New Romance Mag

Well, I was AWOL all February, but now I have news too good to keep silent. DEP is starting up a new magazine with the focus on romance short fiction. We're still working out the details, but the launch date will be in the fall. In the meantime, I'll still be at Haruah.

Sleet on Snaps

In December, a sleet storm blew through here. All my flowers were caught in full bloom, including these snapdragons that are on the cover of Haruah this month. That shine on them is the ice. It took a few days to melt off.

Haruah Is Now A Paying Market

As of the first of January 2007, Haruah will pay for all its stories, poetry, illustrations, and editorials. Stop by and see what we're about.

Snark Infested Waters

One of my fellow editors at Haruah, RL Copple, has been interviewed in this week's issue of Snark Infested Waters. Issue 99 contains nearly an hour of Rick talking about writing, editing, Haruah, and the Double-Edged Publishing empire.

Haruah Funding Campaign Nearly At An End

The funding campaign for Haruah is nearly over and we're a bit short of funds. We had hoped to become a paying market in 2007, starting in January, but it looks like we may need to push that back some. All donations will go to paying authors and illustrators, with a tiny amount needed to maintain the site itself. The editors (including me) are all volunteer.

If you haven't been by the magazine, it's online here. The stories are appropriate for all ages, although I think the young 'uns would probably rather read something else. Also, the stories reflect a Christian worldview--some explicitly, some implicitly. We've had a lot of top-notch submissions this year and we hope to keep attracting quality writers and artists.

If you can donate even a little, that would be great. Thanks.

Counting Constellations

This is an excellent story. "Counting Constellations" took third place in the Haruah contest.

Book Review -- Hoot

Originally appeared in Haruah on 03 May 2006 in One for the Book.

Hoot
by Carl Hiaasen
published by Alfred A. Knopf
New York, 2002
ISBN 0-440-41939-5

Carl Hiaasen brings his sense of humor to a young audience in Hoot, a delightful novel filled with quirky characters and their sometimes zany, sometimes sensible antics. Set in Florida, the book is a light comedy with a mystery centered around endangered owls and a national chain of fictional pancake houses.

Roy Eberhardt, the new kid in town, is being squished by the local bully, when he sees a boy running barefoot alongside the school bus. The boy veers away from the bus, clearly not going to school, and Roy's curiosity is piqued. He waits several days until he sees the boy again, then jumps off the bus and runs after him. What follows is a series of events in which he outwits the bully, solves the mystery of the truant boy, and exposes criminal doings at a construction site, while making new friends and adjusting to his new home.

There were two things I particularly liked about Hoot. The first one, and the big one for me, is the portrayal of the main character and his family. Roy is a good kid, who loves his parents and wants to please them, and he is normal. His parents are both alive, married to each other, and normal. When Roy has a problem, he talks to his parents. They listen to him and he listens to their advice. In true kid fashion, he doesn't share everything with them, he doesn't follow their advice to the letter, and he doesn't behave perfectly, but he does try to do the right thing within the limits his parents have defined for him.

The second thing I liked may be considered a bit of a spoiler for the ending, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. Roy solves the central problem of the book by thinking the problem through and using legal means to prove his case to his parents and enlisting their support. No calling the bad guys and having them meet him in a dark alley. No elaborate plans involving booby traps. This brought the story into the real world for me. A middle-school kid could not take on a corporation in the real world. He would need to recruit adults to his cause, and that is what Roy Eberhardt does.

Hoot is a Newbery Honor winner and a New York Times bestseller. A movie version is due to be released in theaters in May. Carl Hiaasen has written many novels about ecological problems in Florida and the offbeat characters who solve them, though this was his first written for a young audience. He has since written a second novel also aimed at ages ten and up called Flush.

I highly recommend this book for the younger readers in your life. Or read it yourself. It's a hoot.

Writing Contests Revisited

Haruah's writing contest is still ongoing. We're accepting fiction (no minimum or maximum word count) or poetry. Only a few days left to get your entries in. Did I mention there is a prize for the winners?

The Avon FanLit competition started. I've been over there voting today. Lots of really good entries. I can't believe how much fun this is. Get over there and check it out (after you enter your fiction at Haruah), even if you only read the entries and vote on them.

New Articles

I've been hiking for the last few days, so I haven't been keeping the blog updated.

I have a book review up at Haruah. Jamaican Me Crazy: A Christmas Escape is Christian chick lit, but don't let that scare you. There's no preaching and you don't have to know anything about religion to enjoy the silliness in this book. It's good, clean fun.

Garden and Hearth has published my snapdragon article. Snapdragons are one of my favorite flowers for their color and easy care, as well as that nifty snapping sound their jaws make.

Writing Contests

The writing contest at Haruah is still going on. The deadline is 10 Sep 2006. Prose or poetry.

As long as I'm talking about contests, I might as well let you know about the poetry contest over at Dragons, Knights, and Angels, an online fantasy magazine where every story contains at least a dragon, a knight, or an angel. You have a little over a month to become poetically inspired. The deadline is 30 Sep 2006.

How about a flash fiction writing contest at Ray Gun Revival, an online magazine devoted to the revival of that classic of science fiction, the space opera? The deadline there is 01 Sep 2006, so get writing!

Contest at Haruah

Did I mention there's a writing contest at Haruah? No fee to enter. Prizes. Accepting poetry and prose. Get the details here. The deadline for entry is 10 Sep 2006. Hope to see you there.