Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 2

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold, Volume I Collection

 by Karen Wiesner

Four Supernatural Fantasy Romance/Mild Horror Novellas

This is the second of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large.Ts collection includes Books 1-3 in the series along with The Final Chapter: 

"Papa", Book 1

 ** A horrifying rendering of “Hansel and Gretel” in which revenge is served up sweet...Less than a year after Rand left his family for Amy, his ex-wife and two children are killed in an accident. Ever since then, Amy has had terrible nightmares in which Rand's children return to exact revenge. When Rand convinces her to come away with him to an isolated cabin in the woods, Amy's guilt-filled nightmares turn into pure horror. **

The Woodcutter's Grim Series started officially when my family went camping and everyone was telling scary stories around the fire one night. The idea for a terrifying “Hansel and Gretel” is what I came up with. The scariest part of my pitifully weak rendition around the campfire that night was Hansel and Gretel calling in their thin, ghostly voices, “Papa” to their father, who’d abandoned them. After this, I had a nightmare about a spooky town that seemed completely deserted. The only thing the hero could find were little piles of sugar everywhere. Later, he realized those were all that were left of the townspeople. That was the jumping off point for the story “Papa”.

The basis of the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" is a deeply disturbing, tragic story of famine, disease, and infanticide but could also have had something to do with a successful female baker in the 1600s that another baker (a male) grew jealous of and so accused of being a witch. You can probably guess the rest, but if you want to know more details about this travesty, visit: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fairy-tale-true-story_b_6102602.

"Blood of Amethyst", Book 2

** A bloodcurdling answer why Rumpelstiltskin wanted a child of his own... Amethyst's father disappears and Sheriff and Guardian Gabe finds him drained of blood. When Amethyst herself grows pale, cold, wakes only in the night when her taste for blood overwhelms her, Gabe becomes aware something in the woods is stealing her life. He'll face his deadliest foe yet when the woman he loves falls prey to a nameless creature who wants her very soul. **

Okay, so who doesn’t wonder why the childhood fairy tale creature "Rumpelstiltskin" wanted the queen’s child for his own? His reasons couldn’t be good. They had to be horrifying. I’d always wondered about the answer to that question, and so it was natural in this “a modern rendering of a classic fairy tale” to explore that angle, as well as establish the inner workings of the fairy tale horror town Woodcutter’s Grim first introduced in “Papa”. Since Sheriff Gabe Reece (leader of the Protectorate) made his first appearance in that story, it seemed natural to make that character the focus of this one.

Another thing I've always wondered is where the name "Rumpelstiltskin" came from and what it means. There are several ideas about the origin. One idea is that it stems from a childhood game in which children took turns assuming the role of a noisy goblin with limp. The word could also describe a mischievous poltergeist. There's also a crude suggestion that the name has a phallic interpretation in the story. In other words, an impish creatures forces a woman to "make gold" with him and then tries to take her firstborn. This story could have been a warning to easily manipulated young women of the time. Check out the full attempt to discover the origin of the classic tale here: https://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/rumpelstiltskin-history/.

"Dancing to the Grave", Book 3

** Loosely based on “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”. The children of Woodcutter's Grim are changing...and only one person, music teacher Diane Anders, realizes the truth. Can she and her husband, Kurt Jones, a member of the ancient lineage of the Protectorate's Chosen Seven, save them and the future of their town? **

 Another children’s fairy tale that’s always fascinated me is the "Pied Piper of Hamelin". Why would he want to lure all those children away? I came up with an explanation here in this modern retelling. Isn't having all your children taken away the very definition of horror? I also liked exploring the early phases of a couple reuniting after one of them had cheated. The title was another no-brainer, since it was based on the Pied Piper story.

