November 2022

October was an exciting month for us! We released a new book, announced a new project, made lots of friends at the 2022 West Virginia Book Festival, and joined a spooky reading! In this issue of BirbWords, we'll talk about our experiences at Book Fest and the readings, and dive into what you can expect from us in the future!

The 2022 West Virginia Book Festival

Book Fest was a whirlwind two days for us at the Henlo Press! Authors Stephen Bias and Caitlyn Pace made appearances, signing their books, and spreading the word about their awesome accomplishments of publication. We spoke to hundreds of avid readers and writers, got some submissions, and made some wonderful friends too! Needless to say, our heads were spinning! But we came away from the festival excited to see what the future has in store for us.

The best part of going to events like Book Fest and the myriad of comic conventions, is getting to meet people! We love going around to each booth and making connections with our fellow vendors. Our goal is to establish a creative community in our Tri-State area, and the vendors at these conventions and festivals are creatives just like us, trying to make their dreams a reality. We want to support them, and hope that they’ll support us too!

Having said that, here's a special shoutout to our friends! THE Tyler Bell, Shelly Jarvis and Lex Hunter, Heather Scarbro Dobson, Corley Dennison, Jeannette Watts, Diana Johnson, Jeff Barnes, Brett Armstrong, Constance Pirner, Gabby Gilliam, and Kim Harbour you are all wonderful and we sincerely hope to see you soon!

We had an absolute blast, and we can’t wait to get back to work on our upcoming projects so we can celebrate some more!
 

Spooky Readings

A special thank you to Cicada Books for featuring both Caitlyn Pace and Stephen Bias at the Spooky Saturday and All Hallows West!

Say Henlo to our Next Author!

Over the weekend of Book Fest, we announced our next project Thief of Roses, a dark retelling of the classic fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. We reached out to author Valtinen Karille for his thoughts.
 

"Gods, how I feel about my book announcement is somewhere between 'thank the gods I can tell people about it now,' 'oh sh*t, people are gonna read it (maybe?),' and 'just be corporate chill,' which will ultimately sound pretentious."

Literally us anytime we go anywhere and announce any new thing.

Little is known about this writer. His royalties are wired to a Swiss bank account and he communicates to the outside world via smoke signal from the chimney of his 1871 fortress residence. The city hall has received numerous complaints of public indecency regarding a nude humanoid figure wandering the grounds; these have largely been ignored due to the typical inclusion of horns in witness descriptions. Additional municipal violations include sky burials for roadkill, midnight outbursts of Don't Cry for Me Argentina from his balcony, and the unlawful presence of a bison on residential property within city limits. Internet statements positively attributed to this person claim a birth year of 1638, intensive training in Liberace Fashion Principles, and the discovery of a sixth-dimensional cube in his cereal in 2002.

Keep an eye out for updates on ways to get your hands on this exciting new title!

November Writing Prompt

"Write a whole novel in 30 days. Annnddd GO!"

Just kidding! Here's the real writing prompt:

Author Spotlight: Mike Hornyak

Mike Hornyak is one of our very first authors. His creative piece The Dictionary Game: Stare Down The Moon was his debut collection of short stories, poems, and nonfiction writings brought together from 15 years of playing the Dictionary Game. Mike and his friends would trade two sets of numbers; the first to be a page number, the second to count down the entries and land on a word in the dictionary. Using that word and definition as inspiration, Mike wrote down what came to mind, and The Dictionary Game: Stare Down The Moon came to life.

If you'd like to see more about The Dictionary Game and author Mike Hornyak, check out the video below from Winter Wheat 2020.

We invite you to play a round of the Dictionary Game! Send us your creations for a chance to be featured in next month's BirbWords!

Where to Find Us Next!

Mark your calendars! We have two more events on the horizon!

• Mumblings Launch Party

  • When - November 12th, 2022

  • Where - Cicada Books and Coffee in Huntington, West Virginia

  • Time - 6:00pm

• Lexington Comic and Toy Convention

  • When - March 23rd-26th, 2023

  • Where - Central Bank Center in Lexington, Kentucky

  • Time - TBA, but probably all day every day

The launch party for Mumblings is our last event of the year, unless we come across something else. It'll be your last chance to see us out in the wild, but as long as you're following us on all our socials you'll stay in the loop!

Get in Touch!