Jason M. Waltz has published 16 Books under Rogue Blades Entertainment (RBE), another 3 under Rogue Blades Foundation (RBF), having lured in authors Such as Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, C.L. Werner, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Ian C. Esslemont, William King, Andy Offutt, and spurred the writing careers of dozens. Not all are Sword and Sorcery (S&S), with weird western and pirate anthologies appearing, but most are.  Two of my favorite introductions to anthologies cap the ends of the RBE series: Return of the Sword (2008) and Neither Beg Nor Yield (2024 BG reviewed by Vredenburgh and Mele), the latter JMW refers to as his Swan Song marking a shift toward focusing on his own writing. Coincident with that, he has recently sunsetted the related RBF.  We’ll discuss some of his works to date, but note that he has three stories seeing publication in July 2025!

He’s mingled with the Black Gate crew in many ways over the years, invited John O’Neill to pen the introductions, published many contributors here, and now he is interviewing them. Yes, you will be glad to know that even as he steers from publishing to writing more, he is still actively building the community through his 24 in 42 podcast [broadcasted via the Rogue Blades Presents YouTube channel]. Heck he is even hand in the game by guest editing Raconteur Press’ first Sword & Sorcery anthology.  He never tires.

As we salute his heroic efforts, let’s learn more about his journey!

“Heroes are those who continue to do the ordinary in extraordinary times, and to do the extraordinary in ordinary times.” –  JMW 2008

How did S&S infect you? In the Acknowledgement section of Return of the Sword you cite an encounter with George R.R. Martin (~2005) as a milestone, but it seems you had to have been infected prior that.

Infect me? Hmmm. Tarzan of the Apes and Dan Barry grabbed me by ankles and wrists and tossed me into the deep end of the legendary pool of heroic characters. My mother read aloud and then I read on my own the epics with teams of heroes working together (Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia specifically), while my grandfather handed me stacks of the Westerns and espionage tales (from Louis L’Amour to Robert Ludlum) he read. I also grew up reading many classics or at least long-time popular adventure titles from the likes of Jack London, Alexandre Dumas, Nathanial Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and many of the Norse, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian myths.

As kids, we would go to Goodwills and four used bookstores over the surrounding counties and spend hours poring over books and taking baskets of them home. (It is one of my greatest joys in life that I was able to take both of my daughters to my favorite of these old used bookstores before it finally closed as the last of those I grew up with.) I found and followed many authors this way, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Richard A. Knaak, Frederick Forsyth to Alastair MacLean, Max Brand to John Benteen, Karl Edward Wagner to David Gemmell. While I enjoyed my ensemble casts, I seemed to cotton most to the lone warriors, no matter how they were loners, be they castaway, ostracized, jungle lord, solitary gunslinger, debonair spy, mythical being, or axe-wielding fighter – the last version of this character type which I discovered.

Seriously: I was Huck Finn, Lord Greystoke, Buck, a Sackett brother, Kaz the Minotaur, Aragorn, Luke Cage, Thor, the Count of Monte Cristo. I was Raistlin, D’Artagnan, Lestat, Casca, Steve Austin, Tomas, the Outlaw of Torn, and finally, Conan. I grew up mostly without television and no one in my life was a comic reader so I only read those on the few occasions I found them or got them cheap. I was aware of but did not know most of the television, film, and comic characters until much later in life.

My heroes were in the books I could get my hands on, and I got my hands on lots of books. I think I had almost 4,000 of them by the time I was in late high school. I typically won every library reading contest I entered. The cool thing was, I grew up in the woods on a lake in Wisconsin, so I read in both places all the time and lived/acted/played my adventures right where I read them. Then I got to visit my grandfather in the Arizona desert a few weeks a year and there I got to live/act/play my Western dramas with real tumbleweeds and tarantulas while wearing my not-so-real six-shooter cap gun, cowboy hat, and pearl-buttoned shirts.