 I hope to never have to research rats again! That was pretty unpleasant and made me itchy the whole time I was writing the story. The heroine Diane was allergic to rats, and I have the same condition, but it's not relegated to just rats. At the time I was working on this story, we lived in an older house, and I kept smelling something dead in the basement, where my office and computer were. My husband wouldn't believe me, but we found a newly deceased carcass of a bat not long later…when a bunch of live bats started flying around my head one night while I was working down there! Needless to say, my office was moved upstairs the very next day.

The story behind the fairy tale "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" might be just what you'd expect, following the story closely to events that took place in 1264 in a Germanic village. When the town elders reneged on the deal, one potential explanation (or myth) is that children could have been compelled by the piper into missionary service, via the Children's Crusade. Did they in fact cross the sea to convert Muslims to Christianity, or did they never reach their destination, either starving or being sold into slavery? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fairy-tale-true-story_b_6102602https://www.worldhistory.org/Children's_Crusade/

"The Amethyst Tower", The Final Chapter

** Loosely based on “Rapunzel”. The isolated maiden meets her knight in a time-traveler who's come into the future to rescue her from the Warlock Lord holding her captive in the amethyst tower. Where else but in the fairy-tale-horror town of Woodcutter's Grim? **

While I really wanted to come up with more Woodcutter's Grim Series stories, I didn't really have any ideas and so assumed it would end with four novellas. But, later when I unexpectedly dreamed up more stories to fit in this series, "The Amethyst Tower” gave me a focal point and a boundary to write the rest of the “middle” stories inside, knowing where the series would end.

At the time when I was outlining "The Amethyst Tower", I’d been lamenting for years that Disney still hadn’t done a movie for the fairy tale "Rapunzel" (Tangled came out years later), so I wanted to do a scary version. The end of “Dancing to the Grave” provided the perfect segue into "The Amethyst Tower". The hero in the story, Prince, wasn't someone I wanted to make a typical hero. For countless years, he'd tried to fulfill the prophecy about him being a savior, with no idea how to go about it. He was discouraged and depressed, not to mention a little defeated. It wasn't until much later that I realized how important this story was to the series when I tried to "write backwards" with new tales that fit before the events of "The Amethyst Tower". Trust me, there is nothing fun about painting yourself in a corner and having to stay within it to tell the rest of the stories in a series.

Some fairy tales are based on sad tales of religion gone wrong, as is the case with Rapunzel. A pagan merchant father couldn't bear to have his daughter marry (his reason for that can't be good) so locked her in a tower. After she converted to Christianity, her prayers were so loud, the merchant was informed of them by those in the town below. When he dragged his daughter in front of the Roman pro-consul, he was told he either had to behead her himself or he'd have to give up his fortune to shut her up. Can you guess what he decided to do? Sigh. But at least he got his just due when he was struck by lightning right after the evil deed against his own child was done. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fairy-tale-true-story_b_6102602

Reviews and Honors for WOODCUTTER'S GRIM SERIES, Volume I:

2008 Dream Realms Award Winner

Best Book of 2010 Nominee from Siren Book Reviews

Recommended Read from Dark Angel Reviews

5 star review from Howling Good Books

5 star review from BTSemag

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

5 star review from author Jenna Whittaker

4 1/2 star review from Siren Book Reviews

4.25 star review from Huntress Reviews

4 star review from RT Book Reviews

4 star review from Paranormal Romance Reviews

4 star review from Coffee Time Romance

4 star review from The Romance Review

Do you love telling or hearing scary stories around a campfire? Have you ever dreamed about something that made you want to write a story on the basis of the dream? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Happy reading!

Find out more about this collection and Woodcutter's Grim Series here:

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1

Karen is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Failures of Prediction

To dispose of one point up front, of course we know the purpose of science fiction isn't literally to predict future technology and social structures. Its speculations typically explore hypothetical paths that may or may not become reality, some of which are so extreme nobody seriously expects their fulfillment. They're extrapolations that answer "What if. . . ?" or "If this goes on. . . ."

Nevertheless, it's entertaining to contemplate some of the future technological and cultural developments in older SF works that drastically missed the mark. One classic example shows up in Robert Heinlein's HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, where human colonies on the moon coexist with slide rules. In I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, the fabulously wealthy protagonist has to wait several days for the result of her pregnancy test, although at the time of the novel's publication, such a test could be completed in less than half an hour. (Ordinary patients had to wait only because of lab backlogs. Now, of course, we have instant home pregnancy tests, which ought to exist in the future setting of I WILL FEAR NO EVIL.) I don't count Heinlein's transplantation of 1950s family structures into the spacefaring future in his "juveniles" as a failure of prediction, because it's obvious he was simply bowing to the constraints of the market in those books. His posthumously published utopia FOR US, THE LIVING demonstrates how early in his career he envisioned alternative marriage and sexual customs.

Isaac Asimov did foresee the hand-held calculator, but that story imagines a future in which people have become so dependent on calculators that even scientists with advanced degrees don't know how to do arithmetic the old-fashioned way. I can't believe that's meant as a serious prediction rather than a fanciful thought experiment. I suspect the same about a story in which people aren't taught to read, since computers and robots convey all information (apparently -- it's not quite clear) in audible speech. (So what about deaf users?) It comes as an incredible revelation to the two boys in this tale that their recent ancestors could decode "squiggles" on paper.

Recently I reread a collection of Asimov's robot short stories, along with his novel ROBOTS OF DAWN, and was amused at some of the predictive "fails" perpetrated by such a visionary author. For one thing, the robots are almost all roughly humanoid-shaped, supposedly because the public would feel less wary of them in that form. The plan doesn't work; throughout the series, most Earth people (as opposed to Spacers, who tend to embrace the convenience of artificial servants) fear robots, and it's pretty clear that the crude approximation of human shape makes the animated machines more distrusted, not less. It would make more sense to design robots' bodies for maximum efficiency in performing their particular tasks, as real-life industrial robots usually are. Furthermore, to learn new information robots are shown reading books rather than having the contents uploaded directly into their positronic brains. Very odd from a present-day perspective, when astronomers in one story want to identify extrasolar planets likely to harbor life, they teach a robot to perform the analysis rather than programming a stationary computer to carry out the search. This piece, of course, is set in the distant future, yet we have methods of finding Earthlike extrasolar planets right now.

In terms of social change, Asimov's robot series includes elements that require generous suspension of disbelief. For instance, THE CAVES OF STEEL emphasizes how overcrowded Earth has become. As one consequence, personal hygiene occurs in what amount to huge communal bathhouses, called Personals. All right, if overpopulation means apartments are so small it makes more sense to centralize baths, showers, and related functions, I can accept that. But it's strongly implied that individual dwellings don't have toilet facilities, which would imply no running water! This assumption is confirmed in ROBOTS OF DAWN, where Earth investigator Elijah Baley is suprised to find one-person Personals in private homes. Asimov must not have thought this through. In a technologically advanced society hundreds of years in the future, people don't have any means of washing at home? And when "nature calls" in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, they use -- what? Chamber pots? Family structures on the Spacer worlds, at least the two we see in the series, are also problematic. One world has developed a culture in which people abhor personal contact so deeply that they never touch or even meet in person if they can help it. Almost all contact happens holographically. Children are brought up in group care homes, where they're gradually trained out of the crude desire for physical proximity. Even spouses don't live together. They have sex only for reproduction, and most people detest that "duty," yet the obvious alternative of universal artificial insemination isn't embraced. On the planet Aurora in ROBOTS OF DAWN, casual recreational sex is commonplace, children are the only purpose of formal marriage, the young are reared in communal nurseries and may not even know the identities of their parents, and sexual jealousy allegedly doesn't exist. Asimov must have subscribed to the early and mid-20th-century belief that human nature is infinitely malleable. (For a lucid, detailed, entertainingly readable rebuttal of that notion, see Steven Pinker's THE BLANK SLATE.) Consider how recognizable to us are the portrayals of marriage, family, and sexuality in the early books of the Old Testament, thousands of years ago. Are a few more centuries and the relatively minor change of venue to different planets really likely to inspire radical changes in those areas of human interaction?

Famously, when later series in the Star Trek universe were developed, the producers had to cope with the fact that some technology in the original series had already become outdated, notably the flip-phone communicators. On the other hand, some SF works predict too ambitiously, as in the proverbial plea, "Where's my flying car?" The classic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY envisioned a level of routine space travel in 2001 that we haven't attained yet. Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER promised all-purpose housecleaning robots in 1970. I wish!

Of course, many elements in current print and film SF that seem to us like cutting-edge predictions may turn out to be laughably wrong. As far as dystopian visions such as THE HANDMAID'S TALE are concerned, we can fervently hope so. However, I still want my autonomous housecleaning robot. I'm pleased with my Roomba, but it's only a start.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Puffery And Prevention

Puffery is like a fig leaf for writers. A vague or highly subjective assertion does not expose you, legally. Whether or not it is good writing is another matter entirely.

Here's an example of non-actionable puffery. "Alien Romances is the most interesting, reader-friendly, quick-read blog that has been active for more than 10 years."

The Frankfurt Kurnitz Klein + Selz PC advertising law blog article, 'Does "Tested" Actually Mean That You've Conducted Testing?' discusses a recent legal dispute over truth in advertising plumbing equipment.

https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102h5bl/does-tested-actually-mean-that-youve-conducted-testing

Legal blogger Jeff Greenbaum expertly runs through three separate claims that a rival purveyor of plumbing supplies found offensive, and why --on appeal-- two of the claims did not stick (legally speaking), but one did.

For UK law firm Burges Salmon LLP, legal expert Helen Scott-Lawler and Amanda Leiu examine two stories of social media influences who fell foul of the law (the Advertising Standards Authority), one for allegedly using her Instagram presence to promote products for profit without --allegedly-- properly disclosing that her posts were advertisements, and the other for running a social media "contest" and allegedly failing to deliver the prize to the contest winner.

https://www.burges-salmon.com/news-and-insight/legal-updates/commercial/advertising-standards-authority-asa-bans-instagram-influencers-ads-for-disregarding-ad-rules

We writers like stories, we advertise, we promote, we try to use social media for visibility and profit... so these cautionary tales are good to know.

Most scandalous of all (for today)  Elizabeth Tuttle Newman, writing for the FKKS IP and Media Law blog discusses the slander of a public figure in No Slander, No Case...

https://ipandmedialaw.fkks.com/post/102h5ak/no-slander-no-case-court-dismisses-avenattis-defamation-claims-against-fox-new

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8b3d5642-64ef-4e92-ad53-e0353a5569d4

The bottom line is that aggrieved public figures have to be able to prove actual and deliberate malice, and moreover,  mild inaccuracies or fanciful speculation are not necessarily defamatory. For any writer considering articles or biographies of interesting subjects, this is edifying reading.

Also precautionary....

For writers who own blogs or websites where other people may add comments, you should register a copyright agent and keep your account active by changing your password when prompted, which is usually every couple of months.

 https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/p1.html

The designated copyright agent for this blog is Rowena Cherry.

The purpose of designating a copyright agent and registering with the DMCA Designated Agent Directory is to qualify for safe harbor protection. For an explanation, see here.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry  

SPACE SNARK™

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 1

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold

by Karen Wiesner

Supernatural Fantasy Romance/Mild Horror

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large. 

This will be the first of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

Since I was a child, I had a love for all things supernatural. HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR MONSTER was a book I read over and over when I was young. It was written by Norman Bridwell (the guy who wrote the Clifford the Big Red Dog series). I wore that book out. Funny thing is, my husband also said it was one of his favorite books when he was young, too. I’d never known anyone else who’d ever read it. Meant to be, huh? 

