tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51598897460400743172024-03-13T04:18:07.110-07:00Johnny Worthen THE BLOG MANSIONThe ravings and rantings and occasional insight of Johnny Worthen, Author, voyager and damn fine human being.Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.comBlogger361125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-43660827958347659242024-01-05T15:49:00.002-07:002024-01-05T15:49:50.033-07:002023 Read Books<p> I am under the impression that blogs are really not a thing anymore, as evidenced by my complete neglect of this one. However, I still like to list my reading accomplishments here because Goodreads is a cesspool of slime and hate second only to the rest of the internet.</p><p>Nevertheless, here are the many books I read in 2023. 77 new record. Pretty eclectic list all told.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton</p><p>The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy</p><p>Pure Meditation, Pema Chodron</p><p>The Man Who Would be King and other stories, Rudyard Kipling</p><p>A Fatal Grace, Louise Penny</p><p>5</p><p><br /></p><p>The Cruelest Month, Louise Penny</p><p>Live Wire, Harlan Coben</p><p>White Noise, Don DeLillo</p><p>Of Boys and Men, Richard V. Reeves</p><p>A Rule Against Murder, Louise Penny</p><p>10</p><p><br /></p><p>Origins of the Gods, Andrew Collins and Gregory L. Little, Ed.D.</p><p>Home, Harlan Coben</p><p>A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore</p><p>The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny</p><p>Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy</p><p>15</p><p><br /></p><p>Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny</p><p>The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison</p><p>The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz</p><p>Future Home of the Living God, Louise Erdrich</p><p>Suspect, Robert Crais</p><p>20</p><p><br /></p><p>The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz</p><p>It’s Okay to Be Angry at Capitalism, Bernie Sanders</p><p>Iron Gold, Pierce Brown</p><p>Zone One, Colson Whitehead </p><p>Red Team Blues, Cory Doctorow</p><p>25</p><p><br /></p><p>Activities of Daily Living, Lisa Hsiao Chen</p><p>This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar</p><p>The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain</p><p>Back to the Garden, Laurie R. King</p><p>The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan</p><p>30</p><p><br /></p><p>The Giver, Lois Lowry</p><p>The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein</p><p>From Russia with Love, Ian Fleming</p><p>The Quantum and the Lotus, Matthieu Ricard & Trinh Quan Thuan</p><p>The Maltese Iguana, Tim Dorsey</p><p>35</p><p><br /></p><p>Cannery Row, John Steinbeck</p><p>Fatal Journey, Peter. C. Mancall</p><p>Dr. No, Ian Fleming</p><p>Diamond of Jeru, Louis L’Amour</p><p>The Idea, Erik Bork</p><p>40</p><p><br /></p><p>A Man Called Trent, Louis L’Amour</p><p>How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia Nagamatsu</p><p>Thunderball, Ian Fleming</p><p>The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Robert A. Heinlein</p><p>The Wager, David Grann</p><p>45</p><p><br /></p><p>Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor E Frankl</p><p>Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brian</p><p>Post Captain, Patrick O’Brian</p><p>The Rider of the Lost Creek, Louis L’Amour</p><p>How I Write, Janet Evanovich, Ina Yolof</p><p>50</p><p><br /></p><p>The Dark Sphere, Johnny Worthen</p><p>Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin</p><p>Now is Not the Time to Panic, Kevin Wilson</p><p>Dark Age, Pierce Brown</p><p>Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs</p><p>55</p><p><br /></p><p>Winter Counts, David Heska Wanbli Weiden</p><p>A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny </p><p>The Man From the Broken Hills, Louis L’Amour</p><p>Tenth of December, George Saunders</p><p>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig</p><p>60</p><p><br /></p><p>Life after Life, Kate Atkinson</p><p>When Race Trumps Merit, Heather Mac Donald</p><p>HMS Surprise, Patrick O’Brian</p><p>The Shadow Over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft</p><p>Stranger in a Strangle Land, Robert A. Heinlein</p><p>65</p><p><br /></p><p>The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov</p><p>The Fifth Agreement, Don Miguel Ruiz</p><p>Total Meditation, Deepak Chopra, M.D.</p><p>I, Claudius, Robert Graves</p><p>Story Genius: Lisa Cron</p><p>70</p><p><br /></p><p>Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey</p><p>Gilgamesh, Stephen Mitchell </p><p>Trans, Helen Joyce</p><p>Sackett’s Land, Louis L’Amour</p><p>Beowulf, Stephen Mitchell</p><p>75</p><p><br /></p><p>Last of the Breed, Louis L’Amour</p><p>All Systems Red, Martha Wells</p><p>77</p><p><br /></p><p>I'll consider using this blog more in 2024. Or not. I am nothing if not a lazy man. I will certainly continue to enjoy reading.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-85937752048977105812023-01-09T08:51:00.005-07:002023-01-09T08:52:05.054-07:002022 Read Books<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Here’ my annual report on books read.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In 2022, I set out to read 50 books and I read 70 books all told, though some were repeats. One book,Woke Racism, really grabbed my interest and since it was timely, available and the perfect length for long drives drives, I listened to five times. A couple others are re-reads to, because they were favorites and I was at ends. I discovered Harlan Coben and ran through many of his. I finally got around to Jonathan Franzen and didn’t hate him as much as I thought I would, I liked it in fact. Cixin Liu’s now classic trilogy lived up to the hype and Graeme Samson’s lovely Rosie books are delightful. My own work appears on the list and I must say I am very fond of my writing. Highly recommended. I read classics and bleeding edge, young adult, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, literary, non-ficiton—all kinds of things.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A good year all told for my book consumption.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The List:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Turn of the Screw, Henry James</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, Dominic Smith</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ramayana, Valmiki</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of Civilized, Saved and Savages, Johnny Worthen</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Blood Grove, Walter Mosley</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">5</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Mermaid Confidential, Tim Dorsey</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Animal Farm, George Orwell</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Maid, Nita Prose</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">10</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Hermit of Big Horn County, Johnny Worthen</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">15</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Farthest Shore, Ursula K. Le Guin</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Nine Lives, Peter Swanson</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Tehanu, Ursula D. Le Guin</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">20</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Rosie Effect, Graeme Simsion</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Rosie Result, Graeme Simsion</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Midnight Library, Matt Haig</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Tales from Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">25</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Corrections, Jonathan Franzen</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Doors of Perceptions, Aldous Huxley</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Woke Racism, John McWhorter</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">30</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Silverview, John le Carré</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Woke Racism, John McWhorter</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Haunting of Maddy Clare, Simone St. James</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Devil and the Dark Water, Stuart Turton</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Start Where You Are, Pema Chödrön</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">35</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Woke Racism, John McWhorter</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Teachings on Love, Thich That Hanh</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Eleanor Script, Blake Casselman</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When the Bough Breaks, Jonathan Kellerman</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">40</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Hermit of Big Horn County, Johnny Worthen</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Deal Breaker, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Mindfulness for Beginners, Jon Bat-Zinn</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Meditation for Optimum Health, Andrew Weil & Jon Bat-Zinn</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Drop Shot, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">45</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fade Away, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Rotters, Daniel Krauss</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Back Spin, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of Heroes, Homes and Honey, Johnny Worthen</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">50</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One False Move, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Final Detail, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Darkest Fear, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">55</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Plato and Aristotle, Aryeh Kosman</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Promise Me, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Long Lost, Harlan Coben</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Food of the Gods, Terence McKenna</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Chakras for Beginners, Brown Kadmon</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">60</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Issue at Hand, Gil Fronsdal</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Death’s End, Cixin Liu</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Stolen Focus, Johann Hari</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Still Life, Louise Penny</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">65</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fairy Tale, Stephen King</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Never Let Me Go, Kazua Ishiguro</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Coconut Cowboy, Tim Dorsey</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">70</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Next year, the goal is again fifty.