Today I am so pleased to welcome J. Scott Coatsworth to Joyfully Jay. Scott has come to talk to us about his latest release, The Stark Divide. He has also brought along a great giveaway. Please join me in giving Scott a big welcome!

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

The second edition of “The Stark Divide” has been three decades in the making, starting in the middle and working my way backward to now.

I first sat down to write a story in what I now call the Liminal Sky universe in the early nineties. Back then, I just called it Forever, after my nickname for the generation ship at the heart of the story.

That manuscript, “On a Shoreless Sea,” went out to 10 big NYC publishers. It was my first attempt to get published, in October, 1995. One by one the rejections flowed in until the final one a year later, almost to the day.

Flash forward two decades, and I finally dipped my toe into the Liminal Sky world once again. I wrote a new novella, Seedling – the origin story for the generation ship that’s at the heart of the series – and shopped it to Lynn at DSP Publications.

They picked up the first book, the three parts Seedling, Colony, and Refugee making an epic whole – and at last Liminal Sky was in print and out into the world.

Four years have passed since that initial publication, and I’m now charting a brand-new course, moving away from romance and toward my first love, sci fi and fantasy – albeit with loads of diversity. So I’ve requested the rights back to both of my trilogies, and am rebranding them under the Liminal Sky series name. “The Stark Divide,” “The Rising Tide,” and “The Shoreless Sea” are now The Ariadne Cycle. “Skythane,” “Lander,” and “Ithani” are the Oberon Cycle. And I’m planning a new trilogy to bridge the gap – “The Forever Cycle.”

There’s also an offshoot novel, “Dropnauts,” that’s out to agents as we speak.

It’s exciting to have the chance to reinvent not only my own writing career but my entire arc of sci fi novels.

Looking back, it seems like everything I have done has led naturally to this point, but at the time none of it seemed certain. There were many times when I thought my career was over before it had truly begun, when I felt the pang of imposter syndrome, when a hoped-for triumph fell through and left me in tears.

Looking ahead, I am hopeful that greater things still await me. I am once again querying, this time to big agents instead of big publishers, hoping to find someone who will take on my work and help me reach the next level of my career. But I am also laying the groundwork for an independent one should that path not work out, and the re-release of these books is the first step.

If you have already read “The Stark Divide,” I thank you, and hope you’ll enjoy the new cover and author foreword.

If not, I’d like to entice you to enter my world, to let go of this terrestrial abode and take a ride across the great void between us and what may lay ahead. The adventures are many, through laughter and tears and wonder. So take my hand and step inside Forever.

I promise you’ll enjoy it.


Blurb

Some stories are epic.

The Earth is in a state of collapse, with wars breaking out over resources and an environment pushed to the edge by human greed.

Three living generation ships have been built with a combination of genetic mastery, artificial intelligence, technology, and raw materials harvested from the asteroid belt. This is the story of one of them—43 Ariadne, or Forever, as her inhabitants call her—a living world that carries the remaining hopes of humanity, and the three generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers working to colonize her.

From her humble beginnings as a seedling saved from disaster to the start of her journey across the void of space toward a new home for the human race, The Stark Divide tells the tales of the world, the people who made her, and the few who will become something altogether beyond human.

Humankind has just taken its first step toward the stars.

Buy Link: Amazon Kindle/KU


Bio

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.

He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

A Rainbow Award winning and runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is a full member member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).


Giveaway

Scott has brought a $25 Amazon gift card with this tour, and a signed paperback trilogy of the Oberon Cycle (Skythane, Lander and Ithani) – two winners! Follow the Rafflecopter below to enter. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


  • By entering the giveaway, you’re confirming that you are at least 18 years old.
  • By entering you are agreeing to the Terms and Conditions set out by Rafflecopter for entries.
  • Winners may be announced on the blog following the contest. By entering the contest you are agreeing to allow your name to be posted and promoted as the contest winner by Joyfully Jay.
  • Prizes will be distributed following the giveaway either by Joyfully Jay or the person/organization donating the prize. In order to facilitate prize distribution, the winner name’s and email may be provided to a third party awarding the prize.
  • By entering you are agreeing to hold Joyfully Jay harmless if the prize or giveaway in some way negatively impacts the winner.
  • Void where prohibited by law.