Some of the earliest horror books I remember reading were an out-of-print series of teen horror called TWILIGHT: WHERE DARKNESS BEGINS, YOU'LL LIKE MY MOTHER by Naomi A. Hinze (gothic horror, which I adore), and DRACULA, of course. Stephen King books were the cornerstone reading of my teenage years. One of my all-time favorite horror novels since becoming an adult is THE RUINS by Scott Smith—an unusual horror novel that has no chapters whatsoever and is 384 pages you literally cannot put it down from start to finish. Brilliant! 

My Woodcutter's Grim Series started when I was putting together a proposal for my promotional group Jewels of the Quill’s first Halloween anthology, SHADOWS IN THE HEART. I'd always wanted to write a horror/fantasy series, and I spent quite a few years considering how to go about it. My mind went first to childhood fairy tales. Most of them are, by nature, horror stories sometimes mirroring real-life events that were probably the stuff of nightmares at the time they were written. So I knew I wanted to create a fairy tale horror/fantasy town in which those old tales came to life in terrifying ways. Calling the town Woodcutter's Grim seemed completely logical. All of the stories in the Woodcutter’s Grim Series are loosely based on popular or traditional fairy tales, nursery rhymes, poems, folktales, parables, mythology, and other "lore".

When I wrote and published the first collection of "classic fairy tales retold in modern times as horror or fantasy", few others were doing anything like it. Right after that, a slew of projects similar to this came about, including the TV shows GRIMM (which was amazing) and ONCE UPON A TIME (not as inspiring to me but nevertheless interesting), and many movies turning fairy tales into deep characterization horror fests with a twist, such as SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (and the sequel) with Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth, and RED RIDING HOOD with Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman. 

What are some of the most memorable books and authors of the supernatural you read as a child? Do you love to read or watch tales of fairy tales reimagined? Leave a comment to tell me about your favorites! 

Happy reading! 

Find out more about Woodcutter's Grim Series here:

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Can AI Be a Bad Influence?

In a computer language-learning experiment in 2016, a chat program designed to mimic the conversational style of teenage girls devolved into spewing racist and misogynistic rhetoric. Interaction with humans quickly corrupted an innocent bot, but could AI corrupt us, too?

AI's Influence Can Make Humans Less Moral

Here's a more detailed explanation (from 2016) of the Tay program and what happened when it was let loose on social media:

Twitter Taught Microsoft's AI Chatbot to Be a Racist

The Tay Twitter bot was designed to get "smarter" in the course of chatting with more and more users, thereby, it was hoped, "learning to engage people through 'casual and playful conversation'." Unfortunately, spammers apparently flooded it with poisonous messages, which it proceeded to imitate and amplify. If Tay was ordered, "Repeat after me," it obeyed, enabling anyone to put words in its virtual mouth. However, it also started producing racist, misogynistic, and just plain weird utterances spontaneously. This debacle raises questions such as "how are we going to teach AI using public data without incorporating the worst traits of humanity?"

The L.A. TIMES article linked above, with reference to the Tay episode as a springboard for discussion, explores this problem in more general terms. How can machines "make humans themselves less ethical?" Among other possible influences, AI can offer bad advice, which people have been noticed to follow as readily as they do online advice from live human beings; AI advice can "provide a justification to break ethical rules"; AI can act as a negative role model; it can be easily used for deceptive purposes; outsourcing ethically fraught decisions to algorithms can be dangerous. The article concludes that "whenever AI systems take over a new social role, new risks for corrupting human behavior will emerge."

This issue reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, especially since I've recently been rereading some of his robot-related fiction and essays. As you'll recall, the First Law states, "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." In one of Asimov's early stories, a robot learns to lie in order to tell people what they want to hear. As this machine perceives the problem of truth and lies, the revelation of distressing truths would cause humans emotional pain, and emotional harm is still harm. Could AI programs be taught to avoid causing emotional and ethical damage to their human users? The potential catch is that a computer intelligence can acquire ethical standards only by having them programmed in by human designers. As a familiar precept declares, "Garbage in, garbage out." Suppose programmers train an AI to regard the spreading of bizarre conspiracy theories as a vital means of protecting the public from danger?