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">—J</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-58793767334909415142022-11-11T13:25:00.005-07:002022-11-11T13:29:28.261-07:00Of Civilized, Saved and Savages - pre-orders open<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> We have a date for <a href="http://johnnyworthen.com/OCSS.html">OF CIVILIZED, SAVED AND SAVAGES</a>, The Second Book of <a href="http://johnnyworthen.com/Coronam.html" target="_blank">Coronam</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">January 10, 2023</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now available for pre-order:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flametreepublishing.com/of-civilized-saved-and-savages-coronam-book-ii-isbn-9781787587960.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Flame Tree</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3z9TgqF" target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/of-civilized-saved-and-savages-johnny-worthen/1141673837?ean=9781787587953" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08PTgy1pkGN5aLrJtbOEfNJCfn5JHJJ1K9Q_AuC64blCkoA52sqbOQkyBuT4aO31a7DFpmVgfw70enSBkRD_iYNu8gq4SFID2jTfSRyLB5FdWMDVHAGKcQoRsY3NPkD6Cl2A2wNRHcsOQN98L-v2uXl5nxEcnVAogjSMmYSdWoRZ__rwsLDk_SqKzTA/s3403/OCSS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3403" data-original-width="2205" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08PTgy1pkGN5aLrJtbOEfNJCfn5JHJJ1K9Q_AuC64blCkoA52sqbOQkyBuT4aO31a7DFpmVgfw70enSBkRD_iYNu8gq4SFID2jTfSRyLB5FdWMDVHAGKcQoRsY3NPkD6Cl2A2wNRHcsOQN98L-v2uXl5nxEcnVAogjSMmYSdWoRZ__rwsLDk_SqKzTA/w414-h640/OCSS.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><h3 style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Humanity gets another chance but will anything be different?</em></h3><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><em>Reeling from the defeat of the armada and Enskaran counter-attacks, Hyrax searches for new revenue to rebuild. Its interests on Maaraw are threatened by revolution, while its mines on Silangan are shut down with native uprising. The occupied worlds bleed money and new unrest. There is but one place left to conquer: Tirgwenin, Jareth’s world, wild and unclaimed.</em></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><em>Enskari’s colony led by Alpin Morgan and his separatist sect of Bucklers is destroyed, the governor returned home to beg for relief and rescue. But Enskari is a different place, the war and a terrible religious purge have decimated his contacts and heightened class tension. The queen’s lover Sir Ethan Sommerled, savior of the planet, Morgan’s one-time patron, is at the center of the controversy. His path is precarious, his power tempered by politics of court. Morgan must find other allies if he is to return to savage Tirgwenin.</em></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><em>But there is a third planet obsessed with Jareth’s World. On Temple the prophet knows the secret, sees the threat, and rallies the Saved to defend civilization in a holy and bloody crusade.</em></p><p><br /></p><p>Pre-orders are wonderful things for an author and a publisher and the universe at large. Order now. </p><p>Blessed be.</p><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-57849285459237871792022-09-18T09:02:00.001-07:002022-09-18T09:02:31.023-07:00THE HERMIT OF BIG HORN COUNTY<p><a href="https://amzn.to/3SV9T1z"><span style="font-size: medium;">NOW AVAILABLE!</span></a></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Tony Flaner is back in the backwoods of Northern Wyoming, cold nights and cold turkey from computer screens. The gang is there to help him along and make his life worse. The sheriff hates him out of principle but when a body, a naked body, a dirty naked body, appears atop a sacred mounting, who do they call? No... after them... after them too... a ways down the list... there,... no the next one... YES! Tony Flaner!</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://johnnyworthen.com/THOBHC.html" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Hermit of Big Horn County" border="0" data-original-height="1515" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNmDfVVOrapACGGCHU0Ijt-4rrPKdLPXa5P5mXtJNRUBVU4-WpR3mSHns3Ifldn7GeFxzK0VzPJEUEM-Hpu4elF8c5fmaxC6MtOKyjp9W1an27cg6KG_Hbso9IB_T8NEtIQJz1Dhfvq1nTQbwZpWL259b6zAdxBvF5t7bIFC_wwNjptSGEmH0nlTt6tw/w422-h640/HermitEbookCover.png" width="422" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">Everyone has something to hide, even the naked guy.</span></strong></em></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-size: medium;">A dare leads Tony and the gang to northern Wyoming for a trip off the grid to kick their screen addictions. No computers, no phones, no flushing toilets… wait, what?</span></em></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s a place to hide, to be forgotten. To be left the hell alone. A perfect place for a hermit. A perfect place for a murder.</span></em></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-size: medium;">Lurking in the scree are old-fashioned motives, mud, mosquitoes, meadows, mountains, and more manure than any twenty-first century urbanite has any right to experience.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The 5th Tony Flaner novel. Very proud of this one. Like usual.</span></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-86891154755506366742022-06-25T14:10:00.000-07:002022-06-25T14:10:05.595-07:00OF KINGS, QUEENS AND COLONIES virtual book club<p><br /></p><center style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="bodyTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; height: 100%px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" id="bodyCell" style="border-top-width: 0px; height: 1981px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; width: 692px;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="templateContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px; max-width: 600px !important; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td id="templatePreheader" style="background-image: none; background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnTextBlockOuter"></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td id="templateHeader" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnTextBlockOuter"><tr><td class="mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td class="mcnTextContent" style="color: #202020; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top"><h1 style="font-size: 26px; line-height: 32.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em><span style="color: firebrick;">You're invited!</span></em></h1></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnImageBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnImageBlockOuter"><tr><td class="mcnImageBlockInner" style="padding: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnImageContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td class="mcnImageContent" style="padding: 0px 9px; text-align: center;" valign="top"><img align="center" alt="" class="mcnImage" src="https://mcusercontent.com/27e852604af59ec46e9460d68/images/554070d4-6547-53c2-4019-6a19b08a2137.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline !important; height: auto; max-width: 820px; outline: none; padding-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="564" /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td id="templateBody" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-color: rgb(234, 234, 234); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-top-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnTextBlockOuter"><tr><td class="mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td class="mcnTextContent" style="color: #202020; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top"><h3 style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br />Hey kids,</h3><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">The Infinite Monkey Chapter of the League of Utah Writers (my stomping grounds), is hosting a <strong><span style="color: firebrick;">virtual book club </span></strong>next month for <strong>OF KINGS, QUEENS AND COLONIES*.</strong></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">I will be there to answer questions and hang out.</p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Host president Daniel Yocom will steer the conversation and look adorable while I will look embarrassed and fight imposter syndrome.<br /> </p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Date will be: Wednesday July 20, 2022</strong></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Time will be 7:00 MST</strong></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Place will be this Zoom link here: <a href="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=eea1877498&e=519f164adc" style="color: #007c89; font-weight: normal;">https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83068169075?pwd=bKYl_Mxb26P2ckQR2WzkDzvP85tEID.1</a></strong></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">You do not need to be a member of the chapter or the league or even the human race to attend, but it’ll help if you’ve read the awesome book.</p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">To make that easier, my publisher is running a deal for the ebook until July 22nd. You can pick an up an ebook for one dollar nine and ninety cents or less (≥$1.99) from these locations.<br /><br /><img data-file-id="5721597" height="353" src="https://mcusercontent.com/27e852604af59ec46e9460d68/images/f62f9aed-f66d-85dd-bbc8-19d1ecfd5d6e.png" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: 353px; margin: 0px; outline: none; width: 250px;" width="250" /></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=5404b761a1&e=519f164adc" style="color: #007c89;"><strong>Amazon</strong></a></span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=b911879cb2&e=519f164adc" style="color: #007c89;"><strong>Apple</strong></a></span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=0d19258d7d&e=519f164adc" style="color: #007c89;"><strong>Barnes & Noble (Nook)</strong></a></span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=6177b40926&e=519f164adc" style="color: #007c89;"><strong>Google</strong></a></span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=c5843d7b0a&e=519f164adc" style="color: #007c89;"><strong>Kobo</strong></a></span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"> </p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Come hang out and discuss the universe of Coronam, pose questions, meet some fantastic people. See my new glasses.</p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Email me if you have any questions.</p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">—Johnny<br /><br /><em>* PS – OF KINGS, QUEENS AND COLONIES is an official best-seller as of June 22, 2022. Squeeeeee!