The stories of Bryan Young

Over the weekend I was honored by the Utah Arts Festival and the Salt Lake City Mayor's office with the award for Literary Arts, given out generally every year, but not always. I'm pictured there, second from the left with the other winners. It was a great experience and truly an honor. Coming off the heels of that award, I'll be doing two different readings in the area. The first will be this Thursday at the regular Helicon West reading at the Logan Library, 255 North Main, Logan, Utah. I'll be there at 7:00 as the author guest and I'll be reading for twenty minutes or so. Afterward, I'll be signing and selling books to those who are interested. More info can be found here. The second reading is a little bit further out, but on Tuesday, July 9th, I'll be doing a reading and a signing at the King's English Bookshop . The King's English is located at 1511 South 1500 East, Salt Lake City, Utah. That event also starts at 7:00 and I'll...

Silence in the Library Publishing has put out a brand new anthology and is a collection of superhero stories. It's a fantastic collection and I'm very proud of it. First off, it has stories from Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston in it. And a story by me. My story, called "Changing The Game," is about the sidekick half of the Kid Sleuth and the Inspector team. Each of the stories is illustrated by Mark Dos Santos , and has a cover by Dennis Loubet . Here's a full breakdown of authors and stories: Aaron Allston - Retreads Janine Spendlove - Stupendous Sparkle Maxwell Alexander Drake - The Kid Bryan Young - Changing the Game Maggie Allen - A Marvelous New World  R.T. Kaelin - All-Star Ron Garner - Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow  Jean Rabe - Mortar's Ovation Michael A. Stackpole - Need to Know It is now on sale through Amazon, but you can buy it here directly, $15 + shipping, at a much better benefit to the authors.  In fact, this is another...

 Time Traveled Tales is a new collection of short stories from guys like Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, Mike Stackpole and plenty of other authors you've heard of (me included) and some authors that you're going to be hearing a lot about in the future.  They're kickstarting the book as a collection to subvert big publishing and cut out the middle-men, something I was talking about recently in my latest column for City Weekly . This is a perfect way to get great fiction and directly support the artists creating it. The story I wrote, called "Deep Salvage," is a very cool sci-fi story about two spacers looking to recover a salvage and find something altogether more terrifying. I'd count it as a personal favor if you checked out the book and considered kickstarting it .

As writers, we need to get into our heads and do lots of thinking and lots of soul searching. Living in a society where advertisers, our friends and families, and the entire Internet are competing for our attention, that kind of quiet thought might be hard to come by. When I was in Paris, I had limited Internet access, no phone access, and nothing more on my agenda than to learn. While I was there, I'd spend my mornings writing on a new novel. I got almost 20k words done while I was there, over three weeks, that averages out to about 1,000 words a day. After we'd head out for the day, I'd keep my moleskin with me and write as often as a thought struck me (you know, instead of tweeting or facebooking). In that notebook, I wrote two short stories, and I put about 20k words down full of observations and ideas. It was refreshing and it was refueling. I wasn't so concerned about the rest of the world, I could spend my time thinking about capturing photographs ...

It's time again for an update. First off, for those expecting The Serpent's Head this month, as it was scheduled, after getting back with meetings with the editor, it needs another rewrite. It's just not ready for publication and I'm not going to rush it. I'm going to get it right. It will be out before the end of the year, though, so you can still look forward to it. Doubly so, knowing that it's going to be even better than I could have imagined in the first place. I have a rough mock-up of the cover as well, it's not final art, but I wanted to share it with you. It's from Erin Kubinek, a hell of an artist. We'll see how much it changes, but I really like the idea of the piece. And for a sci-fi/western, I think it works really well. Be sure to let me know what you think. The next order of business: Origins Game Fair . It's one of my favorite conventions and every writer should want to go. There are two tracks of panels on ...