Tag Archives: corvidae

Books, Corvidae, Published

Corvidae!

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“A creepy, crazy kaleidoscope of corvids, Corvidae is what happens when you bring together ingenious writers and sagacious subjects. It’s nothing short of a thrill ride when this anthology takes flight.”
—Susan G. Friedman, Ph. D., Utah State University; behaviorworks.org

Cover for CORVIDAE. Design by Eileen Wiedbrauk

It’s here! It’s here! Release day for Corvidae is here!

I am so freaking stoked.

Over the next days and weeks you’ll hear plenty from myself and contributors about this anthology, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time today with a big long post, I’m just going to say, it’s here.

You should pick up a copy.

Fer realz.

Then once you’ve read it you should take a peek at Magnus E. Magpie’s cawmentaries, consider leaving a review at the usual suspects (Amazon, Goodreads, etc.), and get ready to read Scarecrow because it’s coming soon too.

No really.

You should.

You won’t regret it 🙂

Available Direct from the Publisher:
World Weaver Press

Or Find it Online:
Amazon
Goodreads
Kobo

Thank you so much for your continued support of Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries. I love creating these anthologies and I wouldn’t be able to do it without readers like you!

Corvidae, Giveaway

Corvidae Pre-Orders & Giveaway

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Well, this is awkward.

It’s not often that you want to combine an ‘Enter to win this thing for free!’ blog post with a ‘Pre-order the exact same thing!’ blog post, and yet a series of unusual circumstances and events have conspired to make it so that is exactly what I’m doing. Weird.

Anywho…

Cover for CORVIDAE. Design by Eileen Wiedbrauk

Corvidae is available for pre-order. Pre-orders are a pretty big deal. If you intend to pick up a copy of Corvidae when it comes out next week, please consider pre-ordering it today. Not only will it make my publisher and me happy, it will mean that you’ll have your copy as soon as it’s available!

Pre-order Corvidae in Kindle, Kobo, (paperback pre-order available only through WWP website).

Amazon Kindle:
(US) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010R2T6TQ
(UK) www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B010R2T6TQ
(CA) http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B010R2T6TQ

Kobo:
(US) https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/corvidae-1
(CA) https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/corvidae-1

Official WWP page / paperback pre-order (US only):
https://www.worldweaverpress.com/corvidae.html

Or if you’re feeling lucky you can enter to win our Goodreads giveaway. Five lucky people will win a paperback copy of Corvidae:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Corvidae by Rhonda Parrish

Corvidae

by Rhonda Parrish

Giveaway ends July 06, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

The timeline on this giveaway is pretty constrained–there are only five (5) days to enter, which might turn out to be a good thing for those of you who do–fewer entries mean better odds of your name being picked.

Whatever you do, pre-order, enter the draw or both, thank you. Your support means a lot to me 🙂

Corvidae, Cover Reveal

Corvidae Cover Reveal

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Cover for CORVIDAE. Design by Eileen Wiedbrauk

I mean, I could have started this post with some text, maybe an explanation about what you were going to see but seriously? Were you going to notice? No. Because as soon as you looked at this page this cover would have captured your attention and once you’ve seen it, what additional explanation is needed? Still, there is protocol to follow… 😉

This is the cover for my latest anthology, coming out July 7th!

Corvidae

Associated with life and death, disease and luck, corvids have long captured mankind’s attention, showing up in mythology as the companions or manifestations of deities, and starring in stories from Aesop to Poe and beyond.

In Corvidae birds are born of blood and pain, trickster ravens live up to their names, magpies take human form, blue jays battle evil forces, and choughs become prisoners of war. These stories will take you to the Great War, research facilities, frozen mountaintops, steam-powered worlds, remote forest homes, and deep into fairy tales. One thing is for certain, after reading this anthology, you’ll never look the same way at the corvid outside your window.

Featuring works by Jane Yolen, Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, M.L.D. Curelas, Tim Deal, Megan Engelhardt, Megan Fennell, Adria Laycraft, Kat Otis, Michael S. Pack, Sara Puls, Michael M. Rader, Mark Rapacz, Angela Slatter, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Leslie Van Zwol.

 

“A creepy, crazy kaleidoscope of corvids, Corvidae is what happens when you bring together ingenious writers and sagacious subjects. It’s nothing short of a thrill ride when this anthology takes flight.”

— Susan G. Friedman, Ph. D., Utah State University; behaviorworks.org.

Pre-orders available now (within the United States) from World Weaver Press or add it to your shelves at Goodreads!

