Download or read book Wonderbook written by Jeff VanderMeer and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 867 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now expanded: The definitive visual guide to writing science fiction and fantasy—with exercises, diagrams, essays by superstar authors, and more. From the New York Times-bestselling, Nebula Award-winning author, Wonderbook has become the definitive guide to writing science fiction and fantasy by offering an accessible, example-rich approach that emphasizes the importance of playfulness as well as pragmatism. It also embraces the visual nature of genre culture and employs bold, full-color drawings, maps, renderings, and visualizations to stimulate creative thinking. On top of all that, it features sidebars and essays—most original to the book—from some of the biggest names working in the field today, among them George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Charles Yu, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Karen Joy Fowler. For the fifth anniversary of the original publication, Jeff VanderMeer has added fifty more pages of diagrams, illustrations, and writing exercises, creating the ultimate volume of inspiring advice. “One book that every speculative fiction writer should read to learn about proper worldbuilding.” —Bustle “A treat . . . gorgeous to page through.” —Space.com

Download or read book The All Night Sun written by Diane Zinna and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lonely young woman gets too close to her charismatic female student in this propulsive debut, culminating in a dangerously debauched Midsommar’s Eve. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD • “Memorable and meaningful.”—Claire Messud, New York Times bestselling author of The Burning Girl Lauren Cress teaches writing at a small college outside of Washington, DC. In the classroom, she is poised, smart, and kind, well liked by her students and colleagues. But in her personal life, Lauren is troubled and isolated, still grappling with the sudden death of her parents ten years earlier. She seems to exist at a remove from everyone around her until a new student joins her class: charming, magnetic Siri, who appears to be everything Lauren wishes she could be. They fall headlong into an all-consuming friendship that makes Lauren feel as though she is reclaiming her lost adolescence. When Siri invites her on a trip home to Sweden for the summer, Lauren impulsively accepts, intrigued by how Siri describes it: green, fresh, and new, everything just thawing out. But once there, Lauren finds herself drawn to Siri’s enigmatic, brooding brother, Magnus. Siri is resentful, and Lauren starts to see a new side of her friend: selfish, reckless, self-destructive, even cruel. On their last night together, Lauren accompanies Siri and her friends on a seaside camping trip to celebrate Midsommar’s Eve, a night when no one sleeps, boundaries blur, and under the light of the unsetting sun, things take a dark turn. Ultimately, Lauren must acknowledge the truth of what happened with Siri and come to terms with her own tragic past in this gorgeously written, deeply felt debut about the transformative relationships that often come to us when things feel darkest. Praise for The All-Night Sun “Inventive and luminous . . . ­­­­­Zinna’s intimate debut dazzles with original language, emotional sentience, and Swedish folklore as it plumbs the depths of grief, loss, and friendship . . . Zinna reaches an inspired emotional depth that, as the title signifies, never stops blazing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Download or read book Dark Parties written by Sara Grant and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2011-08-03 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I've lit a fuse and I'm waiting for the explosion. All her life, sixteen-year-old Neva has lived in Homeland, completely cut off from the rest of the world. All her life, she has been told everything beyond is an unlivable wasteland. All this time, the government has fed her nothing but lies. Now, Neva keeps a tattered notebook under her mattress and fills it with the names of The Missing, those who have vanished with no explanation. Now, she and her best friend, Sanna, plan a secret Dark Party to recruit members for their underground rebellion. The group begins to uncover horrifying truths. But can Neva break through the secrecy that has shrouded her whole life? Or will she and her friends become part of The Missing?

