Athena's Daughters, Day 11: Danielle Ackley McPhail Preview, Apollo's Daughters, and ALL the Stretch Goals

Day 11, and we are over $25K! Meaning that backers pledging at the $5 and over now get all of these things:

4 novels, 3 short story bundles, 2 short stories, 2 audio books, 1 music album, and [Ginger Breo's] illustration of Athena (digital, and a physical 5×7 for people with books.) Plus we added 7 additional stories to the anthology (with an 8th to come @ $26k) + the option for a hardcover edition...

PLUS our brother anthology, Apollo's Daughters, is a go!

Our original cover.

Are you are a fan of Star Wars novelizations like the X-Wing series; I, Jedi; or The New Jedi Order? Authors Aaron Allston and Michael A. Stackpole are contributing to this project. Prefer your space novels to involve the Prime Directive instead of Jedi councils? Trek author Aaron Rosenberg is signed on, too, as are other fantastic authors like Bryan Young, of Big Shiny Robot fame, David Alan Mack, Christopher Ruz, Elias Pate, and many more!

We are also very close to unlocking our $26,000 stretch goal, which will mean author Alma Alexander will contribute a story to Athena's Daughters! Alma is a novelist, anthologist and short story writer who currently shares her life between the Pacific Northwest of the USA (where she lives with her husband and cat) and the wonderful fantasy worlds of her own imagination.

When we reach $28,000, all backers pledging at or above $5 will get a free digital download of Janine K. Spendlove's War of the Seasons short stories "Girl" and "White Flag."

At the $30,000 level, every backer at the $5 and up will receive a free digital download of the eBook for T.S. Rhodes' novel Scarlett Sails.

2013 copyright Autumn Frederickson, for "Athena's Daughters."

Last, but not least, we have another story preview for you!

Danielle Ackley McPhail's published works include four urban fantasy novels: Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, Today’s Promise, The Halfling’s Court and The Redcaps’ Queen: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale. She is also the author of the non-fiction writers guide, The Literary Handyman and the senior editor of two Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, Dragon’s Lure, and In An Iron Cage. Danielle had this to say on her blog about her work for Athena's Daughters:

...My story is a rather fun Steampunk tale about a woman determined and dedicated to finding her missing cousin, Rockford, so that he can assume the management of his inheritance, her father's estate. I like to think you will be amazed at the predicament she and American inventor Fritz Langstrom get into...!

Her story excerpt is here on her blog, as well as posted below. You can also enjoy the artwork which will accompany her story, which is the illustration in the middle of this post.

“Lady Clara! Lady Clara!” a voice called out.

The Right Honorable Claramina Evangelista Pemberton, Countess Chadsworth—the very image of propriety in her dainty hat, rose velvet walking gown, white gloves, and pearl-buttoned boots—stopped very still, took a deep, imperious breath that was warning in itself, and slowly pivoted on one heel. Her already alabaster skin paled further until it bore the aspect of shaved ice as her brown eyes darkened to the hard luster of anthracite. The gentry swarmed the park this afternoon, impeccable in their finery, quite eager to see and be seen. All around her she heard their murmurs and gasps, and not a few sly titters from those glad to witness her touched by even this slight scandal. The rumormongers were in bliss. Though she carefully schooled her expression to display nothing of the sort, within she was mortified...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If any of these things pique your interest, or sound like the type that might interest a friend, you can find our Kickstarter campaign here.

Athena's Daughters, Day 10: Vicki Johnson-Steger, the Rewards Rundown, and more info on Apollo's Daughters

2013 copyright Autumn Frederickson, for "Athena's Daughters."

Day 10 of our Kickstarter: Autumn Frederickson has just released this gorgeous piece of art which will accompany Vicki Steger's story in Athena's Daughters.

Vicki has published several short stories in DAW anthologies, including Spells of the City, Timeshares, Boondocks Fantasy, and Hot and Steamy: Tales of Steampunk Romance. Orphan Train was published in Triumph over Tragedy, 2013. “Auggie’s Wings,” a novella, was acquired by Dragonfly Soapworks, to launch their Bitty Bug line of skincare products for children. Fairydale Tale, a YA fairytale mystery, was a quarterfinalist in Amazon Penguin’s Novel Contest 2012 and is currently being shopped. Her tribute to Gene Wolfe appeared in The BULLETIN of the SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY WRITERS of AMERICA.

