Edward Willett

Just a year ago, I was letting you know about the SHAPERS OF WORLDS VOLUME II Kickstarter, and now I'm reaching out to let you know about the Kickstarter for Volume III!
          
          You can find the Kickstarter campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edwardwillett/shapers-of-worlds-volume-iii
          
          Again, these anthologies feature authors who were guests on my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (http://www.theworldshapers.com), which features conversations with science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process.
          
          Shapers of Worlds Volume III will feature new fiction from Griffin Barber, Gerald Brandt, Miles Cameron, Sebastien de Castell, Kristi Charish, David Ebenbach, Mark Everglade, Frank J. Fleming, Violette Malan, Anna Mocikat, James Morrow, Jess E. Owen, Robert G. Penner, Cat Rambo, K.M. Rice, and Edward Willett; poetry from Jane Yolen; and additional stories by Cory Doctorow, K. Eason, Walter Jon Williams, and F. Paul Wilson. Among those authors are several international bestsellers, as well as winners and nominees for every major science fiction and fantasy literary award.
          
          Backers' rewards offered by the authors include numerous e-books, signed paperback and hardcover books (including limited editions), Tuckerizations (a backer’s name used as a character name), commissioned artwork, original poetry (from Jane Yolen), audiobooks, opportunities for online chats with authors, short-story critiques, and more.
          
          I hope you'll check it out! And check out my stories from Shapers of Worlds and Shapers of Worlds Volume II, which I'll be posting momentarily to Wattpad!

It's been a busy week, because the Kickstarter for SHAPERS OF WORLDS VOLUME II launched on Tuesday! This is the anthology featuring authors who were guests during the second year of my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (http://www.theworldshapers.com), which features conversations with science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process.
          
          Last year, I successfully Kickstarted SHAPERS OF WORLDS, featuring authors who were guests during the first year of the podcast, so I decided to do it again with second-year guests.
          
          You can find the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edwardwillett/shapers-of-worlds-volume-ii . After just 3 1/2 days, it's 41 percent funded, so looking promising! I'm aiming for $15,000 CDN.
          
          As I noted last time, if it funds, It will feature new fiction from Kelley Armstrong, Marie Brennan, Helen Dale, Candas Jane Dorsey, Lisa Foiles, Susan Forest, James Alan Gardner, Matthew Hughes, Heli Kennedy, Lisa Kessler, Adria Laycraft, Ira Nayman, Garth Nix, Tim Pratt, Edward Savio, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Jeremy Szal, and me, plus stories by, Jeffrey A. Carver, Barbara Hambly, Nancy Kress, David D. Levine, S.M. Stirling, and Carrie Vaughn.
          
          Backers' rewards include some 100 or so signed books (including limited editions), Tuckerizations (your name used as a character name), ready-to-hang photographs, audiobooks, and more!
          
          Check it out and Kick in! It's going to be an amazing anthology.

The day draws near: the pre-launch page for my upcoming Kickstarter for the anthology SHAPERS OF WORLDS Volume II is now live at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edwardwillett/shapers-of-worlds-volume-ii.  Follow to be notified when it launches on March 9 at 12 noon CST.
          
          This anthology features authors who were guests during the second year of my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (http://www.theworldshapers.com), where I talk to science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process.
          
          It will feature new fiction from Kelley Armstrong, Marie Brennan, Helen Dale, Candas Jane Dorsey, Lisa Foiles, Susan Forest, James Alan Gardner, Matthew Hughes, Heli Kennedy, Lisa Kessler, Adria Laycraft, Ira Nayman, Garth Nix, Tim Pratt, Edward Savio, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Jeremy Szal, and me, plus stories by, Jeffrey A. Carver, Barbara Hambly, Nancy Kress, David D. Levine, S.M. Stirling, and Carrie Vaughn.
          
          Backers' rewards include some 100 or so signed books (including limited editions), Tuckerizations (your name used as a character name), ready-to-hang photographs, audiobooks, and more!

Just a note to tell you that ASSIGNMENT: AVALON, my adventure tale about a young space pilot shipwrecked on a backward planet who has to stop the rebirth of an evil interstellar empire with only a primitive biplane to fly (no, really, that's the plot), is now posted in its entirety! Check it out!

Something else new on Wattpad: I've posted the first four chapters of my new YA fantasy novel BLUE FIRE, written under my pseudonym, E.C. Blake, as was my YA fantasy trilogy The Masks of Aygrima a few years ago (published by DAW Books). Check them out, and if you want to know how the story ends, you can download the ebook for just $3.99 CDN ($2.99 US) from any online bookstore, including Shadowpaw Press (www.shadowpawpress.com), where you'll find lots of other great books.

A quick follow-up to yesterday's post: as promised, I've started uploading a new novel. Chapter 1 of my YA science-fiction adventure novel ASSIGNMENT: AVALON is now up. If you enjoyed ANDY NEBULA, I think you'll enjoy this! Check it out!

Hi! Been a while since I posted on here but wanted to let you know that Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star is now back on Wattpad in a new, revised edition. Now called From the Street to the Stars, it's the same great story. Read it again for the first time! 
          
          It's also available in a new print edition--you can order that on Amazon or any other bookstore, or directly from my publishing company, Shadowpaw Press. Lots of inexpensive ebook downloads of my stuff available there. Check it out at http://www.shadowpawpress.com.
          
          I also wanted to remind you of my podcast, The Worldshapers (http://www.theworldshapers.com). This is a great resource not only for readers of science fiction and fantasy but for those of you interested in writing. I talk to other science fiction and fantasy authors, many of them internationally known bestsellers and award-winners (Garth Nix! V.E. Schwab! Tad Williams! etc.) about their creative process. There are also complete transcripts of most interviews, if you'd rather read than listen.
          
          I plan to post more sample chapters of lots of stuff on here soon. Keep watching, and keep reading!
          
          And watch out, too, for new complete novel I start posting chapters for, too, exclusive to Wattpad.
          
          I'll reach out again very soon to let you know about a new Kickstarter for Shapers of Worlds, Volume II, featuring authors who were guests during the second year of my aforementioned podcast. More details on that soon!
          
          Hope everyone's 2021 is better than your 2020!

Hi! Wanted to let you know about an anthology I've edited SHAPERS OF WORLDS is available for preorder--in fact, it's currently the #1 New Release in Science Fiction Anthologies on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GQK7TZ9/). 
          
          Here's the blurb. I hope you'll check it out!
          
          Within these pages lie eighteen stories, from eighteen worlds shaped by some of today’s best writers of science fiction and fantasy, all guests on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers during its first year. Some are international bestsellers. Among them are winners and nominees for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, Aurealis, Ditmar, British Science Fiction Association, and Dragon Awards. Some have been writing for decades, others are at the beginning of their careers. All have honed their craft to razor-sharpness.
          
          A teenage girl finds something strange in the middle of the Canadian prairie. An exobiologist tries to liberate a giant alien enslaved on its homeworld by humans. The music of the spheres becomes literal for an Earth ship far from home. A superhero league interviews for new members. Strangers share a drink on a world where giant starships fall. Two boys, one a werewolf, one a mage, get more than they bargained for when they volunteer to fight an evil Empire. A man with amnesia accepts a most unusual offer. A young woman finds unexpected allies as she tries to win a flying-machine race in steampunk London . . .
          
          Ranging from boisterous to bleak, from humorous to harrowing, from action-filled to quiet and meditative; taking place in alternate pasts, the present day, the far, far future, and times that never were; set on Earth, in the distant reaches of space, in fantasy worlds, and in metaphysical realms, each of these stories is as unique as its creator. And yet, they all showcase one thing: the irrepressible need of human beings to create, to imagine, to tell stories.
          
          To shape worlds.

Hello, again! I've been quiet on here while I keep working as writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library (if you happen to be in Saskatoon and would like my advice on your writing, email me at writer@saskatoonlibrary.ca ). 
          
          I wanted to let my Wattpad followers know about something exciting that's in progress right now. I have a podcast, called The Worldshapers (http://www.theworldshapers.com ) where I interview other science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process. I've launched a Kickstarter to fund an anthology featuring some of the first-year guests of the podcast. The list of participating authors is pretty amazing: Seanan McGuire, Tanya Huff, David Weber, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., David Weber, D.J. Butler, Christopher Ruocchio, John C. Wright, Shelley Adina and I will all provide new stories, and reprints are coming from John Scalzi, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Julie Czerneda, Dr. Charles E. Gannon, Fonda Lee, Gareth L. Powell, Derek Kunsken and Thoraiya Dyer.
          
          There are some pretty sweet backers' rewards, too, including the chance to be a first reader (seeing manuscripts at the same time they go to the publisher) for David Weber, some hardcover and paperback book giveaways, a ton of ebooks (does that make sense for something that doesn't weigh anything?) and more.
          
          If you're interested, check it out at http://tinyurl.com/ShapersOfWorlds and kick in if you'd like to make it happen.
          
          Thanks so much, and keep reading!
          
          Edward Willett
          http://www.edwardwillett.com

A year since I posted a message! Hard to believe. But MASTER OF THE WORLD, Book 2 in my series Worldshapers, is now available from DAW Books in trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats. Book 1, WORLDSHAPER, which came out last year, is now out in mass-market paperback, as well.
          
          Read more about MASTER OF THE WORLD (and find out where to buy it) at https://edwardwillett.com/science-fiction/master-of-the-world/
          
          Read the first two chapters at https://edwardwillett.com/science-fiction/master-of-the-world/read-the-first-two-chapters-of-master-of-the-world/
          
          Here's the description for MASTER OF THE WORLD:
          
          From an Aurora Award-winning author comes the second book in a gripping portal fantasy series in which one woman’s powers open the way to a labyrinth of new dimensions.
          
          Shawna Keys has fled the world she only recently discovered she Shaped, narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Adversary who seized control of it…and losing her only guide, Karl Yatsar, in the process.
          
          Now she finds herself alone in some other Shaper’s world, where, in her first two hours, she’s rescued from a disintegrating island by an improbable flying machine she recognizes from Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, then seized from it by raiders flying tiny personal helicopters, and finally taken to a submarine that bears a strong resemblance to Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. Oh, and accused of being both a spy and a witch.
          
          Shawna expects–hopes!–Karl Yatsar will eventually follow her into this new steampunky realm, but exactly where and when he’ll show up, she hasn’t a clue.
          
          In the meantime, she has to navigate a world where two factions fanatically devoted to their respective leaders are locked in perpetual combat, figure out who the Shaper of the world is, find him or her, and obtain the secret knowledge of this world’s Shaping. Then she has to somehow reconnect with Karl Yatsar, and escape to the next Shaped world in the Labyrinth…through a Portal she has no idea how to open.