Bitten By Swag!

The nice folks over at Bitten By Books are giving away free swag to folks who show up and comment/ ask questions/chat etc. Show up for free stuff!

I'm logging in and out answering questions, too.

:)

Chocolatey Badness!

My post about coming up with "For Want of Chocolate" is up over at Edmund Schubert's blog. You can read it here. It begins: "Something is terribly wrong with Edmund."

Vampires + Chocolate = Mayhem

My first ever short story in the Void City universe is up in this month's IGMS. It's about a newly turned vampire named Haley realizing she can no longer eat chocolate. A Godiva store is involved. If you like the books, you'll probably get a kick out of the story. If you haven't tried the books yet, at $2.50 an issue, IGMS is a cheaper way to give my writing a try.

It even has a cool illustration by Kevin Wasden.

:)

This is the one that actually got me (jokingly) threatened by another author. For more about the threat and the making of "For Want of Chocolate" check out Edmund Schubert's blog Side-Show Freaks where he'll be posting an essay from me about that pretty soon.

New League Post... about sex

I have a new post up over at The League of Reluctant Adults. It's about Eric and Greta having... The Talk.

Dragon*Con 2009 Schedule

Here's my schedule from Dragon*Con this year. Looks like they've got me somewhere every day of the convention! (Which is totally frick'n cool if you ask me.) Look at all the Leaguers I'm on panels with! :)

Vampires Are The New Vampires

Vampires are always in style, no matter what
decade it is. R. Laurey, A. Kontis, J. F. Lewis, R.
Mead, A. Gilbreath, D. Tatum (M); Fri 2:30 pm;
Montreal/Vancouver [H]

City of Dreadful Night

World-building in dark fantasy. C. Douglas, J. F.
Lewis, C. Kittredge, S. Kane, K. Richardson, C.
Malcolm (M); Fri 8:30 pm; Montreal/Vancouver [H]

What Price Immortality?

Examines the trials and travails of immortality.
R. Laurey, S. Sizemore, J. F. Lewis, M. Henry, R.
Mead, A. Gilbreath, F. Zedde, C. Malcolm (M); Sat
11:30 am; Hanover C-E [H]

Vampires vs. Zombies

Authors judge the pros and cons of the living dead.
E. Donald, P. Nutman, C. Priest, J. Stein, J. F. Lewis,
M. Henry, A. Gilbreath, M. Mancusi, M. Miller (M);
Sat 5:30 pm; Montreal/Vancouver [H]

Undead in Dixie

The allure of vampires in southern literature. E.
Donald, R. Hart, J. F. Lewis, C. Harris, C. Malcolm
(M); Sat 8:30 pm; Montreal/Vancouver [H]

The Sacred and The Profane

A look at religion and spirituality in dark fantasy
fiction. E. Donald, C. Golden, S. Nicholson, C.
Priest, S. Allie, J. Everson, J. F. Lewis, J. Kessler, M.
Miller (M); Sun 11:30 am; Montreal/Vancouver [H]

Working the Graveyard Shift

A look at the various jobs available to supernatural
investigators and creatures of the night. J. Stein,
C. Douglas, J. F. Lewis, C. Kittredge, S. Kane, K.
Richardson, J. Kessler, M. Miller (M); Sun 8:30
pm; Montreal/Vancouver [H]

Dragon*Reading: J F Lewis

*Mon 11:30 am; Roswell [H]

* (I know it's all the way on Monday and everything, but I promise to read from the manuscript for book three if folks show up)

New League Post

Eric and Talbot make me look silly while I try to answer questions.

You can find it: here

2009 T-shirt Pre-orders

For folks who are interested in sporting a "Welcome to the Void" like Eric wears in the books, we're doing a limited run of 2009 t-shirts. The details are over at my website.

:)

San Diego Comic Con Schedule

Wow! San Diego Comic Con is utterly mindblowing!

This year, I'm actually on programming, too. :)

Here's my schedule:

Saturday July 25th
BRAM SOTKER PANEL, Room 5AB
1:30-2:30 pm

Sunday July 26th
Signing at the Mysterious Galaxy #1119
12:00-12:50 pm

Stop by if you get the chance, I'd love to get a chance to say, "Hi!"

Test Podcast

Remember that whole podcast idea I mentioned a few months back?

It's almost ready to roll out. I have the first episode up: here as kind of a sneak peek for folks to listen to and give feedback on before I go all iTunes with it. The volume is a little low, but I'm hoping to fix that with future episodes.

In the meantime, whether you've read the books and want to listen to them or you're discovering the series for the first time, I hope you enjoy. The first episode is a little short. Around 18 minutes, but future epsiodes will run two or three chapters and I'll try to roll out a new episode once a week.

Happy listening!

Blogging at the League

I have a new post at the League of Reluctant Adults about cutting people in half... or something like that. ;)

Here's a link.

