Jonathan Ostrowsky's Blog

Inspired by Shauna Wright, who posts on socials as @goldengateblond, I posted this on Threads a little while back.

Screen shot of my Threads post taking off from Shauna Wright’s hilarious post.

And of course from Death From Above:

“The strike landed square on her skull. I took off my bra and cookie crumbs fell out.”

Cover art by Carolin Leary Prinn

You asked for it, you got it—Death From Above is now available as a paperback! After years of reading the story on the screen, it’s amazing to me to see and hold the book version, and I know you’re going to love it, too.

The book by the numbers:

432 pages

116,000 words of text, 14,000 words of back matter (the glossaries alone are worth the price of the book)

20,993: highest ranking on Amazon to date

1 exhausted but happy author

The complete book is here!

I'm beyond excited to share the completed book with you! The ebook edition is available for immediate download on the Store page here in epub format, readable in Books on Apple devices and in the Play Books app on Chromecast and Android.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think! in the meantime, I'll be working on book 2. It's going to take three books to tell the whole story. 😄

-Jonathan

PS: If you prefer a book you can hold in your hands, the hardcover edition is coming soon. Watch this space for the announcement!

Proof that a friend in need is a friend indeed

There was never a friend more loyal than Harlan Ellison.

We met in the 1970s when my business partner and I started Unearth: The Magazine of Science Fiction Discoveries. We wrote to him and said the magazine would be dedicated to publishing stories from previously unpublished writers, but we needed big names to help sell it, so would he contribute a column? Incredibly, he said yes, and not only wrote for us, but offered unflagging support every step of the way, including flying to Boston for a fundraising evening organized around a celebrity roast of him. He didn’t have to do any of this, but he believed in our mission.

Twenty-five years later, I was out of work and relaunching my old freelance writing and editing career. Harlan knew my editing chops from when I’d edited Shatterday for Houghton Mifflin; would he write a testimonial that I could put on my website? Of course he said yes, and sent me what you see above.

I treasured our friendship and cherish this letter, particularly since most of it is dedicated to establishing his bona fides, not mine. :-)

-Jonathan

Amanda Palmer and Brandon Stanton at BEA, May 2014

ReedPop has retired their big book events, including BookExpo America. BEA brought publishers, booksellers, authors, librarians, and readers from around the world to NYC for three action-packed days. I attended a couple when I ran the Talks program at Google’s Cambridge MA office, and again last year for fun. I had some amazing moments there, many of them pure serendipity, and I’m sad that there won’t be more.

My first one was In May 2014. The night before I left, I thought about who I most wished I could meet anywhere in the city, and realized it was Brandon Stanton. The next morning, I walked into the exhibition hall at the Javits Center right after it opened and started wandering around. As I looked at a map of exhibitors' booths a few minutes later, I heard a woman nearby talking to someone. It was clear from her words and tone that she was fangirling, and I looked up to see her talking to Brandon Stanton not ten feet away!

I swooped in as soon as she left and got right to my own fanboying. Brandon (who was just visiting the show; he wasn’t on the program) was very gracious, and we chatted for a couple of minutes. Afterwards I posted on Facebook about meeting him. Almost immediately, Death From Above cover artist Adam O'Day commented: "We went to the same high school! We were on the soccer team together." Small world!

A couple of hours later, I showed up at the publisher's booth where Amanda Palmer was scheduled to sign pre-pub proofs of her new book, and there was Brandon again! I reintroduced myself and mentioned Adam's name. Brandon remembered that they’d been teammates and that Adam spent a lot of time in the art room. "That worked out pretty well for him," I said, and explained that Adam was now a full-time artist.

When I got up to Amanda Palmer to have my book signed, I told her that my wife and I had a portrait of her in our bedroom, which got her attention. Well, kind of her portrait, I added, because the artist, Nicole Dunnebier, had painted something over it. That really got her attention:

Amanda Palmer, astonished

She was gobsmacked! Having no idea that the abandoned portrait still existed in any form. She recovered in time to talk with Brandon Stanton, as shown above.

That afternoon, I was walking by one of the long lines of people waiting to get a signed copy of a book from an author at a publisher's booth. Before I could get past it, one of the line minders grabbed me and said, "Don't you want to meet Lassie?" How could I resist? So I got in line, just in time to watch the hero dog have diarrhea behind the signing table. (The vendors' food at those events is terrible, you couldn't blame her.) A few minutes later, someone else asked me if I'd like to be interviewed for the NYT online, no doubt because I was the only person there who looked old enough to have seen the tv show in the '50s. Sure, why not? Which is how I wound up in this video for a half-minute or so.

Here we are, together for the first time:

I never expected to meet Lassie!

Meeting my idol, astonishing Amanda Palmer, and posing with Lassie — it was a great day! And that was in addition to meeting several authors I recruited to give talks, notably the great sequential artist, Joel Christian Gill.

The following year didn’t provide any dramatic moments, but I was fortunate to meet the great and supremely gracious Tess Gerritsen.

Last year (May 2019 feels like five years ago now) provided almost as many memorable moments as 2014. All the authors I met were people whose work I’ve greatly admired, and I was able to connect with them in the few seconds I had (most were signing hundreds of autographs).

