Tag Archives: western

BLACK LILY IS OUT NOW!

Posted on by under Announcements

Cover model: Ingvild Eiring

Black Lily is the fourth book in The 9 Lives of the Outlaw Known as Crazy Cat series. It’s a fast-paced tale of daring to trust new allies, fighting boredom with bullets, and making plans for the future while hiding from the law.

Lee has teamed up with an old friend and is back at outlawing again. The duo gains a new nemesis in a ruthless bounty hunter, and new accomplices in an accidental killer and a stagecoach driver with a secret.

The outlaw known as Crazy Cat gets to prove what she’s made of in encounters with
tyro outlaws, a wounded gang member, and an aging horse, and worst of all: stagecoach passengers.

Get your copy here: Paperback or Kindle

BLACK LILY: THE SOUNDTRACK

Posted on by under Playlists, Uncategorized

Model: Ingvild Eiring

Y’all! Those of you who have been following me for a while knows what this means – this being the soundtrack to my next book… It means that I’m just about done with another book! That’s right. I’ve taken my sweet time with this one, but I’m almost done with Black Lily, the fourth book in The 9 Lives of The Outlaw Known as Crazy Cat series. We’re looking at release this year, late November/early December. All I have left to do is read through it one more time before I send it off to get proofed and… y’know, all the boring stuff, like formatting and getting it ready for publishing. In the meantime, here’s the soundtrack to Black Lily to get you in the mood for another adventure with the wildest cat in the crazy west.

If you want to be the first to know when Black Lily is available, be sure to sign up to my Mailing List.

The 7th Bullet is Out Now!

Posted on by under Announcements

The 7th Bullet is the third book in the The 9 Lives of the Outlaw Known as Crazy Cat series—a Gothic western that draws upon elements from both horror and crime. It’s a foreboding tale of friendship and grief, madness, and haunts, and seeing a man about a horse.

Lee is offered a chance at freedom—all she has to do is assist a Pinkerton detective during an investigation and sign a contract where she swears to become a law-abiding citizen. She agrees to help the detective, but will she sign the contract and give up her outlawing ways?

The investigation brings her to the arid Bonneville flats and a lodge run by a family of spiritualists. They may or may not be able to talk to the dead, but they certainly have a connection to them.

Get your copy here:

Paperback

or e-book from

Amazon(Kindle)

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble (Nook)

iBooks

Google Books

Ebok.no

or

Enter my Goodreads giveaway for a chance to win a signed copy of the paperback edition here.

 

Paws in the air!

Posted on by under Sundries

My good friend and often partner in crime Ingvild Eiring does more than model, make-up and costume, she is a terrific sculptor as well. Her speciality is mice in victorian clothing. I asked her to make me a Crazy Cat inspired mouse… and then this happened. Mad Mouse came to life. I couldn’t be happier with the result, every little detail is perfect, from Lee’s (Crazy Cat) whisker scars to a pair of tiny spurs. Everything is handmade, even the clothes are sewn by Ingvild.

Ingvild takes commissions, if you want a custom mouse too, just send an email to: ingvild.eiring@gmail.com

A Fistful of Cowgrrrls

Posted on by under Sundries

I was going to write a post about why I’m a feminist for today (March 8th), but I have too many beginnings and no ending to that rant. I meant to design a few Cowgrrrl T-shirts too, but I’ve been so swamped with editing my third novel that I ain’t found the time or the inspiration to veer off from working on the book to get around to it. I meant to do a whole mess of things, but time would not allow it. So, instead I give you this – five western movies featuring female protagonists I have enjoyed, and two I am looking forward to seeing.

TRUE GRIT

I’ve lost count of the places I’ve read that Mattie Ross finds a man of true grit in Rooster Cogburn. I won’t argue against the fact that Cogburn does indeed possess a whole damn lot of grit, but to me it is blatantly obvious that Mattie is the one with true grit – the obvious irony in both title and project when she goes searching for a man with true grit, and then it turns out that she is the one who possesses the trait galore herself.

MEEK’S CUTOFF

A somber and realistic movie about settlers on the Oregon Trail in 1845. Not your typical western, I’d dare say it’s an anti western in its lack of shoot-outs and action, and with the typical hero character (the mountain man Meek) being, to put it plainly, a buffoon.

SWEETWATER

Gritty revenge movie with a great sense of humor and a badass lady in the lead.

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

I love this movie! I get so doggone excited just thinking about it I get stumped for words. Sharon Stone! Lady gunslinger! OMG! Just see it already!

BAD GIRLS

An early nineties movie on the same trail as Young Guns. It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s Hollywood… don’t take it too seriously.

…and the movies I ain’t had the chance to see yet.

THE KEEPING ROOM

JANE GOT A GUN

 

The 7th Bullet: The Soundtrack

Posted on by under Playlists

The 7th Bullet, the next installment in The 9 Lives of The Outlaw known as Crazy Cat series will soon be complete (within a few months). The story is edited into a cohesive narrative, what remains is polishing and proofreading.

While you wait for the book, I’ve made a soundtrack for it, like I did for Embers at Dawn and An Obelus Wheeze. After (almost) completing my third novel, I’ve found out that the story ain’t “there yet” until the soundtrack flows smoothly. Just like the book, the soundtrack has been put through a rigorous editing process where darlings have been killed and gaps filled. If a song feels out of place or forced, it might of course be the wrong song for the scene, but most often I find that the fault lies in the scene it’s meant to accompany. First and foremost I put together these soundtracks for my own enjoyment, but they are also a great tool to better understand the ebb and flow of the narrative.

