January 2024 Summary
Jennifer Brozek
While December is usually a month of reflection and planning for the future, January is the month you start to make things happen. That resolution you made? Have you been working towards it? If so, great! If not, there's still time to start. Maybe break up that goal into smaller bits. It's usually easier and you can use that success to fuel you to the next goal.
Speaking of fuel, Jennifer runs on coffee. You can show Jennifer some support by buying her a coffee! Pick up the latest anthologies, Shadowrun books, or dig into some of her great re-releases.
What's up from Jennifer:
Pre-order: February is coming in like a steamroller. I am a busy-busy person. I’m deep into the weeds of Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run, but the first book in the series, Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions is now up for pre-order! The book (digital and physical) will be released on February 15th. Remember, you can get a signed copy!
Award Season: Also, nominations for the Hugos and the Nebulas are open. I am eligible for two categories for your consideration. For novellas - Shadowrun: The Kilimanjaro Run. If you want to read it, contact me. The other that me and Cat Rambo “Jennifer Brozek & Cat Rambo” are eligible for the Short Form Editor Hugo nomination for The Reinvented Detective. I am happy to send that anthology to you for your consideration as well.
Tuckerization: Would you like to be immortalized in a story that will be published in ZNB Presents: Year 3? I am one of the anchor authors this year and this story, tentatively called, “The Necessity of Retribution” is a standalone sequel to my story in Heroic Hearts called, “The Necessity of Pragmatic Magic.” Become a part of the world of Kendrick and the Karen Wilson Chronicles.
Publishing Tip of the Month:
This is one I heard from Seanan McGuire who got it from Charlaine Harris. If you want to up your daily output by 10-20%...draft your stories in Comic Sans. Yep. You read that correctly. It works and it kinda pisses me off that it works. I thought about why this works and I realized that this tip has an unspoken part to it. Draft in Comic Sans, edit in Times New Roman. My working theory is that if you draft in a friendly “not serious” font, your mind is a bit more free to just write and your inner editor will look up and think “oh, they’re just playing, nothing for me to do.” Thus, in the end, my writing tip is: To up your daily output, draft in a “friendly and fun” font (Comic Sans, Palatino, etc.) and when you are done drafting, edit your manuscript in a “serious” font (Times New Roman, Courier, etc.). This change in font will signal a change in the type of work you are doing on your manuscript.
Conventions/Classes
Conventions
2024
Norwescon (March) - Dealers, Panels
Origins Game Fair (June) - Authors Alcove, Panels
Gen Con (August) - Writers Symposium, Workshops
Can-Con (November) - Editor GoH
Classes
Jennifer and the Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writer Classes.
You can find all the information from this one link. Spots and scholarships are available.
http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/faculty-jennifer-brozek/
Project Management for Creatives Feb 11, 9:30 am
Money Management for Creatives March 10, 9:30 am
Bubble & Squeek
Pre-order for Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions is live! I’m so happy with this book! Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions
Exclusive Interview with Jennifer and Cat Rambo by Paul Semel plus Youtube blurb!
Review of The Reinvented Detective from Richard Pearce Moses
Pick up your copy of Red Stars and Shattered Shields, not only does Jennifer has a story in it but it supports a good cause
Want to know more about Jennifer's newest passion project? Take a look at “Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980.”
For more great reads, go support Zombies Need Brains (ZNB) to fund Year Three!
Calling all Buffy RPG fans, check out The Broken Hearts Club and watch this YouTube sneak peek
Recent Releases
Pre-order for Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions is live! I’m so happy with this book!
Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions
FOUR SECRET AUDITIONS…
Fixer BlotterBabe must have exactly the right actors for a production that requires very specialized talent. The actors must not only be skilled, they need to have the right attitude and an ability to adapt to extraordinary circumstances.
A Kiss to Die For: Kintsugi and Sartorial choose love over duty, but their respective families will do everything in their considerable power to stop them from being together.
See How She Runs: Terrapin witnesses a murder and is handed a package destined for some important and lethal people. Now she is running for her life.
Unrepairable: Landon and Liana love vexing megacorps for fun and profit with their Matrix show. Unfortunately, the megacorps always play dirty, and will do whatever’s required to shut them down for good.
The Kilimanjaro Run: Charlotte, Neema, and Elijah embark on an unexpected adventure that turns into a nightmare when they discover nothing is what it seems. They are left with no choice at all when choosing between the abhorrent and the right thing to do.
FOR THE MOST DANGEROUS RUN OF ALL…
Having auditioned thousands, BlotterBabe is out of time. It’s come down to these few teenagers. Either they will save the day or lose it all…
The Reinvented Detective Anthology
The evolution of crime, punishment, and justice in the future.
What happens when time and technology change the definition of crime and punishment? Science fiction often focuses on future technology without considering the society housing it. Social norms may change as tech changes — or not. What will criminals, investigators, judges, and juries look like in a complicated future of clones, uploaded intelligences, artificial brains, or body augmentation? What stories emerge when we acknowledge the possibilities of new laws, new police methods, and the birth of sentient Artificial Intelligence, as well as all the ways they can clash or combine?
Edited by Cat Rambo and Jennifer Brozek.
The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek
An author can live a thousand lives through her work.
She can die a thousand deaths, too.
From 2014 to 2015, Jennifer Brozek wrote an “Author Story Card” for every convention she went to. On one side would be a piece of flash fiction: The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek: [Convention Name Year]. On the other side was a list of her currently available books and a QR code on where to find them. They were free for the taking and were a huge hit.
(A fact that still occasionally disturbs the author.)
With this edition, all of the convention story cards have been gathered up into a single collection, for the first time in ebook format. It debuted in the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium limited-edition ebook bundle to benefit Symposium writers and programs. Now it is available for you to enjoy.
Also included is Jennifer Brozek’s chapbook, Mastication. A chapbook created for Gen Con 2009 in an act born from desperation and a lack of experience because none of her books arrived in time to be sold at the convention.
Never Let Me Omnibus, the Melissa Allen trilogy (re-release)
Never Let Me Sleep. What would you do if you discovered that everyone, in your house, on your street and in your town was dead? Then you discovered you weren’t alone–and whatever was out there was hunting you? Melissa Allen knows. With only a voice on the phone to help her, Melissa must find out what happened, stop it from happening again, and do it before the monsters get her. And that’s just the beginning of her story. Finalist for the Bram Stoker award. This special edition features all three books in Jennifer Brozek’s Melissa Allen series: Never Let Me Sleep, Never Let Me Leave, Never Let Me Die as well as the bonus short story, “Never Let Me Feel.”
Truumeel’s Light / The Tears of Perseus
Welcome to the new frontier…
A colony ship was always a one-way ticket. When sisters Cathalina and Ashling convinced their families to invest in the rights to a mineral-rich world, they knew it would be the end of them. Hard work, low air quality, and the bottomless greed of the corporation backing them would indenture them for generations, and that was enough to make anyone stir crazy. But what if it didn’t have to be that way?
When a strange signal from an uncharted star system catches their eye, the sisters launch their survey vessel one last time. It’s an exciting final adventure, and the risk is real. Finding a world far from the trade routes means danger from pirates, claim jumpers, and the expedition’s corporate sponsors, but it could also mean that instead of setting up an outpost, they could be founding a dynasty.
Written by the Shadow Minion.
Edited and approved by Jennifer.
Thank you for reading.