Vicki has also released a summary for her A.D. story, "Burly and Cavendish Blend,"

It looks as though archaeologist Abigail Watts' obsession with ancient artifacts will lead to her demise, when she and her cousin Dawson Willoughby are left to die in an abandoned Egyptian tomb.

Me personally, I'm a sucker for any stories featuring archaeology, perilous Egyptian tombs, and ancient artifacts. I can't wait to read it!

According to my DVD player, my love for Egyptian archaeology has very deep roots.

I also wanted to give you an updated version of the Rewards Rundown, summarized nicely by Maggie Allen as of this morning:

To recap, with your $5 Kickstarter pledge you get: 4 novels, 3 short story bundles, 2 short stories, 2 audio books, 1 music album, and [Ginger Breo's] illustration of Athena (digital, and a physical 5x7 for people with books.) Plus we added 7 additional stories to the anthology (with an 8th to come @ $26k) + the option for a hardcover edition and soon the option for another anthology!

Meanwhile, we are less than $100 away from unlocking our companion anthology, Apollo's Daughters! This is a stretch goal I'm very excited about, not least because we get more stories about strong women written by talented authors. Cleolinda Jones, one of our authors, and Bryan Young, an author who is one of Silence's founders, and who will also be contributing to as well as editing Apollo's Daughters, were on Twitter a couple days ago, discussing how excited they were about the companion collection. I happened to glimpse part of their conversation as I scrolled through my feed, and saw a tweet where Cleo articulated what I love about the entire arrangement:

"The Apollo's Daughters companion takes it into the realm of "female protagonists are for everyone," IMO. I love that."

This is one of the things I love most about this Kickstarter. Not only are we producing great stories by great authors, but we're also dispelling myths about what makes compelling protagonists, inspires their characterization, and makes a multi-faceted, page-turning, amazing story. In the end, both women and men are excited to write works about engaging female characters. And our readers are excited to receive those stories and dig into them. What's not to like about that?

Thanks to everyone who has continued spreading the word about Athena's Daughters. If you or someone you know is interested in pledging, here's your link.

Athena's Daughters, Day 8: A Blog Hop, Jean Marie Ward Story Preview, & the Rewards Rundown

Day 8, and we are now over 20K! In addition to all our other stretch goals, we will be releasing a limited hardcover run of the Athena's Daughters anthology!I wanted to give you another story excerpt from Athena's Daughters, this time by the fabulous Jean Marie Ward.

Jean writes fiction, nonfiction and everything in between. Her first novel, written with the late Teri Smith, finaled in two categories of the 2008 Indie Book Awards. Her short stories appear in numerous anthologies, including the award-winning Hellebore and Rue, and The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity. Her short story “Lord Bai’s Discovery” was shortlisted for the Washington Science Fiction Association’s Small Press Award. You can find her online at JeanMarieWard.com or on Twitter. A preview of her A.D. story, "The Gap In The Fence," is here:

The corners of the fairy’s eyes crinkled, like he was hiding a smile under his beard, but it didn’t last. “Nothing like that. I’m sorry. I can’t stop anybody from dying. There’re some things you just can’t fix.”

“Then what can you do? There’s got to be something.”

Gurt and all the birds seemed to gasp at once. Even the leaves seemed to hold their breath. The man’s bushy eyebrows lifted.

“What do you want of me?”

His voice sounded different somehow. It was still slow and gravelly, but there was something sharp and cold underneath the words that brought back all my fear. Me and my big mouth—Mom always said it would get me in trouble. He waited for me to say something, staring at me from under his eyebrows with eyes as hard as his voice. “What do you want of me?”

A cloud passed overhead, shadowing his face. Gurt ogled us with big saucer eyes. Her head turned from side to side to keep us both in view.

