New York Book Festival

SCIENCE FICTION - HONORABLE MENTION

http://www.newyorkbookfestival.com/

It's a Nightmare - NIEA Finalist!

Congratulations!

It is our great pleasure to inform you that you are a Finalist in the 9th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards. Your book truly embodies the excellence that this award was created to celebrate, and we salute you and your fine work.

The lists of winners and finalists will be highlighted on our website. Please go to www.indieexcellence.com to see your name and book cover among those of the other proud winners and finalists.

The entire team at the National Indie Excellence Awards sincerely hope your participation in our contest will serve you well in the your ongoing success. You have our deepest congratulations.

Warmly,

Ellen Reid

President & CEO

National Indie Excellence Awards

"Dream Drifters are Dangerously Allergic to the Fruit of Our Planet"

http://www.jafdesign.net/portfolio.asp

















"They grow to ten times their ginormous size, and rampage for fun."
from: It's a Nightmare, The Gold Stone Girl, book 1
http://itsanightmare.blogspot.com/
Listen to a sample at Audible

Nicole Quinn reads from It's a Nightmare

May 8, 2015 - 7:00pm -8:00pm

Inquiring Minds Bookstore ( 6 Church Street, New Paltz) will host author Nicole Quinn. She will read from and sign, It's a Nightmare, the latest novel in her Gold Stone Girl series.  The book has just been nominated for a Tiptree Award, an honor recognizing speculative fiction that changes the way we think about gender. Nicole Quinn has written scripts for HBO, Showtime, and network television. Her feature film, RACING DAYLIGHT, (starring Academy Award winner Melissa Leo and Emmy winner David Strathairn), is streaming everywhere. Her plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. In 2011 she won the Harper Audio contest to read on Neil Gaiman's 10th anniversary full cast audiobook American Gods. She now has many audiobooks to her credit.

845 255-8300

http://www.inquiringbooks.com

BlueBarnProductions

Thanks, Caitlin!

http://cargocollective.com/CaitlinPageQuinn

Itunes

Amazon

Audible

Disbelief - Now Available on Audible

Audible

To Recapture a Rake: A Hephaestus Club Novella

Available now!  Click here

A reluctant rake and a ruined woman with nothing to lose are a perfect match in this delightful comedy of manners from Christine Merrill....

Vincent Wilmont, the Earl of Blackthorne, makes a point of living up to his reputation as a rake, even though his heart isn't quite in it. Indeed, his heart rests with Caroline Sydney, the ruined woman who'd gone to his bed in passion after she'd rejected his cool-headed offer of respectable marriage. A year later, she's cast him off, humiliated him in front of all of London society, all because he made the damn-fool mistake of telling her he loved her.

Women.

Blackthorne's public humiliation earns him admittance into the Hephaestus Club, a secret brotherhood of societal rejects, and there he swears never to marry, putting money down on the oath. When the wager provides a motivation for a smart, if skint, gentleman matchmaker to cash in, Blackthorne and the fiery Miss Sydney find themselves the starring players in a romantic farce filled with duels, declarations, and passionate trysts as they rocket down a path toward a horrifyingly respectable future as man and wife.

©2014 Christine Merrill (P)2014 Christine Merrill

The Gold Stone Girl Series

The Gold Stone Girl Series, soon out in Kindle and Audiobook formats, is a hero's journey, by, for, and about human females, set in the distant future.  

In It's Nightmare,  we meet Mina.

Mina lives in a world where dreaming is outlawed.  Blinkin is the sole continent of the planet formerly known as Earth and Winkin is its only city.  There are no women here, only breeders.  Women were reclassified by the Night Mare in the long ago.  

The Night Mare is the supreme dictator of Blinkin, and the head of its government-church.  She is the sole architect of the stone-rule, the method by which the Gold Stone Girl, the breeder who will be raised as human sacrifice, is identified.  These rare girls are eaten alive, on a live broadcast, by the Night Mare herself.  It has something to do with ancient rites, planet-wide renewal, and how the dread demon first came to power, but mostly it’s just gross.  

