AletheaKontis.com

This clever pic nabbed from my friend & fellow Mermaid Robin Covington:

Speaking of Mermaids, have you stopped by the website this week? There’s more free fiction up — parts one and two of “The Comfort Boy” by Carlene Love Flores is now available for your Very Free viewing pleasure.

Can’t beat that price!

A lot of people have introduced themselves to me in my lifetime. I just have one of those faces. I look like someone you knew or really liked in grade school or high school or college. It’s my hair or my smile or my something that just sparks a memory. Even Malik Yoba swore we’d met before, but I’m pretty sure I would have remembered.

As time went on, and I had more clout in the publishing industry, it was less about my face and more about my name. I’d get a lot of, “Where do I know that name from?” It’s a unique name. I’m the only one in the world. So obviously, it was me they’d heard about. But where? There were lots of places. I’d rattle off a few. Sometime I’d guess; sometimes I wouldn’t.

People in general know my name now (if not how to pronounce it), and have seen my writing in one form or another. It’s always fun to hear just where that is. Sometimes, it’s a venue that surprises me.

Recently, I had a girl introduce herself and tell me that she’d read my Poe essay in Weird Tales. Can you believe I’d almost forgotten about that one? The essay was called “Teen Angel, Dark.” and was all about how Poe was me secret emo high school boyfriend.  It was so much fun writing that and such an honor being part of the Weird Tales family.

Since meeting that girl, Leanna has sported many things in the way of Ravenesque accoutrements–including a Poe cameo choker. Just today, a statistic on my blog dashboard reminded me that the essay is still featured online, as a free read.

As it is October, and Halloween Appreciation Month, I thought it would be a fine idea to remind folks about the existence of this little secret confession. It was published back in November of 2009, but it is still available on the intarwebs HERE. It reads like something straight out of my teenage diary.

Perhaps one day I’ll be bold enough to post some of those entries, too.

Enjoy! xox

Did you notice?

That’s right — up there at the top of the website, in front of the Dream-Haired Girl, there are now TWO AlphaOops covers. You know what that means? THE ALPHAOOPS: HALLOWEEN SITE IS NOW LIVE!

There are so many new fun things to do! The memory game is back, joined by puzzles and something called a “Letter Drop” that is excessively addictive (and will help you with your keyboarding skills). There are several activity pages, including a NEW WORD FIND, and updated bios of your favorite author and the illustrator.

So what are you waiting for? It’s Halloween Awareness Month. Go play!

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[Still to come: An interview with illustrator Bob Kolar, and new Alphabet Player cast bios!]

Today is my seven year Blogoversary!

Hooray for the intarwebs!

xox

Those of you on Facebook & Twitter may remember the Friday night before Baltimore Book Festival when the Cutest Customer in the World visited me at the bookstore.

It was late–within an hour or so of closing–and I overheard some customers in the children’s aisle talking about the National Book Festival. I had forgotten that the big book festival in DC was the same weekend the SFWA had me scheduled at their booth in Baltimore…but when America decides to have a Book Week, it’s inevitable that these things happen.

Things were slow in the store that night, so I turned to Kilian and said, “I’m going to be nosy,” and I went over to talk to this lovely, animated family. I hadn’t done any research on the DC book festival, so I didn’t know who was going to be there, but I’d been once before in the past. The authors are usually Very Big Names, and the queues for book signings are usually Very Long Lines.

So I went over to these folks to ask about who would be at the DC festival, who the adults and the children were looking forward to seeing, and…I’ll be honest…just to be excited about books in general. Sharing book love is never a bad thing.

In the main, I’m leery of telling customers that I’m an author. I don’t want them to feel pressured, or get the impression that I work at a bookstore just to sell copies of my book. You’d probably be shocked to know how many copies of AlphaOops I’ve sold without ever mentioning that I wrote it. I’m like Clark Kent, Secret Agent. (They’re all pre-signed, of course, with “Autographed by Author” stickers on them, so no worries in that department.)

The only reason I mentioned my writing to Kristin, once we got to talking, was because she had just told me about a local indie bookstore called One More Page that catered more to up-and-coming authors than the Big Shot Wonders of DC Book Festival caliber. I said that it sounded right up my alley, and then (since they asked) showed them one of the few copies of AlphaOops: H is for Halloween that we’ve been able to bring into the store.

I was telling Kristin about my sordid writing career, and she was telling me about her Coastal Conversations book blog, when 5-year-old Lorelei piped up and said, “Mommy, is that my book?”

Well, yes. Of COURSE it was! I signed it to her right then and there. She was so happy. I rang up their purchases and wished them well and sent them off to a good night’s rest before our respective days of Book Festival Adventure.

Lorelei totally made my night (even after some guy came in at the 11th hour and yelled at me because the computers won’t let anyone return a book without a receipt. Ah, the joys of retail).