Tintype

Posted on by under Photography

I did my very first tintype shoot last week. Ingvild Eiring modeled, and styled the clothes. As always, we had a blast! And the tintypes turned out beautifully, if I may say so myself. See more of my tintypes over at julieloen.com or even more at Flickr.

I used the Rockland Colloid Tintype Parlor Kit from Freestyle Photographic and borrowed my boyfriend’s Holga. The kit includes 8 4×5” black aluminum plates. I cut the plates into 16 smaller plates to fit the medium format camera, this also left me with 16 extra mini plates I used to test the exposure with. The kit also contains emulsion, developer, fixer and easy instructions – everything you need, except trays and safelight. I used cheap food container boxes from IKEA as trays, when I was done for the day I just put the lid on the chemicals.

The few glitches I encountered were all about the emulsion: getting the damn thing onto the plates evenly (I had to reheat it for about every 4th plate), and leaving the plates long enough in the developer – the three minutes the instruction suggested were far from enough, but then again, it might have been a bit colder than the preferred 20°C. When the plate isn’t properly developed the image will turn out blue, typically in the corners and around the edges. The blue is impossible to see under red safelight in the darkroom, so buckle up for surprises!

Western Comics

Posted on by under A Wordslinger's Ramblings

Well, y’all know I’m a nerd anyway, so I might as well admit I’m a comic book geek too. Figured I’d share some of my favorite western comics with you.

My absolute favorites are these four gems:

Bouncer

Beautifully vizualised, gritty adventures with a one-armed gunslinger in the lead. This is the kind of comic I’ll re-read many times and bring out occasionally just to gawk at the artwork. The stories are on point. The violence is grim and inventive. The characters well developed, flaws and all. In short: A masterpiece.

Loveless

Ah… Wes and Ruth – the protagonists – just might be my all-time favorite comic book couple, reminiscent of Tulip and Jesse in Preacher (another gem worth reading, if you haven’t already). Their blood-soaked, southern tale of revenge spans across 21 remorseless albums. Ruth is exactly the kind of ass-kicking anti-heroine I’d like to see more of in any media.

Pretty Deadly

I have a very real crush on Ginny, the skullfaced daughter of death – another fierce, gunslinging dame… and she is only one of several bad-ass women in this gorgeous tale of magical realism. The artwork is through and through beautiful, the story remarkable and well balanced in brutality and heart, you’ll even find something to call cute in there. The first five issues have been collected in a single volume, you know what to do… I can hardly wait for the follow-up!

Hawken

An old man riding a blind mule, with the ghost of every person he’s killed trailing after him… It’s weird. It’s violent. It’s a buckshot load of fun. The stories are great and told with plenty of humour. The black and white artwork is perfect for the gnarly ole gunslinger.

Other western comics I’ve enjoyed…

Bikini Cowboy is so much fun! Our hero, Whisky Jill, stomps around in the desert with a surfboard, wearing pretty much nothing but a skimpy bikini. The sketch-like style of the drawings corresponds perfectly with the whimsical story of the sassy Whisky Jill and the boy with mysterious powers she rescues.

The Grave Doug Freshley is another weird western where a young boy gets rescued, this time by the corpse Douglas Freshley, a former schoolmaster.

I take it Jonah Hex need no further introduction. I’ve read only a handful of albums, but have enjoyed the tall tales about this notorious bounty hunter very much.

Streets of Glory is also worth a mention. Penned by Garth Ennis, the mind behind Preacher, The Boys and Jennifer Blood, just to name a few.

Manifest Destiny has yet to be concluded. I’d advise you to buy the collected volumes, waiting around for the next album and the next makes for a jagged reading experience. Follow Lewis and Clark’s expedition into the wild and weird American frontier.

I’d love to hear what your favorite comics are too! Let me know in the comments 🙂

Zerelda’s Big Weekend

Posted on by under Photography, Sundries

Ingvild Eiring and yours truly at the release party for All The Things a Woman Oughtn’t Do – The Ballad of Zerelda Glanton. Much love and squishes to everyone who showed up! We had a great time!!!

TheShop

Here’s our little dry goods store at the release party we held on Friday. If you couldn’t come, but would like to buy a signed copy of All The Things a Woman Oughtn’t Do – The Ballad of Zerelda Glanton, Embers at Dawn, An Obelus Wheeze or maybe a pack of Zerelda postcards or the Professor Lafayette’s Bison Horn Potion bottle, head on over to my Tictail store.

A selection of images from All The Things a Woman Oughtn’t Do – The Ballad of Zerelda Glanton were exhibited at Fotografiets Dag at Preus Museum in Horten yesterday. As you can see, there’s no name under the pictures. Some time between 12.30 and 15.30 someone removed my name tag and stole my box of business cards, efficiently sabotaging my exhibition. A bunch of pictures without a name is worth exactly nothing. When granted an exhibition spot at Fotografiets Dag you basically get 5 hours of attention from a crowd who’s there to look at photographs. Up to three of those hours have been stolen from me. Ingvild and I have worked on this project for two years. Getting noticed is hard work. To be exhibited at an event such as Fotografiets Dag is a golden opportunity to promote what we’ve been working so hard on. I paid for the prints myself. Hell, I pay for everything myself… I’m a self-publisher. Nothing is cheap. Nothing is easy. But bullshit like this takes the fun right out of it.