The Journal of Michael Merriam

Sometimes life and fiction are a little odd. In my novel Last Car to Annwn Station there is a scene where Mae is in Uptown and runs into Jill. Mae wants to walk over to Dunn Brothers Coffee, but Jill convinces her to go to Muddy Paws instead for both coffee and cheesecake. This scene, which includes them being chased by the Cwn Annwn, is the one I read to audiences.

Muddy Paws closed before the novel came out, and I wrestled with maybe moving the location, but after some discussion with first readers and other writers, left it in as a sort of "Ah!" thing for locals who remember Muddy Paws with fondness. The shop has been sat empty for years.

Well, things come full circle. Last Saturday while riding the bus to the first production meeting for the Minnesota Fringe Festival show I'm going to be in, I saw that Dunn Brothers is moving into the space Muddy Paws vacated. In honor of the new location and with a nod to the ways fiction and life intersect, I thought I'd post that except here. If you are interested, you can pick up Last Car in ebook format at Carina Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and in audio format at Audible.

( Last Car to Annwn Except Behind This Cut )

Because I know some of you got eReaders of one type or another for the holidays. And because as much I love writing, I also have to eat and pay bills. So here is my post-holidays marketing sales pitch for all my available books, both print and electronic.

Coffee For Your Body, Flames For Your Soul: Urban Fantasy Short Story

It came to the diner looking for a soul to devour.

At a late-night diner, the manager finds himself faced with a nightmare from his past: The Nalusachita, a mythical-creature of his Choctaw ancestors.

Determined to protect his customers from the shape-changing soul-stealer but unsure how, the manager sets out to clear the restaurant at closing time.

What neither manager or monster counted on was the eccentric patrons of the diner, and how they would react to the mythical creature…

Coffee For Your Body, Flames For Your Soul is available in ebook at Musa Publishing, Amazon, and Smashwords.

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The Horror at Cold Springs: Steampunk / Supernatural Western Novella

When a disparate group of travelers find themselves stranded in a ghost town on the western Nebraska frontier, will they unravel the mystery of the missing townsfolk and survive to tell the tale?

The Horror at Cold Springs is available in print from The Sam's Dot Publishing Bookstore and in all ebook formats from Smashwords.

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Last Car to Annwn Station: Urban Fantasy Novel / Paranormal Romance - Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women's Fiction Blog pick for Top Ten Books, 2011.

“The fare is ten cents, miss.”

Mae Malveaux, an attorney with Minneapolis Child Protective Services, is burnt-out, tired and frustrated. Passing on an invite from Jill, her flirtatious coworker, Mae just wants a quiet night in. Leaving the office late, she’s surprised to find the Heritage Line streetcars up and running and hops aboard, eager for a quick trip home.
But this is no ordinary streetcar. Death is one of its riders, and Mae is thrust into Annwn, a realm of magic and danger.

“Your transfer, miss. You’ll need that.”

Mae’s life is turned upside down as human and fae worlds collide. Her budding relationship with Jill takes a perilous turn when they are hunted by mythical beasts, and Mae is drawn into a deadly power struggle. With Jill at her side, Mae must straddle both worlds and fight a war she barely comprehends, for not only does the fate of Annwn rest in her hands, but the lives of both a human and fae child…

Last Car to Annwn Station is available in ebook format at Carina Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and in audio format at Audible.

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Shimmers & Shadows: Short Story Collection

These diverse short stories unfold where the faery realm intersects with the mundane world of the Twin Cities, in the spacefaring future of exploration and adventure, and in a mythical land of sorcery and danger. Here you will find tales of adventure, horror, enchantment, humor, tragedy, and romance where:
…a young outcast strikes a hard bargain with the Muddy River
…two very different spirits find sanctuary in a historic shopping mall
…a space transport captain makes a difficult choice and falls headlong into the middle of a conspiracy
…a fallen Seelie champion is caught between his dark past and unusual mortal friends
…estranged lovers discover whether science or magic will save their dying Earth
…death is not the end, time does not always run in a straight line, and the rain blesses both mortals and fae.

Shimmers & Shadows is available at Lulu and in ebook for Kindle from Amazon.

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Should We Drown In Feathered Sleep: Near-Future Post-Apocalypse Fantasy Novella -- Long Listed for the 2010 Nebula Award.

A New Order

A new world is emerging years after war destroyed society. In a Minnesota lake, the last surviving loons, direct descendants of the legendary First Pair, await the one who can help heal the earth. Each year a human sacrifice is brought to them to be endowed with special gifts, but they come at a terrible price.

A Free Spirit

Even as the rest of the world rebuilds, Grace Kriske’s life is shattered. Unable to walk, she feels utterly dependent on her family and trapped in a community that disapproves of her rebellious ways. Grace’s only solace is her lover, David Tvedt, a trader who wants to take her away with him—if she’d let him.

An Impossible Choice

Yet something else calls to Grace—the loons. They haunt her dreams, lurking in her mind as if part of her deepest primal self. But when Grace is chosen as the new sacrifice, she’s afraid. Will she risk everything to help the community that shuns her, or will she choose her own path?

Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep is available in ebook at Carina Press, Amazon, and B&N. and in audio format at Audible.

Catherine Lundoff, (catherineldf) award winning author of A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2011) will be reading at True Colors Bookstore with Special Guest Michael Merriam, author of Last Car to Annwn Station (Carina Press, 2011).

True Colors Bookstore: http://www.truecolorsbookstore.com/
Saturday, November 12 · 4:00pm
True Colors Bookstore
4755 Chicago Ave S
Minneapolis, MN

* The reading will take place downstairs in the bookstore, which has no elevator and is unfortunately not accessible for people with wheelchairs or walkers.

In case you missed the broadcast on Saturday!


( Cut Because the Player Autoplays )

I will be interviewed this Saturday, September 17th on “Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women's Fiction." The discussion will focus on my novel Last Car to Annwn Station, including the "incongruity" of a straight male writing lesbian fiction. I will also do a short (one to three minutes) reading from the novel.

The Details:
Date: Saturday, September 17
Time: 3:00pm Central
URL: http://blogtalkradio.com/readingslab

There is a guest line at phone number (646) 929-1909 for anyone who might want to call in and/or ask questions live on air during the show.

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Last Car to Annwn Station. Available in ebook format at Carina Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and in audio format at Audible.

Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep. Available in ebook format at Carina Press, Amazon, B&N, and in audio format at Audible.

For those of you who prefer to listen to your stories on ipods or your smartphone, Last Car to Annwn Station is now available in audio format at Audible.

careswen and I listened to the first several minutes. The reader has a smooth and pleasant reading voice and does different, distinct voices for the characters. We were both pleased.

My publisher had some nice things to say in the latest Carina Press Newsletter:

Our Staff Loves…Last Car to Annwn Station

When I was growing up, I was convinced that the wall in my parents' basement was actually a door, a door to another world—I even left notes for the people who lived there! I guess you could say I had an overactive imagination—but there's something so intriguing to me about the idea that just beyond our reality is another world, a world we can see and touch if only we knew the way in. And that's why I love Last Car to Annwn Station.

Michael Merriam introduced me to a new world through the eyes of Mae Malveaux. Mae has a stressful job and is on the verge of burnout when mere chance (or so it seems) whisks her into Annwn, a Welsh Fae underworld, a world just beyond our own. The author paints such a vivid picture of Annwn that it's impossible not to believe it's just beyond our reach. Couple the intrigue of Annwn with a great suspense plot and a lovely romance, and you've got a book that will keep your imagination going long after you've read the last page…

—Eleanor Elliott, Director, Digital Properties & Social Media – Carina Press.

Everyone at Carina Press -- from the publisher, to the marketing department, to various editors -- have told me how excited the house is about Last Car to Annwn Station. Let’s hope that excitement translates into some nice sales!
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Last Car to Annwn Station is available in ebook format at Carina Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon U.S., and Amazon U.K.

