You see…due to the intransigence of the new owners at the sf digest magazines (as well as the mystery magazines), I can no longer send them my short fiction. I actually had to pull some stories that were already sold but did not yet have a contract. Long story short, contract negotiations went extremely poorly. (I blogged about this as it went on through May on my Patreon page. Take a look at this post if you’re curious.) I will write a lot more about this in the next few weeks, because I’ll be making some changes to the way I market things.

This Kickstarter is the beginning of the changes. The Kickstarter features four science fiction novellas. Three were published in Asimov’s in the past two years, and two of the novellas are this year’s Readers Choice nominees. The third, “Weather Duty,” appeared in early 2025.

The fourth novella is brand new. It was sitting on Sheila Williams’ desk as the contract negotiations for another story started and ultimately failed. So no one has read this novella. If you back the Kickstarter, you’ll be among the first.

The Kickstarter contains all kinds of goodies as rewards. All of my Diving novels so far. All of the Retrieval Artist novels so far. More novellas. Some writing workshops.

With all of those rewards, you’ll get the novellas. I’m proud of them and I think you’ll enjoy them.

The Kickstarter just went live, so hurry on over and take a look!

Over the last year, a number of you have asked how to get my Derringer-award winning novella, “Catherine The Great,” and while you can get it in last year’s Holiday Spectacular compilation, that’s only available in ebook. Many of you want paper…and I get it. I do too.

So, we decided to put it into paper. And by the time we got to that project, I had also written three other mystery/crime novellas. One is a thriller (Kizzie) and two are more straightforward mysteries. We put all four in a Kickstarter that launches today.

Here’s the video for the Kickstarter. Over the next week, I’ll also share the book trailers with you for the novellas. However, if you’d like to see them now, head to the Kickstarter. They’re all on it, along with a lot of other goodies.

As you can tell, this is one of my favorite things to write. I hope you end up getting the books.

The White Mists of Power, Heart Readers, and Traitors made my reputation as a fantasy writer. Published worldwide to great acclaim, the books have been in print for years. But they haven’t been revamped since 2012. The interiors were old and tired, and the covers of the 2012 versions have not held up.

So we’re reissuing the books with a brand-new design. And, as we’ve been doing, we’re starting the relaunch with a Kickstarter. This Kickstarter contains more rewards than we usually have, because the original mass market books are part of the Kickstarter, signed by me.

As well as the very first edition of The White Mists of Power.

If you back the Kickstarter, you will get the brand-new ebook editions. You can get the newly redesigned hardcover or trade papers and…or…you can get the original older versions.

We have a lot of other fun items in this Kickstarter, so head on over and take a look.

We’re running a Kickstarter on the book, so you can get it and a whole bunch of other holiday stories at a discount. The Kickstarter is short. It’ll end in a week, and we will send out the ebooks immediately.

I’m really proud of this book. I had so much fun writing it…and I had fun doing the video, which I’ve embedded below.

Here’s the link to the Kickstarter, I hope you give it a look.

So, if you want to read only romance, because you want to have a bit of joy in your life, pick up Winter Sparkles. If you would want some dark crime stories to reinforce the end-of-the-year darkness, buy Hardboiled Holidays. If you like stories about secrets as much as I do, get a copy of Holiday Secrets.

We’ve revamped the designs. The books are as wonderful as the stories. I think you’ll love them!

Of course, you can get the books as part of this year’s Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter. In addition to the reward featuring the books, you’ll get the annual Calendar of Stories (starting on Thanksgiving and running to New Year’s Day). And, because we’ve hit four stretch goals so far, you’ll also get three more stories of mine, a holiday issue of Pulphouse Magazine, and two (yes, two!) online workshops about copyright, worth $500 each.

Yeah, if I were you, I’d head over to the Kickstarter right now. Because it ends on Thursday at 7 p.m. Pacific Time.

Of course all of those things had an impact on our writing. We slowed down or
stopped altogether. If we didn’t know better, we would have said we were blocked.
But we weren’t. Life got in the way. It does that sometimes. And sometimes, we as
writers get in our own way.

Dean and I made a list of over 50 things writers call “writer’s block.” The solution for
these things is not one-size-fits all.

We decided, based on our year and our hard-fought wisdom over decades, to help
writers through whatever they’re calling writer’s block.

We’ve designed two courses over 18 weeks, including 16 webinars and lots of
homework, to help writers overcome whatever is stopping them or slowing them
down.

We want to help writers return to the joy of writing.

These classes are new. They start on October 1. And until Monday, you can get
them at a discounted price.

Take a look at the website and the video Dean made explaining what we’re doing.
See if it’s for you.

Questions? See if Dean answered them on his website. Click here.

