Coming Together: Thanksgiving -- Giving Back

I am giving away $10 in OmniBucks to AllRomance for one lucky commentor. Normally, I would give Amazon gift cards, but with Christmas / Holidays coming up, I want my winner to buy something for THEMSELVES, not use the gift card to buy something for a present... I am guilty of this behavior myself, so...

To be quite honest, giving back wasn't what I had in mind the very first time I worked with Coming Together.

The first time I ever even heard of Coming Together, my favorite smut writer, (now) friend, and all around awesome human being, Sommer Marsden was running an open call for submissions for Hungry For Love, a zombie anthology that benefited American Diabetes Association.

I really admire Sommer -- I have since I didn't know who she was or much of anything about her, except that her work was awesome and made me laugh -- and that hasn't changed since getting to know her and seeing glimpses of her personal life. She's had a rough time -- her husband died from cancer not long ago -- and we've talked a lot on line. Exchanged a couple of Christmas cards and postcards. It's a casual acquaintanceship, but it means a lot to me.

We've had a few chats about how weird and uncomfortable it is when someone praises you -- you've done so much, I don't know how you do it, oh, you're so strong -- and outside you're nodding with that slightly apologetic look on your face like you're sorry you're making the other person feel weak because you're barely managing to hold on to your life with both hands and inside you're screaming "What the fuck ELSE do you think I'm going to do? I manage my life because WHAT THE FUCK?? Really?"

Anyway... got off track a bit there. The point is, I wasn't really thinking about charity so much as I was thinking "I want this woman to notice my work."

So, that was the first time. This was back in the day when I still threw up regularly after hitting the send button on a submission. (Thank FSM that doesn't happen anymore. In fact, most of the time, I'm pretty chill about it. I feel comfortable with my work, most of the time.)

By the way, Dead in the Water, the story that I submitted for Hungry for Love, is available as an audio reading from Rose Caraway, who is also awesome...

After some time -- and because another friend of mine was going through a rough time and her illness is one of those weird, rare things that most people never heard about, and I desperately wanted to do something for her -- I thought I'd try my own hand at doing an anthology.

Talk about leaping before I looked! I had no fucking clue what I was doing, and I hope it doesn't show too much. I got a lot of advice from other CT editors (including the brilliant and amazing Nobilis Reed) and editors of other collections.

I put together a proposal for Coming Together: Among the Stars, to benefit International Still's Disease Foundation and to my surprise and pleasure, Alessia was onboard with me right away. We put together the call and I collected well over 60 stories...

Editing an anthology was a whole different kettle of fish -- but it was a learning experience, I got to meet a whole ton of really talented writers, and I enjoyed it so much that I ended up doing a second one this year.

(I've also had my share of weird problems as being an editor -- attempted plagiarism, people who really cannot read the submission guidelines, a whole lot of authors who turn in stories without their contact information -- seriously, people, don't do that! -- authors who are hard to work with, weird hostility, and male writers who seem to think that, as a female editor, I am obligated to look at pictures of their dicks as well as their stories. No, dudes. Just no.)

But Among the Stars was a good enough experience that this year, I did it again, and just recently, Strange Shifters made its way into the world...

And wow, am I happy to see it. This book was a lot more work because... well, 2015 has just been the year of Fuck You. I have had annoying real life problems of every kind imaginable. Nothing horrible -- mostly -- but just... one would be annoying, two would be difficult, and one pretty much every month of this year has been fucking exhausting. I'm amazing and impressed with myself that Strange Shifters got finished on time, and I gotta hand it to my writers, you guys were amazing! Good stories, easy to work with, understanding when I was behind...

Thanks!

Proceeds for Strange Shifters goes to Bat World Sanctuary, one of my own personal favorite charities. I love bats and the people at Bat World do a lot of cool stuff to preserve these little flying foxes. You should check them out, their facebook page is pretty awesome.

I'm working on ideas for an anthology next year... I have a million pet causes and I want to do a little something for all of them...