It's a puzzlement.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Introduction: Author Karen Wiesner

Author Karen Wiesner

Creating realistic, unforgettable characters one story at a time…

Just this past weekend I received an invitation and welcome from Alien Romances to join the prestigious line-up of authors gathered at the blog. I've known Margaret Carter since I asked her to join the popular promotional group I founded in 2003, Jewels of the Quill (featured in RT Book Reviews magazine with a revolving group of romance authors that produced 14 award-winning anthologies together in the 11 years we were together). Currently, Margaret and I are critique partners. Additionally, I met Rowena Cherry when I interviewed her for my reference titles published by Writers Digest Books. Considering the short notice, I thought it would be fitting to post my author biography in order to introduce myself.

 

In addition to the many hats I've worn in the last 25 years as a writing reference instructor and author of bestselling craft references such as FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS, WRITING THE FICTION SERIES, and BRING YOUR FICTION TO LIFE: Crafting Three-Dimensional Stories with Depth and Complexity as well as a professional blurbologist (a fancy title for someone who writes back cover blurbs for authors) and a freelance editor, I'm also the author of 144 titles (19 series) which have been nominated or won 134 awards. I write in nearly every genre of fiction along with writing reference, children's books, and poetry which means I'll have a lot of material to talk about in my future here on the Alien Romances blog. Below, I've compiled a bullet list of my credits--with the genres that are the focus of this blog listed first--which I hope everyone finds interesting.  

 

Romantic Science Fiction:

 

-Arrow of Time Chronicles, Books 1-4 available now

 

Romantic Fantasy/Mild Horror:

 

-Woodcutter’s Grim Series {Classic Tales of Horror Retold}, Books 1-9 and The Final Chapter available now; Book 10 including three full-length novels coming September 2021

 

Paranormal/Horror/Ghost:

 

-Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series. Books 1-6 are now available; Books 7-12 as well as the first novella collection coming soon

 

-Single Titles "The Amethyst Star", a futuristic romance, and "Creatures of the Night", a fantasy romance, in 2-in-1 Supernatural Romance Novellas available now

 

-SWEET DREAMS, A single title romantic horror available now

 

Writing/craft reference titles not mentioned previously:

 -CPR FOR DEAD OR LIFELESS FICTION: A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plots, and Relationships available now

-WRITING BLURBS THAT SIZZLE--AND SELL! available now

-COHESIVE STORY BUILDING (formerly titled FROM FIRST DRAFT TO FINISHED NOVEL {A Writer's Guide to Cohesive Story Building}) available now

 

Romantic Action/Adventure and Suspense:

 

-Incognito Series, Books 1-8 available now; Books 9-12 will be reissued in the future

 

Mystery (Police Procedural, Amateur Sleuth, and Private Investigator):

 

-Falcon's Bend Series written with Chris Spindler, Books 1-6 and three novella collections available now

 

-Denim Blues Mysteries, Books 1-3 available now 

Contemporary Romances/Women's Fiction:

 -Family Heirlooms Series, Books 1-6 available now

 -Friendship Heirlooms Series (Family Heirlooms Series spinoff), Books 1-7 available now

 -Peaceful Pilgrims Series (Family and Friendship Heirlooms Series spinoff), Books 1-3 and 5 available now; Books 4, 6-8 coming soon

 -Wounded Warriors Series, Books 1-6 available now

 

-Gypsy Road Series, Books 1-4 available now

 

-Angelfire Trilogy, Books 1-3 available now

 

-Angelfire II Quartet (Angelfire Trilogy spinoff), Books 1-4 available now

 

-Kaleidoscope Series, Books 1-7 now available

 

-Adventures in Amethyst Series, Books 1-10 available now; Books 11-13 to be released in the Adventures in Amethyst Trio of Holiday Romances collections in 2021