Join us in breaking free from writer’s block.

Here’s the book’s blurb:

THE FEY ATTACK

A grisly ambush at Serebro Academy starts a race to uncover secrets that might save the Academy or destroy it entirely.

Magical maps, Fey spies, treachery and dangerous secrets. A stunning fantasy—impossible to put down.

This thrilling page-turner continues Rusch’s masterful melding of epic fantasy and steampunk while demonstrating once again her place as one of the greatest storytellers of our time.

The book was fun to write, and it’s beautifully designed. Each chapter has art, which shows where on the map the action takes place.

So click on over to the Kickstarter and explore. You might find something just for you.

You see, most of the books in the Qavnerian Protectorate series (which is a side series off the main Fey) happen at the same time. So, you can read these next three books in any order you want. (I prefer my order, but hey, I’m just the writer.)

Here’s the blurb for The Incident at Serebro Academy:

THE FEY ATTACK

A grisly ambush at Serebro Academy starts a race to uncover secrets that might save the Academy or destroy it entirely.

Magical maps, Fey spies, treachery and dangerous secrets. A stunning fantasy—impossible to put down.

This thrilling page-turner continues Rusch’s masterful melding of epic fantasy and steampunk while demonstrating once again her place as one of the greatest storytellers of our time.

The Kickstarter contains all of these books and a lot more, like the map and mugs and even more books. So head on over and get a copy of The Incident at Serebro Academy before anyone else.

Don’t Like Kickstarter?

And for those of you who aren’t Kickstarter fans, but want to order the book, it’s up for preorder on your favorite stores. My favorite is World of the Fey, which also has a lot of the goodies that are in the Kickstarter. So here’s the link to the store. After you’ve ordered The Incident at Serebro Academy, poke around. You’ll find all kinds of fun stuff.

Lots to enjoy here! I hope you will.

Oh, my goodness, I’ve had fun with videos this spring. Once again, I’m the one doing the videos for WMG Publishing, Inc., a fact that makes me very happy. Our videos lacked voice for the past several years. (I’ll share an example of that later in the week.) I did the video for the Ghost of a Chance Kickstarter, which you can see if you click here. I also did this fun little rebranding video, which shows writers (and the rest of you) how important branding is to book buying.

The point of the Ghost of a Chance Kickstarter was to put the proper branding (covers etc) on the Ghost of a Chance books. We had gone through several branding attempts, and none of them worked. (Watch the video.) Now we’re all happy with the new look. These are Dean’s novels, and they’re fantasy romance or, as the new subgenre is called, romantasy. If you like romance with your fantasy or fantasy with your romance (or peanut butter with your chocolate…wait! Wrong ad!) click here.

One of the Kickstarter rewards is a class on finding your perfect reader, which is what the above video is about. That’s just one illustration on how to find a reader for your work. That online class will only be available in the Kickstarter. And… with every reward, you’ll get the five Ghost of a Chance novels, which are a lot of fun and well worth reading.

So…that’s one bit of learning. Here’s another.

As many of you know, we’re doing Prepare Ahead classes to accompany our in-person Anthology workshop in August. We’re going for some major subgenres this year, which can be hard to write for if you don’t understand them. We just finished up Military SF, and now we’re moving to a favorite of mine, Fantasy Regency.

Anthea Sharp will be editing this volume and she has a lot of insights on how to write fantasy Regency. Yes, there are rules. But those rules aren’t as strict as they’d be if you were trying to write the Regency that fits into the romance genre.

We’ve opened up the Prepare Ahead classes to everyone. If you want to learn this subgenre, and actually write for Anthea, then join this workshop. If you join today, you get a full week to learn this material. If you join later in the week, well, then…you only have until next Sunday.

I’m writing a story for this one too. It’s not my usual writing genre, but it is one that I read a lot. So I’ll be learning alongside you. Click here to join the online class.

And finally, our next Art of the Novella class is about to start. This one is also fantasy. You will learn how to write a fantasy novella which is, believe me, a heck of a trick. You have to keep readers engaged at the longer length, but you can’t commit 100K novel or even a novel series. And if your novella is in a series, well then, there’s a trick to that too.

Join us to learn all the tricks and to have fun doing it. At the end of the class, you’ll be writing a novella which I will read and comment on.

Here’s the link for that.

So…lots of learning this week (plus a fun video and some good reading).

Oh, and PS, if you want some insight into the above video, head over to my Patreon page. I have a couple of posts on the differences between this video and the actual Kickstarter video…and why those differences exist.

I’m also with great company in the volume. From a novella by Michèle Laframboise to poetry by Bruce Boston, the writers in this issue are stellar (pun intended).

So pick up your copy today by clicking here.