Behold, the fabled Aves Amphibia resting calmly in my hands!

Feathered Frog Press is a self-publishing company for B. L. White to develop and sell original stories to various online ebook outlets like Amazon and Barnes and Nobles.

This is the description for any who ask.  The next question is a given, “Why so strange a name?”

It all happened eleven years ago.  Centenary College of Louisiana was in full semester swing and my mind was just getting tuned in to whatever music courses lay ahead.  After the very first day of my freshman classes, whimsical feet led me to the front steps of Magale Library.

The year was 2000, a simpler time for a 125-year-old campus on the verge of computerized revolution.  I was still wrapping my head around how many computers there were on the first floor of the Library.  Shouldn’t there be more books here, I pondered?

I walked over to one of the computers and sat down.  Keep in mind that this was before YouTube and Facebook.  I really had no idea what I would accomplish here.  Thus, out of boredom, an idea sparked, a challenge to write the most descriptive short story I could.

What else was there to do in a library partially void of books?  I might as well start composing one of them.

My ignorance was bliss at the time, creative digits taping out a rather odd, ill-fated sentence, Once upon a heart there stood a Greenish Tall Tree, and beside that sat a Wonderful Sight.  Such were the humble beginnings of the fickle past… leading me to my present state.

Over the years, the simple six-page story about a feathered toad, grew fast into a sprawling epic.   My writing skills, thankfully, grew with it.  This included a different opening, “Once upon the time of now…”  which had the nagging paradox of being both past and present-tense… thus dooming the quirky phrase right where it stood!

I never gave up though, spunky imagination alive with vigor for what it could accomplish.  several revisions later the story of the Feathered Toad became what friends and family fondly remember as, The Feathered Frog’s Demise.

Even after graduation I fiddled with it, rewriting the thing over and over, until I grew dizzy with trepidation!  It was far from the magnum opus I wanted it to be.  Worst of all, I was too close to see it in an objective light.  Thus ended my affair with dreams and riddles.  I moved on to other ideas and other tales.

I will never forget the beast of a story that sparked my writing style though, paving the way to where I stand this very second.

Someday I will work through the issues of The Feathered Frog’s Demise and put the dreamy fable on the market.  Until then, its iconic protagonist, the venerable Feathered Frog himself, will live on as the symbol for my new self-publishing company.

First order of business, get Feathered Frog Press recognized by the state.  Next order, finish the epic sci-fi story, Void Voyage 1 (coming out… whenever it does) Third order… I don’t know, perhaps a supreme pizza no anchovies… and a nice, cold coke to warm me up.

Any serious ebook authors should check this site out for practical advice on how to start your own self-publishing company.

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Void Voyage 1: sent back to the editor for its final edit!

Story Synopsis: A good emperor inherits a corrupt empire that he must fix, planet by bleeding planet, before war consumes the Solar System.  The first episode is set on the Martian heights of Olympus Mons.  A beautiful clone, spawned to symbolize the sacrifice of perfection, must choose to live for peace, instead of die to it.

New expected due date: the end of April, 2011 (be patient, it is well worth it)

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The Shreveport Chronicles: Shadeskin is a mutual project in connection with two other local ebook authors, Amanda White and Jason Craft.  It will be a collection of urban fantasy novellas, synergized with borrowed characters and placed in chronological order.

Status: we are finished with our first drafts, now on to friendly edits in order to work out story cohesion.

Story Synopsis: an urban fantasy setting where Shades and Illumin hide in plain sight, fighting for humanity’s fate amidst the heaven-reaching skyscrapers of Shreveport.  An ordinary young man, with an extraordinary past, is unwittingly caught up in this eternal battle.  Can Matt uncover the Shadeskin mystery while fighting black-winged murderers, dry-cleaning routs, and zombies?

Expected due date: Mid-June, 2011

Until then… happy reading!