I met one of the Supremes! Mary Wilson was signing booklets with photos from her book, Supreme Glamour. I waited in a long line to be able to tell her how much her work has meant to me. A peak moment!!

Wilson!and signs!

A treasure.

I stood in another long line to get a card signed by Lupita Nyong’o, there to promote her forthcoming book, and illustrator Vashti Harris. Nobody else had said anything to her except thanks, but I blurted out that I loved the characters she’s brought to life.

Later I met Candace Bushnell, who was signing copies of her newest book. I told her she'd been a major influence on a family friend who's now a best-selling author. She asked who it was, and I said Hannah Orenstein, and she said, "I know Hannah Orenstein. She's HUUGE!" Hannah was over the moon when she heard, and good journo that she is, later got an interview with Ms. Bushnell.

Another highlight was an authors’ breakfast talk hosted by Rachel Maddow. One of the speakers was thriller writer Karin Slaughter, who was absolutely hilarious. (I can’t find a video of that talk, but this one is similar.) That afternoon, when I got to the front of the line to get a signed copy of her newest book, I said, “I enjoyed your talk this morning.” She said thanks, not looking up from signing, and I added, “Wit so dry it’s desiccated.” That got her attention. 😃

And I got to meet two heroes from the MSNBC show, AM Joy. Karine Jean-Pierre was supportive when I told her I wanted to use my privilege to help make the world a better place, and Mariana Atencio proved to be possibly the nicest human being on the planet, making each of us feel as though we were the most special person in the world at that moment. (Not surprisingly, since that’s one of her superpowers.)

BEA, thanks for all these wonderful memories!

(Even including the time someone at the Scientology booth tried to chat me up as I passed. I should’ve just nodded politely and walked on, but I felt compelled to tell him that L. Ron Hubbard was a crap writer who founded a crap “religion”. He didn’t take that well, so I probably failed the personality test. Not a peak moment!)

-Jonathan

From my high school yearbook. Rod Serling came back to speak to the graduating class before mine.

Rod Serling and I never crossed paths - he was a well-established writer by the time I came along - but in my tween/teen years, I lived around the corner from where he’d grown up and went to the same junior high and high schools, where I had some of the same teachers. And oh, did they ever love him! Their eyes sparkled when they talked about him; he was and would always be the golden boy. They all passed on some time ago, but I remember all the teachers fondly, and I will always stan The Twilight Zone.

He left us far too soon - heart disease. (My parents always said that if he’d gone to the hospital where my father had his bypass surgery (new and still rare in the early ‘70s), he would’ve lived much longer.)

Bonus: I walked by his family’s house on my way to the elementary school that was built after he lived in the neighborhood.

Stepped away and left the book to write itself. I’ll let you know how that worked out!

The Lands of The Living, the Domain of The Dead, and The Naught all come from here. Be the first to identify what’s under the plastic on the left, and win a signed copy of Unearth: The Magazine of Science Fiction Discoveries #8 from 1978!

Art credits: Straight ahead is “Piazza” by Andrew Fish, purchased through 13Forest Gallery. On the right is “Whispers of the Sea” by Anya Leveille, purchased through Beacon Gallery.

-Jonathan

You can’t help yourself - you’re already making this into a story.

Image by Clint Patterson via unsplash.com

A writer I admire wondered recently if it was appropriate to publicize her forthcoming book, given that new circles are being added to hell every hour. But why not, particularly now? We need to keep breathing, to keep eating, and to keep nourishing ourselves with stories.

We crave stories the way zombies crave brains! Neither of us can exist without these basic forms of nourishment. Fortunately, we manufacture our own nourishment day and night, casting everything we experience in terms of stories. It’s almost impossible to shut this process down, which many of us discovered the first times we tried to meditate. 😬 And then there are the millions of stories created for us, books and movies and tv shows and podcasts and the neighbors and a thousand other sources.

-Jonathan

PS: In the story I imagine for this picture, things work out OK for the plug and the reluctant socket, but it takes a while, and they both have to adjust and adapt.

PPS: If your craving is for stories about zombies, check out this explanation of the science behind them, presented by the distinguished neuroscientist, Dr. Timothy Versteynen.

Early readers are enthusiastic!

Even more visceral than #1, the darkness more profound and descriptive.

A powerful read!

Death From Above inhabits a rich and detailed world. Characters act and react to cosmic and personal forces in a nuanced and believable fashion, even after fantastical turns of fate. The reader bounces between wishing they could be there and fearing what those consequences might be.

A breathtaking and thought-provoking read!

Leaves behind the monster-hunter-in-training dynamics of the first for a high-tech anti-capitalist fable, shot through with dark humor.

The invention of worlds and names and mythologies and languages goes on and on. And the suspense! This is a great achievement!

Buy one or both installments here.

The new series page for the book is here on Amazon.

Installment #2, Storm and Story, is now available on this site and on Amazon! The adventure continues in Never and Forever, the city that Katie Anna departed briefly in Installment #1. The Guardians' dangerous choice at the end of the last installment will have wide-ranging consequences ....

You can buy installments here as PDF (if you’re not a fan of ebooks) or epub on the Order page. Epub is great for Apple products; if you have a Chromebook/Android phone or a PC, highly rated free apps are ReadEra (Android) and Freda (Windows). The book will be available in paperback when all installments are complete. Enjoy, and feel free to share your feedback!