Roberta Writes – Book blog tour: Midnight Garden: Where Dark Tales Grow #readingcommunity #MidnightGarden #darkanthology

robertawrites235681907 Uncategorized October 8, 2024October 8, 2024 4 Minutes

Picture caption: Tour banner for the Midnight Garden: Where Dark Tales Grow by WordCrafter Press

About Midnight Garden: Where Dark Tales Grow

Picture caption: Cover of The Midnight Garden featuring an owl on a bench

17 authors bring you 21 magnificent dark tales. Stories of magic, monsters and mayhem. Tales of murder and madness which will make your skin crawl. These are the tales that explore your darkest Midnight Garden… if you dare.

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/MidnightGardenAnthology

Giveaway

Three lucky winners will receive a digital copy of Midnight Garden in a random drawing following the tour. All you have to do to enter is follow the tour and leave a comment at each stop that you visit.

If you miss a stop, you can go back and visit through the links in the schedule below. (Links won’t work until the stop goes live).

Schedule

Monday – October 7 – M.J. Mallon: Interview & Reading from “The Seagull Man” – Writing to be Read

Tuesday – October 8 – Danaeka Scrimshaw: Inspiration for “The Fae Game” & Denise Aparo: Reading from “Jack Moon & the Vanishing Book” – Roberta Writes

Wednesday – October 9 – Joseph Carabis: Reading of “The Last Drop” & Inspiration for “Striders” – Paul Martz

Thursday – October 10 – Paul Martz: Reading & Inspiration for “The Blackest Ink” – Writing to be Read

Friday – October 11 – Molly Ertel: Inspiration for “Antipenultimate” & Abe Margel: Inspiration for “My Balance” – Kyrosmagica

Saturday – October 12 – Paul Kane: Inspiration for “Drip Feed” & Joseph Carrabis: Reading of “Grande Ture” – Undawnted

Sunday – October 13 – DL Mullan: Reading from “Kurst” & Ell Rodman: Inspiration for “The Drummer” – BookPlaces

Monday – October 14 – Joseph Carrabis: Reading of “The Exchange” & Inspiration for “The Tomb” – Writing to be Read

The book trailer for Midnight Garden introduces the themes and authors.

Inspiration for “The Fae Game”, by Danaeka Scrimshaw

When I heard about the submission opportunity for Midnight Garden in early January, I set it aside. I was going through a divorce and had stopped writing three months prior to this opportunity, due to both the stresses of the divorce process and my own lingering depression. As January turned into February and I had been going to therapy, I started to wonder what happened to us. How could someone I thought I married be so different now? Or was I just that oblivious? I felt like someone switched them to someone nefarious with their own hidden agenda.

That idea percolated for a month until my critique group started talking about the impending deadline for the submission. I had started feeling better in March and was dabbling in writing again because it was the only thing that had been keeping me sane for the last five years and I didn’t want to lose it. The ideas about switching led me to the old stories of the fae switching babies at birth or taking over adult lives, but I wasn’t sure how that would play into a unique short story. And then I recalled from my childhood, a time when my best friend and I played a game with his little sister. She had always insisted on playing with us, but we were three and five years older than her and not interested in her games. One day we came up with this game of pretend, where we blindfolded her and described a portal to another world. We walked her through a fantastical underground world by the sea. She ate up every word and believed it wholly, and we were having too much fun to think about playing with a little kid.

That game was not scary, but I saw the potential to mash together both the idea of a world beyond traveled to via a child’s game of pretend, and nefarious fae switching. The Fae Game was born from those ideas.

Picture caption: Promotional banner for The Fae Game by Danaeka Scrimshaw

About Danaeka Scrimshaw

Picture caption: Author picture of Danaeka Scrimshaw

Danaeka Scrimshaw has been writing for six years in the speculative fiction genre. They have two short stories published and are a finalist in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Literary Contest for a YA portal fantasy, Worlds of Fire and Glass. The story is a funny, riveting tale about a young, hard-of-hearing girl trying to prove to herself that she can save her best friend from evil mages in parallel dimensions. They live with their three Boston Terriers in Castle Rock, CO. Find their author page on Facebook.

Reading Excerpt of “Jack Moon and the Vanishing Book” by Denise Aparo

About Denise Aparo

Picture caption: Author picture of Denise Aparo

Denise Aparo is a New England native, born and raised in the clockmaking city of Bristol, Connecticut. She lives with her husband, Joe, and they have five grandchildren. She is also a freelance writer who spends her time working on her novel and writing short stories. She also spends her time gardening, crafting, and crocheting.

Denise likes to write Paranormal Fiction, genre of Historical Fantasy. She recently completed her first novel, Crossbows. She has a Masters of Arts in English and a Fine Arts/Creative Writing with concentration in Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and a member of Sigma Tau Delta, International English Honor Society, and The National Society of Leadership and Success, Sigma Alpha Pi, with SNHU.

She is a member of the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA) and the author of a new WordPress writing blog, The Write Voice, The Write Voice | The write voice at the write time, a blog that boasts, “Like multiple genres, there are many cultures – each with an individual voice.”

Denise’s story, “The Pines” is featured in the 2023 Midnight Roost: Weird and Creepy Stories anthology from WordCrafter Press.