Swords and space! For me, they cover the contrast between the personal and vast in science fiction. Reality Skimming is also the faster-than-light method of travel used by the heroes of my 10-novel Okal Rel Saga, and the founding purpose of Reality Skimming Press was to carry the Okal Rel Universe into the future, with a re-boot of the backlist and a new title every year. Our first legacies book was Hal Friesen's Shepherds of Sparrows in 2013.
Reality Skimming Press is owned and operated by myself, Lynda Williams, and my husband David Lott, with help from a group of collaborators such as artists Jeff Doten, Doriano Strologo, Richard Bartrop and Yukari Yamamoto. Christel Bodenbender has recently joined us as an interviewer for the Reality Skimming Blog. Other friends have helped out in the past and may again in the future.
Beyond Okal Rel, the broader vision for the press is to celebrate the heroic aspect of speculative fiction. The sort of thing that stirred me up and gave me courage, in my youth, reading comics, reading books and watching TV and movies. As a mature woman, I find it harder to believe in heroes without more shades of gray, and there are certainly dark patches in the Okal Rel Saga, itself. But on the whole I'm still interested in SF where readers remain motivated to cheer for the hero, flawed as he or she may be, and struggle for some version of good versus evil in the world. We brand ourselves as optimistic SF.
Adding children's books sprang from a personal connection. Jennifer Lott is our daughter, and the setting she writes about in her Family Magic Series is loosely based on our home when she was young. Working with books for new readers proved exciting, and we hope to add a second series over the next year, when we find a writer with the right profile for us.
Reality Skimming Press is in a development stage from now until the end of 2016. We're learning about the business, pacing ourselves, making connections and learning the trade. The plan is to expand a little, year by year, and see where it leads. Our core values are the joy of books in print and experimenting in online arenas, as opportunities arise.
Find us online at http://facebook.com/relskim to follow our progress and get to know us. And order Cursed Dishes and Shepherds of Sparrows through your local Chapters to join in the experience.
Jennifer Lott maintains a separate website for the Family Magic Series at http://familymagicseries.com/
You can explore the Okal Rel Universe at any of the following URLs.
* The Okal Rel Site and Reality Skimming Blog http://okalrel.org
* Author Lynda Williams on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/644584.Lynda_Williams