Download or read book Get Started in Writing Young Adult Fiction written by Juliet Mushens and published by Teach Yourself. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how to write young adult fiction with imagination and verve. This is an authoritative and engaging introduction to writing young adult fiction for the complete beginner. It will help you understand how the genre works, the big do's and don't's - as well as giving you the inspiration and motivation you actually need to write. Written by a leading literary agent who knows what it takes to make it in this market, this book will give you the advice and tips you need to stand out. An essential book for anyone hoping to emulate the success and addictive qualities that characterize books like The Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars. ABOUT THE SERIES The Teach Yourself Creative Writing series helps aspiring authors tell their story. Covering a range of genres from science fiction and romantic novels, to illustrated children's books and comedy, this series is packed with advice, exercises and tips for unlocking creativity and improving your writing. And because we know how daunting the blank page can be, we set up the Just Write online community at tyjustwrite, for budding authors and successful writers to connect and share.

Download or read book A Number of Stunning Attacks written by Jessi Maceachern and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-19 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A raw and intimate testimony of the spatial and emotional difficulty of facing the self and the other A Number of Stunning Attacks contributes to the ongoing association of fragmented forms and women's writing, yet the insistent repetitions and crystallized imagery produce something more coherent than a fragment and more dynamic than a single whole. Drawing on a line of innovative women's poetics in Canada, these poems recall the radical experiments of Lisa Robertson, Erìn Moure, and Gail Scott. Intoxicated by disorientation, the reader will ask: Which city is this? Which woman is this? Which reader am I?

Download or read book Don t Know Tough written by Eli Cranor and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD WINNER OF THE PETER LOVESEY FIRST CRIME NOVEL CONTEST Friday Night Lights gone dark with Southern Gothic; Eli Cranor delivers a powerful noir that will appeal to fans of Wiley Cash and Megan Abbott. In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension. Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul. Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs.

Download or read book Southern Cross the Dog written by Bill Cheng and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor, Bill Cheng’s Southern Cross the Dog is an epic literary debut in which the bonds between three childhood friends are upended by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. In its aftermath, one young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past. Having lost virtually everything in the fearsome storm—home, family, first love—Robert Chatham embarks on an odyssey that takes him through the deep South, from the desperation of a refugee camp to the fiery and raucous brothel Hotel Beau-Miel and into the Mississippi hinterland, where he joins a crew hired to clear the swamp and build a dam. Along his journey he encounters piano-playing hustlers, ne’er-do-well Klansmen, well-intentioned whores, and a family of fur trappers, the L’Etangs, whose very existence is threatened by the swamp-clearing around them. The L’Etang brothers are fierce and wild but there is something soft about their cousin Frankie, possibly the only woman capable of penetrating Robert’s darkest places and overturning his conviction that he’s marked by the devil. Teeming with language that renders both the savage beauty and complex humanity of our shared past, Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force that heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.

Download or read book Backpacker written by and published by . This book was released on 2001-03 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Backpacker brings the outdoors straight to the reader's doorstep, inspiring and enabling them to go more places and enjoy nature more often. The authority on active adventure, Backpacker is the world's first GPS-enabled magazine, and the only magazine whose editors personally test the hiking trails, camping gear, and survival tips they publish. Backpacker's Editors' Choice Awards, an industry honor recognizing design, feature and product innovation, has become the gold standard against which all other outdoor-industry awards are measured.

Download or read book Puddin written by Julie Murphy and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The irresistible companion to the #1 New York Times bestseller Dumplin’, now a Netflix feature film starring Danielle Macdonald and Jennifer Aniston, and a soundtrack by Dolly Parton! Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a little girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream of being a newscaster—and to kiss the boy she’s crushing on. Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she’s more frenemy than friend. When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing that they might have more in common than they ever imagined. A story about unexpected friendship, romance, and Texas-size girl power, this is another winner from Julie Murphy.

