![\"Vortex](\"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Vortex-Cover.jpg\")
<\/a>The good people at Fantasist Enterprises,<\/a> publishers of the Veins Cycle books, are interested in buried secrets.<\/p>\nThey’re also interested in giving away a $25.00 Amazon Gift Card.<\/p>\n
Here are the details.<\/p>\n
First the set up:<\/p>\n
Vortex: Book Three of the Veins Cycle<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>opens with a boy burying something beneath his house. He thinks he is alone, that no one sees him.<\/p>\n But someone does.<\/p>\n The man he will become watches from the shadows of a dream, looking on\u00a0as the child tries disposing of something the man has spent a lifetime\u00a0forgetting. It’s an important secret\u00a0. . . and in many ways it is part of who and what the adult\u00a0has become.<\/p>\n So here’s the challenge: Fantasist Enterprises<\/a> would like you to visit their I-Am-Axle Sweepstakes<\/a> page and speculate on what terrible thing Axle (the Veins Cycle protagonist) watches his childhood self bury in the opening pages\u00a0of Vortex<\/em><\/a>. (Fantasist even provides a free excerpt<\/a> of the book so that you can see everything the adult Axle sees.)<\/p>\n Now here’s the thing. Fantasist is not asking you to spill the beans on some ancient and terrible secret you yourself have kept locked away. That’s your baggage. Instead, they’d like to you imagine — based on the details\u00a0provided in the opening chapter (and possibly in the earlier books\u00a0Veins<\/em> <\/a>and Vipers<\/em><\/a>) — what it is it\u00a0the young Axle might be trying to hide.<\/p>\n \u00a0Be creative . . . and have fun!<\/p>\n And oh, by the way, did you hear the big news?<\/p>\n Vortex<\/em> <\/a>has made the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award<\/a>, and to celebrate Fantasist is offering all of Veins Cycle books for .99 at all major retailers, including\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0and the FE Website<\/a>. Those are 1960’s prices folks. Who says time travel’s impossible.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/em><\/strong><\/span> The good people at Fantasist Enterprises, publishers of the Veins Cycle books, are interested in buried secrets. They’re also interested in giving away a $25.00 Amazon Gift Card. Here are the details. First the set up: Vortex: Book Three of the Veins Cycle\u00a0opens with a boy burying something beneath his house. He thinks he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-cat-21st-centuryscop","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[429,185,804,805,806,30,397],"class_list":["post-6761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-centuryscop","tag-bram-stoker-award","tag-bram-stoker-award-preliminary-ballot","tag-horror-fiction","tag-horror-novel","tag-sweepstakes","tag-veins-cycle","tag-vortex"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6761"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23453,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions\/23453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Axle](\"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Axle-from-VEINS-by-Lawrence-C-Connolly-197x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Such is sometimes the case with childhood\u00a0secrets. We may not remember them. Indeed, in some cases, they may be associated with things we do not want<\/em> to remember. Yet they remain part of us.<\/p>\n![\"Stoker\"](\"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stoker.jpg\")
<\/a>If you’re a writer, consider this\u00a0a writing prompt (the sort of challenge that horror writer\u00a0Michael A. Arnzen<\/a> calls an Instigation<\/em><\/a>). Who knows, you could come away with a $25.00 Amazon Gift Card.<\/p>\n
\nVortex. Cover art by Rhonda Libbey.<\/em><\/span>
\nAxle (from <\/em>Veins). Illustration by Star Olson.<\/em><\/span>
\nBram Stoker Award. Design by Gahan Wilson.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"