New Preorders for November

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Jessica Knauss

Two of Jessica Knauss’s masterful works have been in limited distribution until now. We’re proud to announce that at last, as well as the Kindle editions you’ve come to know and love, Tree/House and Unpredictable Worlds will be available on all the other ebook platforms, too!

Both books of fiction have received critical praise and are perfect gifts for the book lover in your life during this holiday season.

The magical day is November 20. Let these books be your other literary activity as you get ready to watch the last installment of the Hunger Games.

Tree/House is already available in softcover in many venues:

Softcover | Softcover at Indiebound | Softcover at Amazon | Softcover at Barnes and Noble

And in Kindle and Nook.

It will be waiting for you at your favorite alternative ebook retailer on November 20, or preorder today at Apple iBooks and Kobo and it will download to your device on release day.

Unpredictable Worlds has a lovely softcover edition available now:

Softcover | Softcover at Indiebound | Softcover at Amazon | Softcover at Barnes and Noble

And is ready for you in Kindle and Nook.

As with Tree/House, Unpredictable Worlds will be waiting for you at your favorite alternative ebook retailer on November 20, or preorder today at Apple iBooks and Kobo and it will download to your device on release day.

Please note that because all the stories (and more) from Rhinoceros Dreams have been revised and included in Unpredictable Worlds, Rhinoceros Dreams will no longer be available after November 20.

Thank you for supporting Açedrex Publishing’s mission to bring original books to a wide audience.

New Amazing Book Available for Bargain Preorder

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Jessica Knauss

Açedrex is proud to present a new book of short stories!

A teacher controls her students with an edible microchip. A reporter turns into a rhinoceros. A couple’s efforts to eat local go frighteningly awry. If you’re looking to be surprised, puzzled, or just plain entertained, pick up this omnibus. There’s something for everyone!

More than twenty years in the making, Unpredictable Worlds contains all of Jessica Knauss’s published and prize-winning short fiction as of March 2015 and a few of her best stories never before seen in print or ebook. Zany plots and outrageous characters will stretch your belief and tug at your heart.

WARNING: These stories contain exaggeration, elision, and disregard for “the real world.” Some even exhibit a tone of blatant optimism. However, they respect human speech patterns, admire good grammar, and hold proper punctuation in the highest regard.

Unpredictable Worlds will release for Kindle on May 15, but you can preorder it now at the special reduced price of only 99 cents. Save 66% off the post-release price and get this unique book delivered to your device on release day so you can start enjoying it before anyone else!

The 50 Best Short Stories of All Time, The Final Volume

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Jessica Knauss

At last, Volume III of this unique series of the very best literature the English language has to offer has arrived! You can finally read and enjoy all 50 of the stories chosen by the best authors of 1914 for a very low price. These stories stand the test of time.

Have you read the 50 best short stories of all time?

In 1914, a critical moment in literature, the New York Times asked the most highly regarded authors of the day to name the best short story in the English language. Many of their responses have maintained consistent fame through time. Others have become hidden gems. All are essential literary experiences that will make you love to read again.

These masterpieces are collected here for the first time, masterfully copyedited and with an introduction by Martin Hill Ortiz, PhD.

This volume includes:

Introduction

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Haunted and the Haunters; Or, the House and the Brain by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

A Municipal Report by O. Henry

The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale

The Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe

The Cricket on the Hearth, A Fairy Tale of Home by Charles Dickens

The Story of Richard Doubledick by Charles Dickens

The Belled Buzzard by Irvin S. Cobb

An Incident by Sarah Barnwell Elliott

A Journey by Edith Wharton

Beyond the Pale by Rudyard Kipling

Without Benefit of Clergy by Rudyard Kipling

The Stolen Story by Jesse Lynch Williams

The Dead by James Joyce

Biographies of the Selectors and the Selected Authors

The final volume of this exceptional series is now available in ebook:

On Kindle in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, India, and Japan

For Nook for the USA, UK, and Europe.

And on Kobo worldwide.

Check back for soft cover editions soon!

Some of the stories you’ll find in Volumes I and II, already available:
The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Ring of Thoth by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
The Door in the Wall by H. G. Wells
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

The Best Short Stories Chosen in 1914 by the most prominent authors of the day, Volume I, is available in ebook at the following outlets:

On Kindle in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, India, and Japan

In the USA, the UK, and Europe for Nook

Worldwide at Kobo

The Best Short Stories Chosen in 1914 by the most prominent authors of the day, Volume II is available in ebook at these outlets:

Kindle in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, and India

Nook in the USA, the UK, and Europe

Kobo worldwide

Dragons and a Princess with New Artwork

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jessica Knauss

The Trossachs, Scotland by Shirley MacKenzie

I asked Seymour Hamilton, author of The Laughing Princess, how it came about that he met Shirley MacKenzie, who did the lovely new cover and many other drawings for that book. This is how he explains it:

I met Shirley MacKenzie at a reading soiree at a now defunct indie bookseller which had our books on consignment. Shirley had written and illustrated a moving account of her search for her birth mother and father. The emotional impact of Shirley’s story was in her drawings, which are at the intersection between personal and universal. She does not tell her reader what to think or feel: she presents evocative images of loss, longing and fulfillment that haunt me still.

