anthology – J.E.S. Hays

Under Western Stars Paperback!

JES Hays — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 19:40:03 +0000

The anthology is out in paperback now — proceeds go to support the Western Fictioneers so we don’t have to pay so much for our conferences and such — we’ve all signed our royalties over to the club so you can be sure every penny goes to support your local Western writers!

I got my authorial copies today and it’s a great paperback! 5×8 and nearly 400 pages — it’s a nice handful of stories. We’ve got 22 stories for your reading pleasure and each one a gem.

It’s still free on Kindle Unlimited — but you know you want that high-quality paper in your hot little hands! You can even get it “signed” if you ship me a book plate! PO Box 3671 Greenville, SC 29608 — shoot me an email if you do so I can check the box more frequently than I usually do…

LUCK OF THE DRAW

JES Hays — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 16:04:15 +0000

It’s official – Devon Day and the Sweetwater Kid will be joining the Wolf Creek gang for the great poker tournament!

The anthology, LUCK OF THE DRAW, will be published later this summer – details to follow as I get them – and will feature 4 or 5 more stories, as well as a background murder mystery.

If you haven’t read the Wolf Creek books, here’s the first one – I guarantee you’ll get them all! It’s a shared universe story, with several authors combining talents to write as “Ford Fargo.”

I’m just a little hopeful that I’ll be invited back to Wolf Creek someday…

5 Tips for Anthologies

JES Hays — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 13:44:26 +0000

Got word of a new anthology coming out in the Wolf Creek series – they’ve thrown open the submissions to anyone within the Western Fictioneers, so I’m going to see if I can get my foot in the door with a short story. I like the books, and it would be nice to create a character and do some collaborative writing with these folks.

Here are some tips for submitting a story for an anthology:

Do your homework – see what’s already on the market from that publisher, see what other stories have made their anthologies, see what sort of thing they’re looking for before you start your own story.
Know the world – if you’re submitting for a shared-world anthology, do your homework there as well, and find out about their world. Read some of the other stories set there and some of the books already published. Show them that you understand the world they’ve created.
Do your best – a short story is harder for some people than writing a novel, so be sure you craft your best. Have a tight, logical plot with believable, sympathetic characters. Keep the action moving and don’t skimp on the emotion. Make sure the story flows, and that the ending is satisfying.
Do your editing – fine-tune your story until it purrs, then edit one more time for spelling and grammar. If your work has easily-spotted errors, it’s going straight into the circular file.
Follow submission guidelines – this should go without saying, but so often new writers will submit something totally unacceptable, or something the editors or publishers are just not interested in. Read the guidelines and follow them to the letter.

Have you had stories published in anthologies? What tips would you add to the list?

A new world awaits

pipmudturtle — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:16:05 +0000

Now that the anthology is finally put to bed, I can start working on the website. So much to do! I welcome comments and ideas – if there’s something you’d like to see on this site, contact me and let me know.