Hi, everyone! I'm so happy to be one of the authors in an epic fantasy anthology! To kick things off, we're having a scavenger hunt with a super cool prize. Each of the twenty stories in the anthology focuses around a fantastic creature from folklore or mythology. My contribution is called An Adventurer's Heart. Be sure to visit all the stops and collect the clues--a number featured in each post--and you could win a Kindle Fire plus a digital library of ebooks from participating authors. Read down to the bottom to find out how to enter.
Tall Tall Tales
It’s surprising where a funny story can come from. Take Three Steaks and a Box of Chocolates, for example. The idea came to me while driving my cat to a veterinary specialist. The down-on-his-luck Doc Turner and his friend, Burt McCall, chaser of crackpot dreams, sprang to life pretty quickly after that. McCall’s rickety, backfiring old tow truck and the near empty town of Dead End, which sees no more action than a few rolling tumbleweeds, soon followed. What I didn’t anticipate was that I would end up writing a tall tale. If you come right down to it, you can’t plan something like that. The seeds blow in from somewhere, take root, and grow all on their own.
Now that I’ve written one, I thought I’d find out more about them! The main element of a tall tale is that one aspect of the story is larger than life. In fact, we want our tall tales to have something preposterous or unbelievable. That’s what makes them fun. Pecos Bill just wouldn’t be the same if he didn’t lasso a tornado or chow down on a stick of dynamite. Tall tales will usually have a larger-than-life hero, like the giant lumberjack, Paul Bunyan. And of course, Paul has to have the impossibly big and impossibly colored, sidekick, Babe, the blue ox. Paul’s exploits don’t stop at the fifty flapjacks he gobbles in one minute. A hero of his stature leaves his mark on the land he strides through, leaving the Grand Canyon, the Finger Lakes, and the Mississippi River in his wake.
Not all tall tales are preposterous, though. They can take place in familiar settings and be based on real people. Johnny Appleseed, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and John Henry are examples of such heroes, whose exploits have become legend and are immortalized in American folklore. Similar traditions are found the world over, from Australia’s Crooked Mick to Canada’s Big Joe Mufferaw. Deep down, we want our funny bones tickled, and larger-than-life heroes have a knack for doing it.
How tall of a tale did I write? Crack open a copy of Fantastic Creatures to find out! I’ll tell you one thing, I scrawled the story in the sands of the Mojave using a three-hundred-foot redwood tree. Afterward, it made a good toothpick.
Sign up for my mailing list during this scavenger hunt, and I’ll enter you to win a free eBook copy of my award-winning fantasy novel Wyndano’s Cloak. You can follow me at the cantinas below, and happy reading!Twitter: @arsilverberry
A. R. Silverberry writes fantasy fiction for children and adults. His novel, WYNDANO’S CLOAK, won multiple awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Awards gold medal for Juvenile/Young Adult Fiction. THE STREAM, his second novel, was honored as a Shelf Unbound Notable Book, and was shortlisted in ForeWord Review’s Book of the Year Awards. He lives in California, where the majestic coastline, trees, and mountains inspire his writing.
Scavenger Hunt Clue:
Here's the anthology!
Here be dragons ... and selkies and griffins and maybe even a mermaid or two.
Twenty fantasy authors band together to bring you a collection of thrilling tales and magical monsters. Do you like to slay dragons? Or befriend them? Do you prefer to meet cephalopods as gigantic kraken or adorable tree octopuses?
Each story focuses around a fantastic creature from folklore or mythology, and they range from light and playful tales for the whole family to darker stories that may make you wish to leave the lights on. These stories carry the Fellowship of Fantasy seal of approval. While our monsters may be horrifying, you won't stumble into graphic sex and constant swearing.
Perfect for the fantasy lover who can't get enough of mythical beasts.
Twenty fantasy authors band together to bring you a collection of thrilling tales and magical monsters. Do you like to slay dragons? Or befriend them? Do you prefer to meet cephalopods as gigantic kraken or adorable tree octopuses?
Each story focuses around a fantastic creature from folklore or mythology, and they range from light and playful tales for the whole family to darker stories that may make you wish to leave the lights on. These stories carry the Fellowship of Fantasy seal of approval. While our monsters may be horrifying, you won't stumble into graphic sex and constant swearing.
Perfect for the fantasy lover who can't get enough of mythical beasts.
The Grand Prize!
