cascade Failure, for March 15th submission call

- post and promote Coming Together: Strange Shifters

- finish Crank it Up short story, estimating ~5,000 words

- begin outline for Terran Academy, Economics 101; The True Cost of an Empire

- read and review at least 2 indie novels.

- read and review at least 1 book on my List of Shit that Lynn Must Read Because Her Friends Said So. (I still don't need book recommendations until I cut this list down by at least 50%)

- try to re-read less than 6 books this month because really, I have limited time and resources, and while I love re-reading, I also love reading fresh.

- clear off my dresser and dust my bed stand because. OMFSM, my room is a tiny pit and needs to be purged.