MYTHS UNTOLD: BOOK ONE – FAERY
Publisher: Wilde City Press

Authors: August Li, Brandon Witt,J. Scott Coatsworth and Skye Hegyes
Cover Artist: August Li
Release Date: 4/13/16

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to  have the authors of Myths Untold – Faery here to answer a few questions. Welcome to August Li, Brandon Witt,J. Scott Coatsworth and  Skye Hegyes.

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How do you write – are you a plotter or pantser, or both?

J. Scott Coatsworth: Hmmm… I used to totally be a pantser. I would sit down at my typewriter (seriously – a typewriter!) and just start typing whatever came to me. On the plus side, I got some amazing ideas that came out of my Oreo-addled brain.

But on the negative size, I ended uo with a bunch of 1 and 2 and 3 scene stories that never went anywhere, and nothing to show for the work.

Over time, I have become much more of a plotter. I still don’t work out every detail in advance. There has to be some room for my writer mind to wander.

And sometimes the story or the characters throw me for a loop and send the story of in an entirely different direction.

But those old stories had one unexpected benefit. Periodically I go back to them and pluck them out of their virtual drawer to expand them into finished stories. Are they the same stories I might have written fifteen, twenty, twenty five years ago? Almost certainly not. But they are the stories I want to tell today – and three of them have now been published.

So I’ll steal a phrase from my writer friend SA Collins – I’m now a tentpole pantser. I set up the major points like tentpoles along the way, and I fill in the details as I go.

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August Li: I usually have a lot of my story done in my head before I sit down to transcribe it. I’m a little obsessive, and I think about the characters constantly–part of the reason I can’t work on more than one thing at a time. The plus side of knowing the characters that well, though, is no matter how much of the plot I have outlined in my head, they will say and do things to surprise me. That’s what makes it fun for me. I never really know what the characters will do, and things rarely turn out how I originally envisioned them.

Brandon Witt: I am total planner. Each book gets its own notebook, filled with plot lines, character studies, family trees, questions, outlines, etc. Some of the stuff never gets put into the book, but to me, it makes my characters richer and I like to believe their fuller story is felt, even if not seen. That doesn’t mean that my books always go the way I plan, they don’t, and my characters often surprise me—which is fun! Often, the planning stages takes as long for me as the writing (not in hours, but in days and time spent thinking about different aspects).

Skye Hegyes: I’m a bit of both. With short stories and some of the novellas I’ve worked on, I can take a vague idea and run with it, writing it without planning too much. That said, novels are another story. I recently tried pantsing a novel and just couldn’t do it. I’m a definite plotter where novels are concerned.

Blurbs

Faeries are part of mythology the world over, past, present, and future. Called elves, brownies, the fae, and more, they evoke a sense of wonder and a little danger. Faery has its own rules, and humans enter at their peril.

In this spirit, we bring you the first book in the Myths Untold anthology series—four stories from the land of the Fae: a homeless man in Cardiff and the luck that could destroy him; the trans man in future San Francisco who falls for an elf; the village boy who has always been a little different; and a faery prince whose birthright was stolen from him.

Welcome to Faery.

The Pwcca and the Persian Boy, by Gus Li

Despite beauty and luck, something about Glyn makes everyone uncomfortable. Homeless on the streets of Cardiff, he has nothing to keep him going but his friendship with Farrokh. Through stealing and fortune’s occasional favor, Glyn keeps them alive. But then homeless youths begin to disappear, and when Farrokh goes missing, Glyn begins to discover the reasons behind both his luck and the way people react to him. Determined to save his friend from a danger he never imagined, he enlists the help of Lleu, who might be an ally, or might be manipulating Glyn to achieve his own goals.

The Other Side of the Chrysalis, by Brandon Witt

In a species that values beauty above all else, Quay looses both his freedom and his birthright as prince of the fairies.  Lower than an outcast, he watches over his younger brother, hoping against hope that Xenith’s rebirth will provide safety and positions that has slipped through Quay’s grasp.  Though he expected kindness from no one, Quay gradually starts to trust that there is more to life, even for the likes of him, as sexual encounters with Flesser, a fairy barely accepted himself, turn from lust to love.  Quay knows having forbidden relationships will be his undoing,  but he is powerless to turn away.

Changeling, by Skye Hegyes

With his pointed ears and a tail, Tyler’s always been different than the other children, but until Marsh, a brownie tells him he’s a changeling, he never thought he wasn’t human. Now he will discover what faery life is like, and just how being a changeling could change his life. On the way, his ties with his mother will be pushed and prodded even as his friendships grow and his love life blossoms.  However, in a village of God-fearing people, those who are different are spurned and Tyler will discover how much trouble a fledgling changeling can get into.

Through the Veil, by J. Scott Coatsworth

In the not-too-distant future, San Francisco has been swamped by rising sea levels caused by global warming, and has only survived by building a wall to keep the water out of the heart of the City. Colton is a trans man barely getting by on the canals outside the wall. Tris is an elf who has come to the human world on his journey to become a man. Fate brings them together, and everything changes for Colton when he sets out with Tris to find the elf’s missing brother, taking Colton behind the Wall for the first time.

Length: 79K
Format: eBook, Paperback
Pairing: MM

Buy Link at Wilde City Press

Available at the Wilde City website 4/13/16; other sites one week later.
Price: eBook $5.99, paperback TBD

Author Bios

Gus Li

August (Gus) Li is a creator of fantasy worlds. When not writing, he enjoys drawing, illustration, costuming and cosplay, and making things in general. He lives near Philadelphia with two cats and too many ball-jointed dolls.

He loves to travel and is trying to see as much of the world as possible. Other hobbies include reading (of course), tattoos, and playing video games.

Brandon Witt

Brandon Witt’s outlook on life is greatly impacted by his first eighteen years of growing up gay in a small town in the Ozarks, as well as fifteen years as a counselor and special education teacher for students with severe emotional disabilities.

Add to that his obsession with corgis and mermaids, then factor in an unhealthy love affair with cheeseburgers, and you realize that with all those issues, he’s got plenty to write about…

Skye Hegyes

Dragons, wolves, and sharp objects are commonplace in Skye Hegyes’s home in North Carolina. She spends most of her time between writing and working. When not doing either of these things, you may find her making crafts or adventuring with her family, which consists of her husband, two daughters, two birds, and three cats… and a partridge in a pear tree…

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J. Scott Coatsworth

Scott has been writing since elementary school, when he and won a University of Arizona writing contest in 4th grade for his first sci fi story (with illustrations!). He finished his first novel in his mid twenties, but after seeing it rejected by ten publishers, he gave up on writing for a while.

Over the ensuing years, he came back to it periodically, but it never stuck. Then one day, he was complaining to Mark, his husband, early last year about how he had been derailed yet again by the death of a family member, and Mark said to him “the only one stopping you from writing is you.”

Since then, Scott has gone back to writing in a big way, finishing more than a dozen short stories – some new, some that he had started years before – and seeing his first sale. He’s embarking on a new trilogy, and also runs the Queer Sci Fi (http://www.queerscifi.com) site, a support group for writers of gay sci fi, fantasy, and supernatural fiction.

Giveaway

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