“Ryll’s Fortune”

Shirley bought a copy of my book, The Laughing Princess, and was moved to draw a scene from one of the stories, “The Wizard and the Fire Dragon,” and later another, “Ryll’s Fortune.” I was amazed to see how close her vision came to the one in my mind when I was writing. Her charming rendition of The Littlest Dragon, the character that ties the twelve stories together, is now the cover art for both The Laughing Princess and the Spanish edition, La Princesa valiente.

Cover art for Shirley’s book, Orphan Sage

Shirley’s search for her birth parents took her to England and Scotland, where she travelled with sketchbook in hand. In London, her paintings feature views of and through the peculiarly English iron railings that most people see but do not notice. In Scotland, she captured the muted colours of a Scottish autumn with a vividness that refreshes the memories of those who have been there.

Back in Canada, she continued to find ways of taking us through the picture frame into the world that she sees in such vivid detail. Her paintings of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have the quality of a shared experience, when one person says, “Look at that!” and both enjoy the moment.

Illustration is Shirley’s latest enthusiasm. She started with well-known children’s classics such as The Little Prince, Charlotte’s Web and Treasure Island. Her drawing of a pivotal emotional moment when Jim Hawkins makes an important step towards manhood illuminates the text, making us aware that Robert Louis Stevenson was not just writing adventure: his story has emotional depth that we often lose in the many films, cartoons and re-interpretations of the famous tale.

The most poignant example of Shirley’s ability to read into the deeper dimensions of a story came when she drew a couple of incidents in stories by Spider Robinson. I was impressed by the appropriateness of her treatment of these emotion-laden scenes, and sent copies of them to Spider, who I have known since we both lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory concept by Shirley MacKenzie

Here is a part of his response:

“I am seriously mind-boggled. I just sat and looked at that sentence for ten minutes, trying to figure out what to follow it with. I failed, but have decided to keep on typing, anyway. But mind-boggled pretty much sums it up. The surely accidental resemblance of Erin to my granddaughter Marisa is uncanny. (For which reason I have forwarded it to her mom in Connecticut.) And that happens to be the way I was wearing my hair and beard when I wrote that book. And I lived in converted school buses on Stephen’s Farm long enough to recognize the interior of one when I see it. Right down to the inevitable tape-patches on the seats. What a beautiful piece! If we ever succeed in getting the e-book rights to that book back from Bantam, that’s the cover I’ll recommend for it to my agent. Please tell Shirley I am highly pleased and deeply moved. And thank her from me, big time. It never fails to awe me when some words I stuck together end up inspiring a work of art. Especially one that good.”

Y en español: Amazon | Amazon España | Barnes & Noble | Pídela en tu librería preferida

All images in this post are © Shirley MacKenzie and must not be used without permission. Please see Shirley’s other work at artspace59.com.

Seymour Hamilton on The Laughing Princess as Audio and Teaching Tool

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Jessica Knauss

As a teacher myself, and in conversation with other teachers, I have often complained that either my students do not do the assigned reading ahead of class, or if they do, it is by flash-reading as they might scan the splash page of a web site. In the first case, they are not able to enter into a discussion of content, in the second, they have little awareness of the style, tone and language in which the piece was written. Their study and comprehension of the imaginative literature presented in English classes is reduced to memorizing a stew-pot of messages.

Parents rarely take the time, and seldom have the skill, to read effectively out loud, with the result that most young people read silently. Teachers face the same constraints of time and ability. Consequently, many students read only for content, never realizing the beauty of words that have been taken from the page and offered as a performance. It is not that they do not know the magic of words: they encounter it daily in the music they listen to, but all too often they cannot unlock that music from the printed page.

The Laughing Princess was written to be read out loud.

Accordingly, I recorded it so that it can be listened to and downloaded, free, from Podiobooks.com.

A teacher can therefore play the recording in class, or hand out a “thumb drive” containing the downloaded audio files, so that students can listen on their MP3 players or smartphones — an audio experience that takes place in the theatre between their ears. Alternately, a teacher can provide the students with the URL for Podiobooks, where they can download the stories themselves. If they wish, they can then read background material and through which they can interact with me, the author on the story website at TheLaughingPrincess.com.

The title might make you think this is a book that should have a pink dust jacket; however, the Princess in the first story is very much a tomboy, who learns to “be, and dare, and risk” as a result of meeting with a sea-dragon. The other eleven stories all involve dragons. They are sometimes gentle and understanding, like the Angular Dragon, who counsels a poet; sometimes soulless and tyrannical, like the Mountain Dragon with whom a blind man matches wits; some dispense drastic justice, like the fire dragon who deals with a wife-beating innkeeper.

The dragons grant wishes that can be exceedingly dangerous to the human beings within the stories. The protagonists include a retired wizard, a poet who has lost his gift of words, a pretty girl who believes she is entitled to more of everything, a warrior who hires out as a formidable bodyguard, a musician who must choose between his love and his music, and the princess who as queen must face a heartless sea rover.

The stories are held together by a narrator, The Littlest Dragon, who tells his tales to two children who “have reached that special age at which they had discovered that their parents did not always understand them.” Like the characters in the stories, they must choose their wishes carefully.

The stories follow in the great tradition that was started by the Brothers Grimm. They deal in ambiguous wishes, lucky numbers, changes of fortune, crucial decisions that change lives.

The language is “family friendly,” and is accessible by readers from 12 or 14 up. The social and moral implications of the stories can be tackled at different levels, depending on the age and sophistication of the readers.

The Laughing Princess is available in paperback and electronic versions everywhere, and as downloadable audio files from Podiobooks, read by the author. The web site TheLaughingPrincess.com offers background material, author’s bio, etc, as well as links to the audio files. Discussion and study suggestions for teachers are available from me, through the web site.

Editor’s note: If all goes well, The Laughing Princess will be available in Spanish in early 2013! Perfect for teaching Spanish through interesting stories!

Rhinoceros Awareness for Your E-Reader

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Jessica Knauss

Update 10/26: The book is now (finally! at last!) available for Nook and Sony as well as Diesel, Smashwords, Kobo and Kindle! Scroll down for links!

If you already love elephants, lions, zebras, or giraffes, why not add the magnificent rhinoceros to your list of favorites? Rhinos are some of the largest animals on Earth and they wear swords on their faces, but they can’t protect themselves from human greed and violence. They need all the help they can get!

Jessica Knauss’s new collection of short stories is a fun, really inexpensive, way to learn more about rhinos and what makes them special, just in time for World Rhino Day: September 22.

“Rhinoceros Dreams” tells how Allie, a woman fascinated with rhinoceroses, finds true love in the human world with a bookworm. Can he ever truly understand her? Can she make her rhinoceros dreams come true? Previously published in This Mutant Life and Jake’s Monthly Anthology.

“Not Extinct Yet,” available exclusively in this collection, happens in an alternate world in which animals can talk. Intrepid rhinoceros linguist Suzanne takes on the responsibility to save her African rhino friends from extinction by mindless poaching. When you want to know something about a rhino, you should always ask a rhino! Find out about the story’s origin here.

“A Business Venture in Glue” is a weird flash fiction that uses a rhino escaped from a zoo to suggest themes of collectionism and possession. Previously published in Stanley the Whale.

The magic of rhinos lies not in superstitions about their horns, but in their majesty and in all creatures’ basic right to live.

“This story is so original and surreal that it’d be a crime not to accept it. This is high-quality, intriguing-premise Magic Realism at its finest.” —Jake Johnson

The Laughing Princess, New for Fairy Tale Lovers This Summer

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Jessica Knauss

Açedrex is proud to announce the publication of a new book unlike any we’ve done before. In fact, I’m not sure there are any books similar to it on the market at all.

For any of you who read the wonderful Astreya Trilogy and wondered whether Seymour Hamilton has anything else up his sleeve, your question is answered! The Laughing Princess is a collection of stories or fables, all concerning dragons and the powers they still wield in our jaded world. One dragon in particular tells all the stories to a pair of siblings on holiday in a seacoast town that is much more special than they realize:

Petra and Daniel have little use for the quaint fishing Village their parents have forced them to visit on holiday. They don’t know that this Village has a legacy of Dragons. Much more fun than exploring museums or picturesque ruins, a small stone on a lonely beach offers them the chance to perform magic, match wits with elementals, steal hearts, go to war, write poetry, escape from a pirate, and sail The Laughing Princess. Their dull, rainy world will never be the same.

The stories themselves range from meditative to epic, with melancholy musings on love and one’s purpose in life as well as violent battles and the searing char of a dragon’s breath. If you’d like to read something new that nonetheless feels like a half-remembered fireside chat, this is the book for you.

The cover features the dragon sculpture that inspired the first story Hamilton wrote, about a tremendous mountain which is really a dragon and the mere mortal who disturbs his slumber.

New for Açedrex, this book will also be available as an audio download. You can read more about and by Seymour Hamilton by going to SeymourHamilton.com. There, you’ll find links to downloads of free podcasts of The Laughing Princess read by the author.

The ebook editions are available for only 99 cents now, but get it quickly! The price will increase this Friday night!

Kindle | Kindle UK | Nook | Kobo

Kindle in Europe: DE | FR | ES | IT

The paperback is available at Amazon and anywhere else fine books are sold. Request it from your library or local bookstore!

Una edición en español se hará disponible este otoño.