Mina won’t learn any of the details of this her fate, until she’s surrendered to the government, as is required by law.  She grows up in the Off-grid land that surrounds Winkin City, with Bubba and Dee-Dee, who rescued her as a baby, from inside the trunk of the willow tree where she gestated alongside lygaeids hibernating as larvae.  They raise her as their own in this land where the birth of girls is legally discouraged and privately-owned females are licensed as domestic pets.  They don’t know that Mina is the Dream Weaver, a being who will discover that if she is to survive the Night Mare’s land, she must change everything. 

Audiobooks and the Return of Storytelling

Great NY Times article by T. M. Luhrmann (a contributing opinion writer and a professor of anthropology at Stanford.) T. M. Luhrmann

Tanya Marie Luhrmann is a professor of anthropology at Stanford University and a contributing opinion writer. Her books include “Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England,” “The Good Parsi: The Fate of a Colonial Elite in a Postcolonial Society,”  “Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry”  and “When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God.”  She received her Ph.D. the University of Cambridge, and taught at the University of California, San Diego, and then at the University of Chicago before arriving at Stanford. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. Her work focuses on the way people experience God and the supernatural in the United States and abroad.  She also studies psychiatric illness.  She is interested in the way that different ways of understanding the mind alter these profound mental experiences.

Nicole’s Story: The Recording of American Gods Public Post

https://intersect.com/stories/0n59KKcNS1zH

I was able to locate Nicole Quinn, the Grand Prize winner of the Neil Gaiman Audiobook contest, via Facebook. I had only hoped to hear a few tidbits from her experiences on the day of recording, but to my pleasure and surprise she sent quite a detailed account. She graciously agreed to let me reprint it here in total. – Js. Rapson

I ran into the studio just on time, after a 3 hour drive that normally takes 2 from upstate NY. I was having a hot flash, sheesh, 55 and feeling like a school girl running in sweaty from the play yard. We were all nervous. It’s a risk to add an unknown to 20 carefully cast voices.

In the room – Karen (exec dir), Beth (marketing), Barbara (engineer), and Paula (American Gods director). More would come later.

I had four small parts to read, sweet gems really. I met with Paula Parker, the director, who was, I found out at lunch later, not excited about the contest, and worried that whoever won might be mediocre. She’s a great actor, because I didn’t have a clue.

I wanted to put her at ease quickly, so I told her that I’m a classically trained actor turned writer turned filmmaker (http://www.racingdaylightthemovie.com/shameless self-promotion, and yes I did pass out dvds like business cards, which I always forget to carry). I explained that I had rehearsed the sides to the punctuation, but that should she want me to blow through the commas and periods just to let me know.

She smiled, such a lovely smile. I calmed a bit more. We talked about my road to reading on the bookperk site: birth, adoption, boarding school, Berkeley, London, Berkeley again, then on to NY. We talked about my life as an actor, which was, after all, the most important bit in the room. I think I’m a pretty good actor. You have to feel that way to stay in it this long. I got my AEA card in 1978 and my SAG and AFTRA cards in the early 1980s (WAGE in 1993). I belong to a company upstatehttp://www.actorsandwriters.com/, and its offshoot Denny Dillon’s Improv Nation. And as my friend Melissa Leo says – “I’d do this naked on a street corner for no money.” I have to agree.

And yes, I did shamelessly name drop famous actors as friends, hoping to bathe my unknownness in stellar light. Its something I’m not proud of, but nerves make my gums flap.

Paula led me to the booth, and just as the door was about to close I remembered I’d brought a plastic bin of sliced apples. I have done some voice work before – computer games (Space Colony and Stonghold 2), and apples are the best way to quickly wet your whistle. Paula was almost beatific at the apples, and so was I, dry-mouth that I am.

We laid down the tracks, the shortest first. Paula gave great direction – attitude, atmosphere, she set the scene. Maybe 3-5 takes on each segment, and we were done with the recording. The relief in the room was palpable.

