Today we have the Tales of the Children short story “Ruby’s Child,” by Philip Carroll. This episode was produced by Philip and Flying Island Press, with the narration provided by Vivid Muse from the Into the Blender podcast.
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Today we have the Tales of the Children short story “Love and Fire,” by Philippa J. Ballantine
I hope you enjoy the story, check back next week for my next Listener Feedback episode. Please call The Caern Line at 704-315-5884 and ask questions/leave comments.
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I finally got around to adding new feeds to iTunes and Feedburner to give listeners two options:
First, if you are only interested in content pertaining to Tales of the Children (and there will be many episodes released over the next few months), here’s the feed for you:
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And if you want to subscribe to the site’s Master Feed, where you will receive all content:
And on a personal note: the site recently went over 1,000,000 file downloads since I started releasing content in 2006. Thanks to everyone that has been on board since the beginning, and to those that have joined us along the way. The ride has been wonderful, and we’re really just getting started.
Dragon*Con is next weekend. This will be my fifth straight year attending, and the fourth doing panels on the Podcasting track. Here are the panels I will be on, plus a couple of events I’ll be attending. I hope you can come out and join us crazy podcasters in Atlanta!
).As always, it is sure to be a blast. If you are attending, please stop me and say hi (and yes, I’ll have books for sale if you have been waiting to buy it at D*C!!).
Here is the audio from my reading at Balticon 44. Tee Morris joined me for an impromptu audio drama reading of Chapter 13 from Murder at Avedon Hill. If you have not listened to the podcast novel, there aren’t really any big spoilers here. It was fun, we didn’t take it too seriously, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Enjoy!
Promo for The Leviathan Chronicles finale follows the reading.
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Scott Roche, one-time assistant producer of the Murder at Avedon Hill podcast, and others have started up a new e-Zine that will have both e-book and audio components. It’s pretty exciting if you ask me, so go check it out!
Flying Island Press
EMBARGOED UNTIL 7/3/10
Press Contact – Scott Roche
sroche@flyingislandpress.com
(336) 462-9676Enjoy Your Sci-fi and Fantasy How and Where You Want
Beginning July 4th, science fiction and fantasy fans will be given a
new place where they can discover authors and stories they’ll be able
to enjoy wherever they go. Flagship, the new e-zine by publisher
Flying Island Press, will soon be releasing these stories in formats
for the Kindle, the iPad and iPhone, and other electronic readers.Flying Island Press also recognizes the increasing popularity of
podcasts and other forms of audio fiction. So, in addition to the
e-zine, an audio version will be available to listen to on any MP3
player. Stories they release will be available both in text and in
audio, allowing the consumer to choose their preferred version.Zach Ricks, managing editor for Flagship, had this to say. “I wanted
to hearken back to what some have called the Golden Age of Science
Fiction.” It’s his hope that “FlagShip will be a place for
optimistic, entertaining fiction.”Each issue will cost $1.99 for the text version or the audio version
or get both for just $2.99.Issues will be available starting July 4th, 2010 at
http://flyingislandpress.com/flagship
I recorded this a couple of years ago and like to pull it back out for new listeners around July 4th.
On March 23, 1775, at St. John’s Henrico Parish Church in Richmond, Patrick Henry spoke to the House of Burgesses. His speech changed the minds and hearts of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and became a beacon of freedom for all of America.
Happy Independence Day, everyone.
Thank you to Nathan Lowell for his introduction at the beginning of this audio file. Be sure to check out his Golden Age of the Solar Clipper novels over at Podiobooks.com.
The image is a cropped image from Peter F. Rothermel’s “Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses,” from 1851. The photograph of this painting is released on Wikimedia Commons as a public domain work.
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Normally I would record this, but work this week has been crazy and it’s already been almost a month since Balticon ended. So here’s the brain dump. I hope you enjoy it.
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Balticon 44 was simply… glorious.
