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Heron’s Path by Alethea Eason: (sample)

Check out this sample from the upcoming young adult fantasy novel Heron’s Path by Alethea Eason:

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On a hot day in September I found Celeste’s clothes scattered all over the barn, one shoe upside down next to Papa’s forge and the other inside a milking pail. Her yellow dress hung from a ladder like a bird suspended in midair. I pulled the dress down by its hem and three tiny blue feathers, nearly the same shade as my sister’s eyes, drifted down to the dusty floor.

I caught one of them in my hand; I stood there puzzling over what might have happened that morning to make her run off again. I felt alone, as though a wind had come up and peeled Celeste from the earth. I told myself that she was playing the same old game she’d scared us with so many other times, but this loneliness—so odd and new—followed me like a ghost as I ran outside and shouted for Papa. I was afraid he wouldn’t come; I’d find our cabin gone, and I’d be without any family at all.

Papa searched the woods. I took our dog, Rufus, and ran up and down the river bank. When I found no trace of her I followed Papa into the trees where there were more shadows than seemed right. I didn’t dare go in very far and kept circling the places Celeste and I knew well.

I heard Olena’s voice in my head telling me stories. Her words dripping slowly the way honey falls from a spoon. Her stories always made me uneasy. She believed in ghosts, the last traces of the Old Ones, who were a part of the breath and spirit of the rocks and trees, of the river Talum, and the surrounding woods. But the wei-ni-la, the darker ones, were the shadows to really fear. They were ancient too, and lived in the empty spaces of the woods, filling them with whispering.

All afternoon Celeste’s name echoed through the trees as Papa and I called for her. Finally, his shouting changed and Rufus started to bark furiously. I was so tired my legs were shaking. I was running on legs that wouldn’t work.

When I finally found them, Papa was half way up a steep gully with Celeste draped over his shoulder. Her hair, a skein of golden thread unraveling almost to the ground, was the only thing that covered her. I thought she looked newly born or newly dead.

“Is she all right?” I asked. My lips were dry and hurt when I spoke, and my words felt like spittle as they came out of my mouth.

All Papa could do was to keep climbing. A couple of times he lost his footing. I was afraid he’d slide all the way back down, but he finally got close enough for me to offer my hand, not that a twelve year old girl was much of an anchor for all that weight. He took my hand anyway and with a last push hauled Celeste over the rim of the gully, collapsing next to me.

He took a moment to catch his breath and then said, “Katy, take your sister.”

I pulled her off of him and held as much of her in my lap as I could. She breathed in the shallow way she did every night, as though she were dreaming peacefully, oblivious to all the fretting she’d caused. Rufus, his red coat full of stickers, licked her face. I shooed him away. A couple of small blue feathers stuck to his fur.

“Papa, if Celeste fell all the way down the gully, how come she doesn’t look it?”

There wasn’t a scratch or bruise anywhere on her body. Papa didn’t answer; he was still catching his breath. He finally stood up and carried her to Gruff, our mule, who was tethered to the branch of an old madrone tree. He got the quilt that was tied behind the saddle and wrapped her in it.

“You run home. Tell Mama we found her, that I think she’ll be fine.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Never mind. Just go,” he said. He wet his handkerchief with water from his canteen, bathed her face, and then tried to get some into her mouth.

I wanted a drink, too. My tongue was like a piece of felt, but I didn’t want to ask for the water. Celeste had always been the favorite—a fragile lamb in my parents’ eyes. She was also beautiful, everyone said so; even now with her face burned red from the sun she was beautiful.

But I knew differently. Celeste was anything but frail. I took one last look, and I thought I saw her eyes flutter for a second, then close again. I called to Rufus . . .

 

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Coming soon to a mobile device near you!

Why Not Self Publish?

Writing. Editing. Publishing. Marketing.

It’s easy right? It’s easy to put together thousands of words into a coherent and compelling narrative. Easy. Like staring down Nolan Ryan and thwacking a fast-ball right over his head and into the upper deck. That looks easy too. Perhaps my reference is a bit dated or topically irrelevant for my intended audience–sounds like something an editor might comment about. The joke is often something along the lines of a writer spends months bleeding their soul onto the page and an editor comes along and fixes their spelling. Sure. I’ll fix your spelling. I’ll check your facts. I’ll even explain the difference between an em-dash and an en-dash. But, these things are just a part of the process–perhaps even an afterthought. The main task of an editor is to coax out the best possible version of your story all while keeping keeping the whole thing from jumping the rails and smashing into a propane-pipeline.

With self-publishing, vanity-press, a writer is at a fundamental and distinctive disadvantage. Lack of review. In every field, every profession, there is a peer-reviewed vetting process. A scientist’s ideas and conclusions constantly squirm within the crucible of scrutiny from one’s peers. Designers and advertising agencies produce hundreds of marketing ideas before just a single idea makes the cut and gets accepted by other marketers. Think of how athletes are constantly training and conditioning to be better, faster and stronger. The peer-review process, the editorial process, is basically the same as an athlete’s conditioning process. With a publishing company, with an editor, an author has the security of knowing their work is in peak form, and that ol’ aunt Agnes won’t be phoning up in a couple of days to report all manner amateur mistakes.

Why do we buy Cheerios? Nike? Coca-Cola? The reason is simple: marketing. Okay, so you’ve gone the vanity-press method: you have a link to your ebook and you paid a hefty sum of money for several dozen print copies, you have Agnes waiting on hold and now what? You’re already down perhaps thousands of dollars, not to mention the time it took you to write the book, and suddenly no one seems to have any interest. Well, the answer is simple: marketing isn’t as easy as it looks and ought to be left to those with experience. When buying a cut of beef I want the butcher’s opinion–not the cow’s opinion. Your book comes from you. No one is going to listen to you mooing all over the place talking about your tasty beef. That’s the butcher’s job, and it’s the job of professional marketing to spread the word about your delicious book.

Simply put, this is your work–your writing. It really doesn’t matter to me right now how good your book is or whether or not you have the potential to write ten more; it matters to me that your work gets the best treatment. You’re not going to find this treatment with a vanity-press. There are services out there that will edit your book, but for the cost of hundreds if not thousands of dollars. We’re not interested in your money. Only your words and your partnership. Our service is to make your book be its best.

September Fiction Contest!

While our diligent editors devote hour after hour to the completion of On The Brink…Volume 1, working through threat of hurricane and earthquake (literally), we can’t forget about Volume II. We’re taking submissions for OTB Volume II , with the same sweet prize: $100.00

Same rules as before, except with a positive spin this time. Come on, we know you’ve got a warm and fuzzy in your head, somewhere. We’re seeking original fiction or creative non-fiction tales about “life changing events” for the better. The collection is entitled “On The Brink… Volume II”

  • 2,500-5,000 words
  • character driven stories
  • all genres

This contest continues until the 15th of September. There is NO submission fee. Submission fees go against everything we believe in.

 

Send your stories with a brief introduction to Submissions@spectaclepmg.com. Please be aware that by submitting your stories to SPMG you are granting consent for those materials to be published. All stories will be considered for the contest, but only the best ones be published. Click here for more information about publishing with SPMG.

 

Spectacle Publishing is always looking for novels as well. So if you’ve got a winner, send us a query. Remember, short fiction contest submissions to not require a query and can be emailed here. Full manuscripts require a query first. Click here for more info.

Short Story Competition Winner

Excerpt from:
“The Dove”

by Laekan Kemp

 

It’s dark.  A car passes by, the first one in hours.  It throws light against the truck and slides it between the steel hinges and the door.  In that second it highlights my crouching frame and reflects the shadows of the crate’s bars against my skin.  I feel a faint wave of air brush my ankle, someone fanning out their skirt.  There’s a soft knocking towards the mouth of the truck like fingernails tapping against one of the metal walls.  I feel the heat of moist eyes against my cheekbone and I pair them with a stifled panting coming from the crate facing mine.  I hold my breath and listen to the other bodies in the truck, absorbing the cold, the quiet.

To read more, check out our book here.

Copyright Notice:

This story is cannot be reprinted without permission from Spectacle Publishing Media Group, LLC.

Why can’t I just publish it myself?

Of course! But at Spectacle, our philosophy is that writers should write. When you self-publish you’ll become your own agent, your own PR specialist, your own marketing team and sometimes even your own graphic designer. We figure you’d rather be writing.

At Spectacle, we take all our submissions very seriously. There’s no such thing as a “slush pile” here. No matter what your skill level, we evaluate your manuscript and get back to with a personal note. If we think your piece is really good, we’ll work with you to get it into shape. You want your best work to be out there, to be read and experienced as you meant it to be. A free round of editing is worth it, right?

I’ve published books on my own. I know the temptation. Just spell check it and submit it to Amazon/B&N/Whoever. Well, that’s the idea but it never seemed to work like that. The formatting for eBooks is actually a little complicated. This goes back to professionalism – we all want to look like we know what we’re doing.

After publishing the books, I posted on Facebook, my blog, a few other places and I saw some sales. Then, with nothing new to say, they became buried in the lists of other self-published eBooks.

Don’t get me wrong eBooks are the future. But the traditional publishing industry has given up on editing and personal feedback. Editors don’t edit – they select what is salable. At Spectacle, we actually edit. Trust me, editing is a good thing. Even the best of us tends to get to close to out work, to not see the holes in the plot or the pacing issues. Sometimes a beautifully poignant scene, written as if the muse Calliope herself had channeled through the author takes place in a sensory void – destroying the dream. The author knows the place, but the audience doesn’t. That’s where a good editor comes in.
Many authors find that they simply don’t have the time or expertise to effectively market their work. We provide each of our novel authors with a comprehensive marketing package, compiled by professional Internet marketers. Take advantage of that!