Newsletter ~ October - November 2009

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Thanksgiving week in Appalachia is marked by family and friends and feasting and... firing rifles. As I sit in my "work chair" (a very basic recliner) with my laptop and watch the day break over Chestnut Ridge, I hear the first shots of deer season. It's the time of year when I really don't want my kids to play outdoors lest some over eager hunter take a shot at them. I have no objection to hunting for food, and I appreciate the fact that a good size buck will provide meat for a family of five for an entire winter. That's nothing to sneeze at in these parts, where poverty drives proud families to rely on public assistance for meals and utilities and medical care.

In a Pavlovian sense, the sounds echoing off my mountains put me in the mood for pumpkin this and cranberry that. We're entertaining friends again this year for GobbleFest, and I'm currently planning the menu. I plan to stuff the turkey with thick-sliced pepper bacon. It will either be wildly successful or a dismal failure, and I'll either take all of the credit or all of the blame.

That fits my approach to most things... including Purple Prosaic, my new self-publishing venture. As I've noted on my blog, it's been an unqualified success thus far. Sales are steadily increasing, and I'm adding distribution channels as I quickly as I can lasso them. I look forward to the future of this endeavor.

On the news front, I'm delighted to report that I have three submissions that have reached the 2010 finals of EPIC's eBook Awards (formerly known as the EPPIEs). Two of them are Coming Together titles that I edited, and the third is an anthology containing a novella of mine. Two are from Phaze Books, and one is self-published (Yay!) via Lulu. Two contain erotic fiction, and the third is a poetry collection. It's a 2-of-3 kind of list, I guess. Maybe that means two of the three will win. ;-) I created the cover art for all three, and two of the covers have been entered into EPIC's QUASAR contest:

Voting for the QUASAR will be conducted in early December. If you're an EPIC member, please vote!

I hope y'all have a safe and wonderfully fulfilling holiday season. Until next time...

peace & passion,

~ Alessia

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New Releases & Coming Soon [TOP]

More new releases than I can list here due to the launch of Purple Prosaic! Other than Coming Together, however, they are all re-packaged and re-released work.

AVAILABLE NOW in ebook & print from Purple Prosaic, LLC:
Implexity
ISBN 978-0-557-16005-1 (HARDCOVER) / 978-1-449-53456-1 (PAPERBACK)
The inaugural NEW release for Purple Prosaic is a collection of my poetry. It is available in both ebook and a hardcover collector edition. Also, it will soon be available in paperback via Amazon (CreateSpace). All of the poetry from fine flickering hungers is included as well as lots of new material and an extensive commentary in the form of endnotes.

AVAILABLE NOW in ebook from eXcessica & in print from Amazon/CreateSpace:
Coming Together: For Her
ISBN 978-1-449-54294-8 (PAPERBACK)
A collection of erotic fiction by the prolific Laurence Doyen, jointly edited by Lisabet Sarai & Alessia Brio.  Proceeds benefit the National Organization for Women (NOW).
 

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Interviews & Appearances [TOP]

Coming Together had a booth in the Marketplace at the WV Book Festival in Charleston, WV on October 10-11, 2009. It was my first involvement with this event, and while sales weren't anything to boast about, the atmosphere was welcoming and the venue was comfortable. If if doesn't conflict with ATA Nationals in Orlando next fall, I'll probably do it again.

Here are the many places I can be found online. I appreciate all friends-fans-followers, especially for Coming Together projects. Currently, I'm most active on Twitter and Facebook... but I move with the tides of social networking.