<![CDATA[Author Nicole Ciacchella - Blog]]>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:48:26 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Indie Author Spotlight: Dean Wilson and Virginia McClain]]>Fri, 18 May 2018 13:57:49 GMThttps://www.nciacchella.com/blog/indie-author-spotlight-dean-wilson-and-virginia-mcclainLooking for some great reads? I love to recommend books by other indie authors, who are doing some really innovative and exciting things with various genres. Plus, I aim to find a book for every reader, so here are a couple of finds for you:

Coilhunter by Dean F. Wilson

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Welcome to the Wild North, a desolate wasteland where criminals go to hide—if they can outlast the drought and the dangers of the desert. Or the dangers of something else.

Meet Nox, the Coilhunter. A mechanic and toymaker by trade, a bounty hunter by circumstance. He isn't in it for the money. He's in it for justice, and there's a lot of justice that needs to be paid.

Between each kill, he's looking for someone who has kept out of his crosshairs for quite a while—the person who murdered his wife and children. The trail has long gone cold, but there are changes happening, the kind of changes that uncover footprints and spent bullet casings.

Plagued by nightmares, he's made himself into a living one, the kind the criminals and conmen fear.

So, welcome, fair folk, to the Wild North. If the land doesn't get you, the Coilhunter will.

This is a standalone book in the Coilhunter Chronicles series, which can be read in any order.

Coilhunter is available exclusively at Amazon, and is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

Blade's Edge (Chronicles of Gensokai, book 1) by Virginia McClain

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Mishi and Taka live each day of their lives with the shadow of death lurking behind them. The struggle to hide the elemental powers that mark the two girls as Kisōshi separates them from the other orphans, yet forges a deep bond between them.

When Mishi is dragged from the orphanage at the age of eight, the girls are unsure if or when they will find each other again. While their powers grow with each season-cycle, the girls must come to terms with their true selves--Mishi as a warrior, Taka as a healer--as they forge separate paths which lead to the same horrifying discovery...

The Rōjū council’s dark secret is one that it has spent centuries killing to keep, and Mishi and Taka know too much. The two young women have overcome desperate odds in a society where their very existence is a crime, but now that they know the Rōjū’s secret they find themselves fighting for much more than their own survival.

Blade's Edge is available for 99c for a limited time on:

Amazon | Apple | Barnes & Noble | Google | Kobo
]]><![CDATA[Writing Diverse Characters: At last, one of my books features a gay main character]]>Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:44:59 GMThttps://www.nciacchella.com/blog/writing-diverse-characters-at-last-one-of-my-books-features-a-gay-main-characterMany of you know that diversity in fiction is a cause I'm really passionate about, so I make a conscious effort to introduce diversity into my own books. I have no doubt that I screw things up at times because I'm a straight, white woman who doesn't know what it's like to be an LGBTQIA+ person, or a person of color. I do know what it's like to be a woman, so while I'm comfortable with addressing sexism and misogyny, I am conscious of how I could come off as way off base or spectacularly insensitive when it comes to the issues LGBTQIA+ people or people of color face. I want to learn and understand, so I try to read, watch, and listen to as much as I can get my hands on, but if at any time any of my readers would like to point something out to me, I am very receptive to that. I want to do better, I really do.

I'm addressing this because the Wasteland trilogy features my first gay main character. This isn't the first time I've written about lesbian, bi, or gay characters. There are secondary LGBTQIA+ characters in Committed, Court of Illusion (the third Astoran Asunder book), and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sensibility. You can tell these books are a bit dated because in both Committed and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sensibility, characters comment about being unable to marry because they're lesbian or gay, something I'm very glad has changed in the intervening years.

I've heard people talk about books that depict LGBTQIA+ characters as having an "agenda". Do my books have an agenda? Well, yeah. My agenda is to write about characters who hopefully come across as human beings, to do my best to depict their struggles in a vivid way, and to put forth my best effort to create a story that draws readers in and leaves them wanting more. The Wasteland trilogy books are no exception. Alessandro is gay. It's an aspect of his character. It's not his defining aspect, but it is who he is, and I'm writing about that in the most honest way I know how. He will have a romance in books two and three, and though the romances in these books are not explicit, they do exist as part of the characters' subplots.