 

-Cowboy Fever Series, Books 1-6 available now

 

-Single Title Contemporary Romances "The Amethyst Angel" and "A Home for Christmas" in 2-in-1 Inspirational Romance Novellas available now

 

-Restless as Rain available now

 

Children's Books:

 

-Making Good Choices Series, Book 1 available now; Book 2 reissue coming soon

 

-KERI IS CUTE CUTE CUTE, out of print

 

-I CAN TOUCH THE SKY, out of print

 

-CODY KNOWS with Linda Derkez, out of print

 

Poetry:

 

Soul Bleeds The Poetry, Melodies, and Other Wanderings of Karen Wiesner available now

 

What a thrill to be adopted into this group. I look forward to my time here. My days to post on Alien Romances will be Fridays so I'll be back soon. I hope you'll post comments, and follow me at my author pages as well as here on the Alien Romances blog.

 

Happy reading!

 

Check out my Author Pages:

My website and blog:  https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

My Facebook author page: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

My pages at my publisher, Writers Exchange's, website: http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

and

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/

My Barnes and Noble author page: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Karen%20Wiesner

My Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

My Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

Names Not For Sale

If you have a trademark, you can prohibit your competitors from buying it as a keyword. 

For advertsing law firm Cowan Liebowitz & Latman PC, legal blogger Allison R. Furnari discusses a Second Circuit ruling that you can legally prohibit a competitor from using your business name as a keyword for online advertising.

Original link:
https://www.cll.com/newsroom-news-173059

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3ceecaba-da6e-4aad-a77f-708f01ad5c93

Does this mean that if an author trademarks her pen name, she can prevent Amazon or other search engines from selling her pen name as a keyword?  I wonder what the implications would be for the auction of "Buy Buttons" on Amazon.

What a can of worms that would be!

Legal Zoom has some helpful counsel by Jane Haskins Esquire on trademarking ones name.

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/should-i-trademark-my-name

It's an entertaining and useful four-minute read.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Mind-Reading Technology

Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco have developed a computer program to translate the brain waves of a 36-year-old paralyzed man into text:

Scientists Translate Brain Waves

They implanted an array of electrodes into the sensorimotor cortex of the subject's brain and "used 'deep-learning algorithms' to train computer models to recognize and classify words from patterns in the participant’s brain activity." The training process consisted of showing words on a screen and having the man think about saying them, going through the mental activity of trying to say the words, which he'd lost the physical ability to do. Once the algorithm had learned to match brain patterns to particular words, the subject could produce text by thinking of sentences that included words from the program's vocabulary. Using this technology, he could generate language at a rate of about fifteen words per minute (although not error-free) as opposed to only five words per minute while operating a computer typing program with movements of his head.

Training the program to this point wasn't easy, apparently. The course took 48 sessions over a period of 81 weeks. Still, it's the closest thing to "mind-reading" we have so far, a significant advance over techniques that let a patient control a prosthetic limb by thought alone. According to Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, an officer of the American Stroke Association, “This study represents a transformational breakthrough in the field of brain-computer interfaces."

Here's an article about an earlier experiment in which a paralyzed man learned to produce sentences with "a computer system that turns imagined handwriting into words" at a rate of 18 words per minute.

Mindwriting Brain Computer

The hardware consists of "small, implantable computer chips that read electrical activity straight from the brain." The subject imagined writing letters in longhand, mentally going through the motions. At the same time, the scientists "recorded activity from the brain region that would have controlled his movements." The collected recordings were used to train the AI to translate the man's "mindwriting" into words on a screen. Eventually the algorithm achieved a level of 94.1% accuracy—with the aid of autocorrect, 99%.

While those programs are far from literal telepathy, the ability to read any thoughts that rise to the surface of a subject's mind, they still constitute an amazing advance. As long as such technology requires hardware implanted in an individual's brain, however, we won't have to worry about our computer overlords randomly reading our minds.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt