Maryland Renaissance Festival

This past Saturday, my husband (Leslie Roy Carter) and I had a book signing for our Wild Sorceress series, hosted by the Page After Page bookstore at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Here's a photo of us dressed up in the obligatory faire garb:

Page After Page

That's my brother-in-law standing off to the side, in the red shirt. We sold several books and had lots of fun conversations with passers-by. Where else but at a Renn Faire (or an SF or gaming con) can you have a spontaneous discussion with a stranger about the abilities of warlocks in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons?

You can check out the four Wild Sorceress novels—a trilogy and a prequel—here:

Wild Sorceress

The Renn Faire, in my opinion, is much more fun than a commercial amusement park as well as less expensive overall. (Kids under seven get in free!) Relaxed atmosphere, interesting costumes to look at, better and more varied food, no scary "thrill rides," and a wide variety of singing, acting, comedy, swordplay, and other performances to enjoy. Its website is here, and in case you live nearby and want to visit, they're open for a few more weekends yet:

Maryland Renn Fest

In addition to our sword-and-sorcery novels, I'd hoped to sign a couple of anthologies in which I have stories. Unfortunately, the bookstore wasn't able to acquire copies at a discount, because the publisher uses CreateSpace to produce their trade paperbacks. So that part of the plan fell through. The brave new world of multiple publishing options has some downsides, alas. At least we can always count on books from the "big" publishers to be available from major distributors. Every silver cloud has a gray lining and vice versa. Les and I handed business cards to everybody who'd take one, in hopes some people might visit our website and investigate our other works.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

This week the Galaxy Express hosts "Parallel Universe"

Are you going to Orland for the RWA convention? (I am not.) If so, or if not, do you know about the online event at The Galaxy Express?

From July 20-31,The Galaxy Express will host Parallel Universe, a science fiction romance online event that will coincide with the Romance Writers of America’s 30th Annual National Conference (July 28-31 in Orlando, FL). It will be the virtual SFR gathering for those unable to attend the conference.

Parallel Universe will feature a series of guest posts from authors and bloggers on a variety of scintillating science fiction romance topics.

If you’re attending the RWA conference, the hotspot for SFR fans is The Gathering, hosted by the Fantasy, Futuristic, & Paranormal Chapter of RWA.

 
The theme of this year’s Parallel Universe is diversity. I was asked to write about diversity of genitalia --why do people assume that I am an expert in that fertile field?-- but in the end, I wrote about a great deal more than bifurcated manhood, and only lightly touched on hemipenes.

While I was refreshing my memory for the piece, a tapir penis crashed my computer. I had to think for all of 20 seconds about whether I wanted to report to Firefox what I'd been looking at when the problem occurred. I reported on my Facebook profile instead.

My piece should show up on the 29th, in the evening.

Provisional Schedule for Parallel Universe Blogs

Tuesday July 20

Lisa Paitz Spindler

Gini Koch

Wednesday July 21

Nancy Cohen

Ella Drake

Thursday July 22

Ann Somerville

Donna S. Frelick - Spacefreighters Lounge/SFR Brigade

Friday July 23

Rebecca Baumann – Dirty Sexy Books

Kim Knox

Saturday July 24 

Cathy Pegau – Queen of the Frozen North

J.C. Hay

Next Sunday July 25

Sheryl Nantus

Kimber An – Enduring Romance

Monday July 26

Lizzie Newell

Rae Lori

Tuesday July 27

Robert Appleton

Violet Hilton

Wednesday July 28

Jess Granger

Laurie Green – Spacefreighters Lounge/SFR Brigade

Thursday July 29

Pauline B. Jones

Rowena Cherry

Friday July 30

Katherine Allred

KS Augustin

Saturday July 31

Ellen Fisher

Marcella Burnard

Please leave a comment (SFR related) letting us know whether you'll be at RWA or at some other book signing or book promo event this summer.

Florida? South Carolina? California?

Nope, not talking about election primaries. I'm reminding those of you hither and yon that I'm hitting the road again starting next month. Here's my schedule for the next few months. I love meeting readers so if you're in the area, please do come by!

February 9th--Valentine's Day Multi Author Book Signing, Orlando FL : Barnes & Noble, Colonial Plaza Market Center, Noon to 2pm

February 29th-Mar 2nd--Celebrate RomanceConference, Columbia SC

March 19th–22nd--2008 Popular Culture/American Culture Conference, San Francisco, CA

March 29th-30th--Lake Co. Library Festival of Reading, Mount Dora, FL

April 5th--Naples Press Club Author & Book Festival, Naples FL

April 6th--Pasco/NPR Writers Group 2nd Annual Conference, New Port Richey Library, FL

April 16th-20th--Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, Pittsburgh, PA

Honestly, I'm a really friendly person. Silly, even. Please don't be shy about coming up to me at a book signing or a conference and introducing yourself. Tell me which books of mine you've read, ask me about my characters…whatever you like. I don't bite. Well, I haven't bitten a reader in at least six three months. And they're just little love bites…

Hope to see you!
~Linnea

SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel's Ghost, coming July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Something cascaded lightly through me—a gentling, a suffused glow. If love could be morphed into a physical element, this would be it. It was strength and yet it was vulnerability. It was all-encompassing and yet it was freedom. It was a wall of protection. It was wings of trust and faith.

It was Gabriel Ross Sullivan, answering the questions I couldn't ask. Not that everything would be okay, but that everything in his power would be done, and we'd face whatever outcomes there were together.