Fantasy Anothology
Date Published: November 7, 2014
Tantalizingly bloody tales featuring human pitted against beast and gods, with the true majesty and horrors of the afterlife, with love and death and desire...
Eight writers modernize ancient mythologies in DISTORTED, proving that not every story has been told.
Alisha Costanzo
Alisha Costanzo is from a Syracuse suburb. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Central Oklahoma, where she currently teaches English. She’s the author of BLOOD PHOENIX: REBIRTH and BLOOD PHOENIX: CLAIMED, and co-editor of DISTORTED. LOVING RED, a Broken World novel, is undergoing serious edits for its 2015 release. In the meantime, she will continue to corrupt young minds, rant about the government, and daydream about her all around nasty creatures.
Anthony S. Buoni
Having relocated from Northwest Florida's lonesome roads and haunted swamps, Anthony S. Buoni now prowls the gas lamp lit streets of New Orleans, playing moonlight hide and seek in the Crescent City's above ground cemeteries. Anthony is the author ofConversation Party, Bad Apple Bolero, as well as the editor to the Between There anthologies. His stories and articles have been featured in North Florida Noir and Waterfront Living. When not prowling, Anthony keeps it scary, writing dark fiction, editing, and watching horror movies. In his spare time, he DJs, plays music, and conjures other worldly creatures with tarot cards and dreams.
Website: http://transmundanepress.weebly.com/
Twitter: @TransmundnePres @AlishaCostanzo
Things to Know About the Authors
Heidi Vlach:
-Heidi was born and raised in northern Ontario, Canada — but despite lifelong experience with snow, she hates cold weather.
-Heidi's parents are furniture salespeople: Heidi grew up with lots of big cardboard boxes to play in and transform with her imagination.
-She graduated chef training at age 18. There was tense discussion among the chefs before Heidi was allowed to attend the wine-tasting class, since legal drinking age in Ontario, Canada is 19.
-Heidi waited tables at a sushi restaurant for 3 years. Her favourite part of the job was encouraging nervous first-timers to try the raw fish.
-Heidi typically writes at her kitchen table, while drinking coffee, listening to electronic trance music, and snuggling one of her cats.
Catherine Edmunds:
-I'm a professional viola player. My string quartet was once kicked out of a shopping mall where we were performing by security because someone had complained our music was ‘too noisy’.
-My great-uncle worked with Albert Einstein.
-I took up ballet on my doctor’s suggestion at the age of three to cure my flat feet, and kept dancing until I was fourteen. Absolutely loved it. Still have flat feet.
-I appeared on national TV in 2013, painting in the Glasgow heats of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year. My model was actress Sophie Turner—Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones.
-I was once bitten by a tadpole.
Alisha Costanzo:
-I like to teach, even when no body asked for a lesson. Sometimes, this can make me feel like a snob, but when people make mistakes and no one corrects them, they are doomed to be repeat offenders.
-One of my favorite jobs so far was working at a funeral home. Most often, I had the building to myself, the nights were quiet, and I got to read or write. Other times, I felt emotional, but ensuring a funeral goes smoothly is rewarding.
-When I role-play write, I often prefer to be the male. I don’t tend to hear objections.
-I love teaching barefoot in my classroom, even when it’s freezing out.
-I’m an environmentalist and anti-consumerist...until I walk into a bookstore.
Patricia J. Esposito:
-Some of my hardest laughing comes when roughhousing with my constant companion, an eighty-five-pound Golden Retriever who thinks nothing of pouncing full-body on me.
-The crystal bowls I received as wedding gifts contain polished stones from the shores of Lake Superior.
-At home I prefer to drink only water, at the coffee shop, only chai tea, and at parties, only Courvoisier.
-I often have to work at home till late at night due to lost time making snow forts or playing ninjas with the neighbor kids (and my dog, of course). Fun is a distraction I encourage.
-Despite the convenience of iPhone music, at all times, my purse is weighted with the music CDs I can’t live without; after all, if I were to get stranded on a desert island, at least I could hold the CDs against me and imagine their sound.
Rebecca Lynch:
-I loathe cooked tomatoes.
-I can boast a library of 1000 books.
-I never graduated high school.
-My original major was nursing.
-I met my husband at an outdoor barracks party during a tornado.
Autumn Lishky:
-I made more as a pizza delivery driver than I have as a professional.
-I hate Twinkies because of the marshmallow filling. However, I like marshmallows. Go figure.
-I’m that snob that judges your grammar on Facebook and Twitter.
-My husband and I have watched hundreds upon hundreds of horror movies, and only one has made me stop eating—Cradle of Fear by Cradle of Filth.
-When I feel completely lost, I consult my Magic 8-Ball.
Christian Bone:
-I currently reside on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom, a small place cut off from the rest of the country. It is somewhat like the Village from The Prisoner but without the sinister brainwashing (I hope).
-I possess an unhealthy obsession for all things Sherlock Holmes. So much so that I own three copies of the same book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. We all do silly things when we're in love.