 

Books, Corvidae, Fae, Giveaway, Reviews, Scarecrow

Corvidae ARC Giveaway

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coming-soon-from-wwpIt’s almost time for Corvidae to hit the shelves (July 7th!) and you know what that means, right? It means I get to giveaway an ARC to one lucky person. You could be one of the very first people to get your hot little hands on a copy!

Associated with life and death, disease and luck, corvids have long captured mankind’s attention, showing up in mythology as the companions or manifestations of deities, and starring in stories from Aesop to Poe and beyond.

In Corvidae birds are born of blood and pain, trickster ravens live up to their names, magpies take human form, blue jays battle evil forces, and choughs become prisoners of war. These stories will take you to the Great War, research facilities, frozen mountaintops, steam-powered worlds, remote forest homes, and deep into fairy tales. One thing is for certain, after reading this anthology, you’ll never look the same way at the corvid outside your window.

Featuring works by Jane Yolen, Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, M.L.D. Curelas, Tim Deal, Megan Engelhardt, Megan Fennell, Adria Laycraft, Kat Otis, Michael S. Pack, Sara Puls, Michael M. Rader, Mark Rapacz, Angela Slatter, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Leslie Van Zwol.

It’s super easy to enter to win, too. The Rafflecopter widget below gives you lots of options (some of which you can do every day to maximize your chances to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

But wait! There’s more!

As you may know, Corvidae is book #2 in the series we’re calling “Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries“. That series began with Fae and will continue with Corvidae’s companion anthology, Scarecrow (due out in August).

I’ll be straight with you, Fae could really use some more reviews on Amazon. It’s received great reviews, don’t get me wrong, but they mostly seem to be centered on Goodreads* and whether you love it or hate it, Amazon is the 500lb gorilla in this industry and reviews there have more, well, weight, than reviews on Goodreads.

So, if Fae reaches ten (10) reviews on Amazon** by the time this giveaway ends on June 2nd I will have the Rafflecopter choose a second winner and that winner will receive an ARC of Scarecrow.

If we surpass 10 reviews before June 2nd I will edit this blog post to add some ‘stretch goals’, each of which will look an awful lot like an ARC 😉

*I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the reviews on Goodreads, because I really, truly AM grateful for them. It’s just that now I need to focus on getting some on Amazon as well.
**I only want honest reviews, so if you haven’t read Fae yet, well, now is as good a time as any LOL Or you can just cross your fingers and hope the people who have read it will review it on Amazon 🙂

Helpful links:

Fae on Amazon
Fae on Goodreads
Corvidae on World Weaver Press
Scarecrow on World Weaver Press

If you have any questions just leave a comment or drop me a line at [rhonda] at [jofigure.com]

Corvidae, Press Release, Scarecrow

Corvidae & Scarecrow Press Release

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WWP

Contact:

Elizabeth Wagner

publicity@worldweaverpress.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

“CORVIDAE” & “SCARECROW”

EDITED BY RHONDA PARRISH

 

Alpena, MI (April 30, 2015) – World Weaver Press (Eileen Wiedbrauk, Editor-in-Chief) has announced the anthologies Corvidae and Scarecrow, volumes two and three of Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, will be available in trade paperback and ebook Tuesday, July 7 and Tuesday, August 4, 2015 respectively.

Praise for Fae, Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume 1:

“Seventeen tales… range in feel from horror to upbeat tales about homes where things go right, and are set everywhere from the modern day to mythical fantasy pasts. The best of these stories evoke things from real life – loves and values – and show characters making hard choices that reveal who they are and what they’re made of.”

— Tangent

“Delightfully refreshing! I should have known that editor Parrish (who also edits the cutting edge horror zine, Niteblade) would want to offer something quite unique. I found it difficult to stop reading as one story ended and another began – all fantastic work by gifted writers. Not for the faint of heart, by any means.”

— Marge Simon, multiple Bram Stoker® winner

“There’s no Disney-esque flutter and glitter to be found here — but there are chills and thrills aplenty.”

— Mike Allen, author of Unseaming and editor of Clockwork Phoenix

“Stories of magical beings and the humans they encounter will enthrall and enlighten the reader about both the mundane and the otherworldly. I devoured it.”

— Kate Wolford, editor of Beyond the Glass Slipper, editor and publisher of Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine


Corvidae

Associated with life and death, disease and luck, corvids have long captured mankind’s attention, showing up in mythology as the companions or manifestations of deities, and starring in stories from Aesop to Poe and beyond. In Corvidae birds are born of blood and pain, trickster ravens live up to their names, magpies take human form, blue jays battle evil forces, and choughs become prisoners of war. These stories will take you to the Great War, research facilities, frozen mountaintops, steam-powered worlds, remote forest homes, and deep into fairy tales. One thing is for certain, after reading this anthology, you’ll never look the same way at the corvid outside your window.

Featuring works by Jane Yolen, Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, M.L.D. Curelas, Tim Deal, Megan Engelhardt, Megan Fennell, Adria Laycraft, Kat Otis, Michael S. Pack, Sara Puls, Michael M. Rader, Mark Rapacz, Angela Slatter, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Leslie Van Zwol.

 

Scarecrow

Hay-men, mommets, tattie bogles, kakashi, tao-tao—whether formed of straw or other materials, the tradition of scarecrows is pervasive in farming cultures around the world. The scarecrow serves as decoy, proxy, and effigy—human but not human. We create them in our image and ask them to protect our crops and by extension our very survival, but we refrain from giving them the things a creation might crave—souls, brains, free-will, love. In Scarecrow, fifteen authors of speculative fiction explore what such creatures might do to gain the things they need or, more dangerously, think they want. Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.

Featuring all new work by Jane Yolen, Andrew Bud Adams, Laura Blackwood, Amanda Block, Scott Burtness, Amanda C. Davis, Megan Fennell, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Marzinsky, Craig Pay, Sara Puls, Holly Schofield, Virginia Carraway Stark, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.

Corvidae and Scarecrow will be available in trade paperback and ebook via Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Kobo.com, WorldWeaverPress.com, and other online retailers, and for wholesale through Ingram. You can also find Corvidae and Scarecrow on Goodreads.

Rhonda Parrish is a master procrastinator and nap connoisseur but despite that she somehow manages a full professional life. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for over five years now (which is like 25 years in internet time) and is the editor of the benefit anthology Metastasis, as well as the World Weaver Press anthologies Fae, Scarecrow, and Corvidae. In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been included or is forthcoming in dozens of publications including Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Her website, updated weekly, is at rhondaparrish.com.

World Weaver Press is an independently owned publisher of fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction. We believe in great storytelling.

Publication Date for Corvidae: July 7, 2015 €¢ Fantasy / Horror

Publication Date for Scarecrow: August 4, 2015 €¢ Fantasy / Horror / Science Fiction

Corvidae ISBN: 978-0692430217

Scarecrow ISBN: 978-0692430224

Publicity/Reviews: publicity@worldweaverpress.com

Information:

https://www.worldweaverpress.com/corvidae.html

https://www.worldweaverpress.com/scarecrow.html

# # # # #

worldweaverpress.com

@WorldWeaver_wwp

Corvidae

Corvidae Table of Contents

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Proposed Table of Contents for CORVIDAE


A Murder of Crows by Jane Yolen
Whistles and Trills by Kat Otis
The Valravn by Megan Fennell
A Mischief of Seven by Leslie Van Zwol
Visiting Hours by Michael S. Pack
The Rookery of Sainte-Mere Eglise by Tim Deal
The Cruelest Team Will Win by Mike Allen
What Is Owed by C.S.E. Cooney
Raven No More by Adria Laycraft
The Tell-Tale Heart of Existence by Michael M. Rader
Sanctuary by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Knife Collection, Blood Museum, Birds (Scarecrow Remix) by Sara Puls
Flying the Coop by M. L. D. Curelas
Postcards from the Abyss by Jane Yolen
Bazyli Conjures a Blackbird by Mark Rapacz
Seven for a Secret by Megan Engelhardt
Flight by Angela Slatter

 

You are going to love this book.

(Titles and such are subject to change right up until the day of publication of course)

April PAD, Books, Editing, Goals, Hollow, NaNoWriMo, Niteblade, Personal, Poetry

2015 Goals

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All rights reserved by Rhonda Parrish

I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, because I’m crap at keeping them, but I do enjoy setting goals for the coming year each January. I find them super helpful staying focused and find the accountability which comes from sharing them publicly really helps as well. This year I’m a wee bit late on getting this blog post done, so it may be slightly less chatty than in years past, but without further ado, here are some of my work-related goals for the coming year (and health counts because you can’t work if you’re not at least a certain degree of healthy).

Health

  • Weigh less at the end of the year than I do at the start
  • Run 5k
  • No working on weekends and minimal working on evenings.

Editing / Publishing

  • Publish the final three issues of Niteblade and then close down that aspect of the magazine
  • Complete Corvidae and market it to the best of my ability
  • Complete Scarecrow and market it to the best of my ability
  • Publish B is for Broken and market it to the best of my ability
  • When Shadows is published market it to the best of my ability
  • Have the manuscript for C is for… polished and ready for publication
  • Have the manuscript for D is for… polished and ready for publication
  • Come up with a way to set actual concrete goals for promotion.
  • Make progress on sekkrit collab with CJD
  • Open to submissions for Sirens

Writing

  • Write and submit at least one new short story a month*
    • The ‘submit’ part of this is important. I can’t just write a first draft and leave it to moulder indefinitely. The story needs to be ready for submission and, in fact, submitted, within the month to count.
  • Begin querying agents about Hollow
  • Self-publish at least one collection of reprints
  • Complete work on collaborative project with Marge
  • Successfully participate in April Poem-A-Day
    • This means actually writing a poem a day or at least having thirty poems written by the end of the month
  • Participate in NaNoWriMo*
  • Either complete the first draft of a new novel, or revise one of the novel first drafts I’ve already written (this can be completed in conjunction with NaNoWriMo or separate from it)

Reading

  • Read at least 50 books
    • Slush doesn’t count, nor do books by friends I read to critique.
    • Have at least 20% be non-fiction

Misc

  • Create a website at poiseandpen.com
  • Attend When Words Collide and Pure Spec
  • Blog at least once a week
  • When someone visits this blog and leaves a comment — reciprocate.

Kobo

As of New Year’s Eve of 2014 I’d sold a total of one book via Kobo**. One. For a whopping $0.45 in royalties. One of my goals in 2015 is to improve that. I don’t have a super firm goal in mind but it shouldn’t be too difficult to top one sale and less than fifty cents in royalties, right?

I’ll probably tweak this list as the year goes on, but for now I think it’s a very good jumping-off point 🙂

*under this name or as a pen name project. Either counts.
**this doesn’t count books I didn’t self-publish like Fae, Metastasis etc.

Corvidae, Scarecrow

Corvidae & Scarecrow Update

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pcardYou know what the last couple months have taught me? Editing two anthologies which are meant to be companions for one another is not twice as much work as editing one anthology. It is exponentially more work.

Truly.

That’s not meant to imply that it’s been a chore, not even close. But it has been more difficult and time-consuming than I had anticipated. And that, right there, is the only excuse you’ll hear from me about why it’s taking me longer than usual to respond to submissions.

It is taking me longer than usual, and I apologize for that but I am working on it, I promise.

Acceptances for CORVIDAE have begun to trickle out. Only a few so far, but there are more to come so if you haven’t heard from me one way or the other, please don’t panic**. Also, if you’ve submitted to both CORVIDAE and SCARECROW, you may have to wait a little longer than those who only submitted to one or the other because I often prefer to respond to both submissions at the same time. I know that doesn’t really seem fair, but try not to hold it against me too much.

Acceptances have not yet begun to go out for SCARECROW submissions, but they will soon. We’re just finalizing a couple of things in the background and then the mail will begin to flow.

In the meantime, I have some fun stats… for people who find this sort of thing fun LOL I may blog about these in a bit more detail in the future, but for now, just some numbers. Let’s call them ‘approximate’ numbers because there’s no reason to believe I didn’t make a mistake at some point.

Corvidae Submission Stats:

Submissions: 135
Rejected: 108
Shortlisted: 26
Withdrawn: 1
Rewrite requests made: 2
Number of stories with no corvids*: 9
Number of stories submitted to me more than once: 3

Scarecrow Submission Stats:

Submissions: 100
Rejected: 77
Shortlisted: 21
Withdrawn: 2
Rewrite requests made: 1
Number of stories with no scarecrows*: 2
Re-tellings of Feathertop: 2

 

And lastly, an exciting announcement:

 

The incomparable Magnus E. Magpie (also known as YEGMagpie) has agreed to read both SCARECROW and CORVIDAE and offer a corvid’s perspective as a tweet-sized commentary to every story. I can’t wait to see what Magnus (who has even run for mayor) will have to say about these stories! 🙂

 

 

*literal or otherwise, as best as I could tell
**though, if you’re worried about your submission, by all means, query.

A is for Apocalypse, Aphanasian Stories, Books, Corvidae, Fae, Interview, Lost and Found, Scarecrow, Shadows, Sirens, Sister Margaret, Stream of Consciousness

All. The. Things.

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When I looked at the list of things I wanted to signal boost this week I actually felt a little dizzy. “How the hell am I going to fit Twitter, Facebook and blog posts for all those things in without sounding like a social media spam-bot?” I wondered.

Then I got smart and decided to just put all the things into one big blog post. Yay!

Firstly, check out this character portrait:

Bayne -- Artwork by Danica Parrish

This is Bayne.

He’s a half-incubus swordsman who figures prominently in many of the stories I’ve written set in Aphanasia (Sister Margaret, Lost and Found and the forthcoming Shadows — which is subject to re-naming LoL).

Bayne is also the character I will be playing with at the Character Death Matches at Pure Spec next month and he’s also the only character from those stories who hasn’t been on a book cover… so didn’t have a portrait.

My daughter, Danica, felt bad for me as she watched me struggle to find a stock image I could crop, Photoshop or otherwise fake to fit my character and she drew this portrait for me 🙂 He looks a little younger in this than he is in the stories I’ve written about him thus far… but I’m taking this as a sign that perhaps I ought to write some stories about a younger Bayne… someday.

Anyway, I’m super lucky to have such a talented kid who is willing to draw character portraits for me. Thank you, Danica! He’s awesome and I love it 🙂Aphanasian Stories by Rhonda Parrish

As I mentioned, Bayne features strongly in Aphanasian Stories. If you haven’t read Aphanasian Stories and you like straight-up fantasy, have I got good news for you.

This week I’m participating in #CreepyFreebies. As part of that I am giving away copies of the most recent issue of Niteblade and I’m running a raffle to win a copy of Aphanasian Stories.

However… there’s this t-shirt I wanted (Roots of Remedy) but my Paypal account was a bit short, so I spontaneously decided to put Aphanasian Stories on a super big sale — 70% off (Coupon code: VG96R at Smashwords — click here) to try to top it up a bit*.

That made me feel bad for having Aphanasian Stories as the raffled off item, so I’ll also be throwing in a copy of White Noise for whoever wins. And if you win and you already own a copy of Aphanasian Stories, I’ll give you something else instead. Because.

I’m not just doing CreepyFreebies though. I’m also taking part in #CoffinHop2014 🙂 This is a super fun little system where rather than interviewing one zombie author a day, Julianne instead asks several of us one question each day. The posts are pretty short too, which in today’s world full of constant distractions, seems like a good thing. So far the posts have included:

But wait! There’s more!

White Noise -- Art and cover design by Jonathan ParrishI was interviewed by Virginia from StarkLight Press recently to celebrate the launch of White Noise. It’s not a very long interview, only about six questions worth, but I really think it gives a lot of insight into what’s going on in my skull. If you’re even a little intrigued, it’s a quick read that ought to satisfy some of your curiosity. You can check it out here:

An Interview with Rhonda Parrish | Starklight Press

Annnnnnd there’s only a few days left to get your submissions in for Scarecrow and Corvidae. Our deadline is Halloween, which is my 10 year anniversary so you can bet I won’t be sitting at my computer watching midnight come around so I can officially cut off submissions, BUT if your work isn’t in my inbox by the time I get up on Saturday I won’t be able to consider it.

Related to anthologies, at the World Weaver Press hosted #SFFLunch last week we announced the subject matter for my next WWP anthology:

Sirens

When submissions open (in 2015) I’ll be looking for siren stories to fill its pages 🙂

Lastly, I think. I will be attending World Fantasy Convention next month, as will several of the authors from Fae and A is for Apocalypse. I’ll post another reminder nearly the time, but just as a head’s up, C.S. MacCath will be having a reading where she’ll be reading from her A is for Apocalypse story, N is for… on Thursday afternoon (plus I’ll be reading part of it with her, so be sure to come by to watch me shake in my boots) AND Adria Laycraft will have a reading Saturday evening which will feature her story from Fae, Water Sense.

Whoot!

Unrelated to this post at all, but I have noticed that my website is running slowly these days. I’m in the process of moving domains over to a new host as they come up for renewal so please bear with me until that process is done at which time things should speed up significantly.

 

*Great plan except that the Smashwords quarter comes at the end of December LOL Oops. #brainfart

Corvidae, Scarecrow

Scarecrow and Corvidae Open to Submissions :)

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Common Raven or Northern Raven or Corvus corax vintage engravingHappy Canada Day!

I’m super excited to announce that my anthologies, Scarecrow and Corvidae are now open to submissions 🙂

For Corvidae I’m looking for stories featuring all sorts of corvids. I want your magpies, your jackjaws, crows, jays and more. For Scarecrow then, you’ll be shocked to hear I’m looking for stories about scarecrows 😉 Scarecrows of all types, goofy, scary, mindless, omniscient…

You can see the full guidelines by clicking on either of those links above, or going directly to the publisher’s website –> World Weaver Press Anthology Calls and you can get some inside information about what specifically I’m looking for at the blog post I wrote over there, Pre-Submission Preparation — Are you ready for CORVIDAE and SCARECROW?

I can’t wait to read your stories 🙂