I'm about to jump in the car and take a trip five and a half hours south of Edmonton to Lethbridge. Why, you might ask? To attend the Wordbridge Writers' Conference this weekend and speak at a few panels as well! My friend Robert Runté is one of the keynote speakers, so I'll be there cheering him on too.

I'll be leaving quite early on Saturday to (hopefully) make it to the first panels starting at 9 a.m. (although you never know how it goes with a road trip).

My panels will be on Sunday, and they include:

11:10 a.m. - World-building with Jenna Greene, Adam Dreece, Halli Reid, and me.

12:30 p.m. - All About Conflict with Pamela Donison, Halli Reid, Monica Zwikstra, and me.

If you're at the conference, please say hi! Always glad to see writers and readers I know. 

Wow, it's been minute, hasn't it? My website has been a bit quiet, but there's been a lot going on recently. I'll post more info soon, but I'm just about a month away from starting Author Versus AI on April 23rd. Stay tuned for updates!

But if you want to come out to say hi in person, I'll be in Edmonton this weekend at Audrey's Bookstore (10702 Jasper Ave) for a fun afternoon of poetry on Sunday, March 24th from 2pm-3:30pm. I'm one of 4 featured poets, including Krystyna Fedosejevs, Marco Melfi & Chanel Klein.

​If you can make it, hope to see you there!

My interview with the Big Time Talker Podcast with Burke Allen is live today! Click HERE to hear about my award-winning book, as well as hear about my HUGE Author Versus AI project for next year!

How I ended up on the podcast goes back to a trip I took in November to Florida for winning the Readers' Favorite Award for my novel The New Empire.

​And did I mention the birds? Ducks, I get - there's plenty of water. But roosters? When out walking near the hotel, I came across whole communities of chickens and roosters. Odd.

And then there was the Miami Book Fair, which takes place at the same time. The Readers' Favorite Award had a booth, and I got to meet one of the speakers for the event, Eddie Price.

And, of course, the awards ceremony itself...

And I met some VERY lovely authors at the ceremony who were also receiving awards. Some of them were:

How does this all relate to going on a podcast? Well, Allen Burke was another speaker at the Readers' Favorite Awards, and quite inspiring. I reached out to him during the awards, and he thought that my new project for next year would be very interesting for his listeners. So... that's the long story about how I ended up on his podcast!

If you'd like to listen, here's my interview on the Big Time Talker Podcast with Burke Allen. Hope you enjoy it!

Speaking of awards, I just found out there are a couple of new ones where The New Empire is a finalist. They include The Eyelands Book Awards, which is a Greek prize. The winner gets to go to Athens to accept their award! Since my sister now lives in Greece and I've never been there, it would be a wonderful honor if I was able to go.

​And my novel was also a finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards! I'm super thrilled - it was for the multicultural category, and I'm proud to be in such great company.

On top of that, I just got back from Florida to accept an award win from Readers' Favorite Book Awards - my book took home silver in the cultural category. It was a lovely trip, and I'll be posting about it soon.

This Saturday at 7pm EST (tomorrow!), I'll be on What The Book Podcast with the wonderful Dzintra Sullivan, Sean R. Frazier, and Peyton Storm. I'll talk about my recent award-winning book The New Empire, as well as my 52-book project Author Versus AI that I'll be doing next year.

Check out the live podcast here: https://bookers.podbean.com/ - it's an interactive session, so you can jump in and ask questions! Looking forward to hearing from you then.

Who would be crazy enough to write 52 books in a year?

Well... I guess that would be ME. That's my plan for 2024. You can learn more on my Author Versus AI website HERE, including what led me to this idea.

In other news, I'm ridiculously happy that my book The New Empire just won silver in the Readers' Favorite Book Awards! And huge congrats to all the other fabulous winners.

As we move into summer, it's also award season! I'm thrilled to announce that my book The New Empire has gotten two more amazing recognitions. It was one of five finalists in the multicultural category of Next Generation Indie Book Awards. And it won SILVER in the adult fiction category of the Readers' Choice Book Awards!

I'm also thrilled that my friend Julie Cadman was a finalist for the Readers' Choice Book Awards with her great book UnMasked - and her book isn't even out yet! It comes out June 13, so be sure to check it out.

Hope everyone's having a great June so far, and I'll maybe have more exciting news soon. Until then, stay cool and enjoy your summer!

It's funny - I tend to go through cycles of posting/updating my website more regularly or just ignoring it completely. Considering I haven't posted since January and we're almost at May, you can probably guess which cycle my website is on right now.

BUT what that means is there are a lot of things going on behind the crickets that are chirping right now over here. I have a story coming out soon in Litro Magazine. I'm a writing coach for Pitch Week and we just finished our first week of workshopping this year. And I've been doing some fun writing, editing, and award projects, some of which you can see popping up over at the Fairfield Scribes.

On top of that, there's a lot of great news surrounding my recent book The New Empire. On the review front, it just got a lovely write-up at Review Tales by editor Jeyran Main, a 5-star review on Amy's Bookshelf Reviews, a wonderful review at The Ottawa Review of Books, and a glowing review at InD'tale Magazine.

And my book has also been getting lots of award recognition - it won silver in the Feathered Quill Book Awards, was a red ribbon winner at the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, and a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Awards (winners announced in the summer).

If you're tired about reading all about that, I'm definitely tired from DOING all of it, ha ha. Perhaps if I get the crickets organized to help me out, you'll hear more from me before too long. Otherwise, the crickets are welcome to chirp around my website and I will be off writing somewhere, hopefully about something really fun and exciting for you to read soon.

Happy spring, everyone!

I'm going to start out by mentioning the really exciting news: The New Empire received another 5-star review, this time from Readers' Favorite Awards. The reviewer really enjoyed it and wrote a completely glowing review that made me blush:

"Author Alison McBain perfectly captures the spirit of the historical novel with such credibility, atmosphere, and detail that I can readily imagine the alternate universe where this history is playing out right now. I was absolutely fascinated by the tribal confederacies and the way that the settlers divided the land and governmental systems. I also especially enjoyed the unique relationship that develops between Jiangxi and Onas, which took turns I wasn’t expecting and played out in a suitably Dickensian fashion for the era, but without glossing over all the gory, difficult details of the reality of the life that starts with slavery. McBain delivers a sensitively portrayed clash of cultures that never relies on stereotypes but is based on the very plausible and dangerous reactions of humans who find themselves in total control of others, and that is what makes the work so believable and thrilling at its core. Overall, I would not hesitate to recommend The New Empire to alternative history readers everywhere for its accomplished concept and no-holds-barred storytelling style."

I'm so thrilled  - it's wonderful to get such great feedback! I also got a lovely review on Wildwood Reads, and she mentioned: "The premise for The New Empire was so intriguing to me, and it was executed quite well. ... McBain brought her world to life while still respecting the history that was already established."

I haven't been doing much new writing lately except on Vocal.media, which you can check out HERE. I've been equally surprised and thrilled that my poems and essays there have won/been honorable mentions in a couple of the contests Vocal runs, so I'm glad I'm still keeping my writing brain active. Sometimes when I'm doing too much other stuff, such as editing clients' books or building websites or doing book cover design, I wonder if I'm still able to write. While part of my process is "binge writing" - such as writing a whole book in 2-3 months, which turns your brain to mush - and having long stretches in between where I don't write at all, every time I pick up the pen again, I wonder... have I lost the touch?

​That might be the imposter syndrome that many writers always talk about - I know I have it in spades, especially after I win an award. I want to look behind me and say, "Who are you giving that thing to... me?" I'm sure if you ask any big name author (not that I'm saying I'm a big name author, since I'm NOT), they'll tell you that they still sometimes stop and think, "Have I got the magic? Can I duplicate that success?"

WELL, Stephen King - what say you? Do YOU ever feel like that?
​
Anyways, I guess I DO still have what it takes, although I'm getting a bit itchy because I haven't been writing too much recently. I think it might be time for a good ol' fashioned word binge. I have two books I should be working on right now - the sequel to my first novel and a paranormal romance called Giving Up the Ghost. Perhaps I'll have some news about one or the other of them soon.

​Until then, wishing everyone a happy February coming up, perhaps filled with groundhogs and sweethearts (although hopefully not both at once).