I just enrolled in a new course in Transmedia Storytelling – this time on Coursera, a platform I don’t like very much1 but that is offering what I am interested in.
This is the third course I take on the subject, and the fact that I enrolled means I feel like I’ll have a modicum of free time in the next weeks.
Yes, the bulk of the work is done. Hooray! Continue reading
It all started with my cell-mate Alex Girola publishing a roleplaying game based on his work, the stories in the Italia Doppelganger. After years that I kept talking about doing an Aculeo & Amunet game, and got bounced back by publishers, Alex went the indie way with his game, and was quite successful.
So we were talking this thing over, the other day, and I mentioned my current work with my brother, and the things we are planning, and one thing led to another, and I ended up getting a license to publish a supplement for the Italia Doppelganger game, based on my own Horrors of the Belbo Valley stories.
And you can keep the money!
… Alex said.
Well, why not? Continue reading
As I think I mentioned in the past, I was (and still am) a fan of Peter Kolosimo, the Italian answer to Von Daniken of Chariots of the Gods? fame. Kolosimo’s books, like Timeless Earth, were a gateway to wonders and mysteries for a generation of kids in the 70s.
I particularly love his Cittadini delle Tenebre (Citizens of Darkness, but alas never translated in English), a survey of the paranormal and the ghostly published in 1971, and that I read somewhere in 1976 or ‘77.
Apart for the nostalgia factor, Kolosimo’s books are a great resource for writing weird fantasy and adventure stories: ancient astronauts, archaeological mysteries, stone age flying saucers, you name it.
For the same reason I have in the past read far and wide on a number of subjects, always feeling wonder at the concepts, always making notes about what I could recycle in my writing, always remembering that it is a game. Continue reading
I’m terribly late.
I’m working around the clock to deliver the third chapter of AMARNA in time while keeping all the other pieces in motion.
And as it usually happens, another thing hits me from an unexpected direction: a good open call, with an easy submission window and for a well-respected publisher. There’s not much money in it, but it would look fine in my portfolio.
And it’s a call for stories about crusaders.
It would mean following in the steps of Harold Lamb and Robert E. Howard.
Am I sold?
Of course I’m sold.
So I started doing some preliminary research, and in so doing I stumbled on a book and a character that really really work for me on all levels.
Let me introduce you Jean de Joinville… Continue reading
Karavansara 