Tag: Fiction
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François Marcantel Immigrates to Louisiana
Okay, so this isn’t strictly speaking a piece about writing and/or books, but I am a Southerner with a legacy of literary compatriots (Faulkner, Welty, O’Connor, Lee (a couple of those), Capote, etc.; and you all have read them – right?), so this puts the topic at hand in the ballpark, more or less. You…
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François Immigrates to America, Part Deux – Or Frankie, Jr.
Continuing the family saga: François Marcantel stayed in Louisiana (he didn’t have much choice; see here) and married and, as usually happens, in the fullness of time had children. The oldest son also was named François. We in the family know him as Frankie, Jr. Along about 1788, Frankie, Jr. became involved with his wife’s sister, and not…
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The Hardest Thing About Writing…
So. After months, or even years, spent in daily/nightly toil on your book or screenplay, you’ve gotten it all polished and spiffy and the best it possibly can be. Perhaps you’ve spent many sleepless nights writing and rewriting it, sweating every word and switching passages or scenes around to make it all come together, and now you’ve done…
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Fiction, Literary Criticism, and the Writing Thereof
Some years ago I had a conversation with a literature professor about writing in which he maintained that literary criticism is every bit as “creative” as the crafting of fiction. I understood his point. To take a text and tease meaning from it that perhaps no one else has gleaned, and then shape a well-conceived argument…
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An Army of Angels
An Army of Angels: A Novel of Joan of Arc(St. Martin’s Press, 1997) From the original 1997 edition dust jacket: It is a story that everyone knows; the story of the French peasant maid who successfully led an army against England and was burned at the stake before she was twenty. Historians, playwrights, filmmakers have…
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Bulwer-Lytton Contest 2011
For fans of really bad writing: Every year since 1982, the faculty of the Department of English at San Jose State University in California have sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, you might recall, was the author of the 1830 novel Paul Clifford, which gave the world the famous (or infamous) opening line, “It…
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So, What Is It?
Every once in a while, I rouse myself to expand my options from the indie scene that I currently inhabit by a return to traditional publishing, so I send off another couple of query letters to literary agents on behalf of V-Squad. So far, no takers. Most haven’t responded at all (something I have no problem with, since I’m aware that that is standard…
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Now Available: V-SQUAD!
I’m very happy to announce the arrival of my new e-novel, V-Squad, to digital bookstores where it is now on sale for the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple’s iBook for the iPod/iPhone and iPad, and at Smashwords.com. A vampire novel set in World War II, V-Squad is more character-driven than a roller-coaster action adventure. And although a real…
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V-Squad
Coming soon to Smashwords.com, Amazon Kindle, and Apple iPad and iPod: V-Squad. A new novel by Pamela Marcantel, author of An Army of Angels: A Novel of Joan of Arc. August 1943, ten months before D-Day. Vampires in league with the Nazis plan to murder Prime Minister Churchill and the Allied High Command, and the…
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Online Books: 21st Century Publishing
Anyone born before or around 1975 can remember a time when people bought popular music recordings on vinyl records; when moviegoers enjoyed films either exclusively in theaters or in second runs on television; and when book stores were small, ma-and-pa affairs in quaint buildings on or near every town’s Main Street. All of that changed…
pamela marcantel 