</em></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnDividerBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; table-layout: fixed !important; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnDividerBlockOuter"><tr><td class="mcnDividerBlockInner" style="min-width: 100%; padding: 18px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnDividerContent" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td id="templateFooter" style="background-image: none; background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnDividerBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; table-layout: fixed !important; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnDividerBlockOuter"><tr><td class="mcnDividerBlockInner" style="min-width: 100%; padding: 18px;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="mcnTextBlockOuter"><tr><td class="mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><img alt="" height="1" src="https://johnnyworthen.us11.list-manage.com/track/open.php?u=27e852604af59ec46e9460d68&id=bcf7e0e06a&e=519f164adc" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; height: auto; outline: none;" width="1" />Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-24551815495682178252022-04-25T08:57:00.002-07:002022-04-25T09:00:17.253-07:00Pikes Peak Writers Conference this week<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Hey kids,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Sorry for not posting in like forever, but as you know, I am at heart, a lazy man.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Depression is a thing too, as are new distractions, like washing and editing.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To counteract my laziness, I have made Frostian promises to keep. Namely, a bunch of conferences coming up. I love conferences. They energize, improve, connect, challenge and emotionally drain me like nothing else. Getting back in front of masses of people, leaving the house to interact with actually nearby human beings, free of Zoom restraints and mute buttons is a welcome return to what I once thought was normal.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My next one is Pikes Peak, this week. If you’re going, look me up. If you’re not going and want to, I bet you can still come. Here's what I'll be doing. It's a lot right? Yeah, it'll be aa blast.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7nj741JNhPNDCzwf-tDq1KgZP9-OQOLzi4aJ2iqgk0H6p5ggoi9gKJcf4D5veNTh5ObR4tNjr3pRNCj_W6l_-LNEr4JKwpXMJsIz-E-pn5YKTNSlrPS5AfDCIhx6Iex11O4RxlOyZUKWKeof7_PZJ3jvFOJv_YBxChVMPzPy-KdprQzfD7pNRAdbeg/s2096/2022PPWC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1157" data-original-width="2096" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7nj741JNhPNDCzwf-tDq1KgZP9-OQOLzi4aJ2iqgk0H6p5ggoi9gKJcf4D5veNTh5ObR4tNjr3pRNCj_W6l_-LNEr4JKwpXMJsIz-E-pn5YKTNSlrPS5AfDCIhx6Iex11O4RxlOyZUKWKeof7_PZJ3jvFOJv_YBxChVMPzPy-KdprQzfD7pNRAdbeg/w400-h221/2022PPWC.png" width="400" /></a></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; color: #420178; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 19.9px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://pikespeakwritersconference.com/"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Pikes Peak Writers Conference</span></b></a></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18.7px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Friday through Sunday — April 29 – May 1, 2022</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18.7px;"><b>Friday, April 29, 2022</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>8:30-9:30 pm. Pike's Peak</b> </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Panel Moderator with Hannah Andrade • Elizabeth Copps • Lucienne Diver • Alice Speilburg • Samantha Wekstein</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Join the agents as they answer questions.</i></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>4:45-5:45 pm. Royal Gorge Room</b> </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Presentation: The Faceted Story</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A presentation about those elements of narrative fiction that lend depth, value and resonance to writing. Every story has some, the best have many. We’ll learn how to identify which elements to include in your story. Subplots and multiple stories, arcs, settings, themes, novelties, information and more. A little foresight, a touch of research and a clear goal can nurture the muse to bring out the strength of the form.</i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><i><span> </span>Writers will be challenged to expand their fiction into elements beyond mere story and character. Emphasis will be placed on theme as well as history, education and entertainment qualities. Examples and techniques will be offered to help shape niches and expand any story into new areas of interest.</i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px; min-height: 16px;"><i></i><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18.7px;"><b>Saturday, April 30, 2022</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>8:30-9:30 am. Palmer/Academy Room</b> </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Presentation: Morning Zen and the Way of the Writer</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Author Johnny Worthen shares his discoveries studying eastern philosophy during the pandemic and their surprising applications to the life of an author. Sessions include directed mindfulness meditation and lecture on basic Buddhist concepts explaining how they may be successfully applied to the journey of writing.</i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>9:45-10:15 pm. Bookstore (Three Creeks)</b> </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Book Signing </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Come out and see me or I'll be so lonely... I'll be signing all my books.</i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>3:15-4:15 pm. Seven Falls</b> </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Panel Moderator: Adapt your Novel to the Screen With Ines Johnson</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In this practical workshop, veteran television writer and screenwriter instructor Ines Johnson will guide novelists through a series of steps designed to take a manuscript from the written word to the visual world of the screen and teleplay. Using a number of books that have been adapted successfully, and some not so successfully, into movies and television series, Ines will show authors how to break their novels down to their story core of the word and logline, and translate their plot points into the beat sheet of the screen.</i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18.7px; min-height: 16px;"><br /><b></b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18.7px;"><b>Sunday, May 1, 2022</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>9:00-10:0 am. Teller</b> </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Presentation: Deeper Reading for Deeper Writing</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Consciously or unconsciously meaning is hidden beneath signs and facades in literature, layered in word choice and focus. Through shared reading, discussion and meaning and themes, we will learn to consciously see what our subconscious feels within a text, those elements that unite and undercut, but always elevate craft into art. Once you understand deconstruction, your reading and your writing will never be the same.</i></p><div><i><br /></i></div>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-49124445556933666552022-01-14T09:00:00.005-07:002022-01-14T09:00:56.378-07:00Johnny's 2021 Read Books<p> It’s time for my annual “What did Johnny Read Last Year” post.</p><p>2021 was another year for stress and unpleasant worry. To combat the decline of western civilization and implosion of capitalism, I challenged myself to read 50 books in the calendar year and successfully consumed 59. Pretty awesome.</p><p>Below is the list. You’ll see certain patterns there. I fell in love with Cory Doctorow, Ursula K. Le Guin and I devoured books on Buddhism while boning up on the rise of the grain state and astrophysics. And of course, I perused a few classics.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Totally Awesome Book of Useless Information, Noel Botham</p><p>Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller </p><p>Ravel, Cassidy Ward</p><p>Orlando, Virginia Woolf</p><p>5</p><p><br /></p><p>We Can Build You, Phillip K Dick</p><p>White Trash Warlock, David R. Slayton</p><p>A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking</p><p>The Counterfeit Connection, Johnny Worthen</p><p>Lady Chatterly’s Lover, D H Lawrence</p><p>10</p><p><br /></p><p>Passage Meditation, Eknath Easwaran</p><p>No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners, Noah Rasheta</p><p>Squeeze Me, Carl Hiaasen</p><p>Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo</p><p>The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh</p><p>15</p><p> </p><p>Tropic of Stupid, Tim Dorsey</p><p>Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie</p><p>Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty</p><p>Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie</p><p>20</p><p><br /></p><p>The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman</p><p>What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula</p><p>Skios, Michael Frayn</p><p>To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf</p><p>A Briefer History of Time, Stephen Hawking</p><p>25</p><p><br /></p><p>If Not Now, When? Infinite Monkey Anthology </p><p>They Both Die at the End, Adam Silvera</p><p>Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, Walter M. Miller, Jr.</p><p>Strong in Broken Places, LUW anthology</p><p>A Promised Land, Barack Obama</p><p>30</p><p><br /></p><p>Stargazer, Anne Hillerman</p><p>The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler</p><p>The Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran</p><p>Information Doesn’t Want to be Free, Cory Doctorow</p><p>Radicalized, Cory Doctorow </p><p>35</p><p><br /></p><p>Eastern Standard Tribe, Cory Doctorow</p><p>Overclocked, Cory Doctorow</p><p>Buddhism for Beginners, Thubten Chords</p><p>Walkaway, Cory Doctorow</p><p>Maximum Bob, Elmore Leonard</p><p>40</p><p><br /></p><p>Little Brother, Cory Doctorow</p><p>Runaway: Poppet Cycle 2, Donna J. W. Munro</p><p>Bonfire of the Vanities, Thomas Wolfe</p><p>Catwings, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel</p><p>45</p><p><br /></p><p>Catwings Return, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer</p><p>Jane on Her Own, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>Seeing Sideways, Kristin Hersh</p><p>50</p><p><br /></p><p>Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo</p><p>Homeland, Cory Doctorow</p><p>The King in Yellow, Robert W. Chambers</p><p>Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling</p><p>The Man with the Golden Arm, Nelson Algren</p><p>55</p><p><br /></p><p>The Four Seals of the Dharma, Lama Khenpo Ngedön </p><p>Against the Grain, James C. Scott</p><p>Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright</p><p>The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber & David Wengrow</p><p>59</p><p><br /></p><p>The challenge continues. 50 books in 2022.</p><p>Peace out,</p><p>—Johnny</p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-32700475242398062062021-11-15T08:48:00.002-07:002021-11-15T08:48:45.780-07:00Letting go of Coronam<p> <a href="https://amzn.to/2UItY1F"><span style="font-size: large;">OF KINGS, QUEENS AND COLONIES; a Book of Coronam</span></a></p><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/2UItY1F" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1327" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-akiXARf4L7k/YZJ_3h3ys5I/AAAAAAAAEq4/DaacKEO6hmYvMlzgBEYEZsgKQDI_n8PqQCLcBGAsYHQ/w259-h400/Johnny%2BWorthen%2BOf%2BKings%2BQueens%2BColonies%2Bcover%2B04%2Bborder.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br />This time it’s different.</div><p>Every time I launch a book, I take a moment to consider. It’s a milestone in any author’s life. Even for those authors who’ve forgotten how many books they’ve published and have three lined up for this week. It matters. It’s important. It’s emotional.