I also grew up among real war and sport and life heroes. I grew up seeing and playing and being heroes all around me in my real and reading lives, and I believed in them. I took it as a given fact there were heroes, that we wanted heroes, and that we could aspire to be those heroes. Like I said, Tarzan and Barry led me to Conan and S&S. Tarzan was the noble product of both his blood and his environment. He was the epitome of surviving and doing it right. Barry was like the perfect hero to me: he was just plain the best at whatever he did and he even had a way with ferocious beasts no one else could approach, they loved him and only him, fled when he died.

I have never been able to say exactly where I got my first Conan, but it was two slim white paperbacks, one with Frazetta’s red-caped ape being jumped by Conan and one with Sanjulián’s Conan thrusting a sword upright through an ape, that brought Sword & Sorcery front and center to my attention. It looked somewhat like Tarzan, it sounded somewhat like Tarzan’s life, it also sounded like a solitary gunman’s life, and it included the fantastical standards, prowess, excellence and heroics of Dan Barry, Greek gods, and Aragorn, who was my favorite of Tolkien’s characters. In short, S&S looked like it put everything I most enjoyed across all my reading into one book, even one character.

I still like my big books and I cannot lie (here’s looking at you Malazan Book of the Fallen!), but I am definitely a character reader and writer and I identify with lone heroes more than teamed-up heroes. I have also determined that my own inclination to write short stories, at most novelettes, versus novels has over the last twenty years focused my attention on the shorter form storytelling, which is predominately the ideal for S&S and heroic fantasy. Reading and editing it for publication over those 20 years too has definitely primed me for punchy, action-heavy, defiant reads that still portray a sense of hope and heroics. Infected? Perhaps, as I am the only one of my reading influences to have travelled this particular path. Martin may have helped orient me in the wide world of writing and writing heroics, but my being here is a culmination of many influences, all of the above being most likely only the hint of them.

Your final anthology Neither Beg Nor Yield introduction (“It’s not Gentle”) you detail the Attitude of S&S (below quote). Can you paraphrase here what the attitude is?

“Sword & Sorcery is flush with Life… is a clenched fist thrust into the sky, a raised middle finger in the face of the Unknown, is contrary to Death… is more than Heroic Fantasy….. lies Beyond this Place.” – JMW 2024 NBNY

If you really want the paraphrase you can cut to the break (way) below… though “It’s Not Gentle” works pretty damn well all by itself. Otherwise enjoy the following philosophical exploration. 😉

It took me years to identify the ‘Attitude’ I have always associated with Sword & Sorcery, that I have always felt in my bones and soul whenever I read the real thing. S&S evokes a certain feeling within, in my opinion, and if something that claims to be S&S doesn’t stimulate that same sensation, then sadly it is not S&S. It can be perfectly fine, fun, fabulous heroic fantasy – but without that heart it ain’t Sword & Sorcery. Which is why, even as a youth, when I finally met Elric, I instantly knew he was not S&S. Shit, his creator even said the character was the anti-Conan.

There’s stretching genres and there’s changing genres, and change means something new, which by definition means it ain’t the old. Call your new creation whatever you want to so long as you don’t try to claim it is what it isn’t. So when I first started dabbling in the world of reading for selection, for editing, for publication, and then finally for my own titles, and I had to identify what I wanted, I called it an ‘Extreme Edge’ (actually the first version was ‘Xtreme Edge’), which was a play on Howard Andrew Jones’ ‘New Edge,’ done in admiration, homage, and because I sought commonality not duplication, connection with distinction.

I wanted more – the Most Stuff Oreo instead of the original. From the start, I could share stories that gave exactly what I wanted easily: Nathan Meyer’s “The Hand that Holds the Crown,” Steve Goble’s “The Redemption of Calthus,” Bill Ward’s “The Wolf of Winter,” Phil Emery’s “The Last Scream of Carnage.” Because of how easy it was to share and find such stories for my Extreme Edge, I guess I never tried to firmly define it. The same Howard Jones from whom I’d liberated ‘Xtreme Edge’ had a quite handy definition of Sword & Sorcery readily available on his website. I adopted it with slight modifications and attribution with a link to him and ran ahead with that on the RBE website for years. Until…

I started and then kept seeing or hearing ‘What is S&S?’ comments/queries across all of my writing/reading/publishing worlds, appearing everywhere, online, at conventions, in person, and often. Far too often. Howard’s definition includes four components, a fifth if you actually take in all he has to say. He and I held conversations about it over the years, more so at the onset of my publishing career. While I dispute none of it, it’s always felt cumbersome to me, pedantic. I suppose for scientific research it is helpful to have layers of an informative outline to bolster study and other aims, but for writing? Writers need quick, powerful, sensational bullets that are direct and simple.

