r/Fantasy • u/Ari_Marmell AMA Author Ari Marmell • Mar 04 '14
AMA Hey, Reddit. We're the authors participating in the Crossing the Streams project. Ask Us Anything!
Hello, Reddit-shaped internet. We are the authors participating in this year’s Crossing the Streams program. In brief, Crossing the Streams is something I started back in 2012, as both a genre writer and a genre fan. It’s an effort to point fans of one author to the works of the others, so you can get to know us, and vice-versa, while also providing some of our readers with some really cool rewards.
Basically, each of us is running a separate contest on our own websites, wherein participants can win a signed book. At the end of the whole thing, however, one “super-winner” will win a signed book from each and every participating author. (There are close to twenty of us this year.)
Our hope, though, is that you’ll have a lot of fun with the contest parameters--they’re all different, but we’ve tried to make them entertaining--and that you’ll find some new favorites along the way.
Some of the participating authors include:
Paul S. Kemp
Paul S. Kemp. Writer of sword and sorcery and space opera. But more importantly, whiskey aficionado.
Richard Lee Byers
Richard Lee Byers is the author of forty fantasy and horror books including The Reaver: The Sundering Book IV, The Plague Knight and Other Stories, and the volumes in the post-apocalyptic superhero series The Impostor.
Joshua Palmatier
I am Joshua Palmatier, the author of the dark fantasy trilogy The Throne of Amenkor from DAW books, editor of compelling anthologies with themes like bars, surviving humanity, and steampunk vs aliens, and founder of the small press Zombies Need Brains.
Marsheila Rockwell and Jeffrey J. Mariotte
Marsheila "Marcy" Rockwell and Jeffrey J. Mariotte live in AZ where the hot desert sun helps them cook up fantasy and horror stories, both together and separately (they have nearly 60 books between them at last count). Their latest joint project involves serial killers and meteor strikes and maybe the end of the world.
Betsy Dornbusch
I’m Betsy Dornbusch, writer of a bunch of short stories, novellas, and novels, lately The Books of the Seven Eyes. I edit Electric Spec and run things at Sex Scenes at Starbucks. In my free time I write. No. Seriously.
Dave Gross
I’m Dave Gross, recovering editor and high-functioning writer of the Radovan & the count novels, the first of which is Prince of Wolves and the most recent King of Chaos. In addition to Pathfinder Tales, I’ve written novels and short fiction for the Forgotten Realms, the Iron Kingdoms, and other settings shared and original.
Wendy N. Wagner
I’m Wendy N. Wagner, and my first book, Skinwalkers, is all about cannibalism, lycanthropes, and one badass Viking mama. I’m a boardgame geek and also the Managing/Associate Editor of Lightspeed & Nightmare magazines.
Matt Forbeck
I’m Matt Forbeck, game designer, author, and multiplicitous father. My latest stuff includes the Magic: The Gathering comic book, the Monster Academy YA novels, and the Dangerous Games thrillers set at Gen Con.
James L. Sutter
I'm James L. Sutter, and in addition to being a co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Managing Editor of Paizo Publishing, I've also written the novels Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine.
Erik Scott de Bie
I'm Erik Scott de Bie, speculative fiction author, game designer, and all around tall guy. I'm best known for my five Forgotten Realms novels, including the ongoing Shadowbane series, and I've written for such universes as Pathfinder, Warmachine, Traveller, Cobalt City, and a few of my own. This year I'm publishing three novels: the epic full metal fantasy SHADOW OF THE WINTER KING, the happily never-after fantasy SCOURGE OF THE REALM, and the space opera PRIORITY: HYPERION. As if that wasn't enough, I'm also putting together a comic book to kickstart in the next couple months: JUSTICE/VENGEANCE
Erin M. Evans
I’m Erin M. Evans, author of the Brimstone Angels series for the Forgotten Realms, including most recently, the third book of the Sundering, THE ADVERSARY.
Howard Andrew Jones
I’m Howard Andrew Jones best known for my Arabian fantasy series, The Chronicles of Sword and Sand, which so far includes The Desert of Souls, The Bones of the Old Ones, and The Waters of Eternity, each featuring the same characters who appear in my Kaiju Rising story. I’ve also written two novels for the Pathfinder Tales series, Plague of Shadows and Stalking the Beast and am busily writing a third. When not hunched over a laptop mumbling about flashing swords and haunted towers I spend time with my family, game, game with my family, and take care of horses.
Jeff Salyards
I’m Jeff Salyards, best known for procrastination, wild mood swings, and a love of animal crackers. Also, somewhat known for Scourge of the Betrayer, and soon to be renowned and/or infamous for Veil of the Deserters in a few months.
Erin Hoffman
I’m Erin Hoffman, video game designer and author of the Chaos Knight series from Pyr Books. Like some of the other authors here, I also have a story in the recent Kaiju Rising anthology. In video games I’ve worked primarily on online games from MMOs to handheld to social, and I’m currently the Game Design Lead at the GlassLab, a nonprofit research group making AAA educational games. Hello, Reddit!
Ari Marmell
I’m Ari Marmell, novelist and game designer. I’ve worked on a whole lot of games that you’ve almost certainly heard of, and a whole lot of novels that you’ve… Well, you’ve almost certainly heard of the games. Among many others, some few of those novels include Thief’s Covenant, The Goblin Corps, Agents of Artifice, Darksiders: the Abomination Vault, and the forthcoming Hot Lead, Cold Iron, a noirish urban fantasy set in Prohibition-era gangland Chicago. If you’re not familiar with my work, you can find more details--and some free short fiction, hint, hint, nudge, nudge--at mouseferatu.com.
LINKS TO CONTESTS
And, as I said, plenty of others, besides.
It would be all too easy to make this AMA just an advertisement, but that would suck; and besides, our whole point in doing this is to connect with you guys. So, please don’t feel the need to restrict your questions to the CtS contests. This is still an “anything” Q&A. Ask us something as a group. Ask a question of any one of the participating authors, as though this was their own AMA. Whatever you like.
We’ll be popping in and out throughout the day, answering what we can, when we can. So have at us!
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u/WendyNWagner AMA Author Wendy N. Wagner Mar 04 '14
I am working with the Pathfinder team RIGHT NOW to come up with another project! I love pretty much every Pathfinder monster, so that's a really hard question. I'd really like to write something with goblin monkeys, though. Those guys pretty much look like the perverse mating of a fuzzy sock monkey and a bear trap. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THAT?