</p><p>The old analogy that books are like children is real. We birth them, form them, love them and then set them out into the world. Our hands are tied then. There’s really nothing we can do after they leave. We can’t control who they meet, how they’re received. The love they get, the heartbreak. Maybe we can offer few good word here or there, a boost where we can, a defense when we’re able, but it’s the book’s life now. We only started it. Nevertheless though our power to shape its destiny is waned, our attachment has not. It is a part of us and will always be so. A reflecting however dim of ourselves. A dream we once had. An hope, a prayer, an idea we dared share.</p><p>But this one is different.</p><p>It’s been mentioned to me that I have a different voice in every genre, Tony’s sarcasm in the Flaner series is a world different from Eleanor’s longing in the Unseen. The holy madness of WHAT IMMORTAL HAND is a qualitative divergent from the seriousness of THE BRAND DEMAND. To all these genres I now add science fiction.</p><p>I write from the inside out. That is, I begin with an idea, a theme, and then form a story around that. I attribute this to my training in literature and critique as opposed to creative writing. Sometimes the theme is constructive, that is to say, another armature to compliment setting, character, and plot as a skeleton for a compelling story. Sometimes, the theme is engulfing and desperate, a long-form reach for meaning and understanding. Coronam is the latter. Coronam is my dread of history turning into fear for the future. My questions here address have to do with the individual and the community and the proposition. that society can evolve.</p><p>Through the creation of my fantastic worlds, I found not only a better understanding of history but hope for the future. The key, and here is a spoiler I suppose, is knowledge. I believe we already have the other main ingredient to make it work—compassion—or at least we can find it. That is a certainty.</p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/2UItY1F" target="_blank">OF KINGS, QUEENS AND COLONIES. Coronam.</a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/2UItY1F" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1645" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QEoRiVnWfVc/YZKAFwPYhMI/AAAAAAAAEq8/m67lGfKDC54F8vBZ1-squaUqLmon10kBACLcBGAsYHQ/w321-h400/Map%252310.png" width="321" /></a></div><br />A different thing in my writing career. It’s an homage to the great epic science fiction authors of the past, those greats who weened me in the day. Asimov’s FOUNDATION TRILOGY, THE FOUR LORDS OF THE DIAMOND and of course and most importantly, Frank Herbert’s DUNE. Every writer who read these growing up, breeds within them a desire to make their own epic, to join those ranks, to participate in grand storytelling. Coronam is mine. <p></p><p>It is a complex piece, multiple points of view, many worlds, as many weaving plot lines and history echoes all held together firmly by the idea of evolution and new chances. I have a beautiful queen fighting for her thrown and for her people against a rising tyrant. I have a pirate lover sworn to her side; a zealous priest doing God’s own work, however cruel it may be; a doomed colony with good intentions but bad luck; and a child whose suffering turns to enlightenment. These are alien worlds with familiar shapes, people who look different but aren’t. There is environmental danger, human caused and natural. A sun who warms the planets and makes the miracle that is the system, but is volatile, unpredictable, and dangerous.</p><p>Now, on the eve of its release I can only hope that it’ll be well received. It is dense, more DUNE than TWILIGHT, if you know what I mean. It flows in longing ideas and evocative prose. It is epic.</p><p>It is different.</p><p>I wrote the book because I wanted to read it. That anyone else wanted to, is a bonus. That a fantastic press like Flame Tree wanted to publish it, puts me over the the moon—all of them! It is out of my hands now. I did the best I could and now it stands on its own.</p><p>But this time it’s different.</p><p>This time the stage is bigger, the distribution world-wide, the fan base potentially global. It’s intimidating. I won’t lie, this book could make me. Or break me.</p><p>And anything in between.</p><p>All we can ever ask for in life is a chance, right? Do our best and be content? The severing of art from artist which happens whenever a work is finished and released, teaches this lesson in harsh helplessness. The book has its own life now, will have its own fans. We are related but not the same. Our fates will be forever different and yet shared. I have set the solar-sails to catch the storms of the sun. It sails now without me. Others now have the control. But I buoyed in optimism, confident in my team, excited for possibility, and steeling myself for whatever may comes, equally vulnerable to success and failure. I’ve been here before.</p><p>But this time it’s different.</p><p>Familiar, but new. This is history repeating itself, in micro and macro, fantasy and reality. But this time it’s different. This time it’s bigger. This time the stakes are higher.</p><p><i><a href="https://amzn.to/2UItY1F" target="_blank">OF KINGS, QUEENS AND COLONIES: A Book of Coronam.</a> Humanity gets another chance, but will anything be different?</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks for your support.</p><p>—Johnny</p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-13322586288666373902021-09-02T08:24:00.000-07:002021-09-02T08:24:15.481-07:00Awards are cool<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VTMWfSQJxUU/YTDnqGvFQAI/AAAAAAAAEp0/olry0kePGSsgEqEQUoqPoNTsdujNm2u_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_7291.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VTMWfSQJxUU/YTDnqGvFQAI/AAAAAAAAEp0/olry0kePGSsgEqEQUoqPoNTsdujNm2u_wCLcBGAsYHQ/w542-h406/IMG_7291.jpeg" width="542" /></a></div><br />I teach it and I try to live it, but it rain’t always easy. Writing —art in general I suppose, is subjective and hard, full of rejection and heart ache. Any validation of one’s work is welcome and big validation, say, like winning awards from your peers is an absolute wonder. <p></p><p>At this year’s <a href="http://quillsconference.com" target="_blank">League of Utah Writers Quills Conference</a>, yours truly won several awards. </p><p>I won two <a href="https://www.leagueofutahwriters.com/woolley-awards-writing-contest" target="_blank">Olive Woolley Burt Awards</a>, the new name for the League of Utah Writers non-published writing contest. I dominated the short fiction category with two wins.</p><p>My short story <i>Kintsugi</i>, won a First Honorable Mention. This story renamed to <i>Hardened Scars</i>, will appear in the upcoming anthology STRONG IN BROKEN PLACES, coming this winter. It’s the story of a woman coming to terms with her abusive father.</p><p>My short story, <i>The</i> <i>Last Chance</i> won Third Place. This story appears in <a href="https://amzn.to/2WFbIHn" target="_blank">IF NOT NOW, WHEN? </a>a league chapter anthology released at Quills from the Infinite Monkeys. In this story, a horror or possibly a thriller, an up-and-coming senator meets an old school mate at a midnight cafe called The Last Chance.</p><p>In the Novel category of the <a href="https://www.leagueofutahwriters.com/quillsawards2021" target="_blank">Quills Contest</a>, which honors published books by league members only, I again did very well. It was a very tight contest this year, with several ties and a crowded slate.</p><p>My Tony Flaner mystery novella, <a href="https://amzn.to/2DMefX6" target="_blank">THE KNICKKNACK CASE</a>, won a Recommend Read Quill.</p><p>MY Tony Flaner mystery novel, <a href="https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L" target="_blank">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</a>, won a Silver Quill. I got a trophy for this one.</p><p>High honors. I’m humbled and happy beyond giddy.</p><p><a href="http://www.johnnyworthen.com" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QOKDgIbzw7I/YTDr7rB4DXI/AAAAAAAAEqE/7Tf8RooAkg8eKhsVToT0LplCuyPR6vSOwCLcBGAsYHQ/w144-h320/FlanerBunch%25402x.png" width="144" /></a>Rock on Tony! All the tony Flaner mysteries are available now, click the links below. However, <a href="https://mailchi.mp/486caf21ceb6/johnnyworthen" target="_blank">THE KNICKKNACK CASE can be had for free by joining my mailing list here.</a></p><p>Interestingly and excitedly, I have to note that all Tony Flaner’s books have now won awards.</p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href=" https://amzn.to/2R9ZdxA" target="_blank">THE FINGER TRAP</a>, Diamond Quill, - best book of the year</p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://amzn.to/32ipBLT" target="_blank">THICKER THAN WATER</a>, Recommended Read</p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://amzn.to/2DMefX6" target="_blank">THE KNICKKNACK CASE</a>, Recommended Read</p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L" target="_blank">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</a>, Silver Quill</p><p>Thank you all for your love and support. Help me praise the gods of subjectively and taste by joining me in a happy dance. You can do it from your chair if you want, just your arms and head, or like me, you could circle the room in a tie-dye toga imitating cartoon dogs.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5wFEWgv2HDo/YTDpn2g6lyI/AAAAAAAAEp8/g81oMkFORCkv3u-r_LwidYJqP3KkR-z7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s286/216c759694bb37b3d6e65643d7031303_w200.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="200" height="286" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5wFEWgv2HDo/YTDpn2g6lyI/AAAAAAAAEp8/g81oMkFORCkv3u-r_LwidYJqP3KkR-z7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/216c759694bb37b3d6e65643d7031303_w200.gif" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-35335654247367930722021-06-16T06:43:00.004-07:002021-06-16T06:43:36.181-07:00Letting go of Tony, THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3yaHZ7p" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PHRl6AMZbHA/YMn9MOkbw3I/AAAAAAAAEow/S004zDDBZz4hn17v7TpJcGkKPnCWkhDiQCLcBGAsYHQ/w250-h400/TCCebookCover.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>Each time a book of mine sets off into the world I’m possessed by a certain sadness. I think it’s akin to the feeling any parent has when watching a child move on, out of their control and protection. There’s a sense of wonder at the act but also self-doubt, did I do everything I could to prepare them? Will they be liked?<p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/3yaHZ7p" target="_blank">THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION</a> is no different, and yet different. It’s my latest book, which means I’ve done this a few times before and so should be an old hat at this. I’m buoyed by the knowledge that readers of this book probably have endured a few previous iterations of Tony Flaner and so know what they’re getting into. There’s a huge relief in knowing that, in putting a book into the hands of fans and friends. There Is also however the worry that I’ll disappoint, that the very people I’m most grateful to, the ones who allowed me to produce this book, won’t like it, that I’ll fail to meet exceptions. That it won't meet the level of its predecessors. That the previous novels, if they were good, were more the result of luck than my skill.</p><p>This is imposter syndrome. It is a common thing among creatives, I hear. I know few authors, if any, who don’t wrestle with this idea to some degree. We are so used to rejection that any kind of acceptance seems like a dream, a lucky break, an undeserved theft of affection and attention. There’s also always the phenomenon of not understanding how any book was made. No two projects of mine have manifested the same way ; I get an idea and write it, somehow. In looking back over a project, it’s a blur of energy, effort, and emotion. Did I do that or was I possessed? There’s a disassociation involved that furthers the idea of separateness, of falseness and fakery.</p><p>I talked to a big author once – damn if I can remember her name now, such is me, but I’ll never forget what she said about getting books on the New York Times Best Seller List and other accolades she’d earned. Each time, she said, it was worse. It was the con extended. There was never a feeling of “oh, yeah, now I deserve this.” Instead it was that somehow the lie had gotten bigger. She compared it to “leveling up,” that each time the feeling grew and her need of acceptance had to grow too – a new boss level and she needed to just face it.</p><p>I’m a big fish in my little pond. For my entire career I’ve been punching above my weight class. I’ve used my special powers of being memorable to my advantage. I’ve used my rampant insecurity to hide myself behind wit and humor. Self-effacing and boisterous, I am shielded. These have served me well, but they’re temporary fixes. In the time of twilight, staring at a blank page, riding the train home, wondering at my Amazon page, I can’t help feeling that the con has gotten out of hand, and at any moment, I’ll be revealed as the fake I am.</p><p>Yeah, I write comedies.</p><p>This is the theme of THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION. I explore the idea of forgeries in personality and art, all while Tony himself wrestles with his insecurities. He’s never understood what Allie sees in him. He’s seldom taken a hard look at his own work and wondered if he fell into the success or earned it. Usually he is immune from such heady thoughts, but Tony may be growing up a bit. Life is descending and comparisons are inevitable, especially with a high school reunion coming up and an old rival making moves on his lover.</p><p>A nice set up personally, but why stop there? The world is full of fakes, creators and artist are all characters in their own worlds, facades, personalities with values defined by expectation. It is a major subject, strangely easy to write about, and unfortunately, unsolvable.</p><p>That’s the cheat. I will spoil my new book, a little. I do not solve this problem with Tony in THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION, though I try. I investigate and tease, I exemplify and simplify, but the underlying issue is hardly revolved. I land on a moment of recognition regarding the impermanence of it all and take hope in that. My answer? The best anyone can do is to do their best and hope their armor is strong enough to protect them from not their failures, but from their successes.</p><p>The book is a fun mystery, a trek around my area with all its hypocrisies and ironies. Tony is in his element, smog messing with his senses, problems of his own creation, old friends reaching out for help he’s not sure he can deliver on. A new boss. A time to level up.</p><p>And so with stirring trepidation and the sure knowledge that I have failed in whatever grand experiment I undertook and will be revealed as the imposter I am, I can only hope that my readers see through these faults and find a friend, enjoy the ride, sympathize, empathize, euthanize their own fears with a few hours of Tony Flaner in THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3yaHZ7p" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZY_QULTijeo/YMn9dRBF1iI/AAAAAAAAEo4/DZfn1gfOcH43j1HFZ1FfEhn1AFXGRD5ugCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h640/TCCebookCover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3yaHZ7p" target="_blank">THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION, A Tony Flaner Mystery</a>, </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now available in paperback, ebook, and Kindle Unlimited </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-57736854306882080642021-04-14T07:50:00.001-07:002021-04-14T07:50:07.534-07:00THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> Drum Roll please (funnier than a spring roll, and fewer than a cinnamon).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I present to you, my beloved readers, the next Tony Flaner adventure, </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://amzn.to/3tielub" target="_blank">THE COUNTERFEIT CONNECTION</a></b></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;"> After months of nothing, insecure sleuth Tony Flaner gets four cases in one night. Two of them are paying; a background check and a missing person. One is for family pride, the other is personal—because Tony is taking everything personally. A rival detective is talking smack, and a looming high school reunion threatens disaster, exposure, and maybe the loss of his girlfriend. Tony’s angsty teenage son is going through phases which may now include crime, but not appreciation of the new fifty-thousand dollar car Tony gave him for Christmas.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><span> </span>Tony must face international intrigue, falling fame, angry dogs, and the dreaded—God help him—domestic case, all the while drowning in the mental sludge of imposter-syndrome and the real pollution of the infamous Salt Lake City inversion. Even the air isn’t real.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;"> Actors and agents, hippies and obsessions, a Burmese coup, and the worst song ever from Rogers and Hammerstein test Tony’s luck, skill, and patience as he uncovers the Counterfeit </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Connection.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> Behold the cover!</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3tielub" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Pe2uZ2DVgg/YHcAlZOJvLI/AAAAAAAAElo/ZwopSyi_87UyLbbyU8Dd1yQW9-Zl6oegACLcBGAsYHQ/w426-h640/counterfeit-cover-v3.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Behold also that it is <a href="https://amzn.to/3tielub" target="_blank">available on Amazon at this very moment for pre-order</a>. Actual release date is set for June 15, 2021, a Tuesday, because, according to the mountain, all new books are released on a Tuesday. If someone knows why, please email me. I’m not making that up. I heard it somewhere and don’t wholly understand it. First person to give me a good answer will get a free ebook of mine. Something nice.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-32852483990185359272021-03-16T12:45:00.004-07:002021-03-16T12:45:23.271-07:00OF KINGS, QUEENS, AND COLONIES - Cover Reveal<h1 style="text-align: center;"> Squeee!!!!!</h1><h2><br /></h2><h2><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U2aFUvMFfKs/YFEKbkth8pI/AAAAAAAAElQ/EITVqJhnKX8USJgLI58m0OJR04FQONvFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Johnny%2BWorthen%2BOf%2BKings%2BQueens%2BColonies%2Bcover%2B04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1327" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U2aFUvMFfKs/YFEKbkth8pI/AAAAAAAAElQ/EITVqJhnKX8USJgLI58m0OJR04FQONvFwCLcBGAsYHQ/w414-h640/Johnny%2BWorthen%2BOf%2BKings%2BQueens%2BColonies%2Bcover%2B04.jpg" width="414" /></a></div></h2><h2><br /></h2><h2 style="text-align: left;">Coming this Fall from Flame Tree Press and Simon & Schuster.</h2><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-53019182281470293662021-03-03T08:55:00.000-07:002021-03-03T08:55:01.299-07:00ELEANOR Reborn<p><i>Eleanor is not what she appears to be. </i></p><p> Hey book fans, readers, groupies, stalkers, slow assassins, hateful critics, loving angels and Cherubim or all striped. ELEANOR, and THE UNSEEN series is reborn.</p><p>The story of this best-selling award-winning series is a story of my career in many ways. I wrote it get attention for THE FINGER TRAP and the off-genre comic mysteries therein. I quickly fell deep in love with the book, the series and the concept. I sold the series along with THE FINGER TRAP, to Jolly Fish Press and had good times for all. Winning several awards, the League of Utah Writers Gold Quill for ELANOR as best young adult book of the year and a Silver Quill the next year for CELESTE. For a brief lovely period they reached the top of the Amazon Young Adult best-selling list.</p><p>When Jolly Fish was acquired by North Star Editions, THE UNSEEN, went with them, though Tony in. THE FINGER TRAP bailed since NSE didn't really want more in that series. Now after the years of that, THE UNSEEN has returned to me.</p><p>Wasting no time, the books remain in print, and now have these awesome new covers,</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3uK48Yn" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="971" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E4r0F3HmboY/YD0c-2MT1mI/AAAAAAAAEks/g0YF8lC_ZF8ACVYyc_f5bUrjiOmqZjABQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/EleanorDIebook.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3uK48Yn" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="971" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9JiBSjJgxjE/YD0dGI4-O8I/AAAAAAAAEkw/KQUebY5XExg4in5rQRM89mRwjnM2Z30_QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/CelesteDIebook.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3uK48Yn" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1344" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sP7GyWWd0eM/YD0dN5wskkI/AAAAAAAAEk0/3qVriXHZjB85UGdrf6B6THlGP1IZE5IbwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/DavidCoverEbook.jpg" /></a></div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><p>I really love the new covers, all original art specifically commissioned for the series. Each one emotionally tracks the progress the lonely, scared, and finally avenging Eleanor.</p><p>Available now at <a href="https://amzn.to/37Zf8HQ">Amazon</a>.</p><p><i><span> </span>It was a gamble for Eleanor to rejoin humanity, but she was driven to it. She’d been too successful forgetting. The last vestiges of her family hung by a thread in her transformed brain and drove her to be reckless. </i></p><p><i><span> </span>Ten years later, Eleanor hides in plain sight. She is an average girl getting average grades in a small Wyoming town: poor but happy, lonely but loved. Her mother, Tabitha, is there for her and that’s all she’s ever needed. But now her mother is sick and David has returned. The only friend she’d ever had, the only other person who knows her secret, is back. And Eleanor again becomes reckless. </i></p><p><i><span> </span>Eleanor is a modest girl, unremarkable but extraordinary, young but old, malleable but fixed. She is scared and confused. She is a liar and a thief. Eleanor is not what she appears to be. </i></p><div aria-expanded="true" class="a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 19px; position: relative;"><div class="a-section a-spacing-none a-padding-none collectionDescription" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; max-width: 570px; padding: 0px !important;"><span class="a-size-base collectionDescription" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px !important; max-width: 570px;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="a-section a-spacing-none a-padding-none collectionDescription" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; max-width: 570px; padding: 0px !important;"><span class="a-size-base collectionDescription" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px !important; max-width: 570px;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="a-section a-spacing-none a-padding-none collectionDescription" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; max-width: 570px; padding: 0px !important;"><br /></div></div><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-3036142593795107072021-01-06T12:00:00.000-07:002021-01-06T12:00:18.238-07:002020's Reading<p> It’s time for my annual reading report card.</p><p>My goal for 2020 was to read 50 books. I read 55. I am so awesome.</p><p>This year saw certain themes arise in my reading. A new love of Ursula K. Le Guin is a late one as is a fascination with Indian holy books and Eastern philosophy. There are the usual classics I’m catching up on, a few books I read for work—books on craft, theory, and editing, including my own. All in all it was a fascinating year in pages. Almost made up for hellish year that just passed. Here’s the list:</p><p><br /></p><p>The Professional Thief, Edwin Hardin Sutherland</p><p>An Appointment with God, Mark Kirkbride</p><p>Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield</p><p>The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells</p><p>The Time Machine, H. G. Wells</p><p>5</p><p><br /></p><p>Inspirational Poetry, William Blake</p><p>Naked Came the Florida Man, Tim Dorsey</p><p>An Appointment with God, Mark Kirkbride</p><p>High Magick, Damien Echols</p><p>The Successful Author Mindset, Joanna Penn</p><p>10</p><p><br /></p><p>Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell</p><p>Consider This, Chuck Palahniuk</p><p>The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón</p><p>Revelation, Poppet Cycle Book 1, Donna J. Munro</p><p>Changing Wax, Jared Quan</p><p>15</p><p><br /></p><p>LUW 85th Anniversary Anthology </p><p>The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson</p><p>The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson</p><p>1619 Project, New York Times </p><p>Take Off Your Pants, Libbie Hawker</p><p>20</p><p><br /></p><p>Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro.</p><p>Art & Fear, David Bales & Ted Orland</p><p>True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey</p><p>The Waves, Virginia Woolf </p><p>Under the Black Flag, David Cordingly</p><p>25</p><p><br /></p><p>Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett</p><p>Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert </p><p>Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre</p><p>Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert</p><p>Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert (again)</p><p>30</p><p><br /></p><p>Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald</p><p>After Progress, John Michael Greer</p><p>The Virginian, Owen Wister</p><p>Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon</p><p>The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran</p><p>35</p><p><br /></p><p>The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn & Chase Twichell</p><p>The Mormon War, Brandon G. Kinney</p><p>Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie</p><p>Taking the Path of Zen, Robert Aitken</p><p>The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Laurence Sterne</p><p>40</p><p><br /></p><p>The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells</p><p>Writing in the Dark, Tim Waggoner</p><p>Jaws, Peter Benchley</p><p>How to be Good, Nick Hornby</p><p>Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh</p><p>45</p><p><br /></p><p>Intimations: Six Essays, Zadie Smith</p><p>The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>The Invention of Sound, Chuck Palahniuk</p><p>How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method, Randy Ingermanson</p><p>Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>50</p><p><br /></p><p>Solutions and Other Problems, by Allie Brosh</p><p>The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin</p><p>South of the Border, West of the Sun, Haruki Murakami</p><p>Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang</p><p>The Dhammapada, Eknath Easwaran</p><p>55</p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>For 2021 I'm trying for another 50. </div><div><br /></div><div>Read on, my friends. Read on.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-26075042013089829262020-12-16T08:59:00.001-07:002020-12-16T08:59:17.938-07:00Pandemic Greetings<p>I realized I haven’t communicated for a while. Publish or parish. I gotta write something. I gotta communicate. My fans are dying to hear from me. Fields of dying bodies, eclectic readers and tie-dye aficionados, buzzards readying their beaks. This is my fault. This blood will be on my hands. Isn’t that just how the year has been? Here I am, sitting around in my underwear on the couch shotgunning Coke Zeros with a ball point pen, scrunched atop a blanket of indeterminate color, and I’ve got to produce something. I gotta write.</p><p>This brings up the rather testy problem of figuring out what to write. If I could think of what to write don’t you think I’d be writing? I’m a writer, you know. Writing is what I do. I tell people I’m writing when I’m writing and sometimes when I’m thinking of writing and when I have to explain why I’m in my underwear at 5:00 p.m. and have to invent reasons why the blanket is that color.</p><p>But I’m a professional. I can do this. Here it is. I’ll write something. Here it comes. I’m inspired.</p><p>Recently, I celebrated Thanksgiving and there’s something about that holiday that encourages me to give thanks, or at least count a couple blessings. A countdown. That’s a kind of writing. I can do it in words. Write them down. Writing!</p><p>I have a lot of blessings. I can work from home in my underwear with Coke Zero in my chest hair. This isn’t a Covid thing. I was doing this before, so it’s a big blessing my lifestyle hasn’t been unduly altered. I can write, when I want to. Really. It’s happened. That’s a good thing. That’s important to me. Blessed. Like Brian Blessed - <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080745/?ref_=nm_knf_i1" target="_blank">FLASH</a>!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/08/10/22/31793248-0-image-m-135_1597093965918.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="634" height="273" src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/08/10/22/31793248-0-image-m-135_1597093965918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Locked away from my sane friends, barring the door to my insane ones, I’ve come to appreciate friends. And sanity. It’s nice to know you’re not alone when you’re alone. Zoom has been a lifesaver and I’ve learned that if you hold the computer just right, underwear is just fine.</p><p>I’ve come to understand what it is I actually need to survive. Food. Lots of food. More food than I used to need apparently. Food is important. Heat is nice. Blankets help when you don’t dress for the cooling temperatures. Liquids are good. Coke Zero is a liquid. So is bourbon. I checked. Wikipedia is very wise. Thanks internet knowledge core.</p><p>Hobbies are vital for survival in these days of American decline. All work and no play makes for a creepy lodge vacation. I have lots of hobbies and I’ve even found a few new ones as I keep myself within this house all day, and yard at night; pants optional. Among my new hobbies are:</p><p> Day drinking. </p><p> Sleeping.</p><p> Slurring.</p><p> Beard braiding.</p><p> Eating. (That’s an old one, but I’ve been taking it to new levels.)</p><p> Judging.</p><p>The last one is really a time taker. Getting on the internet, watching numbers rise and open hospital beds dwindle I’ve tried to find an easy way to judge my fellow pandemic travelers. Mostly, because my friends are sane, the judging goes out to creepy family members, strangers, and people who make the news for getting kicked off airplanes. The metric is: how much are you willing to be inconvenienced to keep other people from dying? If the answer is, "I won’t wear a mask and I won’t believe in science," you score very low on my judgment chart and I send evil waves of malevolence your way hoping you’ll lose your car keys or discover the wonders of Giardia-infused intestinal squirts. I can be mean. Don’t cross me.</p><p>I’ve also come to judge people by fashion. Tube tops after Labor Day is a privilege not a right. Crocs. Just Crocs.</p><p>I wonder if I’m not being judged too. I’m pretty sure I am. Waves of disorder waft over the domicile like whispered inside jokes. Strange things have been happening. The most alarming is that someone has cursed my washing machine. It is shrinking all my clothes, particularly my pants. A sublime spell. There’s a wizard out to get me. I must atone.</p><p>It hasn’t been a complete waste, these many months hiding from disease which is out to get me. I have found a new job. It’s a work at home gig, something I never considered to be full-time employment, but has surely risen to that, particularly in the cold weather. I am a professional door opener for cats. Yep. It’s going on my CV. There are doormen at all the nice buildings in New York (I read about them), well now at Casa Worthen, there is me. I’m not as nicely dressed, or even actually dressed sometimes. I don’t wear a hat all the time, but sometimes I do. I wait by the back sliding door ready to oblige our two cats who test the limits of their control over me by a dozen passings each day. They look at me and smile in their cat ways. I think they’d tip if they had money, but I know better than to let my cats have money. I shiver to think of the mischief they could do on Etsy alone.</p><p>So I go on with the cats and couch and the drinks and the food and the blanket whose original color is a mystery lost to time. I get by. I think. I plan. I wait for the vaccine and a return to sanity. I count my blessings. I write.</p><p>Gotta go. Roy’s at the door.</p><p>Merry Christmas 2020</p><p>—Johnny</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-51915541754004167672020-10-14T10:47:00.003-07:002020-10-14T10:47:58.446-07:00Letting Go of Tony, IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href=" https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="541" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AITWRraKo_A/X4c48n6RmQI/AAAAAAAAEiU/c5LuLHK4E60abvcLEsmTz2KCYmHFopYyQCLcBGAsYHQ/w270-h400/ITWOCL%2Bebook%2Bcover.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>Tomorrow the third Tony Flaner novel, <a href=" https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</a>, falls upon the world, to sink or swim as it will. It will be out of my hands. It has been for a while, I guess, but tomorrow is the official day.<p></p><p>Tony and I have had a long relationship. It was Tony who convinced me to become an author, a full time writer, a schlunk who quit a day job to pursue a dream. <a href="https://amzn.to/34GvqTp">THE FINGER TRAP</a> was a watershed moment in my life, a moment where, for the first time, future clarity and direction shown bright and clear.</p><p>And Tony had stories to tell.</p><p>After his origin story, his "coming of age" if you will, he got to fall in love in <a href="https://amzn.to/32ipBLT">THICKER THAN WATER</a>—family and past and future all mixing together. Again a simulacrum of my own existence. I had two books that were wonderful.</p><p>And now Tony takes a cruise to Alaska, just like I did. It is hard to separate us two sometimes. At the time I think it was me, but when I recall that cruise now, I often see it through Tony’s eyes. </p><p>Even then, when I stepped foot on that ship I knew that Tony walked with me. Though I remember distinctly writing another book on that trip, remember even the chapters I wrote in stolen time in a vacant barroom as the family slept in, Tony was wandering the decks, imagining mayhem. He talked me into asking the crew to show me some places usually off limits to non-fictional characters.</p><p>When I got home, Tony mulled and pondered and planned in my subconscious. A plot was formed, a cunning confusion rife with Utah connections. You can take the detective out of the state, but you can’t take the state out of the detective. Where would Flaner mystery be with it scathing social commentary? I don’t know, but Tony would’t like it.</p><p>The story was born.</p><p><a href=" https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</a> is Tony in full stride. His origin story is told, his growth story is there, here is Tony realized and familiar. His arc is true and in keeping with his life. Though not a series, but a serial, ie the books can be read in any order, it does repay those who’ve followed Tony from the start and hopefully encourages the latecomers to check out his earlier words. That was the plan anyway.</p><p>Now the plan is out of my hands. Tony sails alone tomorrow on the <i>Success</i> up the Inside Passage to Alaskan tourist towns with murder on the high seas. The world will judge.</p><p>It is a sadly sweet moment, exciting and weighty to release this. Each book is like that, but this time, with Tony here, I feel more confident that he can handle himself. He’s shown me he can and he’s eager to tell his tale. Like me, Tony loves an audience.</p><div><p>Bon voyage!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" height="134" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NhYf1bhCiAQ/X4c5c2yxaRI/AAAAAAAAEic/wiQCN7JTqCI2_htdJztm4_ObKJOynw17gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h134/ITWOCLTwitter.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p></div>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-14096683205753131742020-10-07T08:21:00.000-07:002020-10-07T08:21:11.473-07:00Changing Details<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/32ipBLT" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3iPvD96JhvI/X33bXdKuQoI/AAAAAAAAEh4/fgCpICuQlD8Os_zZQDnMJuonDUpv9hIowCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/TTW600.jpg" /></a></div>In the best of times it’s hard to keep up with the changes in society as a writer. It’s hard to keep up as a citizen with the daily stream of disaster scrolling down our <a href="https://www.thesocialdilemma.com">Social Dilemma</a> monitors. This is one of the reason that authors need to embrace editing. Notice I said need, not should<p></p><p>Case in point. When I wrote the <a href="https://amzn.to/32ipBLT" target="_blank">THICKER THAN WATER</a>, Tony Flaner’s fantastic Moab Adventure, I made jokes about marijuana. Before it came to print, Colorado had legalized it and I had some re-writes to do. Since it was a plot point I had to finesse it into new form, even projecting that Utah would get medical dispensaries, which they subsequently have.</p><p>Flip phones were a thing in the first draft of <a href="https://amzn.to/2R9ZdxA">THE FINGER TRAP</a>. I know that makes the book sound positively ancient, some antediluvian romp with big wheeled bicycles and hoop skirts, but the smart phone thing was just barely launching when the idea was burgeoning. Such is the speed of society.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/2R9ZdxA" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lM3kylnnbqA/X33be9vxodI/AAAAAAAAEh8/fQw_E6Q5GRos8LiCFGqYLA_-zDT1Fq0-QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/TFTCover600.jpg" /></a></div>In my newest Tony Flaner book, <a href="https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</a>, launching next week (Squeeee!), I set the action on a cruise ship. Yeah, when I wrote it, causing was still a thing. This was like last year. People were on cruse ships nine months ago, It hasn’t been that long, but my god does it feel like it has been. The story is light and sarcastic in the Flaner mold and a fantastic book I’ve very proud of, a first rate mystery with twists and chuckles if not outright, “oh my god did he really just say/do/think/smell that” moments. I did hesitate bringing it out in 2020, but I’d already made the promise and I figured that cruising would make a come-back. Eventually.<p></p><p>Harder to decide was the virus. Yes, a virus plays a part in the book, at least in a background way. Norovirus, also known as the cruise ship disease was/is the threat most crews fear the most. This was before our beloved Covid. I thought of changing the threatening virus, but hell if that didn’t just put the story into dark territory with an ending, I, like the rest of the world can’t guess.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="405" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PtILFD1RRC8/X33b_maC0MI/AAAAAAAAEiI/8r0nylz3TNwlZ9XSLJpf5z6wA7XDMGknwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ITWOCL600.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>So I left it with Norovirus, ran the jokes, the shower, and kept to the mystery comedy, If the book were written today, doubtless it’d be different. I probably would’t put it on a cruise ship, .who knows. </p><p>Truth is, even in the best circumstances, there can be a considerably delay in writing a book and printing it. In speedy times, anachronisms are to be expected. Luckily, I think most readers haven’t caught up the speed of change any more than their authors have,.</p><p>My point is, go out and buy <a href="https://amzn.to/2I7ib6L">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</a> now and enjoy an excellent read,</p><p><br /></p><p>Stay safe.</p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-37654086878065829122020-09-30T07:31:00.002-07:002020-09-30T07:31:36.059-07:00Join Tony for a cruise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/36gp0Nj" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" height="134" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G2jD7QcEVhY/X3SVh4ywRBI/AAAAAAAAEhY/FZshEFvtwdAfE8AsCxY__5eI5VmaIYMIwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h134/ITWOCLTwitter.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>I’ve been on three cruises in my life. Cruising here is means riding a big floating hotel in the ocean for a while as opposed to driving slowly up main street with a bucket of chicken looking for girls on Friday night. </p><p>Each cruise had its own flavor, some were demonstrably better than others. The best, hands down was our cruise to Alaska. It was so good in fact, that I took Tony Flaner along, at least in theory. I should have written the whole thing off as a research trip, but alas, Tony took too long to get his act together and fall onto the page.</p><p>Nevertheless, cruising. Yes, we’re about cruising today. It’s not for everyone. And lately, I’d say it not for anyone. Covid has turned it all into a real mess. Tony only had to contend with Norovirus, “cruise ship flu” when he went. Not that that was the real danger. There were badgers out there that menaced him more. Kinda.</p><p>So, although I’d recommend Alaska cruising up the Inside Passage most days, these aren’t most days, and I can’t now. But that’s okay, because you can go with Tony Flaner up the coast of Alaska and have more adventure and butter drenched desserts than you could dream of in your Overeaters Anonymous midnight meeting.</p><p>Remember, that when you read a book, your synapses react and reform as if the experiences you’re reading about actually are happening to you. So… yeah, I’m offering you an Alaskan cruise for the low low price of $5.99 for the ebook and $17.99 for the all inclusive paperback. Boarding begins on October 15, but reservations are being taken now at:</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/36gp0Nj" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a></h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/36gp0Nj" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="541" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UKi4koxxmfA/X3SV5xMAI9I/AAAAAAAAEhk/fNcAp21-MZUHAF7gXu25dCVg-E6Npf7YQCLcBGAsYHQ/w432-h640/ITWOCL%2Bebook%2Bcover.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><p></p><p>Be safe everyone and read on!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-8378178355786648992020-09-19T07:50:00.004-07:002020-09-19T07:51:25.409-07:00Historical Document<p> I was asked by Jared Quan, the current League of Utah Writers Historian to do a set of interviews discussing my career and the place of the League in it along with other stories of daring dashing do. He'll get around to editing it all together in a more concise format, but in the meantime, the first interview was conducted and uploaded. Here it is, for those interested in my writing journey</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/744407899"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="1008" height="158" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4FBMbvJ92Zk/X2YaetdGeEI/AAAAAAAAEg0/q5xXQfWvRuA7Hq5C7NoXWhZwN-L_201lgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h158/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-09-19%2Bat%2B8.47.56%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>That's it for now. Catch you next week.</p><p>—J</p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-45118966165169244612020-09-09T07:29:00.000-07:002020-09-09T07:29:01.839-07:00Chasing Tomorrow<p> So this happened.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3ihzZck" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oQ1eX0ugX8E/X1jljYiZDGI/AAAAAAAAEgk/1jOAMxwQcSEzHD5vA0AlDBNOGNIIxbR3QCLcBGAsYHQ/w333-h500/ChasingTomorrow.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><br /><p>I'm in this.</p><p>This marks my second short story reprint. My tale, <i>The Lodge</i> which <a href="http://johnnyworthen.com/POM.html">originally appeared in <i>Peaks of Madness</i></a>, was selected by the League of Utah Writers to be included in this year's award-winning anthology. I say award winning anthology, because in order to be considered for the book, the story has to have placed in the League of Utah Writers writing contest, which <i>The Lodge</i> did. It won a Second Honorable Mention in the category of Horror, which is kind of like a fourth place. I'll take it.</p><p>Anytime I get words in print, I celebrate. Chasing Tom</p><p>Check out <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3ihzZck" target="_blank">Chasing Tomorrow</a></i> for a collection of excellent stories. It's cheap on <a href="https://amzn.to/3ihzZck" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-66306171945428757292020-09-02T08:11:00.000-07:002020-09-02T08:11:05.962-07:00The weekend, the wife and I<div class="separator"></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0-AnxdOi_u8/X0-1P-I0vtI/AAAAAAAAEgA/YkFYQMQ8Oqg-4yapYPDhg7yQecNunOvagCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_6799.