Sword & Sorcery is most about its heroes; more than place or plot it is the people that makes a story S&S. These heroes are unlike the heroes we grew up with, that fill epic fantasy and swashbuckling adventure: they are hands-on and dirty, they come from somewhere else and with their own standards, they solve their (not the world’s) problems fast and face-to-face, and they live hard, meaning to life’s utmost, and in pursuit of what pleases them, and what pleases them most is defeating any and every challenge, especially the next one. Put that type of heroic character into a fantastical story that has a bit of the historical and/or horrific within it and you’ve a S&S tale. I never argued with Howard about it, but I did argue with Gene Wolfe about it, though that had not been my intention. 😊

I think the idea that, saying that, you have a character with a sword, and/or maybe another character with some magic – even spooky sorcerous bad magic – and they experience an adventure in a weird-enough world or time, even an adventure that is more about them than that world, does not make a S&S story. Having all of that just doesn’t make a story S&S. Simply not being epic fantasy does not make a story Sword & Sorcery by default. There must be a bold and passionate heart beating from its core.

Then along came Brian Murphy’s wonderfully helpful history of Sword & Sorcery wherein he included a list of seven components of a S&S tale. These more or less encapsulate Howard’s four/five descriptors, though while the list lengthens, the words describing each point decrease. Again, I technically dispute none of it, and I’ve never argued with Brian either, but seven?! Seven!? Unnecessary. And then I started seeing answers to the oft’ repeated question ‘What is S&S?’ including both lists, adding them together, entwining their reasonings, and turning what should be so, so easy, into a rules-laden wearisome thing. Sure, there’s always the caveat ‘If it has most of these things it could be S&S, but just because it does/doesn’t does not mean it’s not S&S.’ I mean – come on! What kind of gobbledygook is that? What’s the point of descriptors if they don’t matter? If the game uses an elongated oval-shaped, air-filled leather ball, it’s football. If the story features a thick-wristed warrior good with a close-quarters-combat weapon who faces down fantastical challenges with a smile and saves what s/he wants before what the world wants, it’s Sword & Sorcery.

And so I grew frustrated and saddened. Akin to a religion and its teachers, there are the core components of S&S (its tenets) and then there are the layers of additional requirements institutions and masters impose, over time, in pursuit of control — whatever the reason, it is all simply more. And typically more means more difficult, more onerous, more ways to fail. Then, out of the blue, Lyndon Perry invited me to write the foreword to his pending Swords & Heroes Swords & Sorcery Anthology, and suddenly I was at the drawing board with fresh ink, fresh paper, and fresh desire to finally, finally define this Attitude of Sword & Sorcery that I had always known but never set to print.

To be fair, I offer my two-part definition of Sword & Sorcery built upon the premise we’re beginning on the same page with unarguable commonalities. Perhaps that’s disingenuous, as doing so allows me not to include them in my definition. Yet just like any other debating conversation amongst friends and acquaintances, if we don’t share a foundation we can all accept, the argument we’re having is not the argument we think we’re having. For example – and sticking with our football analogy – if we were to debate the merits and qualities of what is true American Football, we must all begin the conversation with understanding of what the sport is, where it is played, what it is played with, etc.

If someone joining the conversation then inserts the Sioux City Bandits, the Calgary Stampeders, or even more outrageously, Manchester United, the conversation has changed to one about what football is rather than what American football is. The same holds true for any conversation about what S&S is. If we cannot begin with the expectations we all agree that it is fantasy, that it is low fantasy, that it requires components both historical and horrific, that it typically features single or duo protagonists, that it is action-oriented, and that it typically reads better in shorter form, then we’re not holding the same conversation. Once all involved have established their common ground, then it truly comes down to the characters which ultimately define whether the story with all those other ingredients is grand Heroic Fantasy or truly Sword & Sorcery.

