Posted on

Story spotlight: “The Body Plot” by Rebecca M. Senese

Called to a crime scene, Detective Maeve Hemlock identifies the body as a faerie.

A faerie dead in the normal world.

No identification. No obvious cause of death.

As a faerie herself, Maeve feels obligated to investigate.

But that means crossing back into the Nether Realm. The one thing she hates. All because of a dead faerie.

Visit the strange world of Crossroad City, where magic and the normal world collide. And where detective Maeve Hemlock and the Spells and Misdemeanours Bureau struggle to keep the law and the magic in check to save all.
 
“The Body Plot” is in The Faerie Summer bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Rebecca lives in Toronto, Canada where she survives the frigid blasts of winter and boiling steams of summer by weaving words of horror, mystery and science fiction. Garnering an Honorable Mention in “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” and nominated for numerous Aurora Awards, her work has appeared in Fiction River, Tesseracts, Ride the Moon, TransVersions, Deadbolt Magazine, On Spec, The Vampire’s Crypt, Storyteller, Reflection’s Edge, Future Syndicate and Into the Darkness, among others.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “Chains” by T. Thorn Coyle

Clara just wanted to bake bread, read her tarot cards, and find a girlfriend.

And then the candles started doing something weird…The flames were each two inches high, and wavering. Like something was moving in the room.

And it wasn’t her.

“Read for me.”

“Who are you?” Clara asked.

The candles wavered once more.
 
 
“Chains” is in the Haunted bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

A salty-tongued, tattooed mystic, Thorn is the author of the nine book Witches of Portland series, the alt-history urban fantasy series The Panther Chronicles, the novel Like Water, and two short story collections. The Witches of Portland series will be out in Spring, 2018. She has also written multiple non-fiction books including Sigil Magic for Writers, Artists & Other Creatives, Kissing the Limitless, and Crafting a Daily Practice. Thorn’s work appears in many anthologies, magazines, and collections.

She has taught magical practice in nine countries, on four continents, and in twenty-five states. Her other occupations have been numerous, and include working four years each on the Pacific Stock Options exchange (as a young Anarchist punk with a blue, flat-top Mohawk), in a woman-run peep show, and full time in the San Francisco soup kitchen she ended up volunteering at for twenty years. All of this, along with her activism, informs her fiction.

An interloper to the Pacific Northwest, Thorn joyfully stalks city streets, writes in cafes, and talks to crows, squirrels, and trees.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “All Hallow’s Hangover” by Annie Reed


Teddy woke up the day after Halloween with the mother of all hangovers. The kind that comes complete with wagging tail and a lack of opposable thumbs.

Tabby owns a magic shop that carries just what Teddy needs, but Tabby’s dealing with her own brand of post-holiday hangover. The last thing she wants in her life is another complication.

Even if this particular complication has the cutest grin and the most soulful brown eyes she’s ever seen.
 

“All Hallow’s Hangover” is in the Witches’ Brew bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Annie divides her time between writing short fiction (her first love) and novels in whatever genre strikes her fancy. Her most popular fantasy stories, including her Diz and Dee fantasy detective stories, are set in a fictional version of Seattle called Moretown Bay. She has two mystery series: the Abby Maxon mysteries featuring Reno private detective and single mom Abby Maxon, and the Jill Jordan mysteries about rural Nevada Sheriff Jill Jordan.

Annie’s background is as diverse as her writing. She’s been in a rock band, worked as a radio DJ, and taught tole painting. These days when she’s not writing, Annie spends her time in a law office working for a busy litigation attorney. She lives in Northern Nevada, and together with her husband and daughter, she shares her house with a number of high-maintenance cats. (Aren’t all authors required to be owned by cats?) A friend to backyard bunnies and kamikaze quail, Annie would probably befriend dogs, too, except they’d chase the rabbits.

Find the Author

Website | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “The Girl with the Candy Cane Legs” by Louisa Swann


Three months ago, the gates to the Otherside failed, flooding the normal world with creatures both supernatural, demonic, and just plain weird.

Diane Swift, a bicycle cop with thighs of iron, calves of steel, and the ability to see the strange monsters infiltrating her world, keeps the beaches and her city safe from scumbags. Then someone steals her patrol bike along with a bag of fossilized fairies.

And Diane ends up patrolling the beach with a partner straight out of a lunatic’s nightmare.

“The Girl with the Candy Cane Legs” is in the Fantasy in the City bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Growing up in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada mountains, surrounded by deer and beaver, muskrat and bear, Louisa Swann found ample fodder for her equally wild imagination. As an adult, she interweaves her experiences with that imagination, creating tales of fantasy and science fiction, mystery and thrillers, steampunk and historical fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction River anthologies, including Reader’s Choice; Mercedes Lackey’s Elementary Magic and Valdemar anthologies; and Esther Friesner’s Chicks and Balances. Novels include light-hearted mysteries (It Ain’t No Bull, The Trouble with Bulldogs) and her new steampunk/weird west series, Abby Crumb and Myrtle Creek (with Brandon Swann).

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

How-to: Watch and/or search for U.S. trademark registrations

What is a trademark?

From the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s FAQ:

Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by others and indicate the source of the goods. Trademarks, unlike patents, can be renewed forever as long as they are being used in commerce.

Whether or not you should file a trademark is up to you and your attorney. This post merely provides information on how to find out what trademarks have been applied for or granted.
 