(Not to toot my own horn here, but if I do say so myself, Alessandro's romance is shaping up to be one of the sweetest romances I've written. Editing those passages is giving me some serious feels.)

I will be both frank and blunt here. If some readers are uncomfortable with the idea of reading about a romance between two teen boys, well, they're welcome to read other books. I'm not going to change mine. LGBTQIA+ people and people of color exist, and they deserve to have their stories told. (Preferably by own voice authors--authors who are people of color and/or LGBTQIA+, but I also firmly believe white, straight authors ought to make more of an effort to diversify their books.)

Look, as a woman who majored in French and minored in English, I spent a LOT of time reading books by dead white men. Sometimes I got other, more diverse viewpoints as part of my education, but mostly I was supposed to read, understand, and be able to sympathize with a WHOLE lot of dead white guys. Why is it that I, as a woman, or readers of color, or LGBTQIA+ readers, or neurodiverse readers, or disabled readers, are supposed to be able to see from the point of view of able-bodied, straight, white men, but the reverse isn't true? I don't buy it. There's academic evidence that reading can make us more empathetic, and the best way I can imagine to achieve that is by having people read about characters who aren't like them, as well as characters who are.

Which is why I'm going to do my best to be part of the change I want to continue to see in the world of publishing. I think publishing as a whole is taking steps toward progress, but I also think we've still got a long road ahead of us. Diverse fiction isn't a "trend", and it shouldn't be seen as one. If authors, readers, and publishers care about continuing to advance literature as an art form, we should get behind diverse fiction, because a vast, rich wealth of stories is the only way to elevate our art form.
]]><![CDATA[Seanan McGuire dishes out some truth about fanfic]]>Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:48:15 GMThttps://www.nciacchella.com/blog/seanan-mcguire-dishes-out-some-truth-about-fanficI've said this before, but it's something some people may still not know about me: I used to write fanfic, and I also had an extremely satisfying run of writing Harry Potter filks (song parodies in which you take a popular tune and rewrite the lyrics to reflect whatever subject you're covering) for the group Harry Potter for Grownups. On the fanfic side, I dabbled in Tolkien, writing lots of wish-fulfillment fics about elves (yes, I admit it, I had a mad crush on Orlando Bloom as Legolas), and I've also written a few short Mass Effect fanfics (starring my femShep, natch), but my longest fanfic by far was a Knights of the Old Republic fic detailing the exploits of my light-side female Jedi, Brinna Warrim.

Now, I obviously didn't create Harry Potter or Mass Effect or KOTOR (*sigh* If only I had...), but, boy, how I love those worlds. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and I've never had a problem creating my own stories, but playing around with characters I loved in other people's worlds was such a pleasure for me. It got my creative juices going in a whole different way from creating my own worlds and characters, and it was excellent writing practice during times when I went through long stretches of not writing original material.

I'm not ashamed of having written fanfic, nor am I ashamed of having once been an enthusiastic member of the fanfic community, not only writing my own but also reading and commenting on others' work. It was a great community full of supportive people who genuinely enjoyed reading one another's work and sharing a dialog about it. Think about it. For someone like me, who aspired to be a writer but wasn't yet in a place where I felt ready to share my own creations, it was invaluable. I was WAAAAAY too shy and insecure to let people read my original stuff, but I was fine with sharing fanfic. That willingness helped me receive and process critiques, which in turn helped me improve my writing skills, a process that continues to this day.

Given this, I cheered my way through The Bodies of the Girls Who Made Me: Fanfic and the Modern World on the Tor blog. I was already familiar with Seanan McGuire because I fanatically love her Wayward Children series, and knowing her writing origins are much like mine is pretty awesome. Her critique of how fanfic writers are treated is spot-on, and she has some very important stuff to say about how female writers are treated versus how male writers are treated.

It's a great article and I highly recommend it because the continuing conversation about the lack of diversity in publishing is necessary and good for the industry as a whole--as is the discussion of the lack of diversity in movies, TV, video games, etc. Loving stories as much as I do, I am so eager for the inclusion of more diverse voices because I'm excited about how they'll enrich the literary/film/television/video game worlds.
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