This one is just odd.

I stumbled via Google Alert upon a website that annouced the release of ReVamped in a very.. um "interesting" way. They've used some kind of program to reword the release info.

Here a sample:

This: "And Eric will need all the help he can get, because it looks like someone is after his soul, too. Blood will flow, fangs will be bared, and the claws will come out, because revenge is never pretty...and Eric has plenty to pass around."

Became:

"Eric will take all the assist he can get, because it looks like soul is out for his psyche, excessively. Blood will flux, Fang will be bared, and the claws will come out, because retaliation is ne'er middling... and Eric holds plenteousness to pass about."

I haven't been this amused since part way through The Heroic Legend of Arslan anime, they changed the names (and in at least one case, the voice actor) of many of the characters.

As the DVD explains:

"Once Giev. Now... Guibu"

Heh.

So... if I had to cast someone....

Lately I've gotten a few emails asking who I'd cast if there was a Void City movie. Putting aside the whole idea that I likely wouldn't have any input at all and going with the conceit that in the reality of the question being asked, I actually have some say-so...

If it were me, I'd be tempted to cast two actors.

Scenes which were from Eric's POV would have Denis Leary

Scenes from Tabitha's POV would use Josh Holloway:

I don't get many questions about who would play Tabitha or Rachel, but every who has asked about Eric has also asked about Ebon Winter. If I could get ahold of a time machine, I'd say a Labrynth-era David Bowie, but seeing as how I don't have access to one... maybe... Adam Lambert from this season of American Idol?

What do you think? Who would you cast?

Happy Easter... Void City-style!

Look upon my works ye mighty and...

... ask, "Hey! Is that a new website?"

It is! It is!

http://authoratlarge.com/

Same Bat place on the interwebs and available any Bat time, but now with cascading style sheets. :)

Apparently I'm Luminous

You may or may not know that ReVamped is one of the featured titles for April's discussion over at the B&N Paranormal Forums. You can find them: here. And I'd meant to mention it earlier, but in a way, I'm glad I waited. Paul Goat Allen serves as the moderator for a couple of forums over at B&N. He's also a writer and reviewer in his own right.

Paul had a lot of nice things to say about Staked and ReVamped (which can be read here), but the blurbs he provided for the series left me grinning like one of the Joker's victims.

Blurb #1 (About the series):

"J.F. Lewis' Void City saga is like literary methamphetamine. The best thing to hit paranormal fantasy in years."

Blurb #2 (About me):

"In a genre full of up-and-coming luminaries, J.F. Lewis may be the brightest of them all."

Yeah. I'm gonna need treatment for sprained facial muscles if Batman doesn't show up with some anti-venom treatment soon. I just know it.

Gene Mollica's Staked cover

Now that Amazon has it posted on the pre-order page for the mass market version of Staked, I guess it's okay to post here. The folks over at Pocket were so pleased with the look of ReVamped's cover that they powers that be went ahead and tapped Gene Mollica to do a new cover for Staked... one was more in keeping with the look of the ReVamped cover. Here it is by itself:

And here it is side by side with the original Chris McGrath cover:

I like that Gene worked El Alma Perdida into the cover and that the scene is taking place outside. I also dig the way Chris McGrath gave his original cover such a cool classic noir feel.

So? What do you guys think?

Imagicon is Tomorrow

Bill Drinkard (author of Elom) and I were on "Talk of Alabama" on Tuesday to help get the word out about Imagicon.

Here's the video:

Headed to Midsouth Con

I'll be at Midsouth Con in roughly four hours!

Here's my panel schedule:

Friday

6 pm - Strong Women Characters
9 pm - Managing Criticism

Saturday

10 am - Reading
11 am - 1990 to Today - the New Vampires
1 pm - Professionals Row (It's be my turn to sell and sign stuff at the Guest Table in the dealer's room
6 pm - Between Lovecraft and King - Horror in the 40s, 50s and 60s
8 pm - The New Dr Who panel

Sunday

11 am - I Am The Audience

So... if you are in or around Memphis, swing by and say hello.

New League Post

I have a new post over at the League of Reluctant Adults about fan empowerment and how cool it is that Realms of Fantasy magazine will be coming back.

You can read it: here.

Strong Enough For A Man, But...

I've mentioned how much I (and my boys) love AlphaOops!: The Day Z Went First by Alethea Kontis, so it was pretty darn cool to have her interview me. We chat about everything from why I tend to have a WebKinz White Mouse (his name is Stanton) with me at conventions to the whole church thing... and why I might not necessarily mind being painted metallic silver under the right conditions.

You can find the interview: here.

There's also a nice article up on Best Fantasy Stories about "Fantasy Books for Men". Two authors I really enjoy are mentioned: Jim Butcher and Simon R. Green. The article also mentions some J. F. Lewis guy and his Void City series.

You can find that article: here.

Welcome Back to the Void!

It's that time again.

Release day. I can't describe how it feels to be here again on the release of a second book. Part of me feels like it isn't happening. Part of me fears it will be the last time. And a much larger section of the J-brain wonders whether people will like it or not. In a way, the shipdate for a new novel is like sending your kid off for the first day at school. As an author, I've done all that I can for little ReVamped. There are always little sections I feel like I might have gotten just right if I'd had a few more revisions, tiny tweaks which have gone unmade because if I don't stop tweaking then the book will never be done and out for people to read.

True, I can do my best to make sure people know how fun little ReVamped is and shout about it in interviews, podcasts, or blogs. I can go to conventions and show off ReVamped and its older sibling, Staked. But in many ways the magic has been worked and now ReVamped's future is in the hands of the buyers, sellers, reviewers, and fans.

The funniest thing of all, is that ReVamped has actually been on the shelves for several days at this point. Some of the people that pre-ordered copies of ReVamped got the book as early as February 27th. It began showing up on the shelves of bookstores around Birmingham last week. But the "official release day" still feels special and today is the first day the novel is available for folks who use the Kindle (Hi, Jerry) or other eBook readers.

With the book release comes the temptation to ego surf for reactions to ReVamped, but I'll try to hold off and let my Google Alerts bring those to me. After all, I'm still working on book three and I need to get it all nice and shiny if I'm to expect anyone to purchase it... so that I can start the rollercoaster all over again.

Here's hoping you enjoy your second trip to Void City and many more to come. Feel free to drop by (via comment or email) and let me know how you're enjoying the book. If you're reading Staked for the first time I'd be glad to hear from you as well.

Best,

Jeremy

Forums and a ReVamped Preview

I may have mentioned it already, but with the relaunch of the new League Site, we actually have forums. :) You can check them out: here. I've even posted a preview of ReVamped over in my little corner of the Bat Pack. Here's a link.

Enjoy!

Feel free to hang out, chat, ask questions (obnoxious or otherwise)... and generally have fun.

Kinds Words and Interesting Topics

Colin Harvey was nice enough to review Staked over at Suite101.com and he's given me permission to quote a portion of the review:

"This debut novel is chock full of vampires, werewolves and witches in an imaginary city but the style and characterization set it apart from lesser competitors."

- Colin Harvey, Suite101.com

If you'd like to read the whole review, you'll have to jump on over here. He has some very kind things to say and he also calls 'em like he sees 'em. Colin takes me to task for an infodump at one point in the novel and he mentions some disatisfaction with Staked's ending, but all in all, I'd call it a good review and he obviously enjoyed the book.

A few days later, he made a very interesting post about "Cliffhangers vs Open Ended Books" which hits so close to the mark its scary on what I intended when I wrote Staked.
{Spoiler Alert: Some (okay almost every single person who has read the book) have interpretted the ending as a cliffhanger. I didn't intend it to be one, but I certainly understand that point of view.}

When I sold Staked, it was a one book deal. I wanted there to be more books about Eric, Tabitha, and Void City (and fortunately that dream comes true in March with the release of ReVamped... though Amazon is already shipping it) but I also wanted it to be able to stand alone if that dream never materialized... which brings me to a question: If you've already read Staked, how did you interpret the ending? Cliffhanger or Not.

I'd be interested to know. :)

Note: If you enjoy Colin's articles, you'll want to check out some of his fiction. I've linked to his website here.

Podcasting with Gail Z. Martin

Gail Z. Martin is the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer series. She also does a podcast called Ghost in the Machine where she talks to other authors about all sorts of things. You can find the episode we did together (we talked about vampires - gee, I wonder why? ::GRIN::) here. And you can find the main podcast page: here.

Guess Who's Coming to Birmingham?

So last year we had a con in Birmingham, AL. It was a first year con with around three thousand attendees (which is pretty much unheard of for a first year con). This year, Birmingham has a new con (ImagiCon) and it's been put together by a bunch of great folks who want to make sure Birmingham has its own convention... which... since I *live* in Birmingham, I am all about, too. :)

They almost skipped a year and launched the con in 2010, but even with the short turnaround, they have some cool people coming:

On the Lit Track: Sherrilyn Kenyon will be back (WOOT!), as will Christina Barber, Alan Gilbreath, M.B. Weston, The Wandering Men (I still need to blog about those guys) and yours truly. Debut authors Jeannie Holmes and Stephanie Osborn will also be there along with short story writer (and aspiring novelist) Shelly Li.

There are other guests on the list and you can find them here or you can just go to http://imagicon.org and check out all the guests and events these guys have planned.

So if you're in Birmingham March 27-29, 2009. Come on by and see us. There will be copies of ReVamped in the dealer's rooom and I might be convinced to read a short story or... even an excerpt from the current draft of book 3.

