Today's featured author of the JordanCon Anthology Become Legend is Vincent E.M. Thorn, with his submission entitled "The Witch Hunter." First, can you tell us about your writing? Is this your first published work? I decided I wanted to be an author at a pretty young age, so I’m pretty excited to finally be in a position to share the fruits of that dream. My contribution to the anthology, “The Witch Hunter,” is my second published work, the first being my debut novel titled Skies of the Empire, which launched last year. Set in a land much like the wild west, “The Witch Hunter” is a coming of age story following a young girl named Harper, whose life is changed when the titular Witch Hunter rides into town. It was a fun challenge to write this one, which went through a couple iterations before it really came together. Where does your story fall on the speculative fiction scale? “The Witch Hunter” is pretty firmly in the Fantasy side of things, leaning hard towards High Fantasy. The titular character is going after a legitimate, magic using witch, and there’s no room ambiguity on that front. Multiple mythical creatures are treated as par-the-course, as well. What excited you the most with writing this story? There were a couple things that had me excited for this. From the actual writing side of it, it was the challenge. Short stories don’t come naturally to me, as I have something of a complexity addiction. I suppose that comes from the fact almost everything I read falls into the ‘epic’ category. In my original attempt to tackle this story, the scope was too large and the point of view was wrong for a short story, so retooling that was an interesting task. Outside the work, I was thrilled by the prospect of sharing page space with other writers I’ve met and gotten to know over the years. That’s just awesome. Are there any themes you want readers to get a sense of? There are a few themes in “The Witch Hunter,” some deliberate, some I probably wove in subconsciously. On the intentional side, two I’m particularly fond of are taking charge of your own fate, and the end of one era is the beginning of another. Is there a specific inspirational source you used for this story? There were a couple direct and indirect inspirations behind the scenes. Most prominently, I was inspired by the Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski, which also centers around a roving mercenary who fights evil through meticulous preparation and forethought. There is also a similar theme regarding the end of an era. The similar names, however, is entirely coincidental; Witchers don’t even hunt witches. More for setting itself, I like Weird West stories, and I’m particularly fond of R.S Belcher’s Golgotha series, and think that more fantasy needs to take advantage of just the rich potential of the old west. I mean, come on, the gunslingers and sharpshooters are the American equivalent of knights and samurai. Also, while I was writing, I made a historical discovery that I felt I absolutely needed to incorporate into the story: a weapon developed in 1856 called the LeMat Revolver, which was both a revolver and a shotgun. As soon as I learned that was real, there was no way I was leaving it out. What else would you like to say to your readers? I hope you all enjoy “The Witch Hunter” and the other stories in the Become Legend anthology. This has already been such a fun experience, and I’m stoked to see this book in your hands. Thank you, Vincent, for talking with me today. The JordanCon 2020 anthology Become Legend is available for pre-order until March 25th. You can purchase it on JordanCon’s website. View full news item

Welcome back to another edition of Community Round-Up, where I show you some of the Wheel of Time or SF/F related things that have happened this past week. First off, a video made by Titos_Firedancer appealed to our Wheel of Time community. I saw it posted in most of the WoT places I follow. This video showed the user Titos_Firedancer using a weighted sword in a beautiful (and potentially deadly) dance. Naturally, the elegance displayed here made me search for similar fetes. I found another “flow dancer,” Grace Good, who dances with a dragon staff! While the first reminds me very much of how a Warder might fight, the second reminds me of the acts seen in Valan Luca's Grand Traveling Show and Magnificent Display of Marvelous Wonders. Tor.com’s Dahlia Adler shared a fantastic article about the rise of queer characters in YA science-fiction and fantasy. Gender identities and sexual orientations are gaining a wider audience in adult fiction, but representation for a younger audience is equally important. Adler says, “In fact, I dare say that queer YA is finally big enough to have its own trends, and this past couple of years, there’s nothing we’ve seen rise further and faster than teenage witches in a whole rainbow of orientations and genders.” You can read the whole article, as well as all the book recommendations, here! For fan art, I saw an amazing representation of Juilun Sandar posted in the Facebook group Screw You All, I Love Wheel of Time. Poor Juilun does get overshadowed—when traveling with Nynaeve, Elayne, and Thom, Juilun has to be the least dramatic of the bunch. But his “figs and mice” speech is one of the best of his on-page episodes. Also, Ariel Burgess shared some of her past Wheel of Time Valentine’s Day cards. Memes are the gift that just keeps giving. I found several from the man WoT Facebook groups. That concludes this edition. Which WoT character would you want to spend Valentine’s Day with? View full news item

It's two months and two days till JordanCon (but who's counting?) so I'm here to feature another author in this years anthology, Become Legend: Rosemary Williams with her submission "Urban Planning." First, can you tell us about your writing? Is this your first published work? It is! Unlike a lot of writers, I had no idea I was going to be one when I was young. The closest I came was online roleplaying when MUSHes were still a big thing. (Though as it turns out, it’s a really good way to get a solid percentage of your Million Words of Crap out of your system.) Then there I was, in my late 30s and minding my own voracious reader business, when I had just finished a particular book by my current favorite author and then there was an audible *pop!* and a new gear abruptly engaged in my brain. Suddenly I wanted to put new characters in and play around in the sandbox with new plots and characters and what was happening to me? I’ve been toying around with fan fiction for a few years to try to shake out some of my rookie writer mistakes, and I’m now to the point where I feel competent enough to write my own original work. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, which is thanks in very large part to my editor, Debra Dixon. She was amazingly helpful and kind to my poor newbie writer's soul. Where does your story fall on the speculative fiction scale? It’s comic horror with enough connection to urban fantasy that I could take future stories with these characters in that direction pretty seamlessly. What excited you the most with writing this story? It was just gloriously weird and fun to write, and it gave me a chance to showcase some of my hometown of Kansas City. If you find yourself reading and going, “Wait, is that a real thing she’s referencing?” the answer is probably yes. Are there any themes you want readers to get a sense of? I wouldn’t really call this an attempt at highbrow literature - it’s a fun romp, and I hope people enjoy reading it. Writing a decent story that clocked in under 7,500 words was quite enough of a challenge for me. But as I mentioned earlier, I have ideas for writing future stories with these characters, and have planted a few seeds of greater depth that will have time to germinate and grow as I improve my skills. Is there a specific inspirational source you used for this story? So, as you probably know, the anthology theme this involves legends. This story is based on an urban legend - albeit one I made up and have fun with joking about with my friends - that the all of the weird-shaped intersections in Kansas City are designed that way to hide mysterious eldritch glyphs that are keeping a giant monster asleep beneath the city. If you like the story, you should find a moment to thank your fellow JordanConner Mark Lindberg for his part in inspiring me to write it. I had shared a picture on Facebook that supported my silly theory and blathered away about it, when he replied with, “So when do I get to read this story?” This was about two weeks from the anthology deadline. If he hadn’t made that little push, I might not have gathered my wits quickly enough to get it written in time. What else would you like to say to your readers? Thank you! Please be kind to my massive case of imposter syndrome; I’m still half-convinced I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Don’t be afraid to say hi to me at the con! And remember: the Mistcorn loves you. The Mistcorn loves all. Thank you, Rosemary, for talking with me today. The JordanCon 2020 anthology Become Legend is available for pre-order until March 25th. You can purchase it on JordanCon’s website. View full news item

Welcome back to another edition of Community Round-Up where I’ll be sharing interesting things that have happened this week in the Wheel of Time fandom and the larger sci-fi/fantasy community. First off, Madeleine Madden—who plays Egwene—updated her Instagram page with various photos of her and other cast members. Josha Stardowski—Rand—took center stage with images of him increasingly more tipsy. They made their rounds through the community and have already begun to generate memes. Why isn't the wisdom stopping this woolheaded behavior? Speaking of memes, I’d like to highlight one of the many Wheel of Time related subreddit forums: Wetlander Humor. I’m a huge fan of memes and this forum did not disappoint. Here are a few of the better ones I saw this week. It’s been five years since the Wheel of Time television pilot “Winter Dragon” appeared randomly at 3am on FX. For those who don’t recall this little piece of fandom lore, you can read the details here. Many people in the Screw You All, I Love Wheel of Time Facebook group were reminiscing about this strange event and discussing if it was the will of the Light or the Dark One. Daniel Greene—a major news staple in the WoT fandom and the fantasy genre in general—released a hilarious look at Wheel of Time through vines. Which picture of Josha was your favorite? Be sure to let us know in the comments. View full news item

Lol! This one's great!

I love memes. I think they're an excellent form of entertainment. As a math teacher, I end each lesson with a (school appropriate) math meme. Some of them the kids don't get, but most of them they laugh at. I love it! If you have some favorite memes, please share them with us!

Last year, JordanCon started what I hope will be a timeless tradition: it asked members, past and present, to submit short stories for an anthology, with all proceeds going to the JordanCon charity of choice. This year, the tradition did continue with Become Legend: The JordanCon 2020 Anthology. This is a great way for writers to reach an audience of typically like-minded individuals. Leading up to JordanCon (which is April 17th through the 19th), I want to highlight some of the amazing authors who have contributed to this year’s anthology. First up is a returning author, P Andrew Floyd with his story entitled “Hipshot.” Can you start by telling us a little about your story for this year’s anthology? “Hipshot” takes place in an alternate America where just after the Civil War a giant meteorite struck the Dakota Territories, leaving pieces of itself all over the world. Old west metal smiths turned the pieces of that meteorite into weapons that can be used for various magical purposes. Though, mostly folk just use them to shoot each other. Hipshot is a “hexslinger” who just wants to get her cargo cross country to San Francisco. Unfortunately, the magic space rock had another side effect – it woke up long forgotten magical creatures from hibernation and she may just have to fight her way through a horde of orcs to finish her job. Since this is your second year being featured in the anthology, can you tell us any helpful hints you learned last year that you applied to your story this year? I got lucky. I had written this story before the anthology theme was announced and it ended up being a perfect fit. I actually tried to write another short to fit the theme and make it more personal to JordanCon, but I ended up shelving it about halfway through because it wasn’t working. It felt way too forced. So, I guess for me what I learned was I need to write to write and if I have something that fits a theme, great! If not, there’s always next time. But that’s just how I work personally. You survived last year’s JordanCon Anthology signing sessions. And, you came back for a second helping. How was your experience attending JordanCon as an author? It was definitely a roller coaster! (I love roller coasters, btw!) I had a lot of fun while at the same time being really nervous. There was a lot of me thinking, “No one’s gonna want my signature or talk about my story. Why would they?” And then being ecstatic when I was proven wrong, and then feeling nervous again when I worried they’d regret their decision, then realizing that’s silly because no one’s going to think that over an autograph. But I met a lot of cool people both in and out of the book and I got to do one of my favorite things: talk about my writing! Last year, your story “Doorbuster” was jokingly called “suburban fantasy.” Is your addition this year similar, like within the same world or series? Or did you go a completely different route? I went a totally different route, actually. I was inspired by a character from a Magimart Universe (Doorbuster) story, though. There was a woman who struck me as a modern day gunslinger. I had envisioned this spell casting maneuver for her that was basically like quick drawing guns, but instead of pulling out weapons, she would swipe her fingers across a foci hanging at her hips then fire off blasts of energy from “finger guns.” I thought it would look both awesome and hilarious. But I ended up deciding it didn’t fully fit the magic system I had created. So… I did what any sane writer would do and built up an entire new world around that concept. The world that was born from it ended up being very outside my wheelhouse, but I ran with it after deciding a challenge would be a good thing. With a few exceptions, I’ve never been a huge fan of Westerns. Also, I typically like writing light, humorous stories that focus on character over action. “Hipshot” is an alternate history Weird West with a serious tone and a decent amount of complex action sequences that were super frustrating to write and edit (I’ll have to raise a glass at Con to my editor, Venesa Giunta for dealing with me to get those perfected!). But despite all that, I’m extremely happy with the results. When I was lucky enough to talk to you about the anthology last year you said, “…keep an eye out for me. I’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to see my words in a printed book, and I’m not going to stop until it happens again and again.” It seems it became a prophecy! What other works have you been dabbling in this year? Now, prophecy is totally in my wheelhouse! I’m so happy to be in the second anthology and that my words came true because of that. Though, the original meaning behind that statement was born from a bit of naïveté. I was always planning on submitting to anthology two, but my goal was to have something else in the works in between. I had been querying for maybe two months at that point and I was under the impression that if I were to get an agent I would know for sure yes or no by the end of the year. Like, I think I actually thought six months would be enough time to know if that was going to happen. Ha! Little did I know that publishing is THE slowest industry in existence. I am *still* querying over a year later and I am also waiting on multiple full and partial requests from agents. Since then, I did write “Hipshot,” but a lot of my 2019 revolved around my novel. Querying, but also editing. Early last year I won a contest called RevPit and got the chance to work with professional editor Jeni Chappelle to do several passes of my novel to help strengthen it for querying. I took the advice from that and made the best draft I could. Currently I’m working on a new Sci-Fi novel I’m excited about and brainstorming a few short stories that have been tickling the back of my head. And, hey, maybe one of those will be in Anthology 3! Is there anything else you’d like to say to your readers? If you missed last year’s anthology, you can read “Doorbuster” at my website here. I also have the first chapter from the novel I’ve been querying up. Also, also, still keep an eye out for me. Publishing may be slow, but I’m still doing the thing and I’ll at least be trying out for the anthology again next year! Thanks P. Andrew Floyd for talking with me today! The JordanCon anthology can be pre-ordered from now until March 25th. After that, only a few copies will be available for purchase at the convention. Make sure to get yours ordered now! Find out more details at JordanCon’s website! View full news item