Woohoo – I’m number sixteen in CANADA!!!

Okay – so this is pretty freaking cool. My YA novel, SINKING DEEPER, is #16 on this week’s Quill And Quire bestselling Canadian Children’s Book list. Pretty cool to see my book listed alongside of Robert Munsch and Kenneth Opel!

 

http://tinyurl.com/cthtklt

Within the next couple of days SINKING DEEPER will be available in Kobo and Nook format.

Eventually it will be available in Kindle format.

I’ll keep you posted on the details.

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Meanwhile, my new Christmas release SHOTGUN CHRISTMAS is available in both Kindle and Kobo format.

 

 

SHOTGUN CHRISTMAS is a mini-collection of two short Christmas related stories.

The title story originally appeared in A Maritime Christmas: New Stories and Memories of the Season (Nimbus 2008)

The second story, “Scalping Santa”, has NEVER been published before.

I figure I’m not going to make a HUGE amount of money from this release – but I really wanted to put something out for everybody’s Christmas stocking.

Here’s the opening paragraph.

There is a big old sledding hill not more than two or three good snowballs’ worth of distance from our home, just behind Hank Macabee’s house. That hill was waiting for me and my brand new toboggan. It’s one of those sneak-up kind of hills with a long slow ride down that picks up speed as it goes with a bump-hump at the end that you never see coming.

I didn’t see what was coming next, either.

The Christmas tree crashed through Hank Macabee’s bay window. The tree stand clattered behind it and bounced with a clank on Hank’s half-frozen front lawn. Hank came through the door, shotgun in hand. He wore a Nova Scotia plaid bathrobe and a pair of fuzzy blue Smurf slippers. He pumped and blasted the Christmas tree, shattering the decorations that escaped the initial picture window caber toss.

He continued pumping and blasting until his shotgun ran dry.

You really want to read this yarn to see where it goes next…

 

Available on Kindle      http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AHMO0SO

Available on Kobo      http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Shotgun-Christmas/book-YfvCRY4YeUeQsjPCBlKjbQ/page1.html

 

yours in storytelling

Steve Vernon

Author Style Cooking…

It’s been a hectic morning.

I got up early and made a man’s breakfast for my wife. She’s a dance and fitness instructor and Saturdays are particularly busy.

I chopped up a fat old onion and a couple of leftover potatoes and fried them up nice and crispy. Meanwhile, I grated some cheese into cracked four eggs.

Scooped the potatoes and onions out of the pan.

Drop some bread into the toaster.

Run upstairs with a good cup of coffee and set it on her bedside just as the alarm goes off.

Run downstairs and throw the eggs and cheese into the pan.

Good eating.

Then, after I got home from the groceries I cut up some chicken and sizzled it with a little olive oil, garlic and butter in the bottom of my largest pot. Then I chopped a couple of good red potatoes, a yellow zucchini, an onion, and threw them in on top of the browning chicken. Then I dumped in a bag of baby carrots – which are usually just regular carrots whittled down – and drained a can of chick peas and chucked them. Dumped two cartons of broth on top. Sometimes I like to make my own broth but I was in a hurry today.

Lastly, I let the whole mess sit and simmer – maybe until dinner, maybe until supper – at the lowest possible temperature. I can smell it up here while I type and MAN – it sure smells good.

I call it peasant soup.

I wrote the recipe while I was grocery shopping.

I cook this again it will most likely be different.

But still taste good.

 

Do you see how easy that all sounds – because it is. Hacked up chicken, hacked up vegetables and simmer in a pot. Cooking isn’t all that hard. Take what you have and throw it in a pot.

Writing a blog entry is just that easy as well.

I take what I have and I throw it in a pot.

Right after this I have to get back to working on a manuscript for a YA novel. I’m about 36000 words into what should wind up at about 50000.

How am I doing it?

I’m slicing up what I’ve got…

…and throwing it into a pot to simmer.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Do-Overs and Detours – NOW AVAILABLE IN TRADE PAPERBACK FOR THIRTY PERCENT OFF

 

 

Now available in trade paperback – and on sale now for THIRTY PERCENT OFF!

Detours are amazing creatures. They can shortcut your existence or lead you down a forever long road that will linger far into the distant reaches of eternity. It is these unexpected tangents that people stumble across everyday that haunt in a frightening familiar fashion.

Wander into a laundromat and find a kind of time machine. Indulge yourself in a nasty game of baseball. Hitch a ride on a freight train with the piggyback man, entomb yourself in a trailer walled with books, take a ride on a bus that is going nowhere in particular, or just lean over an empty ocean and wait.

Detour around an overturned trailer of chickens and find a chance to do it all over again. Take a taxi ride with a very hungry passenger or a walk in the park to watch a juggler balance severed heads.

Reality will take you only so far–after that there’s nothing to rely on but faith and fear.

Fifteen stories.

Five of them, never before published.

We’ve come to the edge of the map. Let’s travel on a little further.
Table of Contents

Introduction by Richard Chizmar • Hyperactive Cleaning Power • A Fine Sacrifice • The Takashi Miike Seal of Approval • In The Dark and The Deep • Rolling Stock • Last Stand of The Great Texas Pack Rat • Gin Bottle Heaven • Voodoo Chicken Do-Over • A Prayer For The Clockwork Twister • Under The Skin, Under The Bone • Once More Round The Block • Jugular • A Wriggle of Maggot • Nail Gun Glissando • I Survived The Apocalypse… (only in Deluxe Thirteen edition) • The Tracks We Leave Behind (only in Deluxe Thirteen edition) • The End of the Road

 

“This genre needs new blood and Steve Vernon is quite a transfusion.” - Ed Lee

“Steve Vernon taps the strange fiction vein like no one before” - Hellnotes

“Steve Vernon is one of the finest new talents of horror and dark fiction” - Owl Goingback

“Steve Vernon is a hard writer to pin down – and that’s a good thing.” - Dark Scribe Magazine

“Armed with a bizarre sense of humor, a huge amount of originality, a flair for taking risks and a strong grasp of characterization – Steve’s got the chops for sure.” - Dark Discoveries

 

For more details

http://www.darkregions.com/books/do-overs-and-detours-by-steve-vernon#

 

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

NEW YA NOVEL – FINALLY RELEASED!

Attention, Attention.

…loudly clearing throat…

 

I am very pleased and proud to announce the release of my very first YA novel FIGHTING WORDS.

The e-book was released today as part of the KOBO WRITING LIFE beta test program.

Have a look at the cover!

So what is it about?

FIGHTING WORDS

Max was just a thirteen year old nobody – until the fight.

He didn’t plan the fight. He didn’t even want the fight to happen – but after he stood up to Rodney freaking Hammerhead to protect his sort-of-best-friend Tommy – Max decided that fighting could be a good thing.

People looked up to fighters.

Girls liked fighters.

Now Tommy and Max have decided to create their own personal fight club.

It seemed like a good idea – but what can I tell you?

Sometimes stupid just gets in your eyes.

Please download a copy today.

http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/FIGHTING-WORDS/book-UK8eJY4woUaS5728pKnQ-w/page1.html?s=2KMFhr-f6kqR-3u7tgmGWg&r=3

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon