Magickal Adventure Stories for Young Adults
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VOLUME 1: A GATHERING OF ENCHANTMENT
VOLUME 2: THE HEART OF DARKNESS
VOLUME 3: CROSSROADS OF
MAGICK
AND INTRODUCING
FULL-LENGTH WIZARD ACADEMIES NOVELS:
WIZARD ACADEMIES: RUMPOTS, CRACKPOTS, AND POOKA-MAZED HALFWITS
WIZARD ACADEMIES: A SPECIAL KIND OF TALENT
The
WIZARD ACADEMIES anthologies are a collaborative effort involving a number of
authors from around the world. These
anthologies appeal to the same audience as J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER books,
featuring Young Adult fantasies about magickally-gifted youngsters training to
be the wizards of tomorrow.
The problems these
students face are the same as faced by other young adults:
-
Who
will win the big game?
-
Does
that handsome older boy like me?
-
How
am I ever going to remember where all my classes are if the rooms keep
moving?
-
Why
does the Wandmaster hang upside down by his heels outside the
cafeteria?
-
How
do you ask a question to a professor teaching class from
inside a coffin?
-
How
many years can you spend mucking out monster cages in detention and
still graduate?
The answers to these and other
questions are found in this delightful collection of wizardling adventures
published by ADTP Publishing, LLC. The dangers are deadly, the young heroes are
plucky, the professors are learned, and the villains are dangerous and evil.
WIZARD ACADEMIES began in
September 2005 and has grown to include over a dozen stories by nine authors and
an illustrator. This collaborative effort was started by editor Alan Lance
Andersen, and quickly grew as people began submitting story ideas, notes,
partial chapters, ideas for characters, and wildly imaginative schools.
"Given
the general parameters---young teen-agers in magickal schools -- there is an
amazing diversity in the approaches people have taken," Andersen said.
"Some of the tales are mysteries, others are romances or adventure stories,
and one is a rather chilling ghost story."
The authors come from many
parts of the world, including New Zealand, Brazil, and from California,
Michigan, Arkansas, Iowa, and New Jersey in the United States. The illustrator
is a talented young artist from Spain.
Andersen's guidelines requested
that the tales be set in traditional British-style boarding schools -- only
magickal -- which could be smaller and more eccentric than the university
in Rowling's POTTER books. The stories needed to be suitable for older children
and young adults. No religious witchcraft and no devil-worshiping.
"It's magick as a
scientific study -- not a religion," Andersen said.
While the stories will appeal
to the same audience as HARRY POTTER, all of the characters and settings are
unique and original. Many of the stories incorporate traditional English folk
and faery lore.
These first two anthologies in
the WIZARD ACADEMIES series include:
- Murder mystery stories with characters and
plots reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes,
Nero Wolfe, and Oliver Twist. The student wizards solve crimes that Scotland
Yard can't unravel.
- A chilling ghost story in which the students
are reincarnated and try to find out who
they were in their previous lives.
- Gothic romances in which the heroine has to
decide who she will allow to
kiss her -- the nice guy or the monster.
- Wild-and-wooly adventure tales with
tongue-and-cheek humor and dragons
to conquer.
While most of the schools are
located in the border counties of England, Scotland, and Wales, one is set in
the Appalachian Mountains of the United States and another is set in Egypt.
Most of the schools have various magickal games and sports for students
to participate in such as monster rodeos and live-action pinball in a canyon.
Other games are sorcerous take-offs of traditional back-lot and street games
kids play after school. Many of these games and sports tie into the story lines.
The second anthology, HEART OF
DARKNESS, has an ongoing theme that runs throughout its stories that involve the
evil faery Delisandre le Fay, queen of Elfin Court of Foxcastle.
She is trying to get her hands on a terribly powerful magickal talisman,
but the problem is that nobody quite knows for sure what it is.
Several of the authors featured
in these anthologies are well established in the writing industry.
Andersen's other publications include THE FROST HAINT OF 'POSSUM HOLLOW',
a collection of Mark-Twain-style humorous folk tales told in Ozark Dialect.
The WIZARD ACADEMIES an be
ordered at Amazon.com and through the WIZARD ACADEMIES official website at http://www.interdrama.com/wiz/.
fans of the series are welcome to join the WIZARD ACADEMIES Yahoo fan
website at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wizard-Academies/.
The Yahoo fan website will have games and contests with WIZARD ACADEMIES
related prizes, the latest info on upcoming books, other fun activities, and an
opportunity to ask the authors questions.
To
read my sample chapter
For more information, please contact:
Alan Lance Andersen
ADTP Publishing, LLC
122 West Ash Lane
Roland, Iowa 50236
(515) 388-5573