What I wanted was for him to save my best friend’s dog from dying, but he said he couldn’t. At least I thought he did. I wanted to be smarter, so I’d know what he meant and what I was supposed to say. But this might be my only chance. My head whirled with all the bad things about to happen—Willy dragged away from the people who loved him when he was sick and hurting, Shari waking up to find out her mom… I couldn’t finish the thought any more than I could face her and tell her what her mom was going to do.

“What. Do. You. Want?”

The breeze roared into a wind. My hair skinned away from my face. Branches as big as my whole body shook. The grass bowed flat. The fairy hadn’t moved, but he seemed to have grown until he was too big to see without lifting my head. I almost peed my pants, but I knew if I broke and ran, he’d be on me in a second. Then I’d be dead. There was only one thing to do...

I also wanted to link you to many of the fabulous blogs and anthology-related posts of my fellow authors! Gail Martin was kind enough to put together a comprehensive list on her own blog, Disquieting Visions, and shared it with us last night. The LinkyTools nodule at the bottom of this post is where you can find more story previews, blog posts, our Goodreads community and much, much more!

Last, but not least, an updated Rewards Rundown. Contributors at the $5 level and up are now getting:

-a digital copy of the “Athena’s Daughters” anthology, now also featuring stories by E.J. Lawrence, Tera Fulbright, Tricia Barr, and Jennifer Brozek -an email from one of our authors, personally thanking you for your contribution

-a digital copy of two Danielle Ackley McPhail novels (The Halfling’s Court and Yesterday’s Dreams) -a digital copy of Gail Z. Martin’s short story bundle including “Vanities,” “Buttons,” and “Steer a Pale Course” -a digital download of Maggie Allen’s album Last Call, recorded with her band Naked Singularity -a digital copy of Cynthia Ward’s short story “Gabriella” -a digital copy of Sherwood Smith’s novel Crown Duel

-an anthology cover upgrade, created exclusively for our book by artist Tietjen Alvarez -a digital download of Jean Marie Ward‘s short story bundle “Four For More” -a digital download of the audiobook of Danielle Ackley McPhail’s collection of short stories, Flash in the Can. -a digital download of Gail Z. Martin’s Jonmarc Vahanian short story bundle, including “Raiders’ Curse”, “Caves of the Dead”, and “Storm Surge,” -a digital download of Janine K. Spendlove’s novel War of the Seasons, Book 1: The Human

-a digital download of Tera Fulbright‘s short story “Fires Within the Blank Page.” -a free digital download of Ginger Breo‘s illustration of the goddess Athena. (Backers who purchase print copies of the book will additionally receive a free 5×7 print of Ginger’s art.) -a free digital download of the audiobook for Janine K. Spendlove’s novel War of the Seasons, Book 1: The Human

-a limited hard cover run of Athena’s Daughters using the commissioned cover art by Tietjen Alvarez (this edition will be limited to a print run of 200 books! Act fast!)

In the pipeline are the following stretch goals:

At the $22,000 level, another story will be added to the anthology! Author Diana Peterfreund is the author of nine books for adults and teens about awesome young women doing awesome things: from breaking down the gender barriers of an all-male secret society to saving the world from killer unicorns. Her latest book, Across a Star-Swept Sea, is a gender-flipped take on the Scarlet Pimpernel set in a post-apocalyptic future. Her critically acclaimed short stories have appeared on the Locus Recommended Reading List and in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol.5.

At the $24,000 mark, we will produce a companion anthology, "Apollo's Daughters." This book will also feature strong female characters, but with a slight twist. The authors will be some of the best male SF/F writers in the business, including Michael A. Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Bryan Young and Aaron Rosenberg!

Are any of these awesome things relevant to your interests? To paraphrase Liz Lemon, do you now feel like high fiving a million angels? Back us or share about the project here.

Athena's Daughters, Day 7: More Previews! More Press! And the (updated) Rewards Rundown!

2013 copyright Autumn Frederickson.

Day 7, and we are over 19K and still climbing. I'm so proud of this anthology and how well it's doing. In the conceptual stages, we were all thrilled to be invited to this project, but to see it funded so quickly and continue to be a success now that the campaign's active is really gratifying for everyone involved. Thank you all for doing what you do!

I wanted to bring you guys another preview from our anthology. Author C.A. (Christine) Verstraete writes both flash and short fiction with a touch of the macabre. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies including Darlings of Decay, Feast of the Dead - Hors D' Oeuvres, 100 Doors to Madness, as well as Timeshares and Steampunk'd from DAW Books. Her new book is GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie.

Her story for "Athena's Daughters" is going to be awesome. In fact, you can still pledge for a "Tuckerization" in it, meaning you'd be written in as a character! So far, Autumn Frederickson has created a gorgeous illustration of C.A's protagonist, Marietta (see above). An excerpt of Christine's story is posted here on her blog:

"No one could remember the last soul who came to Devil’s Gulch and made such an impression. When she stepped through the doors of the Black Fiddle Tavern that day, all conversation stopped and silence fell like a heavy winter snow.

Everyone took notice because the woman just didn’t seem to fit in either the brass-embellished tavern or the burgeoning town. Miss Marietta Parsons was as plain as could be.

Marietta knew that everyone considered her plain, homely. But she didn't care. Nor did she take insult at the look of regret that flashed across the painted face of the striking bar owner Luella, who had posted an opening for a songstress and thereby lured Marietta to the tavern...

Let's also take a look at the current Rewards Rundown, updated to reflect achieved stretch goals:

-a digital copy of the “Athena’s Daughters” anthology, now also featuring stories by E.J. Lawrence, Tera Fulbright, Tricia Barr, and Jennifer Brozek -an email from one of our authors, personally thanking you for your contribution

-a digital copy of two Danielle Ackley McPhail novels (The Halfling’s Court and Yesterday’s Dreams) -a digital copy of Gail Z. Martin’s short story bundle including “Vanities,” “Buttons,” and “Steer a Pale Course” -a digital download of Maggie Allen’s album Last Call, recorded with her band Naked Singularity -a digital copy of Cynthia Ward’s short story “Gabriella” -a digital copy of Sherwood Smith’s novel Crown Duel

-an anthology cover upgrade, created exclusively for our book by artist Tietjen Alvarez -a digital download of Jean Marie Ward‘s short story bundle “Four For More” -a digital download of the audiobook of Danielle Ackley McPhail’s collection of short stories, Flash in the Can. -a digital download of Gail Z. Martin’s Jonmarc Vahanian short story bundle, including “Raiders’ Curse”, “Caves of the Dead”, and “Storm Surge,” -a digital download of Janine K. Spendlove’s novel War of the Seasons, Book 1: The Human

-a digital download of Tera Fulbright‘s short story “Fires Within the Blank Page.” -a free digital download of Ginger Breo‘s illustration of the goddess Athena. Backers who purchase print copies of the book will additionally receive a free 5×7 print of Ginger’s art. -a free digital download of the audiobook for Janine K. Spendlove’s novel War of the Seasons, Book 1: The Human

Here is a list of our upcoming stretch goals (a couple of which you are going to freak out over. because they're amazing):

At the $20,000 level, we will produce a limited hard cover run of Athena’s Daughters using the commissioned cover art by Tietjen Alvarez. This edition will be limited to a print run of 200 books.

At the $22,000 level, another story will be added to the anthology! Author Diana Peterfreund is the author of nine books for adults and teens about awesome young women doing awesome things: from breaking down the gender barriers of an all-male secret society to saving the world from killer unicorns. Her latest book, Across a Star-Swept Sea, is a gender-flipped take on the Scarlet Pimpernel set in a post-apocalyptic future. Her critically acclaimed short stories have appeared on the Locus Recommended Reading List and in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol.5.

When we reach $24,000, Silence in the Library, our publisher, will produce a companion volume to Athena’s Daughters titled Apollo’s Daughters! This anthology will feature stories by some of the best male SF/F authors in the business. The stories will also feature female protagonists. Michael A. Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Aaron Rosenberg, David Mack, and Bryan Young have already signed on for the project.

Are you getting excited yet?! We still have 23 days to go! I can't quite spill the beans about some of the other stretch goals we've got planned, but I will say that you're bound to love them as much as we do.

Reading this blog for the first time? Or the twelfth? You can back us or share about the project here.