Jen May’s Battle Cry is now available in print and Kindle formats from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and via special order at your favorite local bookseller!

Across cultures, the warrior sounds: grieving, hurling, releasing anguish and might. This book is a reckoning in poetry of violence today, the personal and the accidental, the purposeful and the horrific. Capturing time as a domestic violence survivor, a witness, a mother and a fellow traveler, Battle Cry’s author leads us on a tour of the unimaginable. Yet Jen May brings the reader through, somehow reconciled to love, hope, and possibility.

Check out the newest release from Empty-Grave Publishing: Armchair Locomotion, poems by Jen May

Armchair Locomotion is a collection of poems of new observation and heightened movement. Whether for contemplating ideas while at rest or moving mindlessly, author Jen May manages to turn image to the surreal and action to dream.

This debut collection is comprised of a journey through days and seasons, urban to landscape, from the sterile to the emotional.

May has a talent for fresh images, in “Renewal,” for example: mist covers everything like secrets and wears a frost bandage the next morning.

Extraordinary.

Two titles were released in September. Portrait of an Artist with 26 Horses is an amazing Catch-22-ish work of fiction by prolific writer William Eastlake–author of The Bronc People and Go in Beauty.

The Definitive Brother Juniper is a hardcover tome the size of a cinder-block. It contains all 850+ cartoons in the Brother Juniper series. The pricetag is a hefty $35 but that is less than half the cost of buying the paperback books separately AND that price includes free downloads of non-DRM eBook versions of all eight books in the series.

I’m trying to hit a thirty book goal by the second anniversary of Empty-Grave in March but a lot of my time for the next nine months is going to be devoted to writing Asper and the Unheard Heroes in Oz so I may come up a few books shy of that mark. Upcoming releases include another Jessup book, a little something by August Derleth, Empty-Grave’s first non-fiction republication, and the inaugural book of what will most likely become a brand new Rejuvenation Project.

Expect a ton of automated cartoon postings to hit the Brother Juniper website (www.brotherjuniper.com) in the coming weeks as well.

The Tales of Yot, written by Adam Nicolai and illustrated by Ardian Hoda, is now available in ebook and print formats. A hardcover version will be released in August as well.

Beneath the blue sky, under the lands you’ve heard of, the Unheard-Of seeps through the soil, creeps in the muffled darkness.

A misunderstood dictator finds it.
The disfigured nurture and keep it.
Empowered by the one who has borrowed,
A scribe is bound to unleash it.

Will three tales of trouble in Ev sufficiently prepare the residents of the Land of Oz for what’s coming? Or will they stand and gape at dark clouds churning darker skies—the wistful end to their old-time lullabies?

The Tales of Yot is a fully illustrated compilation of stories originally published in the Empty-Grave Retrofit Editions of The Silver Princess in Oz, The Magical Mimics in Oz, and The Shaggy Man of Oz.

Yot’s tales cover previously unexplored areas of the Land of Ev and set the groundwork for new lore in the neighboring Land of Oz. A map and timeline of events are included in this release.

*This book is available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats.*

The biggest June news is that there is a new face at Empty-Grave. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Fratto–a new contributor to both the website and some future Empty-Grave publications.

Two new books have already come out this month and I expect to have at least two more ready for the end of the month. The Magical Mimics in Oz: Empty-Grave Retrofit Edition is the third and final installment in the Oz Retrofit series. The three illustrated novellas from that series are going to be released in a standalone compilation titled The Tales of Yot, which should be available in early July in all formats.

The Ecumenical Brother Juniper is the eighth and final book in the Brother Juniper series–one that I had given up hope on publishing after a year-long search for suitable source material. Now that the collection is complete I plan to release a “Definitive” Brother Juniper hardcover of all the cartoons in the series some time in August.

I have about a half-dozen other releases planned through early autumn but I’ll keep those a surprise. One of them is going to be the start of a brand new Rejuvenation Project.

The Shaggy Man of Oz: Empty-Grave Retrofit Edition comes out this week. It should hit in all eBook and print formats roughly mid-week. Due to a great question on the Facebook page, we will also be releasing hardcover versions of these Oz books.  The hardcover version of The Silver Princess in Oz is already available and this book will be available in hardcover this week as well.

This book also includes the 60-page illustrated novella Ruprecht the Castaway King–written by Adam Nicolai and illustrated by Ardian Hoda.

The Retrofit of The Magical Mimics in Oz will be out in late April or early May and it will include an original short story or novella as well. In May we will also be releasing a compilation of just the three Nicolai stories.

Oh, and Nicolai’s top secret Oz novel finally has a name: Asper and the Unheard Heroes in Oz.

The Silver Princess in Oz: Empty-Grave Retrofit Edition was released on February 1st. Special thanks to the great work of the illustrator, Ardian Hoda.

Our release of the Shaggy Man of Oz should hit some time in March and the third book is slated for April. We then plan on releasing Nicolai’s three short stories in a standalone compilation. And all of this is leading up to a 100%  original Nicolai and Hoda Oz novel in the first quarter of 2013.

Two new books are out for December–Grin and Bear It by George Lichty, and Cheyenne Saturday by Richard Jessup (part of the Jessup Rejuvenation Project). These will be my final releases for 2011.

I’m spending December working up some funds to switch my expanded distribution model from Createspace to Lightning Source. This will allow me to brand the books with an Empty-Grave ISBN and it will provide worldwide distribution via Ingram Micro. The books will also be available from the Espresso Print Machines popping up at libraries and book stores–insert money and the machine prints and binds the book while you wait. Switching companies also cures the fatal flaw in PoD publishing in that the books from Ingram will be returnable. This means bookstores will stock them because there is no risk of them getting burned by having to pay for books they are permanently stuck with.

The other good news is that I have been talking with an illustrator that might work with me on the three Oz books that have been stalled since July. If all goes well and he sticks around for the long haul you will see the three Oz publications out by March. Each of the books will also contain an original illustrated Oz short story written by me. The three stories relate to some detail in the books they are in and they will primarily function as feeders into my very own complete Oz novel which, if all goes well, will be released in late 2012/early 2013.

Got a lot brewing. Suicide or Murder, Portrait of an Artist with 26 Horses, and another addition to the Jessup project should also make it in Q1.

Happy Holidays!

I apologize for the September/October dead-zone. It’s not for lack of work–just lack of updates.

The Jessup Rejuvenation Project is coming along nicely. Three books are currently complete and available: The Bloody Medallion, Chuka, and The Cincinnati Kid.

The first installment of the Richard Jessup Rejuvenation Project is officially available. It’s quite an interesting mash-up between the novel and the screenplay – lot’s of cool features in print and even more in the eBook. Check it out on the Available Books page.