Blog Archives
Virginia Voice Charity Event
On Sunday, April 10 from 1:30 until 4:00 pm, I have the honor of being a guest at the Writer’s Voice benefit, a fundraiser for Virginia Voice. I’m very thankful to the Hanover Writers Club for this opportunity.
The mission of Virginia Voice is “To connect individuals with disabilities to information using technology and the human voice” with “Eyes for those who cannot see… hands for those who cannot turn pages.” They read newspapers, magazines and books and broadcast them over select radio frequencies. By giving out pre-tuned radios set to receive those frequencies, they enable people who have lost their sight recapture their enjoyment of the printed word. Founded in 1978, Virginia Voice serves about 3,000 listeners in Central Virginia and 1,000 in the Norfolk area thanks to the generosity of many dedicated donors and volunteers.
The Writer’s Voice benefit is open to the public and will include local authors with books available for purchase as well as aspiring writers and Hanover Writers Club members who simply wish to support this effort. There will be speakers from Virginia Voice as well as two notable authors, along with refreshments and door prizes. It’s a great chance to meet local authors, ask questions, do some networking, have fun and support a good cause – all at the same time. Tickets are $25 and all proceeds beyond reimbursement for expenditures will go to Virginia Voice.
If anyone is in the Richmond area and would like to attend, please go to www.virginiavoice.org for tickets. I will have some copies of A Fairy-tale Ending to give away, as well as several Harry Heckel books (such as the Crimson Hawks and Krueger series) for sale.
I also want to mention that in an effort to maximize the donations to Virginia Voice, The Hanover Writers Club and Virginia Voice welcome any businesses or individuals who would like to sponsor this event through monetary or food donations.
Juggling Identities
As a writer, I’ve gone by three different names, Harry Heckel (my real name), Lee Lightner (when I collaborate with Jeff Smith) and most recently, Jack Heckel (when collaborating with John Peck). I’ve also considered writing in other genres and I have a few novels that if I ever sell, I may publish under yet more names. At the Baltimore Book Festival, I was asked how I keep track of my different selves, and I gave a short answer about being organized and branding, but I’m going to elaborate more here.
Today, writers have to do a lot of marketing. From writing blog posts like this one to keeping Twitter feeds going, to doing appearances and writing articles, it’s a lot of work. I keep recalling that fellow Harper Voyager author Bishop O’Connell told me (and I’m paraphrasing), “You’ve been published. Now the real work begins.” Read the rest of this entry
Hanover Book Festival – This Weekend!
Hi everyone,
I’ll be attending the Hanover Book Festival this weekend on Saturday, August 9th. The festival is taking place in the gym at Liberty Christian School (8094 Liberty Circle, Mechanicsville, VA 23111) and there will be numerous authors there, ready to meet with the public from 10am to 2pm with plenty of books to sell and sign. I suspect there will be a number of door prizes.
One of my fellow authors, Wayland Smith, will be coming down from DC with copies of his book, In My Brother’s Name, and he’ll be available to talk about HeroNet Files, which will also be available of course. He’s scheduled to be on a couple of panels at DragonCon in Atlanta this year, and this should be a great opportunity to talk with him.
I’ll have a computer available if anyone wants to order eBooks, and I’ll not only be there as Harry Heckel (with all my Blue Oranda books), but representing Lee Lightner for my Space Wolf novels, and Jack Heckel (I go by J. Heckel) for Once Upon a Rhyme coming out August 26th. I really want to thank Harper Voyager for sending me items to hand out and hopefully a few fun surprises.
Anyway, I’m very excited, and I hope that if you have the chance that you’ll take a little time to come out and see us. Again, there will be lots of other authors as well, so even if fantasy/sci-fi isn’t what you enjoy, please come visit.
All the best,
Harry
An Old Friend Returns – Welcome back to Engage the Enemy!
Unfortunately, the free book promotion on Smashwords has ended, but thank you to everyone who picked up one of my books.
One of my favorite stories to tell about my forays into fiction regards a submission that I made to Inferno! magazine. It was a tale set in the grim darkness of the far future in Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer 40K, and it featured my favorite chapter of Space Marines, the Space Wolves. Anyway, I formed a partnership with my co-author who would later write with me as Lee Lightner. Here’s the amusing part of the story – my short story was rejected.
I had received it back and was basically told that it was unusable. I reached out and contacted the editor and to his immense credit, he took the time to tell me what he didn’t like about it (besides everything). I listened to what he said and asked if I rewrote it and returned it to him the next day if he would at least take the time to read it. He said yes. That evening I typed about as fast as I could and stayed up far too late for my own good as I reworked everything. The next day, it was accepted. Ultimately, it led to my two novels, Sons of Fenris and Wolf’s Honour.
Never give up.
Inferno! is long gone, but Engage the Enemy was republished this week by my good friends at Black Library. No royalties for me on this one, but I’m utterly pleased to see a story that meant so much to me reappear. Here’s the link.
Harry Heckel 