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James Alan Gardner, Writer
Welcome to my somewhat refurbished web page. It's still not fancy, but it now has a semblance of graphic design, not to mention navigability.
At Long Last, E-Books
I'm very happy to announce that E-Reads has produced digital versions of my books:
Audiobooks Now Available
My novels are now available as audiobooks from audible.com! Here are the links:
YouTube Review of Expendable
A big thank you to Captain Mike for YouTube reviews of all my books:
Stranded!
Recently released: I have a novella titled "A Host of Leeches" in Stranded from Belle Books. Here's the cover:
Pea Green Boat Interview
There's an interview with me in the Ascend issue of Pea Green Boat. It's a cool webzine, and a big thank you to them for thinking of me.
Another New Short Story
I have a short story called A Clean Sweep with All the Trimmings on tor.com. Go read it!
New Short Story
I have a short story called Three Damnations: A Fugue in the September issue of Fantasy Magazine. Check it out!
E-Books
Some people have noticed that my books are no longer available as e-books. The reason is that Harper-Collins have no longer have the rights to any of my books, so the e-books have been withdrawn. This is actually good news—it means that the rights have reverted to me and I can peddle the books elsewhere for republication. In particular, I'm talking with a number of e-book publishers, and hope to have a deal in the near future. Yay!
Okay, I'm on Twitter
Traumatic to decide on a Twitter ID when "jagardner" is already taken...but I'm now jamesagard, and we'll all see how regularly I can tweet. Follow, follow, follow...
The Skill List Project
Although I'm generally disinclined to blog, I'm sticking my toe in the water over on the SF Novelists site. Specifically, I've started the Skill List Project: an attempt at listing all of the skills that are actually involved in being a professional SF writer, plus advice on improving those skills. Here are the current installments:
- Introducing the Project
- Vocabulary
- Learning to Love Grammar
- Punctuation and Its Discontents
- Reading Voraciously
- Reading Judiciously
- Reading Analytically
- Viewpoint and Story Experience
- Viewpoint Selectivity
- Avoiding Viewpoint Mistakes
- The Raconteur Viewpoint
- Plot Units
- Starting to Plot
- Plot Flow
- Scene Design
- Scene Beginnings and Endings
- Writing Descriptive Passages
- Word Choice and Wordspace
- Fight Scene Basics
- Fight Scene Pacing
- Dialogue Preliminaries
- Dialogue Purpose
- Dialogue Attribution
- Characterization Skills and Sources
- Characterization Tools
- Characterization Motivation
- Theme
- Symbolism Preliminaries
- Imagery
- World-Building Preliminaries
- World-Building Specifics
- Exposition Preliminaries
Will there be more Festina/League of Peoples books?
I get asked this question a lot. I wish I could answer it.
I no longer have a contract with Harper-Collins, the publisher that has the rights to the existing League books. It isn't likely that another publisher would want to handle new books in the series, given that they don't have the rights to the books that already exist. Never say never, but the odds aren't good for Festina to fly again.
On the other hand, I'm still writing. I'm working on novels that I really like, and that I hope will find a home in the near future. The publishing industry is going through dire times (how many industries aren't going through dire times?) but I'm determined to have more books on the shelves sooner or later.
Fingers crossed, let's hope it's sooner. Watch here for news.