CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Finally got the cover for Carlie Simonsen's Rocky and the Spacefarers' Christma s . This little beauty is now ready for its release day on December 4th! Rocky is on a starship to another world, and it’s boring. He misses Earth. He misses his farm. He misses his pony. Worst of all, it looks like he’s going to miss Christmas, too. And then he meets Elita, an alien girl missing her own end-of-year celebration—Hajranath. The two of them get to talking, and decide that a party is just what everybody needs, but how are they ever going to convince the grown-ups? Rocky and the Spacefarers’ Christmas is the second book in the Otherworld Adventures series, which is set on Rocky’s journey to the new world where his parents will farm alongside the aliens. Keep an eye out for it on Kobo, Smashwords, Kindle and DriveThru, where it will soon be up for pre-order.

It’s Australia Day, today, and that, coming so soon after Christmas got me to thinking about what significance this sort of even might have for world building. After all, every society celebrates or commemorates something, whether those events centre around a religious festival, an event rooted in history that helps define national identity, a culturally significant day, or a personal event. Each and every one of these helps to give a society structure, and to build individual identity. They are often used to cement a society of individuals into a cohesive whole, and as such are an essential part of social fabric. And this means that a variation or replica of some or all of the events below should exist in every story that is peopled by individuals and communities: Religious Festivals: Christmas, Ramadan, Passover, and Easter are the four events that come immediately to mind, and this reflects my own cultural bias and experience. Those of you from other backgrounds will come ...

All her life Lily has prepared herself for taking over the family farm. The property talks to her, the animals and plants thrive under her care, and even the old tractor bends to her will. Her brothers have other careers planned, and help Lily position herself to take over when they are gone, but her father has other ideas. He wants to pass the farm on to one of his sons. He says pigs might fly before a girl would be any good at running a farm. How is Lily going to convince him that farming is the only thing she has ever wanted to do, and that she is the best of his offspring to take over when he is gone? And what do her dreams and hopes have to do with flying pigs? Pigs Might Fly is a story of magic realism, where the world we see is only nearly as it seems to be. Pigs Might Fly is currently available as a stand-alone title at Smashwords , and will soon be available via Kobo, Kindle, iTunes and Nook, but will one day be incorporated into An Anthology of Sorcery and Magic ....