Guest Author: Nicole Kimberling

Today, Literary Escapism would like to welcome Nicole Kimberling who is getting ready to celebrate her new Samhain release, Happy Snak (click here to read an excerpt).

A little uncivil disobedience is good for the soul…

Gaia Jones is on A-Ki space station for one reason, and it’s not to ogle the hermaphroditic aliens. She’s out to make a name for herself and her line of intoxicating human snacks. Not easy in A-Ki’s tightly controlled society. Her task gets even more delicate when she rushes to the aid of a dying alien—and finds herself the unwilling guardian of a shunned alien ghost named Kenjan. And the new owner of his slave.

The danger mounts when Kenjan’s grieving lover, the powerful leader of the Kishocha, offers her a dream and a nightmare rolled into one: a new store all her own with a strange double purpose—half snack bar, half shrine. The catch? She must spend the rest of her life there, tending Kenjan the Heretic’s ghost. Or the entire station will be destroyed.

There’s only one way to gain both her freedom and justice for Kenjan—teach both the powerful government elite and the Kishocha theocracy a lesson in uncivil disobedience…

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Hi everybody, I’m Nicole Kimberling here today talking about the very long process of selling my new novel release, Happy Snak. For those of you who do not know me, I’m the author of Turnskin, which won the Lambda Literary award for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror this year. Turnskin was decidedly a literary fantasy, whereas Happy Snak is a lighter piece—humorous science fiction.

It centers around Gaia Jones, owner of the eponymous snack bar. She’s a gutsy lady trying to make a living on the first joint human-alien space station. Life in space is a little disappointing for Gaia. The mysterious aliens, the Kishocha, are rarely seen and she spends most of her time trying to fix her ailing deep fryer and wondering if she’ll ever have another date again in her life. Then one morning, she finds an alien dying in the corridor outside her shop. In helping this alien, she changes her life, and the lives of everyone around her.

And she even finally gets that date.

Although Happy Snak is being released almost two years after Turnskin, it might interest you to know that it was written first. It is, in fact, the first real novel I ever wrote. But the crazy thing about publishing is you never really know what’s going to sell or when or to whom. After many, many submissions, I had essentially given up on selling the story, stuck it in a drawer and got on with writing new books. But I never stopped loving the story and hoped it would someday find an editor who loved it too. Five years passed. I wrote other novels, started editing for Blind Eye Books and essentially forgot about Happy Snak for a while. Then this summer my Samhain editor, Anne Scott, asked if I had any new projects in mind. I thought, “why not try, one more time, to find a home for Happy Snak?” So, tentatively, I told her that I had a slice-of-life space opera featuring hermaphroditic, aquatic aliens, bold women, men in tuxedos and snack food and would she like to read it? Amazingly, she did. More astounding still, she liked it.

Now the book that I thought would never be published is being released by Samhain. It will be available digitally on December 22, 2009 and in print in fall of 2010.

And it has the most gorgeous cover I could have hoped for.

So it just goes to show—the only way to truly fail is to stop trying. Because, honestly, you never know what the future has in store.

Anybody else have a story like that?
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Contest Time!  Nicole is offering up three copies of her ebook Happy Snak.  In order to get your hands on one of these puppies, all you have to do is answer Nicole’s question: What was something you continually tried until it worked/happen? International entries are welcome, but shipping may be delayed a little!

As always, there’s more ways of getting your name in the hat:

  • +1 for each place you post about today’s contest on your blog, social network, or anywhere you can. Digg it, stumble it, twit it, share it with the world. Wherever you share it, make sure you add a link to it along with your answer.
  • +1 to any review you comment on, however, comments must be meaningful. Just give me the title of the review and I’ll be able to figure it out from there.
  • +1 Join the Literary Escapism Facebook page and/or follow LE on Twitter
  • +2 subscribe to Literary Escapism – either via a reader or email (see the RSS button at the bottom of the sidebar)
  • +10 purchase any novel through LE’s Amazon store sometime during this contest and send a copy of the receipt VIA email for your purchase to: myjaxon AT gmail DOT com. Each purchase is worth ten entries and it has to be through the LE Amazon Link.

The contest will stay open until December 22nd, at which time I’ll determine the winner with help from the Research Randomizer and the List Randomizer.

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

10 Comments

  1. I continually attempted to get A’s in my college classes and even re-did assignments for higher grades.

    I’ve added your contest to my OPEN BAR blog post today & my sidebar.

    I’m subscribed via email and on twitter

    Thanks for the contest and happy holidays – Miranda

  2. Learning how to knit. I tried 4 or 5 times in the past 30 years until last year I finally got it.

  3. Miranda– I wish I could say I was as diligent in my school studies as you! Thank you for spreading the word about the contest and about Happy Snak.

    Michelle– You know, I’ve tried to learn to knit several times as well. I always lose track of how many stitches I’ve done, so I have to say I haven’t made a lot of progress. But I have become a champion unraveller. (The cat sometimes pitches in to help with this part–if only I could teach her to count I might finally be able to make it through a scarf.)

  4. This sounds great, I’m adding Happy Snak on my wishlist. Congrats on getting it published!

    I think I’ve finally learned how to take care of house plants. Well, at least the latest arrival has stayed alive for months now, which is a lot longer than the previous ones.

  5. Thank you very much, Paula. And good work on the house plants. I just learned that sometimes ignoring them is actually the way to go–it’s working for me, anyway.

  6. The thing that I try and try at right now is getting my first book published. Well, I’ve tried three times, been rejected twice and am waiting for the third. While I wait I’m revising it one more time to send to an agent then it goes in a drawer so that it can be brought out later. : )

    I posted your contest on my blog at http://wifeofmonobot.blogspot.com.

    Have a good one!

  7. I kept trying to get a different position in the company I work for, because I hated the people I was working with. It took 2 and half years, but I got another one last February. It’s just down the hall, but I am happier going to work.

  8. I have tried to grow Bonsai trees about ten times but it seems I just don’t have green fingers. They just continually die on me !

    Boo Hoo.

    I subscribe via Google reader

  9. I tried to teach myself how to sew simple things and I finally managed to sew some little gowns for my granddaughter that spent 4 months in the NICU. She weighed 1 pound and 2.7 ounces so everything was way to big for her. After much effort and ripping out seams I finally managed to make about 6 for her.

    I follow through google.

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