If I said I was excited, it would be a horrible understatement. This is one of those moments that as writers we work toward, but fear will never happen.

Except sometimes it does.

I’d like to thank my wife, Sherry L.M. Merriam, who was the first reader and helped me edit the manuscript into something I could submit to publishers.

Thanks to Adam Stemple, Alison Ching, Jaye Lawrence, Joanne Anderton, Kevin McIntyre and Hilary Moon Murphy, all of whom read the novel in various drafts and offered thoughts, ideas, occasional smacks to the back of the head and all the encouragement I needed to finish it.

A special thanks to the editors and staff at Carina Press for choosing to publish my novel and helping me polish it until it shined. They are a joy to work with.

Thank you to everyone on Live Journal who cheered me on as I wrote the novel and who, when I described it as “a dark urban fantasy revenge and redemption paranormal romance and supernatural horror novel with mythological and fairy tale overtones and lesbian protagonists, featuring the ghost of the defunct Twin Cities streetcar system,” had a good laugh about me finding my little niche.

And a final thank you to the late Mr. Thomas Lowry (February 27, 1843–February 4, 1909). For the streetcars.

Last Car to Annwn Station is available in ebook format at Carina Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon U.S., and Amazon U.K.

I’ve finished the rough draft of the synopsis for Dead Brew. It came in too large: five single-spaced pages in Times New Roman 12. I’ve cut it down to two, but really need it to be one. I’ll try to finish that tomorrow. It seems strange, this trying to encapsulate 84,000 words into 250 to 500 words. It is an art with which I struggle. I’ve discovered, at least for me, that writing a synopsis is a lot like writing a novel: you only know how to write the one you are working on at the moment.

I spent part of the evening setting up my author pages at Goodreads and Shelfari. I still need to finish my page at LibraryThing, though I have claimed it. It felt weird. Like I’m all official or something.

I’m not going to put tonight’s snippet behind a cut because it is small. In fact, it is an example of how less can be more.

Snippet #6

Dear Wall,
I killed one of them tonight.

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Last Car to Annwn Station. Releases on June 27th. Pre-Order at Carina Press, Amazon U.S., and Amazon U.K.

Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep. Available in ebook format at Carina Press, Amazon, B&N, and in audio format at Audible.com

I have been writing on Dead Brew II (title pending). I’m about to the middle of the book and finally have the shape of the thing clear in my head. What I need to focus in now is writing the synopsis for Dead Brew and get it sent out.

Speaking of sent out, I submitted three new pieces to Anthology Builder. I have more pieces to submit to them, but I thought I would start with these three and once a decision was made, submit three more. If I can get all the stories on Anthology builder I would like, that would be 12 pieces. I also sent out a query on a small short fiction collection of my space opera pieces. The publisher in question has told me he is looking for more SF and space opera, so I have high hopes.

Attempts to integrate Belyn—aka Temp-to-Perm Kitty—with the Reverend Selena have been mixed. It would help if Belyn would read her signals (which are pretty obvious, considering how vocal she is) and back off when she’s angry. I wonder if the male inability to read signals a female is sending is a universal thing.

He is still very cute and we are patient. Belyn really wants to make friends with Selena. She is not all that interested right now. I think she might be willing to ignore him, if he would stop getting in her face.

Snippet four of Last Car to Annwn Station is more character and relationship development, with an indication that Jill is about to be drawn into the metaphysical mystery that Mae is dealing with.

I received my postcards and 8x10 prints from Carina Press for Last Car to Annwn Station. They are lovely, and I will have them to give away at 4TH Street Fantasy Convention, Convergence, and Diversicon if I attend.

( Snippet #4 Behind the Cut )
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Last Car to Annwn Station. Releases on June 27th. Pre-Order at Carina Press, Amazon U.S., and Amazon U.K.

Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep. Available in ebook format at Carina Press, Amazon, B&N, and in audio format at Audible.com