Vicki Johnson-Steger

Athena's Daughters, Day 22: Our Facebook Group, An Audio Clip, the Rewards Rundown, and More...

Our digital cover.

Our digital cover.

Hello, all! Hope you are enjoying the last few hours of 2013. I know I am - what a year it's been! The Kickstarter is hovering steady at $29K right now, and we've still got eight days to go until the campaign ends!

Have you checked out our Facebook or our Goodreads groups? There, some of our Athena's Daughters authors have started great discussions with our backers and other bloggers about why we wrote for this anthology, and what strong women mean to us, among other things! Come see what all the fuss is about!

Also, live for all you audiophiles, here's an excerpt from a reading of Danielle Ackley-McPhail's story, "Looking Back."

I've also got an updated list of stretch goals for you all. Let's hope we can knock down a few more of these! Personally, I want an Apollo's Daughters hardback!

At the $31,000 level, we will replace the graphic design cover of the print version of Apollo's Daughters with an original art cover created by artist Joe Corroney, and colored by Brian Miller

Joe has been providing Lucasfilm with official Star Wars artwork for books, games, trading cards, comic books, posters and magazines since 1997. Other comic books he's illustrated include True Blood, GI Joe, Fallen Angel, 24: Nightfall, Doctor WHO, Angel and Spike Vs. Dracula for IDW Publishing, Farscape for BOOM! Studios, Buckaroo Banzai, Kolchak The Night Stalker and The Phantom for Moonstone Books and Crimson Dynamo for Marvel Comics. Currently, he's illustrating for IDW's new Star Trek and X-Files comic books. He's also developing his creator owned comic book series, Death Avenger and continuing to create new Star Wars artwork for Lucasfilm.
Brian Miller, founder of Hi-Fi Color Design, has provided art for Marvel, DC Comics, Disney, and many others, and has worked with Joe on all of his current and recent artwork.

At $32,000, every backer at the $5 level or more will get a free digital download of Janine K. Spendlove's War of the Seasons short stories "World Spins Madly On" and "Fire and Rain."

At $34,000, backers at the $5 level and up will get a free digital download of Vicki Johnson-Steger's short story e-book, "When Dragons Fly."

When we reach $35,000, we'll begin adding stories to the Apollo's Daughters anthology! Starting with authors Joshua Palmatier and Donald J. Bingle.

Joshua Palmatier started writing science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories in the eighth grade, when the teacher assigned a one page Twilight Zone-ish short story. He wrote a story about Atlantis. He got an A. Joshua has never stopped writing since, mainly focusing on novels, including his popular Throne of Amenkor series.
Donald J. Bingle is an oft-published author in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller, romance, steampunk, and comedy genres. His novels include: Net Impact (spy thriller), GREENSWORD (darkly comedic eco-thriller), and Forced Conversion (near-future military scifi). Many of his three dozen short stories are available in hard copy and for Kindle and Nook, including his Writer on Demand short story collections: Tales of Gamers and Gaming; Tales of Humorous Horror; Tales out of Time; and Grim, Fair e- Tales.

At the $38,000 level, we will produce a limited hardcover edition of Apollo’s Daughters. The hardcover edition will be a run limited to this Kickstarter only. Backers will be able to order it as an add-on even after the Kickstarter ends, just in case we make this goal just under the wire.

Last, but not least, I have some very exciting news concerning Apollo's Daughters, our brother anthology. But I can't tell you what it is until tomorrow. Would you like a hint?

picard slow clap.gif

A) It concerns the subject of the show from which this GIF is taken. B) It's physics AND Nobel-laureate-related (aka, AWESOME.) I'll write more about this mysterious development - and reveal who the Apollo introductory writer is - in tomorrow's blog post!

At this point, you've got seven more days to share about or back our awesome project. So what the heck are you waiting for?

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."
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.
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.