DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

If you're a book blogger, please consider signing up here to host any day of my upcoming blog tour for my multi-award-winning fantasy trilogy, The Dream Rider Saga. The tour will run from Jan 4-11, 2025.

All you'll need to do is share the info for the books, along with possibly excerpts and your own thoughts on the books in a post on your site. The tour is hosted by Silver Dagger Book Tours, and they make it very easy by providing HTML, social media blurbs, and graphics for you.

The tour also includes a giveaway for the books that you can share with your readers (and you are more than welcome to enter to win as well). Also, you'll get perma-linked back on the Silver Dagger site, for new traffic and new followers. Here is some selected praise for the books:

THE HOLLOW BOYS

Winner of the Aurora Award for Best YA Novel

Winner of the juried IAP Award for Best YA Novel

"Thrilling YA fantasy." —BookLife (Editor’s Pick)

"A must-read story for YA fantasy fans." —Blueink Review (★ Starred review)

"Inventive, engaging, and boundless fun." —The Ottawa Review of Books

THE CRYSTAL KEY

Finalist for the Aurora Award for Best YA Novel

"This thrilling superpowered urban fantasy series continues to grip." —BookLife (Editor's Pick)

"This fast-paced story delivers in a big way." —Blueink Review (★ Starred review)

THE LOST EXPEDITION

“A lavishly concocted ride brimming with magic, mystery, and mayhem…  Takeaway: Explosive conclusion to this spectacular fantasy joyride.” — BookLife (Editor's Pick)

Anyone with a blog, Facebook, Bookstagram, Booktok, Booktube platform (or any other notable posting platform) where you can drop a decent sized post are more than welcome to join. Sign up here.

I'm happy to report that my twisted little tale, "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down," is the closing story in the dark fiction anthology Tangle & Fen from Crone Girls Press.

This was the first pure horror story I ever wrote. It was an Aurora finalist in 2002 and was selected for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #13 that same year

A short movie adaptation of the story was done by TinyCore Pictures and toured film festivals in 2010, winning a bunch of awards, which was very cool. You can read more about the movie here.

The story has been reprinted many times, including translations into Galician and French. You can also listen to a wonderful audio adaptation of the story at the always excellent NoSleep Podcast.

Just a reminder to any of you who are new here: I maintain a page of links to free audio versions of many of my stories that have been created over the year's by the many excellent podcast speculative fiction markets out there, like Escape Pod, The NoSleep podcast, Tales to Terrify, Far Fetched Fables, and Star Ship Sofa.

I also include links to a bunch of translated stories in French, Galician, Italian, Spanish, and more.

An easy way to sample my writing. Enjoy!

I have officially deleted my account on that 1-letter social platform FKA Twitter, and have opened up a BlueSky account (along with, it appears, a huge portion of the writing community).

I had a few thousand followers on Twitter, but haven't used the platform much lately, since it stopped being Twitter, if you know what I mean (yeah, you do), so I'm starting from zero on BlueSky and would appreciate a follow if you're there, too. Come by, say hi.

You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/smithwriter.bsky.social.

If you live in the Greater Toronto area, I have two more library appearances coming up:

• Sunday October 27, 2-4pm: Local Author Showcase

Georgina Public Library, 261 Garrett Styles Dr, Keswick, ON

• Saturday, November 2, 1-2:30pm: Indie Author Day

Richmond Hill Public Library, Central Branch, 1 Atkinson Street, Richmond Hill ON L4C 0H5

I'll be doing a short reading at each of these, as well as selling and signing my books. Hope you can attend one of these. It would be great to meet you.

I appeared recently at my local library on their monthly "Author Night," where the writer talks about themselves and their books, gives a short reading, then takes questions. And hopefully, sells some books.

Two dozen people had registered for the event, a very good turnout for one of the smaller branches in the region. However, I walked in to find just eight people in the audience, including four kids, ranging from maybe 10-12 years old, dragged along (I assumed) by their parent due to a babysitting shortage.

So I had an audience of four, not twenty-four. Shrug. It happens. I started, as usual, by asking if anyone was also a writer or wanted to be one.

These events always have a handful of writers or wannabes. Problem is, most beginners are shy to admit it, so I usually have to coax them out. Once one hand goes up, more follow.

But this night, as soon as I asked the question, four hands shot up.

Want to guess who the four were? The four kids. So my assumption had been totally wrong. The kids were my audience.

An audience which was very interested in learning all they could about becoming a writer. I ended up not doing a reading so that they could keep asking questions. We talked about starting with short fiction, how to grab an editor's attention with your opening, where to send your stories, writing routines, and so much more.

It was a fun night where I hopefully helped some young writers chase their dream. I gave them all a copy of my writer's guide, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. And all the kids bought some of my fiction, an advantage of having their parents' credit cards in the room.

PS -- yes, that photo above is the Sunnydale High School Library from Buffy.

I'll be appearing at the Unionville Library as their guest author in their "Books and Reading" series on Thursday, Oct 3 from 7:00-8:00pm.

This is the rescheduled appearance from July, which I had to cancel when I came down with Covid.

I'll be reading from my recent award-winning fantasy trilogy, The Dream Rider Saga, and will be answering questions about writing the series, my books, and writing in general. I'll also be selling and signing copies of my books.

Go here to register for the event and for details on location and directions. I hope to see you there!

The terrific NoSleep Podcast has just completed production on their audio version of my urban fantasy story, "Out of the Light." Like all of their productions, they have done a fantastic job.

Unlike many story podcasts, NoSleep uses multiple voice actors for their productions, a different actor for each speaking character, plus a narrator, along with excellent sound production including sound effects. The result is always a high-quality and immersive experience.

This is the fourth of my stories that NoSleep has adapted, and every production has been excellent. "Out of the Light" was the second story I sold to them, way back in early 2020. I sold two other stories to them since that sale, both of which appeared in 2022.

So why the delay with "Out of the Light"? Well, to give you an idea of the attention they pay to detail, three of the characters are Eastern European (Czech, Polish, Greek). NoSleep wanted to make sure that the character's accents were authentic in the production, which led to the delay as they searched for the appropriate voice actors.

So, yeah, attention to detail.

You can listen to the story here on the NoSleep site. My story starts about the 00:29:30 mark.

Also, if you're interested, this page on my website has links to all the podcast versions of my stories that have been done over the years.

Enjoy!

A reminder that voting for the 2024 Aurora Awards for the best in Canadian speculative fiction closes at midnight on July 13.

Equally important, access to the Voter's Package closes at midnight on July 6 (3 days). The Voter's Package, for the CAD$10 cost of registering to vote, lets you download ALL the nominated works, including:

• 10 novels
• 7 graphic novels
• 5 novelettes
• 5 short stories
• ... and more!

The Auroras are fan-voted awards recognizing the best of Canadian SF & Fantasy published the previous year. Any Canadian citizen or permanent resident may vote for the Auroras.

I am thrilled that this year's ballot includes two of my published works:

• The Crystal Key: The Dream Rider Saga, Book 2 (Best YA Novel)
• "If I Should Fall Behind" (Best Short Story)

I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider voting for me.

If you nominated works earlier this year, then you are already registered to vote. Just go log in to the Aurora Awards site, log in with the same credentials, then go to the Member's Home page and click on the "Vote" link.

If you still need to register to vote, see my earlier blog post that explains how to vote as well as how to download the Voters' Package containing all the nominated works.