Thursday:
Drove to Hunt Valley, MD, a little northwest of Baltimore. The trip up can be best summed up in two parts. Part 1 was the 6 hours it took me to drive from Charlotte to I-66 around 30 miles to the west of DC. Part 2 was the 3 hours it took me to drive the last 85 miles. These two parts were broken up nicely by a young bear, probably four or five months old, trying to cross the interstate. I avoided the bear and I believe he made it back to the woods. I could just imagine the other young bears saying “Do it. Do it. You wuss. What are you, a fawn?”
But arrive I did, and after relaxing for a bit in the hotel room, the greatest roomies in the world, Chooch and Viv, arrived. If you listened to the interview I did with them on Into the Blender, you know how much I love these guys. And our friendship only grew stronger through the weekend, even though I snored loud enough for Viv to yell at me to roll over (from the other bed, of course). And since Patrick McLean didn’t arrive until Saturday night, I had a bed to myself for the first two nights (always a bonus).
Friday:
Friday I spent my first hour at a dealer table, trying to sell Murder at Avedon Hill (and other wonderful Dragon Moon Press titles). I would have stayed longer, but I had my reading at 5 pm (I’ll be releasing the audio from the reading soon). 
I figured five people would be there at most, considering Mur Lafferty and Jonathan Maberry had readings at the same time.
But to my wondrous surprise, the room was pretty full–so everything after that was, again, bonus. I was a little worried because I only had my iPad, and all I had was my novel on it (available on the Kindle for $2.39 people! ); I was afraid people might be a little tired of me reading from that, but Tee Morris was in the audience so I pulled him up to the front and read 40 minutes from a chapter that featured Father Jorrus (the vampire hunt). He voiced Father Jorrus and everyone seemed to enjoy the reading.
When I was done I went to the end of Mur’s reading, two rooms down from mine, and she had a full room as well! Podcast Novelists for the win!
Later that evening I was on two “live show” panels. The first was for Geek Radio Daily. Billy Flynn and The Flynstress were there of course, with me and Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit. We talked about the convention, did segments on gaming, new media, and focused on Murder at Avedon Hill, which again, was a bonus. They played the NSFW promo I did for the book release with Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, which got a lot of laughs. Hell, I was happy just sitting between the Flynstress and Rich, listening to his impressions… actually, I was just happy sitting beside the Flynstress. 
I just noticed that they haven’t released the audio from the Live Show. Hope it wasn’t lost like the live show at Dragon*Con last year…
The last event for Saturday was a Live Into the Blender, which is Chooch and Viv’s show. Christiana Ellis and Command Line (Thomas Gideon) were also on the panel. We talked about movies, the ongoing trend of remakes/reboots, and gaming as well. I got to share my story of Patrick McLean trying out Red Dead Redemption at my house, which included him shooting my horse multiple times just for fun.
Saturday:
…was a busy day. I was on an expanded panel that Paulette Jaxton and I did last year called “Herding Cats,” which was about producing a multi-voiced podcast novel/audio drama. 
As expected, I had the most voice actors of any podcast represented on the panel.
Later that evening was Book Launch party for Murder at Avedon Hill. I was proud to share the evening with Nathan Lowell and Patrick McLean. The party room was full, and instead of simply schmoozing with everyone (which was our plan), someone suggested that we read from each other’s books. Nathan and I read from Patrick’s book, Patrick read from Quarter Share, and then Nathan Lowell read the prologue from Murder at Avedon Hill. Hearing one of the great voices of podcast fiction reading my prose was a highlight not only of Balticon but of my short history as a writer. It was a wonderful event, and more than one attendee came up to me on Sunday saying that they thought we should “take our act on the road.” Too bad Nate lives in Colorado, or I’d like to.
My only regret from the launch party? We had a room full of podcasters, and no one recorded the event.
After the launch party we had the New Media costume party, hosted by my roomies Chooch and Viv. It was a lot of fun, and for the first time I spent money and wore a killer costume.