We waited around for a bit to speak with Neil himself via Skype. He was in England, I think, post Dr. Who airing of his episode. He was charming and I was tongue-tied, having a HUGE professional crush on both he and A.F.P. I love how accessible they are to their fans. The conversation was a bit anti-climactic, and short, I mean I had an audience of engineers and producers, so I reigned in my gush and ….

Then out to lunch with Producers and directors and Harper Audio folks. Tuna Steak Nicoise is what I ate. I think we were all relieved that it worked out to everyone’s satisfaction. Everyone was delightful. They all encouraged me to take a Narrator’s workshop, skill-building, which I have since signed on to do.

We talked about audio books, and Harry Potter, of which Harper exec. Chrissie and I are huge fans. The Audies, the state of the art, etc…

Many warm handshakes later I checked into the Omni Berkshire Hotel (on Harper’s dime) where I jumped on beds, ate junk food and drank very good wine with my 25 year old incredibly gorgeous daughter (who lives in the city) and my hunky husband (who works there).

I’m back in a 1964 Tradewind Airstream, (my office), in the middle of a meadow, now all yellows and soft greens. I can see the tin gambrel roof of the blue barn-home in which I live, cresting the berm. I’m deep in the nightmare world of the novel I’m writing, hoping only to make the one we live in a little less frightening.

ps – I listened to all twenty finalists, and I am honored to be among you.

Keep dreaming, they do come true,

Nicole
(Nicole Quinn May 19 at 4:39am via Facebook)

First Audible Customer Review

Full disclosure:  Sophia is a friend.  She's been listening to the the recording of Desiree in sequence as i've been finishing it, chapter by chapter.  She's been so encouraging.  The day the audiobook came out she bought a copy and wrote this review.  Gosh, I love her!

SophiaKINGSTON, NY, United States08-29-12

"Stunning telling of a riveting story."

Through Desiree's eyes we get a glimpse into a fascinating era in history,

 meet thoroughly engaging characters (who actually lived) while being 

swept up by a story that is tumultuous, delightful and ultimately satisfying. 

The performance only enhances the brilliance of the text. It is full, rich 

and subtle. This should not be missed.

Overall

Performance

Story

Desiree!

I delivered the files - 66 chapters. What a great story! 

THIS TITLE IS:
Headed to Retail
Preparing audiobook for Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTunes!

The PEDIGREE of Francois Clary

     Born:  Marseille 1725    Died:  1794 Marseille

Philippe of Belgium's 5-Great Grandfather.       Grand Duke Henri's 5-Great Grandfather.       HM Margrethe II's 5-Great Grandfather.       HM Carl XVI Gustaf's 5-Great Grandfather.       HM Harald V's 4-Great Grandfather.

---

 Wife/Partner:       Rose Francoise SOMIS 
 Child:       Bernhardine Eugenie Desiree CLARY

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_________	_________	________	________	________	_____	_____	____
/	-- Joseph CLARY  (1693 - 1748)
/
- Francois CLARY
\
\	-- Francoise Agnes AMMORIC  (1705 - 1776)

---

  
  His 2-Great Grandchildren:       Louise Josephine (Princess) of SWEDEN & Norway   ;   Gustav V (King) of SWEDEN   ;   Oscar Carl Vilhelm (Prince) of SWEDEN 
 


********************************************************************************

Birthdate:	February 24, 1725
Birthplace:	Marseille,France,
Death:	Died January 20, 1794 in Marseille,Bouches du Rhône,France,
Occupation:	Négociant
Managed by:	Gene
Last Updated:	April 22, 2012

Last Updated:

April 22, 2012

Last Updated:

April 22, 2012

Immediate Family

• 
  Françoise Clary

  wife
• 
  Julia Maria Clary

  daughter
• 
  Desideria, Drottning av Sverige-Norge (Clary)

  daughter
• 
  Rose CLARY

  daughter
• 
  Justinien-Nicolas Clary

  son
• 
  Joseph Clary

  father
• 
  Françoise Amauric

  mother