The coolest part about this whole meeting–hooray for moms who keep blogs!–is that you can pop on over to Coastal Conversations and read Kristin & Lorelai’s account of what happened that night. There are also a couple of short video clips of Lorelei with her favorite new book.

I will treasure these forever. Thank goodness for the internet. And thank goodness for Lorelei! It is meeting people like her that make me remember why I do what I do, against all odds, to bring a little bit more sunshine into this world.

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[Side Note: Many people ask me whether or not Candlewick will do an AlphaOops: Christmas book. Unfortunately, I know about as much as you do. If you or your children would like to email Candlewick and ask them yourselves, please do! bigbear (at) candlewick.com]

I’ve always heard this is a good sign. And look! Here’s Ariell, whose 66-word story here appears BEFORE MINE in the 66 Twisted Tales chapbook.

I am a very proud Fairy Godmother. *beams*

If you have a Kindle, you can get the book right here for only 99 cents!

That’s right! At midnight EST tonight, my dearest bosom companion Leanna Renee Hieber will be randomly drawing from the commenters on THIS BLOG POST to see who wins a copy of John Skipp’s DEMONS anthology, autographed by MOI! (I hear there are some other pretty decent authors in this anthology as well. Like this Neil Something.)

All you have to do is click over and tell Leanna one thing you love about Fall. That’s it! Just one thing! That’s easy, right? Of course it is. Because EVERYONE LOVES FALL.

Bonus entry points are gven if you follow me on Twitter. (And once I get to 2000 followers, *I* am going to give away an autographed collection and a box of books…so it’s a win-win-win-win-win situation!)

October is Halloween Awareness Month. It’s All Hallows Read. It’s even Friday, which qualifies this as a #FridayReads. You are covered on ALL BASES. So what are you waiting for? Click on my picture of the story below, go on over there, and comment.

Happy Friday!

Maybe you missed it last year. Or you didn’t happen to love me then as much as you do now. Whatever the reason, IT’S OKAY. You can still purchase the special Shroud Halloween Issue guest edited by Kevin Lucia.

This issue has my story “Red Lantern” in it, which is…not so much a retelling; more of an homage…to the Jack O’ Lantern myth.

I promise, it has nothing to do with DC Comics. When an author comes across the perfect title, geek or not, she just can’t pass it up.

Wanna see how perfect a title it is? Purchase the Shroud Halloween special issue (only $7.99!) and see for yourself.

Much to my dismay (and yours, I know), ENCHANTED won’t be out in stores until May 8th of 2012. It seems like a long time to wait, doesn’t it?

Of course, in this day and age, we have a lot of other ways to get our fix for books we can’t wait to read (like Tamora Pierce’s and Robin McKinley’s next books).

If you can’t wait to read ENCHANTED, you can always read “The Unicorn Hunter,” which is the backstory for the character Ashes-on-the-Wind. Who is Ashes? Well, she doesn’t appear in ENCHANTED, but her story is integral to the Woodcutter Universe. Which means you just have to pick up John Skipp’s DEMONS anthology and find out!

You can also go onto Goodreads and click on ENCHANTED as a book you’d like to read. My friend (fellow author Cassie Alexander) brought this to my attention last week. I checked, and as of this morning, 546 people have marked ENCHANTED as to-read! I have to say, this far away from the release date, I was floored by the response. So was my publisher. So THANKS , GUYS! YOU ROCK!

The third thing is one of my favorite places to play: Twitter! Leanna was telling me about the random giveaways she does when she reaches certain landmarks of followers…I think this is a great idea! I’m almost to 1900 followers right now — when I reach2000, I’ll give away a print collection of my short stories. How does that sound? But you must be following me on Twitter to enter! Look for the tweet to RT…I’ll be posting it soon!

Jo Ramsey kindly invited me to do a guest post over at her blog today. I was welcome to do whatever I wanted — song, dance, juggling, blog about my life, blog about writing, or do an interview with one of my characters.

This is a trend in genre fiction — especially with YA and Romance — where authors submit an interview as if someone had interviewed one of their characters. I have never done this before, and it posed an interesting quandary. Do I interview the character as she was before the story, or do I interview her after the story has already changed her life?

I knew that I wanted to interview one of the characters from “The Unicorn Hunter,” my short story in John Skipp’s DEMONS anthology (that is out right now).

I knew who my subject would be, of course. Her name is Ashes-on-the-Wind, but Once Upon a Time, she was known as Snow White. None of this is addressed in “The Unicorn Hunter,” however. She is known only as “the princess” and the demon is “the demon.” (When there are only two characters in a story that most people think they already know, why bother with silly things like names?)

Ultimately what I decided was to interview my princess in such a way that it MADE you want to run out and read the story.

Was I successful? Well, I guess you’ll have to pop over to Jo’s blog today and find out for yourself.

(And yes, ENCHANTED folks, this is the backstory of a character that is very important to the world of ENCHANTED…you just don’t know it yet.)