As I’ve said before, my writing drought came to an end in 2021 when Amazon announced its Kindle Vella platform, a way for writers to serialize stories one chapter at a time. I had been contemplating a new Siegel City story for quite some time, but I knew it didn’t really fit as a novel – it was more of an episodic series of adventures that all tied together…less like a novel and more like a run of a comic book. But as I’m pretty much a one-man operation that can’t draw and working with the salary of a public school teacher, actually producing a comic book was out of the question. But as a prose installment, serialized a piece at a time…Dickens did it. Stephen King did it. Dang it, there’s no reason I couldn’t do it too. That story began to take shape, eventually becoming my series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars.
I never would have suspected how long that particular road would be, as I’m sitting here two and a half years later and just now, finally, getting to the end. (People who’ve been reading along, I love you. Please write a review on Amazon. We’re almost there.) And as so often happens, when Christmas rolled around that year I didn’t want to leave the heroes of that story. And so the three young stars of Little Stars became the heroes of that year’s Christmas story as well. If you haven’t read Little Stars…well, I can’t really be angry at you, because you’re part of a vast majority. But don’t worry, I think this story works just fine on its own. For those of you who are familiar with the exploits of Andi Vargas, Tony Gardner, and Vic Teague, I hope this little bonus glimpse into their lives during the Christmas that follows the beginning of the serial is fun for you.
And once more for the road: how ‘bout that logo? The great Jacob Bascle again! Check him out on Facebook or visit his online portfolio!
Blake M. Petit 