Ultimately, I think, when examining the genres, the characters, and the challenges I find most appealing, it is the fierce independence, the freedom and burden of personal choice, and the mostly automatic inclination to do heroic deeds, to be heroic, that fantasy stories – specifically those of Sword & Sorcery – satisfy my internal core craving. A good, true S&S tale appeals to my primeval soul, my eternal essence – to me it is acutely obvious when those are not reached that the medium is not my S&S no matter its claims. For me, then, S&S Attitude is the Heroic Attitude of a character, the Hero, to defy Death on his terms in pursuit of his aims, doing so by always accepting every challenge in order to prove himself to himself. We don’t get to live lives like that, for the most part, so quality Sword & Sorcery gives us a taste.

Now to paraphrase: The Sword & Sorcery Attitude elevates a great Heroic Fantasy story into an inspiring Sword & Sorcery story by personifying a defiance of Death in the pursuit of besting Challenge. I loved Aragorn as an early reader and I still like and respect him no less today, but he is not a S&S Attitude character. Could he survive in a S&S world or story? Certainly, though with little joy (mirth). Aragorn is heroic and honorable and embraced his duty with sorrow but without hesitation. He did not embrace all the challenges, regardless of feelings of responsibility or none, with a laugh and request for more. The Heroic Fantasy hero defies Death courageously and valorously and often sacrificially. The S&S Attitude protagonist takes Death by the throat and shakes Life out of it while grinning the whole while.

Heroism is the foundation of your essays and books. At risk of having you provide an entire manifesto; can you tell us more about beauty in heroism?

“Being heroic does not make one fearless. On the contrary, it is fear that makes one act heroically. Fear demands a choice be made, an intent declared. Fear is to heroics what light is to darkness: there is no such thing as the latter—just less of the former. Heroes are those courageous enough to act despite their fear…. Winning isn’t a requirement for being a hero. Many a hero has fallen mid-combat, often without anyone knowing until the battle is over. The result is not necessarily important, though the more successful the victory the more beautiful the heroics, the louder the praise…”  – JMW 2008

The beauty in heroism. That, all by itself, is a beautiful statement, a beautiful thought. The thing about heroes that’s most beautiful is that they don’t plan their heroics, they don’t ponder if a particular choice will be more heroic than another, they don’t even think the word hero. They simply do and be. And being heroic means doing and being on someone else’s behalf.

Today the word ‘hero’ is applied far more liberally than originally intended. Sports players are heroes; entertainers are heroes; survivors are heroes. Really? Sure, I would have called Mean Joe Greene my hero if asked as a kid – but I also called my World War II grandfather a hero. I’d call Sylvester Stallone my hero – when it’s actually characters he played that are my heroes (Rocky, Rambo). And I could call a cancer survivor a hero – even though that too is inaccurate. Now if that cancer survivor, despite all the pain of the disease and the treatment, forced themselves to smile and get up and encourage other sufferers and was an ambassador of hope instead of pain… that’s heroic. Simply being the last one standing is not heroic UNLESS one did something about it. And not selfishly. That’s a different kind of hero.

As a child, heroes are often larger than life; sometimes that being larger than life thing is all that makes them out to be heroic. As we age, or at least mature, we see this and we discover not everyone large or appearing large is actually, in fact, a hero. Many times the heroes are the reserved ones, the ones who be and do when being and doing isn’t all it’s cracked up as and then don’t say a whole lot about it. I’ve been around them, among them, with them: the cowboys, the Marines, the selfless sports stars, the cops, who have stood tall, stood up, stood firm, stood proud, stood certain, stood. Even when inside they may not be so certain or firm or proud or feel so tall or big enough, strong enough, to endure. So the beauty in heroism is that it’s not bravado, not histrionic, not worn like a gown to be shrugged on and off. It’s beautiful because acts of heroism display the worthiness of the actor, the heart of the hero.

Which, when looked at this way, emphasizes the importance I repeat and stress every other year in maintaining the distinctions of the words and meanings of hero, Byronic hero, and anti-hero. They all have a place, they all matter, and they each demonstrate an aspect of heroism that we should want to know and understand. The hero, in its purest form, is the epitome of man. That we cannot achieve pure heroics one hundred percent of the time isn’t the point; that we aim to, that some of us try to be heroic, try to set heroic examples, try to be prepared to step into the gap whenever necessary… but that is enough. Heroes are equipped with heart, spirit, desire, and ability. And they are beautiful.

The term anti-hero is misapplied far too often these days. It’s become a shortcut because it’s simpler for simpler minds. The true anti-hero is the good-hearted soul who tries to be and do the heroic thing and fails, or, if they succeed, bumbles into that success. These are the Charlie Browns and Winnie the Poohs in life, the people who really do mean well and try to do well and willingly try to step into the gap but just can’t. Can’t because they are incapable of doing so, through size, strength, stamina, sense. When they’re heroic everyone cheers because it is a joyful event when these anti-heroes are able to be heroes. Despite lacking the ability, they come with the heart and the spirit and the desire and are beautiful because of that.

“Heroics matter to me because I think a world sans heroes would not be beautiful, would, instead, be horrific.” — JMW

The Byronic hero, on the other hand, is not so beautiful – but I’d argue it’s the hero we have in most abundance. This is the person who has the ability, all the ability, but only sometimes the heart or the spirit or the desire. Never all four at once. They are heroic toward an end, usually their end, and sometimes — just sometimes — their end coincides with ends that help/save/assist others. Even more rarely, the Byronic hero might sacrifice their end or at least a portion of their end to make a larger difference for others/in the world around them. That, actually, is also a beautiful thing, if one recognizes it when witnessed.

Heroics come with costs. Sometimes those costs are extracted immediately, sometimes over time. Heroes accept their risk, do not shy away from those costs no matter how much they do not want them. They know the danger comes with the willingness to be heroic. Heroes don’t wake up in the morning planning to die by nightfall, but they do willingly run into burning buildings to save others and don’t make it back out on that one-more trip. Anti-heroes, to the extent they understand them, hazard the costs, accepting the costs should they succeed because they fear the costs if they don’t try. They, too, do not arise with intent to die that day, but when they see others in jeopardy and recognize that they could maybe save them, they try, even knowing they most likely will fail and even possibly die as well, because for them not trying is a worse cost.

Byronic heroes evaluate the costs. If it’s in their favor, they act. When a Byronic hero acts heroically for more than themselves, that is heroic, intentional or accidental. Regardless, that is beautiful. But frankly, Byronic heroics are typically ugly. They, too, definitely don’t intend on dying each day, and when around such a possibility, they work the odds to ensure they do not, even if the only way to guarantee such is doing nothing, taking zero risks. The Byronic hero takes the least amount of risk necessary to ensure the greatest amount of gain. One can know for certain that if a Byronic hero takes a huge risk, s/he deems the possible result highly likely and highly profitable.

So, yes, heroics matter to me because I think a world sans heroes would not be beautiful, would, instead, be horrific. Interestingly enough, today of all days, I just read two sentences about heroism in an introduction to a Robert E. Lee biography by Emory M. Thomas, that really resonate: “People usually venerate as a hero someone who exemplifies (or who they believe exemplifies) virtues which they admire or to which they aspire. Heroism thus reveals more about the society that admires than about the hero.” (Emphasis mine.) How true this is become. This is why Homelander is today deemed more heroic than Superman. Why? Because Superman is old hat, a goodie two-shoes made laughably extinct while Homelander is gloriously us, gritty, dark and grim. It’s nihilism versus hope. Because any asshole can be Homelander if you shoot him up with Temp V; no one can be Superman no matter what they’re given. Like I said, a world sans heroes, true heroes, lacks beauty. It’s ugly.

Long answer, but aren’t manifestos usually longer… like dissertations?

What has your writing journey been like? How has the community been involved? I am thinking of an updated version of what you wrote in the Acknowledgement section of Return of the Sword:

And so began my short story writing. Through interactions via the SFReader.com Forum I met and furthered my relationships with Daniel, Armand Rosamilia (of Carnifex Press), James Boone Dryden (now of Sheer Speculation Press), Kelly Christiansen (of Cyberwizard Productions), and numerous other fine editors, authors, and reviewers.