 
How to search existing trademarks and trademark applications

Go to the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), click on ‘Search Trademarks’, and search for a specific word/phrase/design mark.
 

Detailed instructions on how to interpret the results are on the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) Help page.
 
 
How to keep an eye on fiction-related trademark applications

Follow CockyBot ™ on Twitter. CockyBot tweets information about recent fiction-related applications in the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s database. In addition to listing the text that someone has applied to trademark, CockyBot provides links to check on the status of the application, documentation about the application, and a URL to an Amazon search for that text.

More details about exactly what CockyBot does, as well as a number of useful links related to trademarks and the U.S. trademark process, can be found at cockybot.com.
 
 
References

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “Vale of Semūin” by Eric Kent Edstrom


 
 
 Mountaineer and hunter, Wenton Sigh, stumbles upon a lost girl seeking her mother.  
 
But when he discovers her mother is the legendary water spirit Semūin, he becomes embroiled in the schemes of the gods.
 
 
 
 
 
“Vale of Semūin” is in the Beneath the Waves collection. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the collection’s Facebook page.
 

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Eric is the author of the science fiction and fantasy series The Undermountain Saga and The Scion Chronicles. He lives in Wisconsin with his family.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “Proof of Devotion” by Dayle A. Dermatis


 
If Claire can’t prove Jason loves her, a faerie curse will rip them apart forever. But how do you prove someone’s devoted to you?

Short story “Proof of Devotion” cleverly blends fantasy and romance in the magical Welsh countryside and proves why bestselling author Dayle A. Dermatis has been called one of the best writers working today.
 
 
 
 
 
“Proof of Devotion” is in The Faerie Summer bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Called “one of the best writers working today” by bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith, Dayle A. Dermatis is the author or coauthor of seven novels and more than a hundred short stories in multiple genres, including the first seven Uncollected Anthology anthologies and the forthcoming urban fantasy novel Ghosted. She is a founding member of the Uncollected Anthology project.

A recent transplant to the wild greenscapes of the Pacific Northwest, in her spare time she follows Styx around the country and travels the world, which inspires her writing.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “The Pizza Man” by Mark Leslie


 
 
 
A group of students who just moved into a residential house keep getting pizza deliveries that they never ordered.

Is it a strange prank, or is there something more to the mysterious man who keeps showing up at their door?
 
 
 
 
 
“The Pizza Man” is in the Haunted bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Mark Leslie Lefebvre has been writing since he was thirteen years old and discovered his mother’s Underwood typewriter collecting dust in a closet. He started submitting his work for publication at the age of fifteen and had his first story published in 1992, the same year he graduated from university.

Under the name Mark Leslie, he has published more than a dozen full length books. He pens a series of non-fiction paranormal explorations for Dundurn, Canada’s largest independent publisher. He also writes fiction (typically thrillers and horror) and edits fiction anthologies, most recently as a regular editor for the WMG Publishing Fiction River anthology series.

The very same year, Mark saw his first short story in print he started working in to book industry as a part-time bookseller, and was bitten by the book-selling bug. He has worked in virtually every type of bookstore (independent, chain, large-format, online, academic and digital). He has thrived on innovation, particularly related to digital publishing, and enjoys interacting with the various people who make the book industry so dynamic.

Between 2011 and 2017, Mark worked at the Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations for Kobo where he was the driving force behind the creation of Kobo Writing Life, a free and easy to use author/small-publisher friendly platform designed to publish directly to Kobo’s global catalog in 190 countries. By the end of 2016, Kobo Writing Life established itself as the #1 single source of weekly global unit sales for Kobo and, in primarily English language territories, responsible for 1 in every 4 eBooks sold.

Mark has spoken professionally in the United States and Canada, in the UK and across Europe, specializing in advances in digital publishing and the vast and incredible opportunities that exist for writers and publishers.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “Domestic Magic” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch


 
At a high school for the magical, the most picked-on kid dreams about J. Rutherford Wisenhaur II killing people with a fire spell. She knows her nightmares portend the future, but her domestic magic lacks the power to do most difficult spells.

To make matters worse, no one will believe her.

So, what’s a young, nearly powerless witch to do?
 
 
 
 
“Domestic Magic” is in the Witches’ Brew bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!

Posted on

Story spotlight: “Ghost Case” by Bonnie Elizabeth


After moving her business into the new building owned by Rain McFarland, Meg Barringer wonders if having to combine their businesses is really a deal with the devil.

When Rain leaves for a conference, Meg gets a call about a marketing group. Except she’s not there to market. They’re plagued by a ghost and want her to solve a century old mystery. Meg needs to dig into Whisper’s history in order to find answers. By the time she’s done, she might just miss her new business partner.
 
 
 
“Ghost Case” is in the Fantasy in the City bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

Collections With Stories by This Author

More by the Author

About the Author

Bonnie Elizabeth started writing fiction when she was eight years old. Fortunately that manuscript has long since been lost.

In between a variety of odd jobs, including working as an acupuncturist, Bonnie wrote articles about acupuncture and the business of being an acupuncturist for a variety of acupuncture journals. She also blogged as her cat while transitioning to her real love of fiction writing.

She writes the Whisper series, which begins with Whisper Bound, and has a number of other fantasy, urban fantasy and mystery projects in the works.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Goodreads

   
 

Sign up for the Blackbird Publishing newsletter!