Who knows?

The Jesus Geeks Podcast talks about Staked

Chris and Cliff over at the Jesus Geeks podcast talk about the controversy that sprang up around Staked, the first novel in my Void City series. I was tempted to provide a link here with the statement:

Jesus Geeks Approve Staked:

"This book is pure entertainment... It was a very good first novel."

Chris Martins, The Jesus Geeks Podcast

That's a bit disingenuous though. Chris did say he enjoyed the book and in fact he did make both of the above statements about Staked, but both Chris (of the Jesus Geeks) and John (of jesusgeek.info) had issues with the book, particularly the sexual content.

If you'd like to hear what they had to say, go take a listen: here.

One of the biggest things I took issue with was John's description of the sex scenes as pornographic. They clearly aren't. I left a few comments via voice mail explaining my position on the sexuality depicted in Staked on the Jesus Geeks comment line and Chris says he'll be playing them in a few weeks on a follow up episode.

I have to say that I truly appreciate Chris and John taking the time to read the book beforing commenting on it. Their comments, even the negative ones, were made in a respectful good-natured manner. Kudos, gentlemen! I appreciate it.

Forums and Free Books and Mario... Oh my!

We have a new look over at the League of Reluctant Adults. The new look comes with new Leaguers, too... like Mario Acevedo, Michele Bardsley, Dakota Cassidy, Molly Harper, Kelly Meding, Richelle Mead, Nicole Peeler, Cherie Priest, Jennifer Rardin, Michelle Rowen, and Jeanne Stein.

As if that wasn't enough, all your favorite Leaguers from way back in last week are still there: Mark Henry, Stacia Kane, Jackie Kessler, Caitlin Kittredge, J. F. Lewis (Hey, that's me!), Anton Strout, and Jaye Wells.

But I said contests didn't I? I'm giving away a signed ARC of ReVamped (or a can of SpaghettiOs... depending on preference). You can comment here to participate.

And there are other contests, too. Like oh... an ARC of Red-headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells.

And did I mention we have forums now? Come on over and check out the new site!

Urban Fantasy Land Readers' Choice Awards

There are only a fews days left in the voting, so be sure to run over here and vote in Urban Fantasy Land's Reader's Choice Awards while there is still time. To vote for your favorite debut author you'll have to leave a comment (and if that's me, great, but if it isn't that's cool, too), but whomever you wish to vote for, make sure to let your vote count. It appears that prizes may be awarded to voters, so who knows, you just might win something for the effort. :)

Cheers,

Jeremy

New League Post

I posted at the League of Reluctant Adults today.

Vampires + Musicals + Barack Obama

http://www.leagueofreluctantadults.com/2009/01/barackula-musical.html

ReVamped Gets PW review

/happy dance

That's not the review, just my reaction to it.

In fact, please pardon me while I bury the lead.

Let me take you back to early 2008 when a soon-to-be-published author, yours truly, was frantic for reviews. I still am. I don't know if that ever goes away, but we're not talking about me now, we're talking about me then, the author who hadn't figured out how Google alerts worked, the author who is waiting for someone, anyone, to say something (again... ANYTHING) about his book.

Picture him, if you can. He wakes up each morning and does a Google search for variations of his own name, the title of his book, and the word "review." Then, in case the search hasn't picked them up, he goes to various review sites that he hopes will review his book and searches and pours and frets. He does the same thing at lunch and when he returns home from works and in the middle of the night...

Lets leave him there fretting. He looks amusing hunched over his laptop at Krystal fighting with their free wireless network, brow furrowed, as he squints through the glare. He's nowhere near as fun to watch once the Library Journal review comes out. He's still obsessive, but the frantic nature of his OCD has lessened.

One of those places I checked every week (if not every day) was Publishers Weekly. So imagine my surprise when this time around, I get this... before I'd even thought to look for it:

"ReVamped J.F. Lewis. Pocket, $15 paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4391-0228-2

Vampire fans who like their blood and gore leavened with humor should enjoy the campy sequel to 2008's Staked. Eric Courtney, strip club owner and operator in Void City, is coming to terms with existence as a ghost vampire after dying in an explosion that totaled his place of business. His former fiancée, Marilyn, tells Eric that his best friend betrayed him, but the demon J'iliol'lth collects her soul before she can explain further. Worse yet, Eric's beloved Mustang somehow gets turned into a vampire. Eric accepts a commission from J'iliol'lth to find the Stone of Aeternem, which enables its holder to raise the dead, in exchange for immortality and the return of Marilyn's soul. The jokes are far from subtle, but Lewis's creativity elevates this above similar outings. (Mar.)"

I'm not sure what the pull quote would be, but I'm tickled pink to have the book favorably reviewed. :)

This is not quite how *I* remember Star Wars...

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.