Download or read book Lost in the Beehive written by Michele Young-Stone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of O, The Oprah Magazine’s “Best New Books of Spring” From the author of Above Us Only Sky and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, a touching new novel set in the 1960s about the power of friendship, love, and accepting your past in order to find a future. For nearly her entire life, Gloria Ricci has been followed by bees. They’re there when her mother loses twin children; when she first meets a neighborhood girl named Isabel, who brings out feelings in her that she knows she shouldn’t have; and when her parents, desperate to “help” her, bring her to the Belmont Institute, whose glossy brochures promise healing and peace. She tells no one, but their hum follows her as she struggles to survive against the Institute’s cold and damaging methods, as she meets an outspoken and unapologetic fellow patient named Sheffield Schoeffler, and as they run away, toward the freewheeling and accepting glow of 1960s Greenwich Village, where they create their own kind of family among the artists and wanderers who frequent the jazz bars and side streets. As Gloria tries to outrun her past, experiencing profound love—and loss—and encountering a host of unlikely characters, including her Uncle Eddie, a hard-drinking former boyfriend of her mother’s, to Madame Zelda, a Coney Island fortune teller, and Jacob, the man she eventually marries but whose dark side threatens to bring disaster, the bees remain. It’s only when she needs them most that Gloria discovers why they’re there. Moving from the suburbs of New Jersey to the streets of New York to the swamps of North Carolina and back again, Lost in the Beehive is a poignant novel about the moments that teach us, the places that shape us, and the people who change us.

Download or read book Child of Mine written by Jane Corry and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: YOU TRUSTED HER YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE Every Monday Ellie looks after her 4-year-old grandson Josh. The love she feels for him is different to anything she's experienced before. The only thing that can mar her happiness is her husband's affair. But he swore it was over, and Ellie has decided to be thankful for what she's got. Then one day, while she's looking after Josh, her husband gets a call from that woman. And in a moment of pure rage, Ellie takes her eyes off her grandson. The accident that happens will change Ellie's life forever. Not least when the police discover that her younger brother died in similar circumstances thirty-five years ago... JANE CORRY - THE QUEEN OF THE TWISTY READ: 'Few writers can match Jane Corry in her compelling portrayals of damaged women and their dangerous liaisons' Cara Hunter, author of Close To Home 'Compulsive, edgy and with some fabulous twists that I didn't see coming!' B A Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors 'Beautifully written...The Dead Ex totally hooked me' Peter James 'The Dead Ex is compelling, twisty and utterly gripping. I couldn't put it down' Emma Curtis 'Suspense, thrills and intelligent storytelling. I highly recommend it!' LJ Ross 'A compelling and deftly plotted thriller, with echoes of Apple Tree Yard, The Dead Ex kept me guessing right until the (shocking) end' Nuala Ellwood 'Fans of psychological thrillers will be hooked after the first page' Closer 'Psychological thriller writing at its very best' SD Sykes 'Jane Corry's experiences working with prisoners adds a unique authenticity to this twisty thriller' Emily Elgar 'A powerful and addictive read' Kate Furnivall 'This twisty tale of love and revenge is a compulsive read' Kate Hamer 'I loved The Dead Ex! Full of twists & turns that come together in the most unexpected fashion.' Louise Jensen, author of The Sister Jane Corry takes you to places you'd never want to go and marshals her plot lines expertly - by the time I finished I had twisted blood' T.A Cotterell 'Jane Corry's writing grabs you at the first page and doesn't let go' Sue Fortin 'Jane Corry explores the dark underbelly of the prison...an intricately plotted thriller with a surprising twist' Sanjida Kay 'Jane Corry hooks us from page one' Jane Holland

Download or read book Letters From London written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the same brilliant style and idiosyncratic intelligence that have marked all his novels—and with a bold grasp of intricate political realities—Julian Barnes's ironic glance turns home. Letters from London takes in everything from Lloyd's of London's demise to Maggie's majesty to Salman Rushie's death sentence. Formidably articulate and outrageously funny, Letters from London is international voyeurism at its best—a peek into the British mindset from the vantage point of one of the most erudite and witty British minds.

Download or read book The Noise of Time written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending comes an extraordinary fictional portrait of the relentlessly fascinating Russian musician and composer Dmitri Shostakovich and a stunning meditation on the meaning of art and its place in society. • “Brilliant…. As elegantly constructed as a concerto.” —NPR 1936: Dmitri Shostakovich, just thirty years old, reckons with the first of three conversations with power that will irrevocably shape his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has suddenly denounced the young composer’s latest opera. Certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, shot dead on the spot), Shostakovich reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, his daughter—all of those hanging in the balance of his fate. And though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, he will twice more be swept up by the forces of despotism: coerced into praising the Soviet state at a cultural conference in New York in 1948, and finally bullied into joining the Party in 1960. All the while, he is compelled to constantly weigh the specter of power against the integrity of his music.

Download or read book The Lie That Tells a Truth A Guide to Writing Fiction written by John Dufresne and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-08-17 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the most practical, hard-nosed, generous, direct, and useful guide to writing fiction." —Brad Watson Finally, a truly creative—and hilarious—guide to creative writing, full of encouragement and sound advice. Provocative and reassuring, nurturing and wise, The Lie That Tells a Truth is essential to writers in general, fiction writers in particular, beginning writers, serious writers, and anyone facing a blank page. John Dufresne, teacher and the acclaimed author of Love Warps the Mind a Little and Deep in the Shade of Paradise, demystifies the writing process. Drawing upon the wisdom of literature's great craftsmen, Dufresne's lucid essays and diverse exercises initiate the reader into the tools, processes, and techniques of writing: inventing compelling characters, developing a voice, creating a sense of place, editing your own words. Where do great ideas come from? How do we recognize them? How can language capture them? In his signature comic voice, Dufresne answers these questions and more in chapters such as "Writing Around the Block," "Plottery," and "The Art of Abbreviation." Dufresne demystifies the writing process, showing that while the idea of writing may be overwhelming, the act of writing is simplicity itself.

Download or read book Single Carefree Mellow written by Katherine Heiny and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the commitment-averse women in these eleven sublime laugh-out-loud stories, falling in love is never easy and always inconvenient. “Single, Carefree, Mellow is a lot like the women who populate it: smart and sexy and a little bit ruthless.” —Entertainment Weekly “Something like Cheever mixed with Ephron.” —The New York Times Book Review Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie’s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living above her garage will hear her kids swearing than that he will find out she’s sleeping with her running partner. The women grapple with love amidst everything from unwelcome houseguests to disastrous birthday parties as Katherine Heiny spins a debut that is superbly accomplished and endlessly entertaining.

Download or read book BoneMan s Daughters written by Ted Dekker and published by Center Street. This book was released on 2009-04-14 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They call him BoneMan, a serial killer who's abducted six young women. He's the perfect father looking for the perfect daughter, and when his victims fail to meet his lofty expectations, he kills them by breaking their bones and leaving them to die. Intelligence officer Ryan Evans, on the other hand, has lost all hope of ever being the perfect father. His daughter and wife have written him out of their lives. Everything changes when BoneMan takes Ryan's estranged daughter, Bethany, as his seventh victim. Ryan goes after BoneMan on his own. But the FBI sees it differently. New evidence points to the suspicion that Ryan is BoneMan. Now the hunter is the hunted, and in the end, only one father will stand.

Download or read book The Confessions of Frannie Langton written by Sara Collins and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This breathtaking debut, winner of the Costa First Novel Award, is a murder mystery that travels across the Atlantic and through the darkest channels of history. A brilliant, searing depiction of race, class, and oppression that penetrates the skin and sears the soul, it is the story of a woman of her own making in a world that would see her unmade. All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried at the Old Bailey. The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore. But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn’t know how she came to be covered in the victims’ blood. But she does have a tale to tell: a story of her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist who stretched all bounds of ethics, and the events that brought her into the Benhams’ London home—and into a passionate and forbidden relationship. Though her testimony may seal her conviction, the truth will unmask the perpetrators of crimes far beyond murder and indict the whole of English society itself.