{"id":228,"date":"2015-01-15T00:06:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T00:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/?p=228"},"modified":"2015-01-15T00:06:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T00:06:10","slug":"guest-post-misty-massey-and-the-weird-wild-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/?p=228","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Misty Massey and the Weird Wild West"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howdy All, Today I’m turning my blog over to author\/editor Misty Massey to talk about her upcoming anthology of weird westerns (Westerns crossed with elements of science fiction and fantasy, i.e.\u00a0Pantheon<\/em> by Yours Truly). I met Misty (along with anthology contributer Gail Z. Martin)\u00a0at AtomaCon a couple of months ago, and had a great time hearing about this project. Check out their Kickstarter, and if you’re interested, consider supporting the book– they’re getting very close to their funding goal! With no further ado, here’s Misty:<\/p>\n

The Weird Wild West Needs Settlers!<\/span><\/em>

My name is Misty Massey, and until last summer, I was a writer of fantastic fiction and author of Mad Kestrel (pirates and magic and adventure\u2026oh my!) I say \u2018until last summer\u2019 because that was when things became slightly more crazy and exciting in my world and I agreed to be an editor.<\/span>

I was a guest at Congregate, and I had just finished a rousing session of Live Action Slush. I was in the hallway chatting with my co-conspirators Emily Leverett and Margaret McGraw when the subject of publishing an anthology of weird western stories came up. We all thought it sounded like great fun, so we started approaching authors we believed would add to the thrill of such a project. Nearly all of them said \u201cYes!\u201d (okay, a couple were squealing with excitement, but I\u2019m not going to try to spell that sound for you!) so we started querying publishers. Danielle Ackley-McPhail of eSpec Books snapped us up, and before we knew it, we were running a Kickstarter to fund the project.<\/span>

What is weird west? It\u2019s fantasy or science fiction set in the world (or the aesthetic) of the American western frontier. Movies like High Plains Drifter and Cowboys and Aliens for example, and television shows like the Star Trek episode \u201cSpectre of the Gun\u201d, and Firefly and The Wild Wild West. Print examples include R S Belcher\u2019s The Six Gun Tarot, Steven King\u2019s Dark Tower saga and Melissa Marr\u2019s The Arrivals. It\u2019s the idea of people living on the edge of civilization, where the magic hasn\u2019t died out yet, where the inventors are free to indulge their imaginations in bizarre directions.<\/span>

I\u2019m here today is to talk about our Kickstarter. The book will be called The Weird Wild West, and it will feature stories by R S Belcher, Tonia Brown, Diana Pharaoh Francis, John Hartness, Jonathan Maberry, Gail Martin, James Tuck and me! If we manage to reach our stretch goals, we\u2019ll add stories by Robert Waters and David Sherman. But that\u2019s not all \u2013 we want to open four spaces for you to submit your own stories! That\u2019s right, we\u2019d like to see people we\u2019ve never met before sharing our little town of the weird!<\/span>

But the only way that can happen is with your help. We\u2019re working toward our funding goal, and we\u2019d love for you to be a part of that. As all frontier towns did, our project needs settlers \u2013 you!<\/span>

Take a look at the project page and explore the pledge levels. For as little as $10, you can get your very own copy of this great book, and there are higher pledge levels which offer some truly neat things \u2013 have a character named for you, have a character named for your pet, get a professional critique of your manuscript or even a signed advance copy of Neil Gaiman\u2019s \u201cStardust\u201d.<\/span>

So wander through our dusty streets, and if you like what you see, toss a little support our way. We\u2019d be glad to pour you a shot of entertaining stories!<\/span>

https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/dackley-mcphail\/tales-of-the-weird-wild-west<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Howdy All, Today I’m turning my blog over to author\/editor Misty Massey to talk about her upcoming anthology of weird westerns (Westerns crossed with elements of science fiction and fantasy, i.e.\u00a0Pantheon by Yours Truly). I met Misty (along with anthology contributer Gail Z. Martin)\u00a0at AtomaCon a couple of months ago, and had a great time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}