Next year will be my 25-year High School Reunion and while I have been horrible about keeping up with folks from Lebanon Union High School, there's some folks I really am pleased I've re-encountered lately. Some are old friends I've lost touch with. Others are new (or reclaimed) friends. And there's even a couple of other writers in there, and one TV star! It's been great to reconnect with so many wonderful folks, and learn what they've been up to over the last *cough*24*cough* years!

First are a couple of my best friends from back in the day. Darreline Schlim (was Beaver), Sharon Hermann (was Leisinger) and Colette Smith (was Walker) were three of the most awesome friends any dysfunctional and way-too-hyper girl could have had! I was so bummed not to have made the 20-year reunion, but they posed for this picture, and I hope we'll be able to take one with all four of us at the 25!

Another wonderful lady that I didn't spend nearly enough time with in school, but who came out of nowhere to offer me help finding work in her now-home-town of Phoenix was Janet Allen (was Derr). Talk about walking your talk, this lady was just the epitome of human kindness, and I'm grateful to have re-met her!

I've also found that a couple of the folks from my graduating class are pretty famous in their own rights!

My friend, Joseph Buttler,  has always been the most entertaining person in the room. So I was pleased, but not surprised to find he's made a career for himself in acting!

I also graduated with Larissa Ione, the paranormal romance fiction writer! (And with her website's featured motto being "Seduce your dark side!" you know I can't wait to read her stuff!)

Also a professional author, although with a very different field is Lisa Schroeder, children's and YA author! Her stuff is funny and touching and heart-inspiring!

I'm sure there's so many more folks that I've yet to re-learn about, but I'm thrilled to be getting back into contact with folks and finding out so many of them are just as wonderful as I remember (or more so - it was high school, after all!)

(My high school graduating class even has a Facebook page! GO WARRIORS!)

I got a letter today, and I'm feeling a little conflicted about it.  I warn you right now, this isn't one of those neat and tidy little essays where everything wraps up by the end of the letter and you walk away with a nod and a smile. It's kind of conflicted, which is why I'm writing about it - to help me try to delinate out all my mixed feelings about it.

You see, I'm a big advocate of putting your skills to use where they can do the most good, and being a writer, when I am disappointed, frustrated, impressed or outraged, I'll often write a letter to the individual or company in charge of the situation. Many times these letters, I'm sure, go into the circular file well before reaching their intended audience, but sometimes they get through.  In this case,  I'd written United Airlines a few weeks ago, in response to a YouTube Video entitled "United Breaks Guitars."

(You've probably seen this already, but if you haven't, go check it out here. Go ahead... It's hilarious, you'll love it. I'll wait.)

Back? Okay, good... I found a more detailed background on the story on the injured party's website. There, Dave Carroll of the band, Sons of Maxwell, explained the nearly year long process he'd gone through in order to try to receive appropriate compensation for the negiligent injuries done to his guitar while flying on United Airlines. In frustration, he pledged that while he might not be able to force the corporation to do the right thing, he'd use his talents to ensure that the story was spread around. (Hmmm. Sound familiar?)

And spread around it was.  According to this article, the first video in the trio, entitled "United Breaks Guitars" can be found on more than 30 unique sites, and has been seen in excess of 3 million times. That's what I call getting the word out!

Back to today's mail. I received an email from someone at United Airlines' Customer Relations Department. She wrote:

I love chatting with podcast folks (okay, let's be honest, I love chatting with just about everyone.) I've had the privelege of being interviewed by a number of different media groups over the years, and each one has taught me more about the industry, and the people involved in it, than I knew before we started.

One of the high points of my week was talking with the guys at RPG Countdown about the Ready-Made Changeling Motley that I wrote for White Wolf.

Personae, the Ready-Made Changeling motley, was a lot of fun to build. I am a firm fan of any tools that will let Storytellers and players game in more ways, in more situations, more easily, and the Ready-Made character groups (there'll be one for each venue) can be a great aid for folks who may not have time to actually put together characters. They're great, I think, for one-shot games, like those held at conventions or game-days, as well as to introduce new players to the game without having to spend most of the evening building characters.  As mentioned on the podcast, Personae was written to complement either of the two existing Changeling SAS products - Chuck Wendig's The Fear-Maker's Promise (which won a Silver ENie last year for Best Electronic Book!) or The Rose-Bride's Plight, which I wrote and which has been nominated for an ENnie this year, in the category of Best Adventure.

It is always great talking to Ed and Rone at RPG Countdown about gaming. These gentlemen really know their stuff, and if you're curious about new products that are coming out, RPG Countdown is a nice fast listen (about 15 minutes) every other week that still somehow manages to impart a lot of information about the products covered.

In terms of Personae, special thanks, on my part, go out to Tracy Soldan, from the Seattle area, who generously donated a large sum of money during a charity auction, for the right to submit one of his characters for me to use a variation thereof in one of my future works. This isn't something I can do very often, but when I can, it always makes me really happy, because it's a win-win-win situation. The donator gets a chance to see at least some aspect of one of their characters in a canon product, the charity gets well-deserved and truly appreciated funding, and I not only get to kick my muse in a particular direction, but I get to talk in depth with great folks like Tracy about their characters and what they love about playing the games I'm helping make. It's an awesome equation.

An extra treat, when listening to the podcast this evening, was hearing one of my dear friends (and respected co-workers) Matthew McFarland - who some of you may know as Black Hat Matt - as the first guest on the show, speaking about his project, Refuse - the Ready-Made Throng for Promethean, which also made it into the top ten RPG Countdown this week!

Hello and welcome!

After several weeks of work, it's finally ready! This is the first blog post of my new website, a location which (hopefully) will become the "go to" spot for all things me-related. After years of using a broad variety of social media sites (LiveJournal, MySpace, FaceBook, and my former WordPress website) I think we've created a resource which can be used for all of the things I've used those sites for, and from which I can provide information to those other sites without having to repeat myself in a multitude of different formats.

Bear with us, as we work out all the kinks and bugs. If you happen to notice something wonky, please feel free to drop me a note at jess@jesshartley.com with information on your discovery, so that we can address it right away. As well, if there's something that we haven't thought to include on the site that you'd like to see, please drop us a note as well.

That being said - I hope you enjoy the site. New news updates will always be available on the left hand side of the front page, with updated blog postings on the right. But there's much more to see! We've included some writing samples - both previously published and new - on the Excerpts page, and pictures from various adventures I've gone on, in the Gallery. From my Resume page, you can find links to all of the projects I've worked on over the past years, including links to reviews, cover art and answers to the constant question "What part of the book did you write?"

Over the next few weeks I'll be putting in con-reports, adding more photos, and really fleshing out the framework we've built here. Future plans include a forum, maybe a chat room, and other nifty features, depending on what you all want to get out of the site. So, come on in, take a look around, and let me know what you think! Hope to hear back from you all soon!

~jess