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0-AnxdOi_u8/X0-1P-I0vtI/AAAAAAAAEgA/YkFYQMQ8Oqg-4yapYPDhg7yQecNunOvagCLcBGAsYHQ/w307-h410/IMG_6799.jpeg" width="307" /></a></div><br />We have access to an old family cabin up in Flaming Gorge. It’s not ours. It’s our relatives, but once in a while we get up there. We did that last weekend, just the wife and I.<p></p><p>The old cabin is running down. The furniture shows the years, older than my kids. The carpet remembers the Berlin Wall. Once a luxurious getaway, now it’s a rustic getaway, but a getaway it was.</p><p>For so many years it has been a part of my summer. A week there on the lake, in the woods, in the family room. Games, music, swimming, talking. The whole bunch of us. This time however, it was just the wife and I.</p><p>Little time we had, not the whole week, just a couple of days between shifts at the hospital, pressures of publishing pouring into my hourglass, concerns that would wait, but not long. So we took the not long and we went. Just the wife I.</p><p>Once it stood alone in a meadow, but now there are neighbors. Close and view-blocking. But they weren’t there this weekend. And it was just the wife I.</p><p>I had brought the usual. A pile of books coated in good intention, a computer for music, iPhones for internet tethering.</p><p>Do you see it?</p><p>The phone. The computer. It would not be just the wife and I as long as the world could appear in my screen. Many’s a trip I don’t change a thing about my daily routine except the view out the window and the mouse hair on my chair. Working as usual, distracting myself as usual, keeping up on things, which I’ve learned is more properly called “doomscrolling” in this hellish time.</p><p>How can there ever be space for just the wife and I under those circumstances?</p><p>Seeking that space, we went, but took the wire with us.</p><p>Without the other voices of the family. In the cooling cabin, under a four hour thunderstorm burying us in hail, we resisted the siren call.</p><p>We left it turned off.</p><p>We read. We sat. We walked. We ate. We drank. We talked. We saw a snake, a coyote, cows and crows, hummingbirds and mice. We were together in the quiet of the woods.</p><p>Unplugged for a weekend, in an old cabin in familiar forest, it was just the wife and I.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="308" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ldaok3bUDto/X0-1BoB0brI/AAAAAAAAEf8/i-2vOAhFqlE3K0vhX2wXl78QKXcgEtxAACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h308/IMG_6793.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="410" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SNEK<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-80977142595210375672020-08-27T06:54:00.001-07:002020-08-27T06:54:52.790-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tDJaCn6-VI8/X0e6cKIPKRI/AAAAAAAAEfM/h0MiZHm1wwQ9QeS0Y2A-1y580l1UU77hwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/ITWOCLTwitter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" height="170" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tDJaCn6-VI8/X0e6cKIPKRI/AAAAAAAAEfM/h0MiZHm1wwQ9QeS0Y2A-1y580l1UU77hwCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h170/ITWOCLTwitter.png" width="512" /></a></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></h2><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;"><u>In The Wake of Captain Lord</u> preorder</span></h1><p>Hello Friends,<br /><br />We're in new waters, cold and icy, glacial in fact. Silly. Murderous. We’re in Alaska. The Inside Passage and Tony Flaner has issues, some of them aren’t even personal.<br /><br />I’m thrilled to announce that <a data-cke-saved-href="https://amzn.to/3jcevhg" href="https://amzn.to/3jcevhg" target="_blank"><strong>IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</strong> pre-orders is available</a>.</p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3jcevhg"><img alt="In the Wake of Captain Lord" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1384" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rGpxeRKqGDc/X0e5DlPGj0I/AAAAAAAAEfA/jb3TYj9O5SAyJzKm9HHLCYt6FxvJ1PNwQCLcBGAsYHQ/w432-h640/capnlrd-cover-v1-preview.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>If you’re thinking, “Gee, I really want something great to read in October,” this is just the thing for you. There are people who think that far ahead, I’m told. People who make use of their wedding crock-pots and plan a meal the day before they’ll eat it. Those kinds of people. I’m not judging.<br /><br />Follow this <a data-cke-saved-href="https://amzn.to/3jcevhg" href="https://amzn.to/3jcevhg" target="_blank">link</a> to place an ebook Pre-Order and be prepared!<br /><br />Thank you. Carry on.<br /><br />—Johnny</p><br />Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-29735794227361754132020-08-18T18:56:00.005-07:002020-08-18T19:03:54.989-07:00IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD - Cover Reveal<div style="text-align: left;">I am so excited. If you haven't heard already, here it is. Tony Flaner is back! His third novel-length adventure is set on the high seas, or rather, kinda causing a coastline, But there's water—salt water. And bears and eagles and murder</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;">IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN LORD</h1><h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>Coming soon!</b></h2><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>Cold murder and old flames sailing the Inside Passage</i></h3><p><i>Tony doesn't know why he did it. He just went. Forgetting to even call Allie, he boarded a plane and then a cruise ship to Alaska. While he's trying to figure out what is wrong with him, he has to figure out how an old college crush can get out of a murder charge when she admits to stabbing her millionaire husband.</i></p><p><i>Tony Flaner is back, and his newest case is his coldest and most complicated yet. Can he avoid the all-you-can-eat buffet along with the bullets shot at him? Eh, no. Of course he can't.</i></p><p><i>Tourism, murder and blame aboard an Alaskan Cruise Ship full of multi-level marketers, comedians, and killers and all bound for trouble.</i></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Tx6-Zds7_k/XzyFIh6qgII/AAAAAAAAEeg/IuVn3TGMCkos3Ch5D45JR0IjanOQNDv4ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/capnlrd-cover-v1-preview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1384" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Tx6-Zds7_k/XzyFIh6qgII/AAAAAAAAEeg/IuVn3TGMCkos3Ch5D45JR0IjanOQNDv4ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/capnlrd-cover-v1-preview.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Impulsive, sarcastic, Tony Flaner takes a trip down denial when he joins a luxury cruise without telling anyone until he’s gone. Responsibility has never been one of his strong points, but this is one for the books.</p><p>Aboard the Royal Danish Cruise line ship <i>Success</i>, Tony wrestles with his failings while murder is afoot. As fate would have it, an old flame is on board, along with a multitude of multi-level marketers – The Pod People. When the flame’s S.O. turns up D.O.A, it’s S.O.S for Tony to break a complex web of mayhem and murder in the short time it takes to binge on butter buffets and bear brawls, pondering personality problems along the Alaskan coastline.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Coming October 15, 2020</i></h2><div><i><br /></i></div>Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-35357425368962455642020-07-05T09:06:00.003-07:002020-07-05T09:06:35.686-07:00Quills 2020 Virtual Conference August 13-16th+<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">QUILLS 2020</span></b><br />
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I want to invite all you writers out there to come to <a href="http://www.quillsconference.com/">Quills, the League of Utah Writers Fall Writing Conference</a>. This event will be virtual so the whole world can come. It’ll have scores of recorded classes that’ll be available for some time, including early access for those who register soon. there’ll be live Zoom workshops with great authors and teachers, me included, so that’s cool. Chances to pitch to agents and editor and a general virtual new normal Covid-19 writing fest. Here’s the flyer and check it out at <a href="http://www.quillsconference.com/">www.quillsconference.com</a>. August 13-16 plus (classes stay online for a while).</div>
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By the way, League of Utah members get $40 off the conference cost. Membership costs $30. You can thus get deep discount and join a League of Utah Chapter and Zoom in with us for critique and more writing goodness. Just saying. My main chapter is called the Infinite Monkeys. More info here: <a href="http://www.leagueofutahwriters.org/">http://www.leagueofutahwriters.org</a>. You don't have to live in the state to join. Lockdown has opened the world.</div>
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Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159889746040074317.post-13631342242749248682020-04-30T10:20:00.000-07:002020-04-30T10:37:45.187-07:00Great News in JohnnylandI've been sitting on the news as it developed, as we moved through negotiations in a pandemic across time zones and oceans. For many moons I have been silent, waiting, hoping, working. Buoyed by my agent, Terri Baranowski at Gateway Literary, I told a few earlier this week, but now, for sure, today, it is in the can.<br />
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I have just signed the biggest contract of my career. My epic science fiction series has a publisher. And a really good one. <a href="https://www.flametreepress.com/">Flame Tree Press</a> has acquired the rights to my Coronam Trilogy!<br />
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<b>OF KINGS, QUEENS, AND COLONIES: CORONAM BOOK 1 is on its way.</b><br />
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Flame Tree is an international publisher with offices in New York and London, globally distributed through Simon and Schuster which makes me now an international author, or I will be when CORONAM begins in 2021.<br />
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Squee!!!<br />
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Happy Dance!<br />
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I really adore this series. It’s timely, epic and vast. It’s <i>Dune</i> meets <i>Childhood’s End</i> with a detour through Sixteenth Century history and a long stop at Roanoke. I call it social science fiction because of its themes and rhythms.<br />
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It’s a happy day.<br />
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I may be locked in my house, cringing at current affairs beyond my control, but the contract is signed and I am exploding with excitement. Writers tend to be isolated souls, weathering constant rejection and loneliness, seeking validation of any kind. For any author, a moment like this is historic, meaningful and rare. A longed for relief that justifies the pain and confirms the faith.<br />
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Thanks for sharing this with me.<br />
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Stay tuned and stay safe,<br />
—Johnny<br />
<br />Johnny Worthenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005172315834478900noreply@blogger.com1