This very special 11/11/11 update of Silverthought Online features short fiction from three writers making their Silverthought debut: Charlie Bookout with "One Sixth Gravity of the Heart", Bryan Brown with "Poseidon's Million Crowns", and Joseph Cohen with "The Farthest Horizon of the Yangtze". If one were to search for a common theme in these works it might be the sense of frontier in plain sight, finding the unfamiliar within the intensely familiar, whether the setting is the suburbs, the bottom of the ocean, or China. It's a theme I deal with daily whenever I remember that I have two sons now, not just one. How did that happen?

It's time to release some books. Next up out of the Silverthought Press publishing powerhouse: The Damnation of Memory by Mark R. Brand, Drink for the Thirst to Come by Lawrence Santoro, Blood: The New Red by David S. Grant, and moon chalk by David LaBounty. Speaking of familiarity, you may recognize some of those names from their previous Silverthought projects like Red Ivy Afternoon, A Dark and Deadly Valley, Bleach|Blackout, and Affluenza. We may have published each of these four writers before, but I firmly believe that these books are their best yet.

This update includes an excerpt from each of our upcoming releases and links to pre-order pages where you may reserve your copies. I'm putting the finishing touches on each book but they will ship before the holiday rush.

And speaking of the holiday rush, it's that time again--from now until the end of the year, every customer who purchases a Silverthought (or Offense Mechanisms or Elm Ridge Books) book from our online bookstore will be automatically entered into our annual Win Every Silverthought Book Ever contest. What do I mean by every Silverthought book ever? I mean every book we've published and every book we ever will publish. That's a retail value of at least twenty or thirty bucks. So yes, buy a book and you'll be entered into a contest where you can win a crapload of books.

To sweeten the deal, anyone who likes Silverthought on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/silverthought) from now until year's end will also be entered into our Win Every Silverthought Book Ever contest. Click "like" and maybe win a crapload of books? What could be easier? Maybe we'll even extend the contest to people who follow Silverthought on Twitter (http://twitter.com/silverthought) but probably not because Twitter is for jerks.

Hungry for even more Silverthought-ish goodness? Head on over to the brand new Breakfast with the Author web page (http://www.breakfastwiththeauthor.com), where Mark R. Brand cooks breakfast for writers and they talk about bacon or something. Episode 5 features Lindsay Hunter and Natalie Edwards.

Our next update will feature details about our 2012 releases, including work from Michael Gold, Victor Giannini, Jim Bainbridge, et al, an assessment of our first decade and an exclusive look ahead at where Silverthought is going (hint: edible books and wearable ham), and some of the best short fiction available for free on the internets.

Thanks for reading.

—PEH