WANNABEES: Mana Wars--Roll-Playing Shennanigans

Sundays are for color, so what better time to post the only full-color Wannabees strip, which I did as a back cover to my collection. The theme is roll playing games; anyone who has ever played Magic The gathering or D&D will probably have had a game like this. Enjoy!

 

Ed Lazellari is a blogger and fiction writer. His novels Awakenings and The Lost Prince from Tor Books are available at Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com.

WANNABEES: When The Stones Come To Town

One digs up all sort of things from the past when preparing to move, and some of them are pleasant surprises. When I was at Rutgers, I wrote and drew a daily strip called Wannabees for our school paper, The Daily Targum. From time to time, I will post them on this blog. 
With the Rolling Stones embarking on their 50th Anniversary Tour, what better start than with this one. Enjoy!

Ed Lazellari is a blogger and fiction writer. His novels Awakenings and The Lost Prince from Tor Books are available at Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com.

NBCUniversal’s Cable Ratings Drop: Comcast Not Seeing The Forest For The Trees*



Syfy's promising new original series, Defiance, starts in April.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a piece on NBCUniversal’s (NBCU) drooping cable channel ratings, particularly for long-time revenue engines like the Syfy channel (down 4% in viewership in 2012) and E! Entertainment (down 10%). There’s an irony in this since I believe NBCU’s parent, Comcast, is to blame for the drop in its own subsidiary’s ratings due to some ambitious pricing of its properties. What were once free (or almost free) basic cable channels suddenly became part of bundled cable “packages” that you had to shell out close to $20 a month for--and that’s how Syfy lost me as a viewer.


Tweep Nation: Interview With Dionne & Amber

My interview with Tweep Nation is up. Many thanks to Dionne Lister and Amber Norrgard for a fun hour and driving me to drink. (It's all good!) Hope you budding writers out there hear something useful that you can apply to your art. And special thanks to Dionne for her gushing praise of my novel AWAKENINGS. It's episode 42 and can be accessed through iTunes. Enjoy.

Science Fiction Assoc. of Bergen County Gathering

Me lecturing at SFABC gathering in Bergen County B&N

On Aug. 11 of this year, I was invited as a guest to speak at a gathering of The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. Meeting fellow local  sci-fi and fantasy fans was a thrill and I enjoyed sharing my knowledge and experiences about general writing and publishing with them. Many thanks to director Phil Departo for the invitation.

I was excited to see people's interest in Awakenings as I explained the book to them, and more excited by how many attendees had already read the book and engaged me with specifics about their favorite characters. At the time, I was hard at work at finishing book 2, "The Lost Prince," and this was one of the rare engagements I made during he summer. (FYI, Book 2 is turned in and with the editor at TOR. We're looking at a summer 2013 release.)

Lecturing at B&N in Bergen County NJ

SFABC meets once a month at the Barnes & Noble on Route 4 in Bergen County. For those interested in joining this group, please contact Phil at: sfabcphil@gmail.com.

Me lecturing at SFABC gathering in Bergen County B&N

Lysa Arryn: The Poster Parent For Attachment Parenting

Sorry, but when I saw the new TIME cover out this week, this was the first thing that came to mind. Yes, for a serious writer I am a bit of a Geek. If you haven't watched HBO's Game of Thrones, or read TIME, the reference may be lost.
(This is definitely a parody, folks.)

















Ed Lazellari is a blogger, humorist, and fiction writer. His novels Awakenings and The Lost Prince from Tor Books are available at Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com.

Two New Interviews

I've recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by two very smart ladies dabbling in the worlds of fantasy, paranormal, and horror fiction. The first is "Ten Questions For Awakenings Author Edward Lazellari," by Lauren Zurchin at Lytherus.com. 




The second is the "All Kinds Of Writing" interview by Lorna Suzuki at Imago Books Fantasy Realm.


These are intelligent conversations about writing process, the business, and my book AWAKENINGS.

ENJOY.

Local Boy Does Good With First Novel: Bronx Times Article

Everyone likes to see the hometown kid succeed in the world at large -- and the Bronx is no different. Yeah, there's two million people living there, making the borough larger than most states by population, but really, it's just a big small town. We've all sprawled at Orchard Beach, eaten at City Island, rooted for the Yankees, bought the best Italian food at Arthur Avenue, and are proud to be the home of the country's best botanical garden and city zoo. Though I currently live in NJ, my roots are still in Da Bronx.  Bronx Times, does a bang up job of promoting our home town, and this month, I was fortunate enough to have a piece written on my novel Awakenings, which takes place partly in the Bronx.
I am blessed to share an origin with many of America's most creative people. Stanley Kubrick grew up in  the Bronx, as did Al Pacino, Alan Alda, Mary Higgins Clark, Jennifer Lopez, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and many others. (Scarlett Johansson's mother hailed from the Bronx, which is why Scarlett turned out so talented and beautiful.)
The article, written by Patrick Roccio,  is titled, "Co-op City Native Features Borough In Novel."

In Time Is Money

I initially avoided In Time because of lackluster reviews. I’m glad I eventually relented because it is one of the smartest dystopian films to come out in a long while and one of the most underrated movies of the year. Though Harlan Ellison claims it's based on one of his short stories, the film’s "system-is-out-to-get-you" narrative feels more like a Philip K. Dick progeny (the originator of such paranoid fare as Blade Runner and Minority Report).  Excellently directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca), the film debuts Justin Timberlake as an action hero, playing Will Salas, a down on his luck factory grunt who is big on heart but short on time. His love interest is the heiress Sylvia Weiss, played with preternatural conviction by Amanda Syfried. A bevy of hot Hollywood A-listers (Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Vincent Kartheiser) round out the cast, bringing sexy back to science fiction.

Book Royalty Calculator For Writers

As writers, we all hope to earn enough from our craft to live. Nothing promotes the completion of a next book as much as income from the last book (and the time needed to write it). Leaving that day job to write full time can be a big, scary step. For those of us not in the graces of a wealthy sugar-momma, the Book Royalties Calculator by Shawntelle Madison is a valuable tool in helping determine how much your royalties might be.

A round of applause to Shawntelle for creating this.