My Screw Up. Your Benefit.

I'm sure no one here will be surprised to hear that I screwed up.

Again.

When I panicked and dragged myself out of bed last night to draw a winner for the M.H. Mead contest, I thought it was the 4th. You know, the day I was supposed to draw the winner.

Evidently, it was the 3rd.

I know.

They're called calendars. I should really take some time and figure out how they work.

However, Margaret is AWESOME. And she's volunteered to send ebooks to everyone that entered!

Yep, you read that right.

And I have to say, I love this book. So much. Near-future sci-fi at its creepiest best!

So a huge thank you to Margaret and Harry for being freaking amazing.

And for those who benefited from my idiocy...you're welcome.

We Have a New Winner (and a whiner)

Huge apologies to everyone.

I just went to bed and had the horrible thought that I'd forgotten to draw a winner for the awesome, new M.H. Mead book, The Caline Conspiracy. 

I blame the migraine that ate my night and is pulsing angrily in my head.

So without any ado, and minimal whining, we have a winner!

It's Susilien!

Congrats to you!

Margaret will be contacting you shortly. :)
 

Ten (new!) Questions for M.H. Mead

They're baaaaa-aaaaack. They're awesome. And they're giving away their new book!

 
Today on the blog we have a writing duo, Margaret Yang and Harry R. Campion, who write near-future thrillers under the shared pen name M.H. Mead. You may remember that last year, they visited my blog to tell us about their first novel, Fate’s Mirror. Today, they’re back with a brand new book. The Caline Conspiracy takes place in the same world, and shares some of the same characters, although it’s a stand-alone novel.  


And bonus! They're giving away an ebook copy to one lucky commenter! So leave a comment with a valid email address and you'll be entered to win. A winner will be drawn on April 4th at or around 7pm.




1. Will you each tell us a little bit about your new novel?

Harry: It’s about a monster. A horrible monster.
Margaret: What?!
Harry: There’s a teenage boy in it.
Margaret: Oh. Right. Plus genetic engineering, murder, ideal pets, a smart private eye...
Harry: We put a plot in there somewhere too.
Margaret: Well, I  put in two.
Harry: I handcrafted two metaphors and a simile.

Okay, but seriously. Here is the blurb.

PI Aidra Scott is exasperated by her teenage son, worried about her pregnant sister, and flummoxed by her assistant—a computer genius she’s never actually met. She lives in a tiny Detroit condo she can barely afford, and there is no room in her life, or her heart, for a pet. Since the painful loss of her beloved Doberman, she wants nothing to do with any dog, certainly not a genetically engineered dog.

Especially one that might be a killer.

The world is shocked when geneticist Ivan Frithke is murdered and his own caline is the prime suspect. Madeline, like all calines, was genetically engineered to be the ideal pet—smart, gentle, and loyal. How could she kill her master? The widow doesn’t believe it, and hires Aidra to prove Madeline’s innocence.

The case is both public and hopeless, and Aidra knows she shouldn’t take it. Besides, saving this dog won’t bring her dog back. But the more Aidra investigates, the more she becomes convinced an innocent animal is being framed, and murder is just the beginning of the conspiracy.

2. If Calines were available, would you own one – why or why not?

Harry: Heck, no.
Margaret: Heck, yes. Calines are awesome!

3. What was your favorite childhood storybook?

Harry: To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street by Dr Seuss. A book dedicated to exaggeration and lying to one’s parents. What’s not to love?
Margaret: I read and re-read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. She spied on her neighbors and wrote down everything they did. Perfect training for a writer.

4. Buffy, Angel or Firefly?

All of the above, but a double-helping of Firefly with Serenity for dessert.

5. What’s the best book you’ve read lately?

Harry: I’m re-reading Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; still totally captivated.
Margaret: Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi. It’s a book for teenage boys, so I’m way outside its target audience, but it sucked me in.

