Although I failed to convey the difference between First Expansion collaborators and fan wrting (see my Northern Log article for that story) effectively enough to stick, it was nonetheless an honor for the ORU phenomenon to appear in the Quill and Quire as a feature of Hades Publications. Many thanks to Stuart Woods, and to Edge for supplying the cover art.

Labels: First Expansion

posted by Lynda at 08:12   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Dear all - wanted to show you I'm not idle even if I'm being sluggardly responding to an e-mail or delivering something I promised. The image is a shot of catalog entries I am working on for Justyn, for the Okal Rel Universe Collection. It took my whole morning writing up a new bio, descriptions for just two of the books, a new intro and documenting a few permissions et al. I'll share stuff in progress on the friends mailing list a couple times a week, which is working but David and I haven't scrounged the time, yet, to sort out names and e-mail addresses to help people sign up again. If you know you should be on it (because you were on the friends@lists.okalrel.org list before or are involved as an artist, writer, editor, distributor of goodies, author-surrogate, fan writer/artist, organizer-interested-in-ORU, or supporter for promo materials) but you aren't on it yet, and you don't want to wait until we get to you at our end, let myself and david know: that's either david or lynda (respectively) (at)okalrel.org

PS there is also a news list for the ORU on google which anyone can join. That's a good way for new commers to get to know us. The friends list is invitation only. Any perceived unfriendlieness towards previous friends should be taken as a symptom of lack of time and technical fuss, however, not an attempt to exclude anyone already "in the loop". :-)

PPS The third anthology isn't listed in the screen shot, but it's on our minds. Jennifer Sparling is working with me closely on it. We have the art, and we are driving to get all five stories edited.

Labels: First Expansion

posted by Lynda at 12:25   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Mel recently gave me some "chibbie" art -- which is a sort of anime style -- featuring characters in Righteous Anger. I'm puttering at getting it up in the gallery whenever she's around to supervise my work in photoshop doing the coloring. She has also agreed to take on the organizing for a student art show at the launch for Book #3: Pretenders, September 30, 2008, at the Prince George Public Library. Go Mel. One less thing for me to worry about as I slog away at porting titles with some help from First Expansion friends.

Labels: art, Book Launch, First Expansion, Mel, Pretenders

posted by Lynda at 14:50   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Just an FYI to members of the First Expansion and our lovely readers, fans and followers. :-) Please bear with us a bit while we shake out the bugs due to a recent upgrade by our service providers for the ORU website. Everything seems to be there, but David Lott is still wrestling with tech support to get the "friends" mailing list working again. We are also in-process with changes for the expanded line of books and will be making more announcements about that as things progress. It's an exciting time for the Okal Rel Universe! The silences are good, waiting ones. But you know how things are in the book business - "fast" is a couple of months. Sort of refreshing actually, given the killing pace of everything else in the modern world! So, please do not adjust your sets. :-)

Labels: First Expansion, Okal Rel website

posted by Lynda at 08:58   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
First Explansion member Lisa O. picked up books to gift to good folks at an event she was going to over the holidays, and dropped of a marvelous gift which I only discovered on returning home from holidaying in the lower mainland. Thank you Lisa! I am planning to make it the first exhibt on an ORU "trophy" wall. :-)

Labels: First Expansion, Lisa

posted by Lynda at 12:40   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
A sample picture from my appearance, today, in the classroom of Elizabeth Woods, one of the authors in the ORU Anthology 1 and a member of the First Expansion. Enjoyed the questions! More pictures of this, VCON and Sentry Box launch soon.

Labels: Elizabeth Woods, First Expansion

posted by Lynda at 21:28   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

Luis Filipe Silva says:

It's a mixed Portuguese-Brazilian original anthology of fantasy & SF short stories. It's called (translating to English), THROUGH UNIVERSES WHERE SAIL WAS
NEVER SPREAD BEFORE (hommage to Camoens and a famous line in its epic
Lusiads: "Thro' seas where sail was never spread before").

Luis is an author for Okal Rel Universe Anthology 3, which we hope to have through integrity edits by early in the new year so it can move on to copyediting with editor Jennifer Sparling, and be in the production phase before Pretenders is out in the Fall.

Labels: First Expansion, Luis Filipe Silva

posted by Lynda at 07:00   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

David Glenn Anderson reports my care package of Okal Rel Universe books have arrived, and will be added to RFFUtah's inventory of science fiction materials to spark the imagination of teachers and students, or be donated in the RFF cause in whatever capacity David Glenn decides to use them as a member of the First Expansion. Dave will sign and annotate the books, at the my request, to give each one a history or provenance, so future owners will know how they got launched into the world and be encouraged to add their own jot to the record.

provenance

The history of the ownership of an object, especially when documented or authenticated. Used of artworks, antiques, and books.

Labels: David Glen Anderson, First Expansion, RFF

posted by Lynda at 08:03   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 



Much thanks to David Glenn Anderson, First Expansion member of the ORU, for his work on the Worlds of Lynda Williams CD for distribution to SF-keen teachers. Visit the ORU Concordance to read the entry in the screenshot, above. (Nov/07 PS the typo in the concordance has been fixed! It's Glenn not Glen.)

Labels: David Glenn Anderson, First Expansion, ORU Concordance

posted by Lynda at 07:58   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

Anne M. Stickel, author, editor, illustrator and member of the ORU's First Expansion, recently became the Chief Editor of Black Petals. Way to go Anne! Another of Anne's recent successes is placing her story “Honeymoon in Hayel” with Tales of the Talisman for publication in fall 2007. On the art front, she illustrated Damien Kane's BP #41 tale, "The Secret of Cedar Creek". Anne is also managing copyeditor for the space opera bimonthly e-zine, Ray Gun Revival. Anne has been a supporter since Paul Strickland introduced her to the Okal Rel Universe way back around the time that Throne Price came out.

Labels: Anne M. Stickel, First Expansion

posted by Lynda at 02:00   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

Thanks to Alison Sinclair, the ORU has a new play place - a tiddly wiki to be used for an ORU Concordance project.

Alison discovered tiddly wiki in pursuit of her own notetaking. See, for example, her World Building notes complete with her own sumptuous computer-graphics artwork in the header bar.

Lynda and Alison are playing around getting it right, including coming up with an editing protocol so we don't clobber each other's work. First Expansion are invited to join in as co-editors.

Labels: Alison Sinclair, Concorance, First Expansion, tiddlyspot

posted by Lynda at 09:03   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

Hi Jay Lake. Nice to meet you saycestsay, I've added you to my friends list on livejournal (isn't social computing fun). Thanks for pointing this Flickr picture out to me, Alison. Mucho thanks Jerry and the incomparable Bobbie DuFault. :-) Circled the box because I think that might be the very same empty orange box that I shipped books and stuff to Bobbie in, for her to use as she sees fit as a member of the First Expansion who performs the author function for me in places where I cannot be to do so.

Labels: Bobbie DuFault, Broad Universe, First Expansion

posted by Lynda at 08:17   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments