It started with Margo and I in a furious chain of emails that began by asking the question, “What if?” and somewhere in our brainstorming, dreaming, mad scientist creation we’d manhandled two of our friends into the email chain too.

Because that’s what friends are for. Hiding bodies and embarking on social media experiments.

We’ve been working tirelessly for the past couple of months, Margo, Claudie, S.B., and I on this thing. This project. Our project. A blog, but not exactly a blog. More than a blog. It will become a collection of discussions on the craft of writing, the art of speculative fiction, theory, voice, a whole wild cast of characters, but most importantly – community.

Imagine four writers from different genres and sub-genres working out the trouble with villains, with strong female characters, with technology and research, with speculation and pushing the envelope on believability.

I am so excited to finally share Wicked & Tricksy with you. I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished, what we plan to do, and the space we are preparing to open. We met on Nathan Bransford’s forums, which is incredibly appropriate, and while we each have our own personal blogs, we found ourselves playing off each other’s topics, expanding, questioning, and discussing further what one had already said. Creating a blog space specifically for other aspiring writers with a particular focus on speculative fiction seemed natural.

Serendipitous.

Absolutely and completely meant to be.

In a very succinct little nut shell, Wicked & Tricksy is:

…a group blog by four aspiring speculative fiction authors.

We seek to provide resources for fellow aspiring writers on writing craft and theory. While we focus on all things speculative fiction, there will be plenty of craft talk for writers of any genre to use. We hope to create a community of aspiring writers who can share ideas, ask hard questions, and offer insights we as individual writers may not have had access to otherwise.

Forget the writer’s solitary journey. At Wicked & Tricksy, we pool our energy together to turn it into a social adventure!

There are four of us and the neat thing is that we all have history with our own blogs. We each own very successful, positive spaces where we explore many topics across the board. Wicked & Tricksy is very specific. If you are a writer, Wicked & Tricksy will become a one-stop-shop for lots of great resources.

I post every Monday, S.B. posts on Tuesday, Margo on Wednesday, and Claudie on Thursday, and (this is my favorite part, drumroll please…) every Friday we turn the stage over to one of you – other aspiring authors, whether you have your own blog or want to try it out for the first time – and everyone is welcome to our writer-geek party. Margo at margo@wickedtricksy.com is our Guest Blogger Coordinator.

Now for the details:

• The site goes live May 9th with our first week dedicated to Community since that is what brought us together in the first place over at the Bransforums, and it is what we are eager to promote. We are strong champions for building open, inclusive, welcoming, and cooperative writing communities.
• The address is www.wickedtricksy.com but you’ll discover that it currently goes to a launch page with a count down clock on it. On May 9th the site will come alive. The site foundation has been built. Now we are putting finishing touches on it and preparing content.
• You’ll hear regular updates from us in the next 12 days, but I think it would be awesome if you would follow us on Twitter so you can be notified when the site goes live:

• We’ll be doing some giveaways in the first two weeks and other fun things we are currently masterminding. I suspect there will be some cool stuff dedicated to each of our particular spec-fic sub-genres: science fiction, historical fantasy, fantasy, urban fantasy, horror….
• We’d love your support. Of course we would! We want to bring lots of blogs together. We want to be able to say, “Hey you write historical fiction? So do these four awesome bloggers…” It’s hard to ask for support, but I feel so passionate about this project. I think it is going to be amazing. I hope all the writers who visit my blog will help support us in our adventure and become part of it. I’m crossing fingers and toes and wishing on all the stars in the sky that this launch is successful as I’m dreaming it could be. I hope you’ll be there. I really hope you’ll be there on our first day!!

(I’m already having nightmares – you know the first day of school nightmare where you show up and realize you forgot your pants and everyone is laughing at you? And you were supposed to memorize the entire collected works of William Shakespeare only you forgot to do it? And now you’re standing mute at the front of your class without pants? It’s like that, only my classroom is the entire blogosphere. Please don’t let me be standing alone at the front of class on Monday, May 9th. I promise to wear pants.)

With no further ado, please allow me to introduce the writers:

• Sommer Leigh (that’s me!) hides out in her secret lair in the Midwest where she creates superheroes, supervillains, and zombies. She has a degree in English and a minor in communications. Sommer writes YA, reads all the time, collects comics, and plays (too) many video games. She’s passionate about the Oxford comma, serif fonts, XBox, Nerdfighters, and saving the world. Her favorite genres are science fiction and horror.

You can find Sommer at Tell Great Stories or on Twitter:

• S.B. Stewart-Laing is a Scottish-Carib marine biologist who enjoys distance running, cooking, and fiddle music. When not baking cookies for the office or running around outside, S.B. writes historical fantasy with infinitely patient coauthor Michael Jay Chernicoff.

You can find SB at Writing the Other, or on twitter:

• Margo Lerwill nests in a windowless cubicle of a dark government hive, furtively scribbling out plans for the destruction of civilization disguised as harmless urban fantasy.  Epic fantasy alternate weekends in months containing the letter ‘r’.  She enjoys Caravaggio paintings, South Park humor, and movies where the monsters stay dead at the end.

You can find Margo at Urban Psychopomp!

• Claudie A. is a biochemistry student from Quebec City, up north in French Canada. She enjoys collecting microbe plushies, cramming sugar in her body and geeking out. Oh, and writing political and high fantasy. Especially writing fantasy.

You can find Claudie at her personal blog, or on twitter: