N.O.A. Rawle: Through the Eyes of a Stranger

The end of 2016 is here and social media is lamenting a long list of lost icons. I too am mourning a loss; that of my godmother. She was one of the last of the real ladies, full of grace and charm and a wicked temper! A lady who told tales of the mountains and the creatures and fairies that live in them. She supplied many tidbits and trivia which have filled my stories with magic and mystery. Her passing is a huge loss. I have included her in my latest work-in-progress, a new short story currently called Hood Winked, as a character that is not too far removed from reality and guides the heroine through a devil of a difficulty. Let's hope this is published so you can meet her and so that she lives on in print as well as memory. 2016 also saw the passing of the lovely lady whose memories graced the pages of my story Shark Nose and I'm glad this story is dedicated to her so that she will always be remebered there. You can read this story on  Great Jones Street  via your mobile...

First of all, it has been a while since I have written a post that isn't advertising something and to begin with, this may seem yet another one of those posts! I was saving some of the thoughts here for my December post, but I've just had some great news that I want to share. I have had a run of bad luck on the publishing front this year. Two of the companies that I've had stories with went under and that affected my desire to write more than I thought possible. It felt like I had a jinx on me, especially as one of those anthologies was 'What Went Wrong'! But there's nothing like a bit of stiff upper lip to shake me out of the doldrums and I've just sold three stories to Great Jones Street ! What's that you might ask? It's a new short story app and intends to do for short stories what Netflix has done for TV. Sound great right? Looks great too - check out their teaser video . I will give you more details when my stories go live there. Some of yo...

The last in the tenfold series of Fox Pockets 'Reflections' is out! Take a sneak peek inside my dreams and see if you want 'Tickets to Ride'! You can buy your copy from Amazon UK and Amazon US .

READ ALL ABOUT IT! ANTHOLOGY TO DONATE ROYALTIES TO DISASTER FUND!  Amazon US Amazon. UK Barnes & Noble Kobo With today's release of The Den Of Antiquity you can not only entertain yourself, but also make a contribution to a worthy cause . The collaborative opinion when we at the Scribblers' Den decided on a new anthology, was that any money made should go to a charity to be decided closer to the date. As one of our Scribblers' Den members actually lives in Haiti and has first hand experience of the destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew, the collective opinion was that the International Red Cross will receive whatever royalties we earn in order to help people who literally have been left with nothing more than the clothes they stand up in. Watch the video below to see what you will be contributing to if you buy the Den of Antiquities today. READ ALL ABOUT IT! THE SECRETS BEHIND THE STORIES IN THE DEN OF ANTIQUITIES! A den is a snug place to curl up ...

If you are in need of something to flesh out your library, to whet your appetite, then the new zombie anthology from Far Horizons, Forever Hungry is now out! It includes my story 'The Night Before'. Edited by Pete Sutton and Kimberly Nugent. Featuring stories from Eric Krugar, Melanie Waghorne, Tim Jeffreys, Vincent Bivona, Jackie Pitchford, Adam Gaylord, Spencer Carvelho, Scott Woodward, Alex H Leclerc, E.F. Schraeder, Dan Pawley, Jon Charles, Shannon Hollinger, Stephen Blake, Anthony Watson, K. M. Hazel, N.O.A. Rawle, John Kujawski, Sheri White, Sarah, Doebereiner, John A DeMember, Neil John Buchanan, Denorah Walker, Chris MaGrane, Thomas Logan, Liam Hogan, Jared Wright, Pete Aldin, Sean Kavanagh and Lee Glenwright. Click here to buy from Amazon.com  Click here to buy from Amazon.co.uk

I have had a band of virtual friends for a little more than a year now, and this week marked the second anniversary of that group: The Scribblers' Den in the Steampunk Empire . Today we are holding another 24 hour party spanning the world East to West, starting with sunrise in Australia and ending at sundown in Haiti, why not join us and see what you are inspired to create? Last years party gave birth to the idea of The Denizens of Steam anthology through a flash fiction competition we held during the party. This year we are celebrating two years of joyous companionship and to that end I will be revealing the cover our second anthology The Den of Antiquity! This book is bursting with short stories rather than flash fiction and is sculpted rather than being an instinctive creation. But before I reveal the wonderful cover designed by Bryce Raffle, I thought I'd send my roving reporter, Antigone Nix, out into the Steampunk Empire to track dow a few of the members of the Scrib...

My annual retreat to the Pindos mountains is a means of escaping the heat of summer. I do not rest though - mountain houses need work; snow-melt drains must be cleared, ceiling holes filled, brambles cut back. I endure all this as the climate and vegetation at 1200+ meters above sea level in Greece are similar to England, so I feel right at home. My kids also love running wild and experiencing raw nature. They gathered enough early blackberries to make a delicious pie and a pound of jelly, and I collected oregano for the whole year. Blackberry and apple pie . The highlights of this year had to be feeding Marios the fox cub who, with his brother Max, and his sister Maria, scavenged for tidbits around the houses in the settlement, after dark. Watching the meteorite showers from the mountain top and, most significantly for me, finally getting to see the Milky Way! (I've always been in places too light polluted or there's been too much cloud cover!) The squirrels in the roof...

This morning, I decided to take part in Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge on the theme of insomnia that he posted on his Terribleminds blog about a week ago. (Yes, I squandered all that time...) There's nothing like a little horror on a Friday afternoon! I give you: Night’s End By N.O.A. Rawle Alex turned to the left, pulling up her legs before her and tucking her chin onto her knees. Her breathing  rattled in her ears, eyelids scratching her eyes. She could feel the blood coursing through the capillaries, threading routes across her vision. Twisting face down in the sweat soaked pillow, the feathers forever tainted with a stale whiff of iron. She hoped to slip into sleep. 1:34am. The house around her creaked as it always had and out in the garden the greengage trees scraped against each other their fluttering leaves reminiscent of a rushing stream. Somewhere far off, thunder bowled across the mountains like an erratic heart beat. The minute hand t...

I have an electronic copy of Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong? , which includes my steampunk story 'Balancing Act', to give away! All you have to do to be the lucky winner is tell me a funny story (real or imaginary) about a time that something went wrong for you. Srictly one entry per person. Leave the tale in the comments below, along with your email address (prize cannot be awarded if you don't add this). State the format you prefer: epub, mobi Kindle or PDF. Comment  before June 10th 2016 (Midnight 9/6/16 in Greece, is cut off time). The winner will be notified by email.

Peculiar goings-on after authors participate in Lit Select's Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong anthology. Strange reports have been coming in that contributors to Lit Select's Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong anthology didn't know what they were getting themselves into when their work was accepted for the anthology. Time Out for Teachers Our correspondent from Northern California reveals that middle school teacher and writer, Jan Flynn, has developed an alarming disability. "I began having trouble with my right thumb," she confessed earlier this week. "At first, I thought it was a minor complaint due to the sheer weight of marking and writing I have to do." But when she developed an odd, hard lump near the distal knuckle, she knew things were not quite right. "It tingles with pain when I type on my keyboard; when I write in longhand, it obliges me to adopt an odd, claw-like grip on the pen in order to write at all." she says. ...

Today I am pleased to introduce Jan Flynn the author of "Itself" the opening story in the forthcoming "Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong" anthology from Lit Select. Things go wrong. Just when you’ve got your head above water, right when the bills are paid and the car is fixed and your pay increase is approved, just when you have some breathing room and think maybe it’s finally time to plan that vacation or fix up the bathroom . . . it all goes to hell. Your company gets acquired by a conglomerate that offloads your entire division on Friday afternoon. Your daughter calls from college to announce she’s changing her major and is will need at least another year to complete her degree. Your dog swallows a tennis ball and requires emergency surgery. Why is this happening to you? The random nature of misfortune is maddening, isn’t it? Ah, but when the poop is hitting someone else’s fan, especially if it’s someone you don’t like, and most especially if it’s som...

I'm proud to say that the honour of the cover reveal for Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong? the awesome new anthology from Lit Select , has been given to me! What will you find inside, you ask me? I can guarantee you 15 fantastic stories of plans gone awry. 15 awesome authors interpretations of a REALLY bad day! Don't believe me? Inside the gorgeous cover, you will find work from Jan Flynn , Bryan Nickelberry , Holly Riordan , Matthew Harrison , Dan Szczesny , Ben Howells , Gregory Norris , Larry Lefkowitz, Jonathan Shipley , Ed Ahern , Eric J. Guinard , Charles Gramlich , TS Alan , T.R. North and N.O.A. Rawle . Not intrigued enough yet? Here's an excerpt from my contribution, 'Balancing Act' : “Gentlemen! Just starting out on the rocky road to marriage? Want the kinks in your future smoothed out before you start?” The spindly gentleman tugged on his fine moustache for dramatic effect, “Ladies! Want to know that you and your partner will share equal footi...

Beth Cato talks about Characters, Cooking and of course, her latest Clockwork Dagger off-shoot, The Final Flight.   It is my very great pleasure to interview Beth Cato about the last story in The Clockwork Dagger series, The Final Flight  and what lies beyond this. Her first novel, The Clockwork Dagger is a 2015 Locus Award finalist for First Novel, The Clockwork Crown was released from Harper Voyager last year along with a novella, The Deepest Poison and Nebula nominated novella  Wings of Sorrow and Bone. First of all, tell us a little bit about the last story in the Clockwork Dagger series, ‘The Final Flight’. This story follows a minor character from the first book in my series. Captain Hue of the airship Argus had a hard time of it in The Clockwork Dagger, but now things are even worse: his ship has been commandeered by a Clockwork Dagger and Caskentian soldiers as part of some sort of covert mission. Hue's teenage son is aboard,...

It's April and my attention has been absorbed by my day job, but my writing is still bouncing along, despite being a little late with the last chapter of Close Call . Sadly, you might have to wait a while longer for that. However, I am pleased that my Steampunk story 'Balancing Act' has been accepted by Lit Select for their 'Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong?' anthology. I am super thrilled about this because I used what I learnt in a copy writing course a year or so ago and still ended up with a story! It's about a wily salesman, a magic machine and love. Don't be thinking it's a romance or anything, mind you. It's a cautionary tale of greed and just deserts! The anthology is due out in May sometime. I will of course let you know. My other wonderful news is that I have interviewed one of my all-time favourite authors. You can see the results of that next weekend, I'll post it to coincide with her latest book launch. Now who might I be tal...

Far Horizons Press have launched their Indiegogo campaign for Forever Hungry in which my zombie story 'The Night Before' is included, along with 20 + other tales of shambling zombie, brain consuming madness! Please add your support today!   Click here to support Forever Hungry   You can also add support for the other two anthologies being released by Far Horizons, Former Heroes and Fantastically Horny.    

It's almost time! My second published Steampunk story,  Synchronysi is published on the 15th of this month in Collective Ramblings Vol. One. As winner of the Deserted Island story contest, it is my first cover mention, in story if not in name. Synchronysi, featuring rebellious Andromeda Stokes, is actually part of a much larger story which will may see the light of day in the not too distant future.     The volume also features my WWII horror story, Shark Nose , in which Violet Bellows recounts her traumatic escape from London in the Blitz to the Wiltshire countryside only to discover the horror of war is not so easily avoided.     

Do you like stories with pirates? If the answer is no, then you can leave and go do something else other than read the rest of this.   Have the strange people gone? Yes? Good. Well here we are then. I wrote a book. It’s an action/adventure/mystery/romance in the theme of fantasy steampunk. Quite a mouthful right? Really it’s just a rollicking good story about our heroine Larissa, her counterpart - a reticent yet highly skilled fighter named Holt - her genius engineer friend Cid, and a cat. The first book The Machine is where the story starts and really you need to read that before you can read book two, The Pirate . It’s available now for only .99 (or equivalent currency in your location). You go read that now and come back to me here, I’ll wait…   Now that’s out of the way, you want to find out what happens next don’t you? Well lucky you. Book 2, The Pirate is out on 29th February. The same team are off on yet another adventure. Poor Larissa has a bit to...

If you were asked to list ten women who write horror, could you? It wasn't until I was looking at the listings of authors in the last two anthologies I had work published in,   Hides the Dark Tower   and   Once Bitten , that I really began to think about how few female authors of horror are well-known. By well-known, I mean recognisable to people who don't usually read this genre. Most would probably know  Mary Shelley  or   Daphne du Maurier , some might get as far as   Anne Rice , or even, to stretch the horror genre description to extreme limits,   Stephanie Meyer . But why so few? So why are there not more well-know women horror authors? Hides the Dark Tower was edited by two highly respected female editors and writers, Kelly A. Harmon and Vonnie Winslow Crist. Once Bitten is published by Knightwatch Press, then under the auspices of Theresa Derwin, and these are just the tip...