-I have a fond memory of once meeting Neil Gaiman, a very nice man who greeted me as a 'fellow writer.' I'm still thinking of a way to put that event on a T-shirt.
-I've always had a great interest in writing, but for a brief time when I was younger, much to grown-up me's disbelief, I wanted to go into football/soccer. It is a period of my life that I cannot explain.
-The first story I remember writing was about some kid detectives who stopped a pair of ghosts from stealing buried treasure. Clearly, I've never been one for genre boundaries.
Anthony S. Buoni:
-I'm a DJ, specializing in goth, punk, trance, new wave, and house. I also play guitar, sing, and write my own music and electronic loops.
-I believe in all the spooky things I write about.
-I bought my laptop based on how easy it was for me to type on it.
-I'm pagan. I love growing plants and studying the moon, planets, and stars.
-I've sat through entire college classes without getting credit because I was interested, not because I was grade or degree driven.
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Fantasy Anothology
Date Published: November 7, 2014
Tantalizingly bloody tales featuring human pitted against beast and gods, with the true majesty and horrors of the afterlife, with love and death and desire...
Eight writers modernize ancient mythologies in DISTORTED, proving that not every story has been told.
Alisha Costanzo
Anthony S. Buoni
Eight writers modernize ancient mythologies in DISTORTED, proving that not every story has been told.
Alisha Costanzo is from a Syracuse suburb. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Central Oklahoma, where she currently teaches English. She’s the author of BLOOD PHOENIX: REBIRTH and BLOOD PHOENIX: CLAIMED, and co-editor of DISTORTED. LOVING RED, a Broken World novel, is undergoing serious edits for its 2015 release. In the meantime, she will continue to corrupt young minds, rant about the government, and daydream about her all around nasty creatures.
Anthony S. Buoni
Having relocated from Northwest Florida's lonesome roads and haunted swamps, Anthony S. Buoni now prowls the gas lamp lit streets of New Orleans, playing moonlight hide and seek in the Crescent City's above ground cemeteries. Anthony is the author ofConversation Party, Bad Apple Bolero, as well as the editor to the Between There anthologies. His stories and articles have been featured in North Florida Noir and Waterfront Living. When not prowling, Anthony keeps it scary, writing dark fiction, editing, and watching horror movies. In his spare time, he DJs, plays music, and conjures other worldly creatures with tarot cards and dreams.
Website: http://transmundanepress.weebly.com/
Twitter: @TransmundnePres @AlishaCostanzo
Things to Know About the Authors
Heidi Vlach:
-Heidi was born and raised in northern Ontario, Canada — but despite lifelong experience with snow, she hates cold weather.
-Heidi's parents are furniture salespeople: Heidi grew up with lots of big cardboard boxes to play in and transform with her imagination.
-She graduated chef training at age 18. There was tense discussion among the chefs before Heidi was allowed to attend the wine-tasting class, since legal drinking age in Ontario, Canada is 19.
-Heidi waited tables at a sushi restaurant for 3 years. Her favourite part of the job was encouraging nervous first-timers to try the raw fish.
-Heidi typically writes at her kitchen table, while drinking coffee, listening to electronic trance music, and snuggling one of her cats.
Catherine Edmunds:
-I'm a professional viola player. My string quartet was once kicked out of a shopping mall where we were performing by security because someone had complained our music was ‘too noisy’.
-My great-uncle worked with Albert Einstein.
-I took up ballet on my doctor’s suggestion at the age of three to cure my flat feet, and kept dancing until I was fourteen. Absolutely loved it. Still have flat feet.
-I appeared on national TV in 2013, painting in the Glasgow heats of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year. My model was actress Sophie Turner—Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones.
-I was once bitten by a tadpole.
Alisha Costanzo:
-I like to teach, even when no body asked for a lesson. Sometimes, this can make me feel like a snob, but when people make mistakes and no one corrects them, they are doomed to be repeat offenders.
-One of my favorite jobs so far was working at a funeral home. Most often, I had the building to myself, the nights were quiet, and I got to read or write. Other times, I felt emotional, but ensuring a funeral goes smoothly is rewarding.
-When I role-play write, I often prefer to be the male. I don’t tend to hear objections.
-I love teaching barefoot in my classroom, even when it’s freezing out.
-I’m an environmentalist and anti-consumerist...until I walk into a bookstore.
Patricia J. Esposito:
-Some of my hardest laughing comes when roughhousing with my constant companion, an eighty-five-pound Golden Retriever who thinks nothing of pouncing full-body on me.
-The crystal bowls I received as wedding gifts contain polished stones from the shores of Lake Superior.
-At home I prefer to drink only water, at the coffee shop, only chai tea, and at parties, only Courvoisier.
-I often have to work at home till late at night due to lost time making snow forts or playing ninjas with the neighbor kids (and my dog, of course). Fun is a distraction I encourage.
-Despite the convenience of iPhone music, at all times, my purse is weighted with the music CDs I can’t live without; after all, if I were to get stranded on a desert island, at least I could hold the CDs against me and imagine their sound.
Rebecca Lynch:
-I loathe cooked tomatoes.
-I can boast a library of 1000 books.
-I never graduated high school.
-My original major was nursing.
-I met my husband at an outdoor barracks party during a tornado.
Autumn Lishky:
-I made more as a pizza delivery driver than I have as a professional.
-I hate Twinkies because of the marshmallow filling. However, I like marshmallows. Go figure.
-I’m that snob that judges your grammar on Facebook and Twitter.
-My husband and I have watched hundreds upon hundreds of horror movies, and only one has made me stop eating—Cradle of Fear by Cradle of Filth.
-When I feel completely lost, I consult my Magic 8-Ball.
Christian Bone:
-I currently reside on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom, a small place cut off from the rest of the country. It is somewhat like the Village from The Prisoner but without the sinister brainwashing (I hope).
-I possess an unhealthy obsession for all things Sherlock Holmes. So much so that I own three copies of the same book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. We all do silly things when we're in love.
-I have a fond memory of once meeting Neil Gaiman, a very nice man who greeted me as a 'fellow writer.' I'm still thinking of a way to put that event on a T-shirt.
-I've always had a great interest in writing, but for a brief time when I was younger, much to grown-up me's disbelief, I wanted to go into football/soccer. It is a period of my life that I cannot explain.
-The first story I remember writing was about some kid detectives who stopped a pair of ghosts from stealing buried treasure. Clearly, I've never been one for genre boundaries.
Anthony S. Buoni:
-I'm a DJ, specializing in goth, punk, trance, new wave, and house. I also play guitar, sing, and write my own music and electronic loops.
-I believe in all the spooky things I write about.
-I bought my laptop based on how easy it was for me to type on it.
-I'm pagan. I love growing plants and studying the moon, planets, and stars.
-I've sat through entire college classes without getting credit because I was interested, not because I was grade or degree driven.
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Giveaway!
Interview:
What was your inspiration for writing Distorted?
My inspiration for this anthology manifested from my fascination with mythology, especially vampire mythology, which is the focus of my story, "Maiden of the Underworld." Many of my friends and colleagues also maintain a deep interest in mythology and how authors utilize different cultural beliefs to create complex and new stories. That is what I asked of each of my contributors. The results blew me away.
What got you into writing in the first place?
I've always been a writer, as cliche as that has become. However, I didn't grow into the hard and analytical editor until the year before graduate school when I got my first editing job with a now-closed press. I was a line editor, and that experience shaped my overall editing skills, my personal writing, and my skills in teaching analysis in the college setting. (I'm one of those looney college professors).
Do you have a favorite part to write in Distorted?
My favorite part about writing for Distorted was finishing a story that I had been working on for four years. It took a serious deadline for me to buckle down. My favorite part of the editing process was working with a friend of twenty-eight years on her first story. She was brilliant and a serious good sport to my critical eye.
Do you have any writing regrets?
I do. We had a story submission that would have been an excellent fit for this anthology, but I didn't have the time to properly edit it for the release date. I did, however, convince the author to let me have it for my nextDistorted volume.
Did you write the characters in your book based off someone you know/seen?
For "Maiden of the Underworld," I had a hard time creating someone like Phea. She'd always been so evil and broken in my head and in my first two novels (in which she is the big bad).So she's not based off of anyone, but more off of an idea of what a woman like her must have been like in 8,000 BCE. I had to take several liberties.
Are you attached to the characters you have written?
Yes. Always. Even my baddest of the bad and my boring goody-two-shoes. I love them all.
Do you plan on writing and publishing more books in the future?
If so, can you give us any tidbit of info on your next book?
Yes, I do! I recently finished two novels, Loving Red and Dragonfish,both of which are more traditional romance novels than Urban Fantasy. Both do take place in the same world as my previous but center around different sets of characters. Also, as an editor, I have two current calls for submissions out for new anthologies, so I hope to have more than my own work out in 2015. In fact, I hope to edit my fellow editor, Anthony S. Buoni's, new book for release in 2015.
Has the overall publishing experience been positive for you?
I have loved the responses I've gotten thus far on my writing and editing projects from both readers and fellow authors.
My Review:
Rating: 4/5 stars
As a whole, this book was amazing and just what I needed during the spooky season. This book didn't flat out scare me (which is a good thing since I'd probably have set it down and never finished it) but it was eerie and inconspicuous.
I really enjoyed the characters and the plot itself. The characters were pretty spot on, annoying enough to be real but not too annoying where you want to shake like a rag doll (LOL). The plot kept me up until three in the morning, couldn't get my fill.
Though I must admit that I felt that some of the stories in this book left off on a slight cliff hanger-like situation. But, maybe that's just me.. I just wanted more I guess.
Thanks, Robin, for hosting us, interviewing me, and the wonderful review! ~Alisha Costanzo
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