Comment on this blog for the little prize... there will be a bigger prize from Coming Together [insert that when available] and there are lots of other Coming Together authors and editors who are on the Hop... so stop by and see them [also, link]

Coming Together: For the Holidays

So, it's the second day of Blissemas and you should go see what Charlotte Howard has for you as a special freebee...

Don't forget to leave a comment on her blog to be entered to win a Kindle Paperwhite loaded up with smut and goodies from all the Blissemas writers. (I'm pretty sure there are two of my stories/novels in there, but my brain is so french fried I have no idea anymore what I gave to them.... I'm sure they'll tell you somewhere...)

So, since today is the 2nd day of Blissemas, I wanted to do a quickie give-away...


Coming Together's holiday anthology, which includes a reprint of my short story, Holiday Hours, came out yesterday...

Buy Links: Amazon | Createspace | Barnes and Nobles | Smashwords

First three commenters here on today's blog post, will get a free e-copy of this book, which includes such wonderful writers as Sommer Marsden and Ezrabet Bishop... as always with Coming Together, proceeds benefit a charity, in this case Stand Up for Kids

Honestly, I've talked about this story I wrote a few times before; it's one of those stories that's drawn from some personal experience and some complete and total nonsense.

When I was in college, I held down a full time job for the last year or two... I was newly divorced, trying to keep my apartment (which I was in primarily because I'd stolen my ex's cat and I couldn't move back onto campus... long story.), graduate from school, be a member of a service frat (APO), keep a relationship together with a boy I should have never been with under any circumstances and the only excuse I have for that was sheer, bloody-minded terror of being alone. (I have since discovered that being alone is not that bad... I'm not saying that he was a bad guy, because he's not. He's kinda an average guy on the heavy end of making bad decisions sometimes - which gives us an astonishing amount in common, even if we couldn't get the relationship to work... We're still friends, even after all this time and I'm grateful for that much... but he was the Wrong Guy for me in many ways... )

Now, I was the only student who worked at this particular convenience store; everyone else was an adult, usually married with children. Which granted me the lovely position of being considered perfect for working Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and every. other. fucking. holiday. on the goddamn calendar. Because "you don't have a family." Obviously, my boss thought I climbed out from under a rock or something... my parents (then separated) lived three - or four - hours away in different directions. There was no way I could work til two in the afternoon, drive to EITHER of their houses, have dinner, drive back, and get up at 5am for my next shift. Just wasn't going to happen.

I'm insanely grateful that my best friend's parents took pity on me, frequently. I had many a holiday dinner at the Lucks' house. But it was also weird and unpleasant to work on a holiday. People would come in and tell me how grateful they were that the place was open (this was back in the 90s, when this crazy pre-christmas shopping was just getting started and stores usually weren't open on holidays) and then they'd say how sorry they were that I was working.

You know, there's nothing good to say to that. "Oh, don't feel sorry for me... I want to be in here selling you cigarettes and batteries and milk because you're a DUMBASS who can't think to buy them YESTERDAY!!" Yeah, doesn't go over so well...

I am also kinda hipster about this; since that used to happen to me all the time, I make it a policy to never, ever, ever set foot in any establishment on a holiday that people should have off (Yes, I know, doctors and nurses and policemen have to work those days anyway - a particularly grumpy police officer gave me a speeding ticket on Thanksgiving one year for doing 4 miles over the limit and harassed me for the better part of an hour because he didn't want to be working... ) and I have since 1994.

Anyway, one year, a co-worker's wife (not the co-worker, because as far as I know, Jim pretty much hated my guts for reasons I was never quite certain of...) felt bad for me having to work both Christmas and Thanksgiving that year. She and Jim had just had a son, he was not quite a year old? Maybe a little over a year? and she was happy that Jim got to stay home that year. But still felt sorry for me. She came in that day with a plastic-wrapped plate of food for me and sat with me the whole time I ate. I'll never forget it. It was an unexpected kindness...

So, Holiday Hours is kinda about that... that moment of unexpected kindness. With, you know, sex on the countertop thrown in for good measure, because that would have been awesome.