Kiss My Asphalt! Double winner.

I was just sitting down to write a bit when I thought, “hey, who wants a t-shirt?” And since it’s a gorgeous day out, let’s give away two.

The winners are:

Jewlz Dore and Joyce Hurley

Now before I get back to writing, some people have been emailing and asking about a third Accidental Demon Slayer book. There will be a book 3. Right now, I’m calling it A Tale of Two Demon Slayers. In fact, I’ll be writing part of it this afternoon. Chapter eight to be exact. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say Lizzie and Dimitri finally make it back to his hometown in Greece – and well – they’re in for a few surprises. A Tale of Two Demon Slayers is slated for release in February of 2010.

We have a release date on the anthology

As some of you know, I recently wrote a story for The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2. It was neat because I read all kinds of vampire books, but had never tried writing one.

My editor, Trisha, sent the cover over yesterday. I had to smile because the vampire on the front looks a lot like the heroine in my story, Princess Katarina Volholme D’ Transylvania, an eight-hundred-and-seventy three-year-old vampire who decides to rebel. Too bad for her, she does it on International Undead TV.

And get this – the release date is October 31, 2009. How fun is that?

Monday t-shirt winner

I was just sitting down with a Diet Coke and a cheese sandwich (breakfast of champions) getting ready to write, when I realized you probably want to know who won this week’s stylish, yet comfy Kiss My Asphalt t-shirt. Well, wonder no longer. The winner is Karin Tillotson, also known as Candy Knickers No Brakes. Congrats, Karin!

Kiss My Asphalt

Lookie. You like? These are the Kiss My Asphalt t-shirts, based on the shirt Grandma wears in the first scene of The Accidental Demon Slayer. The picture doesn’t show this, but the letters are in metallic silver type. It’s what all of the stylish biker witches are wearing. And now you can, too! I’m giving a t-shirt away each week to my newsletter subscribers. Want to get in on it? Just drop me an email at angie@angiefox.com. Easy pleasy.

And along those lines, I received an email this morning from intrepid reader Judy, who pointed out (wisely) that I have not been announcing the Kiss My Asphalt t-shirt winners on my blog. I mean, what good is it to get a free t-shirt if you don’t get bragging rights too?

So Judy gets a t-shirt for getting me back on track, and I’ll be announcing a new t-shirt winner every Monday.

Happy Monday

Sorry I was AWOL for a bit. For some reason, WordPress decided I resembled an imposter and refused to let me onto my site. I mean, sure I just threw my hair back into a ponytail and these jeans aren’t exactly what you’d call dress up clothes, but I don’t look that shady. Especially not in this hot pink Trix t-shirt.

Anyhow, thanks  to Anthony at the help desk, things are running smoothly again – which is good because I have a lot to report. First off, there has been such a demand for advanced reading copies (ARCs) of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers that my publisher wasn’t able to save any for me to give away. I’m both flattered and bummed. Of course I wish I would have anticipated this, since – erm – there’s an ARC contest happening on this very blog. So I’ll tell you what – anyone that has entered the contest as of today, email me at angie @angiefox.com and I’ll send you a cover flat for The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers. My treat.

In other news, this months issue of RT magazine is featuring the original query letter for The Accidental Demon Slayer. For those of you not familiar with book-speak, a query is an introduction letter that authors use to secure an agent or editor for that all important first book. So if you get RT magazine, check it out. If you don’t, here’s a version of the article in blog form.

Oh and I just received a new batch of Kiss My Asphalt t-shirts and they are friggin’ awesome. Seriously. My designer really outdid himself. They’re just like Grandma would wear. Stay tuned because I’m going to be giving lots of them away.

Pirate says süße glückliche junge Hunde

No, that’s not a computer glitch up there. That’s the German translation for Sweet Happy Puppies! It’s what I imagine Pirate would say if he saw me signing the contracts this afternoon to give Bertelsmann/Random House the rights to publish The Accidental Demon Slayer in German.

For some reason, the whole thing has me grinning. Maybe it’s because my family is originally from the Black Forest area of Germany (They changed Fuchs to Fox when they hit the U.S.).  Or maybe it’s the idea that the biker witches are going to get to ride the mean streets of Munich, Vienna, Dresden and the like. But, really, I think it’s the idea that a book that was written while sitting on our green couch has started to take on a life of its own. How fun is that? Or should I say, “wie lustig das ist?”

I just wish I actually spoke German without the help of a handy dandy online translator, which I’m embarrassed to say, has had the power to entertain me for far too long this afternoon. But please indulge me one more time when I say: küssen Sie meinen Asphalt.

The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers – manuscript winner!

We have a winner of the original manuscript of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers. Natalie Hatch. Woo hoo Natalie! Shoot me an email with your address and I’ll get that out to you. Also let me know if you want the clean or the marked up book. And thank you to everyone who entered. It was a lot of fun. Maybe I can find my original manuscript of The Accidental Demon Slayer and we can do this again.

Angie’s oh so happy Dangerous Book manuscript giveaway

Thanks to everyone who entered to win an original manuscript of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, which hits stores on April 28, 2009.

Here’s the back cover copy:

Demon slaying powers should come with an instruction book…

Seriously. Why does a new hair dryer have a twelve-page how-to manual, but when it comes to ancient demon-fighting hocus-pocus, my biker witch granny gives me just half a dozen switch stars and a rah-rah speech? Oh, and a talking terrier, but that’s another story. It’s not like my job as a preschool teacher prepared me for this kind of thing.

So I’ve decided to write my own manual, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, because no one tells me anything. Dimitri, my “protector,” may be one stud of a shape-shifting griffin, but he always thinks he can handle everything by himself. Only he’s no match for the soul-stealing succubi taking over Las Vegas. If I can’t figure out how to save him—and Sin City—there’ll be hell to pay.

We have more than 150 entries (yay!) on here and my group blog and that means the contest is now closed. The winner will receive their choice of a clean copy, or my marked up manuscript that I used to plan books 3, 4 and 5.

The marked up copy has notes from my biker dog sources. Not the dogs, of course, but the Harley bikers I turn to when I have questions about how to get a Labrador Retriever on a Harley or just how the doggie motorcycle goggles (called doggles) stay on at high speeds. Inquiring minds want to know, right?

And since the climax of the book takes place in the tunnels under the Hoover Dam, there’s a lot of chicken scratch about my time down in those old inspection tunnels from the 1930’s and 40’s (which I have to blog about – that was incredible to be down there). Finally, as I’m going through that manuscript, I’m seeing an inordinate amount of debate about Pirate’s food choices. He’s been sneaking out quite a bit to places like Jodi Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom. Hey, it’s Vegas, baby (and Pirate loves to eat).

So, it’s winner’s choice. Right now, I’ve got all of the entries in a Lush bag, so they’re smelling fantastic (like lavender and vanilla bath fizzies). To be 100% fair and impartial, my husband is going to draw the winner. Naturally, this means he picked today to have about 800 business meetings in places where I can’t bug him (the nerve). As soon as he gets home, I’m going to pounce on him and make him draw the winner. Stay tuned!

Super cool book-y goodness

Okay, so the ARC contest is still going on below, but guess what? I don’t have my ARCs yet. The only thing released so far is the excerpt. The ARCs will be here soon, I’m sure. But in the mean time, well, I can’t wait.

So, I’m giving away an original manuscript. You literally can’t get this book, or this kind of manuscript, anywhere else. I’m taking one of my copies, binding it, signing it and sending it out to a lucky reader. Enter here (just comment below) or enter at my group blog, Something Wicked, and good luck!

Riding with the Harley Dogs: One Author’s Adventure

I’d always known writing would be an adventure, but I never predicted my writing would put me on the back of a coal black Harley Davidson, with an Irish Setter in tow. I’d set out to write a paranormal about a straight-laced preschool teacher turned demon slayer who has to run off with a gang of geriatric biker witches. But my heroine has a smart-mouthed dog that, thanks to her new powers, can talk…and talk…and talk. And I really loved that dog. What’s a writer to do? Well, I went online and learned that there is a nationwide club of Harley bikers who ride with their dogs. So my heroine could have her pink Harley, and her Jack Russell Terrier too.

And of course I had to meet these Harley riding dog lovers. I called up a few of the members of a Biker Dogs Motorcycle Club and the adventure began. They invited me into their homes, introduced me to their dogs and, like my heroine, the bikers hoisted me up on the back of a Harley, with a dog in tow.

Things I learned right off the bat:

1. After an hour on a Harley, you’ll walk like John Wayne for a week
2. Helmets hurt when they are worn backwards
3. Dogs love riding motorcycles

Stone, the biker who spent the most time making sure I didn’t fall off his hog, showed me how to ride, invited me to some biker rallies (note to self: don’t wear pink next time), and helped make The Accidental Demon Slayer as real as it can be (for a book about a somewhat sheltered preschool teacher turned demon slayer).

So just when I thought I was writing fiction, it seemed my made-up characters from The Accidental Demon Slayer weren’t so imaginary after all. One of the bikers I met even has a wife who is a biker witch. I’m wondering if she, like my heroine’s biker witch grandma, wears a “Kiss my Asphalt” T-shirt and carries a carpet bag full of Smuckers jars filled with magic. Maybe I’ll find out on my next adventure.

*Oh and I’m running a new contest. Take the What’s Your Biker Witch Name? quiz, enter your biker alter ego  in the comments below and you could win an Advanced Reading Copy of the next book in the Accidental Demon Slayer series, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers. That one hits stores on April 28, 2009. Good luck!