6. Pirate or ninja?

PIRATE! Did you even have to ask? (See Fate’s Mirror if you need a reason.)

7. Complete this sentence, “Let’s get down to business before...

two o’clock rolls around.”
We live an hour apart from one another, so when we write together, it’s an all-day marathon. We waste a lot of the morning chatting. (It’s part of our process. Don’t judge.) We also drink a stupid amount of coffee. By two in the afternoon, we are giddy with caffeine and everything starts to get ridiculous.

Come to think of it, it’s amazing we finish as many books as we do.

8. What’s your favorite vacation spot?

Harry: My favorite place in the world is Isle Royale National Park. I’ve camped and canoed there numerous times and I love it more each time.
Margaret: I’m crazy about Disney World. It’s supposed to be for kids, but it’s the moms who love it. The service there is almost unreal. I mean, where else do people kiss your ass all day and seem to like it?

9. The zombie apocalypse is practically upon us – which of you is most likely to live and why?

Harry: I am.
Margaret: He is.
Harry: I know how to survive in the wilderness and I collect swords.
Margaret: My brains are delicious.

10. If you could serve under any Star Fleet captain – who would you choose and why?

Captain Picard. Although we do not care for Earl Grey tea, we like our authority figures to have Picard’s cool aplomb. He will never freak out, even when the universe is at an end.

Kind of like this interview is at an end. (Nobody freak out, now!)

Thanks for letting us visit your blog today, Bronwyn! It was great fun.

To find out more about Margaret Yang and Harry R. Campion, visit their website.
You can also find them on facebook. 
Or follow Margaret on Twitter.
And if you don't want to wait for your own awesome copy of The Caline Conspiracy and can't wait another minute, you can skip over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble!

And the winner is...

On Monday, we had a lovely interview with M.H. Mead - who's comprised of Margaret Yang and Harry Campion and they graciously offered to have a contest featuring their new book, Fate's Mirror.

Thanks to Random.org, a winner has been drawn. The lucky reader is...




SOMMER MARSDON!

The Super Shiny M.H. Mead Interview and Contest

A long time ago, in a far away land known as High School, I met the amazingly wonderful Margaret Yang. We've been friends ever since. In a weird twist of fate, I remember Harry from junior high band, but I'm fairly certain he doesn't remember me. It's weird, because I lived all the way across the state at the time - hundreds of miles away from where I met Margaret.

But anyway, I digress. I want to introduce you all to Margaret and Harry. They're the phenomenal writing team that make up M.H. Mead. How phenomenal are they? Let me put it this way - hubby and I rarely read the same book - much less love the same book. But we both loved Fate's Mirror. We're talking mass spectrum appeal, here!

Margaret and Harry have graciously offered to have a blog contest. All you need to do is comment and a random winner will be chosen at 7pm, Friday the 22nd. The winner will receive his or her choice of an e-book or a print book.

So read the interview, check out the blurb and cover art and leave a comment. You don't want to miss this book!

Now, on to the interview...

How did your writing path evolve?

Margaret: It started with an idea. I had a mind-blowing idea for a science fiction novel, but I’d never written any spec fic before. I told the idea to my pal Harry, the spec fic writer....

Harry: I immediately saw how the idea could be turned into a novel. I told Margaret how I would do it if it were my book....

Margaret: and I said, “Are we really going to do this? Are we going to write a novel together?” The idea was at once exhilarating and terrifying.

Harry: I said, “Why not?” which is how I usually approach these things.

Margaret: We’ve been partners ever since. I don’t know why our partnership works so well. It just does.

Harry: Of course you know why it works. It’s because we share a brain.

Besides sharing a brain, you also share a pen name. Why?

We thought about it for years. When we were trying to sell our first novel, we met agents who wouldn’t even look at our stuff unless we submitted it under a single pseudonym. Some readers won’t read novels written by two people, either. It just seemed the easiest and most natural thing to put a single name on the book cover. However, inside the book, our author bio starts out, “M.H. Mead is the pen name of Margaret Yang and Harry R. Campion” right below a photo of the two of us. So it’s an open secret.

Since you co-write your books, can you describe your process?

First, we get together and make a detailed outline. This involves a lot of talking, a lot of laughing, a little bit of shouting, and a smidgen of pouty silence. And pots and pots of coffee. Once the outline is nailed down, we decide who will write what. We tend to choose assignments based on our individual strengths. As we go along, we send one another our chapters and say, “fix this.” That involves a high level of trust and respect for one another. When the rough draft is done, we edit, and edit and edit some more. Collaborative work takes a lot of editing, both for story and for consistency of voice.

What type of research do you do for your books?

The problem with writing near-future science fiction is that the world keeps catching up to you. We have to stay constantly on top of the latest developments. We start with books to get a solid grounding, then move to magazines and finally to our friend the internet for the very latest information.

Tell us about your upcoming releases.

FATE’S MIRROR is the novel that dropped this week. It’s about a super-hacker named Morris Payne who is brilliant in the virtual world and all but useless in the real one. When he becomes the target of an artificial intelligence who wants to kill him, he has to face his worst nightmare—leaving his house.

We also have a novella about Morris called GOOD FENCES. It’s about what happens during a Michigan blizzard when Morris’ neighbors seek shelter in his house. They are pretty much the worst neighbors a reclusive hacker could ever have.

GOOD FENCES is ebook only, while FATE’S MIRROR is available in both ebook and print. Links at our website will tell you more. (www.yangandcampion.com)

And here's the blurb:

Cut off from home and friends, Morris Payne faces a hacker's worst nightmare--an artificial intelligence who wants him dead.

Morris Payne is a viker, an elite hacker who navigates the electronic universe as easily as the rest of us walk down the street. While he's famous in the virtual world, he's anonymous in this one. Agoraphobia, with its uncontrolled panic attacks, has left him housebound and friendless. But someone, somehow, has done the impossible—connected his virtual life to his real life. Now Morris has to brave physical reality to stop a killer who was never supposed to exist.

Created in a secret government lab, escaped into the world-wide network, an artificial intelligence calls herself the Triple Goddess of Fate. She wants freedom, power, and the assurance of her own safety. But mostly she wants Morris Payne dead.

Her creators can't even find the AI, much less defeat her. They think Morris can. No one, no matter how well equipped, has survived a confrontation with Fate, and all Morris has are his legendary hacking skills and a virtual pirate ship loaded with the latest in defensive software.

Morris Payne just might save the world. If only he can gather the courage to leave his house.

What do you like best about being a writer? What do you like least?

The best part is getting to live in our very own world. The worst part is that we have to be so mean to our imaginary friends. Our poor characters have suffered a lot at our hands.

What would you do if you weren’t a writer?

Margaret: I’d be a teacher.

Harry: Hey, I’m already a teacher!

Margaret: So I’d be you.

Harry: Imagine my surprise.

Margaret: What would you be?

Harry: If I weren’t a writer I’d be sad. That’s what I’d be. Very sad.

Do you have any writing rituals? Like times of the day, food quirks, etc?

We live an hour apart from each other, so when we get together, it’s an all-day writing marathon. We drink gallons of strong black coffee, and by about 2 in the afternoon, all that caffeine catches up to us and we start quoting Monty Python lines in bad British accents.

Harry: That should read, “Margaret’s bad British accent.” My British accent is perfect.

Margaret: It’s true. I can’t do accents. Harry is much better at it.

If you could give an aspiring author one piece of advice, what would it be?

Read a lot, write a lot, and never, never, never, never give up.

Where can readers find you?

Our website is www.yangandcampion.com There are links to our published short stories there, many of which you can read for free.

You can also follow Margaret on Twitter (@Margaret_Yang).

Here’s a link to the book trailer for FATE’S MIRROR http://bit.ly/rlkvqh Go check it out!