Sunday:
Sunday turned out to be a great day as well. I had the pleasure of interviewing Artist Guest of Honor Howard Tayler, which I released earlier this month. Later that afternoon I was on a panel that turned out to be the most fun of any panel during the convention. It was a music panel called “From Story to Song.” It featured readings from five authors, and songs sung by various filk singers, songs about the author or inspired by fiction from those authors. I got to do a five minute reading in front of around sixty people that had never heard of MaAH:
And then Kim Fortuner sang the “Damn You Holyfield” song:
To say she rocked it doesn’t do her justice. And on top of that the last reader was Convention Guest of Honor Tanya Huff, which made the panel even more special.
Later Sunday night came what has become a yearly event, the live Evo at 11 podcast.
Balticon was wonderful–best convention I’ve ever attended. One of the many reasons for this (which I’ll detail in an upcoming audio update) was the forty-five minutes I got to spend with Howard Tayler. Howard is the creator of the Schlock Mercenary web-comic, a host on the Writing Excuses podcast, and the Artist Guest of Honor at Balticon this year.
We talked about storytelling within the medium of ‘sequential art,’ Writing Excuses, pacing within different mediums, and a little about the talk Howard gave at Balticon on education and on becoming a better creator, no matter the medium.
Thanks to Howard for being patient with someone that obviously had less than a good grasp of web-comic terminology (I referred to panels as boxes throughout the interview ).
Promo at the end of the episode is for Prisoners of the Alliance.
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Are you coming to Balticon? If so, please stop by and see me at one or more of the following events!
Friday, May 28th
Reading – 5 pm – Pimlico Room
Into the Blender Live Show, 11 pm – Chesapeake Suite
Saturday, May 29th
Nanowrimo for Noobs – 3 pm – Chesapeake Suite
Herding Cats – 4 pm – Chesapeake Suite
New Media Author Book Launch event – 8 pm – Chesapeake Suite
Sunday, May 30th
Evo@11 – 10 pm – Chesapeake Suite
In addition to this, I’ll be in the Dealer Room at the Dragon Moon Press table at various times during the weekend.
I held my drawing this evening during a live stream on Stickam. We gave out fifteen prizes to people that supported me and Murder at Avedon Hill this weekend during the Amazon Rush. I wish I could have given everyone a prize, but as it is I believe I spent more on prizes than I will probably make in royalties 
People who purchased a print version, a Kindle version, and/or wrote reviews on Amazon and sent me an email about it were entered. Here are the winners (and what they won), based on numbers called out by my Vanna White in the Chatroom, Mistress Jett!
Rob Stauffer – MaAH Mousepad
Joe Mieczkowski – MaAH Mousepad
Kristin Mayo – Signed copy of Murder at Avedon Hill
Tim Dodge – The Rookie signed by Scott Sigler
Shawn Murphy – POD version of Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps
Beth Case – MaAH Mousepad
Cathy Monblatt – MaAH Mousepad
Cliff Lowe – POD version of Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps
Kevin Crosby – Signed copy of Murder at Avedon Hill
Michell Plested – Samson CH700 Headphones
Paul Fischer – MaAH Mousepad
Scott Roche – MaAH Mousepad
Terri Flynstress – Signed copy of Murder at Avedon Hill
Ed Parrot – Matthew Wayne Selznick prize pack – BMR, The Sovereign Era- Year One, Anyman: The John Smith EP from CD Baby.
Michael Spence – Framed Study, acrylic/water color, the initial painting that was a test for the original POD cover of Murder at Avedon Hill.
A lot of these folks will be at Balticon, so they’ll get their prizes there. The rest will have their prizes sent to them through the mail. Congrats to those that won prizes; you made this weekend an unforgettable one for me, that’s for sure!
I’m doing fun stuff with the kids today (since I was a little busy yesterday ). I’ll be doing the giveaway drawing tonight at 9:30 pm Eastern time. I’ll start up a livestream, so if you want to watch, come on over!
Author, Podcaster, Father - P.G. Holyfield's first novel, Murder at Avedon Hill, was published by Dragon Moon Press in May of 2010. His current podcast is "Tales of the Children," a short story anthology set in his fantasy world, "The Land of Caern."
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