These connections led in turn to progressive opportunities: fantasy book reviewer in the Carnifex Press magazine Clash of Steel; book reviewer for SFReader.com; fantasy acquisitions editor for the Sheer Speculation Press magazine Staffs & Starships; assistant managing editor for the very same Flashing Swords ezine I discovered that pivotal night and newly resurrected under Cyberwizard Productions; promotion to anthology editor then managing editor of the new imprint Flashing Swords Press; and now editor and publisher at Rogue Blades Entertainment, my very own publishing house…

My writing journey is unique in some ways and nothing unusual in others. I’m no different than dozens of others with similar experiences in volunteering, reading, helping. I’m quite different in at least one way, in that of how I became a publisher. Backing into publishing… is not the way to go about it, I must confess. I should have had a plan, should have sought a business-minded person to join my creative mind, should have… done much more planning and projecting.

And not done half a dozen things, like attending DragonCon as a dealer three straight years as a newbie with no money or publish a book — the same book — with five different covers. I mistakenly thought that ‘comic book with variant covers idea’ was so good. LOL… I’m still paying just those things off all these years later. But that stuff goes in the next section, this question is about my own writing journey.

I can emphatically say that volunteering led me to meeting people, writers, creators, and specifically volunteering to slush and selection read led to me expanding my writing and creation. Reading for enjoyment is one thing; reading for evaluation is another. Even at the lowest level, making a decision on someone else’s words and storytelling helped me develop as a writer. I encourage anyone to try their hand at it, at least for a year. It widens your understanding of stories, storytelling, and that, while there may not be a new story under the sun, there is a new way to tell a story or feature a hero or hook a reader. Volunteering cannot hurt you other than possibly the time it will take from your own writing and personal reading. And that’s totally up to you in all honesty.

While learning from others, my desire to write my own stuff continually grew. It never really ran away, it just got suffocated. I learned I struggled with being creative for solely myself versus on behalf of projects, and I did love creating those projects. Titles and themes and soliciting writers and creating an orchestral score of the contents – I totally enjoyed all of that. Now and again I would get a story written, usually not a very good one. But I gained some insightful writer friends who would allow me to share my efforts with them and their feedback nursed me along. I am forever grateful to them, some of whom have passed beyond the veil, but I hope I can do all of them proud. Writing is a solitary act in that without putting butt in seat and hand to work no story will ever be created. Yet writing is not a solitary act in that it takes a village of creators to encourage and another village of readers to appreciate that creation. I give eternal thanks that there have been enough of both to push me into that writing seat. And that is the journey and what makes the journey all worthwhile.

Reflecting back on publishing, can you reveal select highlights and challenges? What are you most proud of?

There have definitely been some adventures in my publishing life. Many of them involve or at least originate with a certain Mr. John O’Neill. I met E.E. Knight, John C. Hocking, and Howard Andrew Jones on the same day due to John… and that night John and I lost to Messrs. Hocking and Jones in a Knight-run Heroscape battle. I met Martha Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Claire S.E. Cooney and others at WisCon, ironically with my bare-chested barbarian Kaimer banner on my dealer’s table. I met many authors and Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky Literary Agency at a massive Tor party in a penthouse in Chicago.

Joshua became my agent for the Mandarin rights to Writing Fantasy Heroes. I attended two World Fantasy Cons, one because of John and one because of Steven Erikson; it is my most favorite of cons and the only big-name award I was ever interested in pursuing. I met Glen Cook in Chicago and then ate pizza with him and Steve in Saratoga Springs and both of them promised and then did kill me in their respective books. I so very proudly claim membership among the Black Company and death by the hands of Bauchalain. Oh, and remember that bit in the last question about volunteering? Always volunteer to carry John O’Neill’s book purchases when you meet him at conventions 😊

I met Lou Anders, Toni Weisskopf, and Josepha Sherman when I turned to them beside me on a panel I was unexpectedly added to. I got to meet Eugie Foster, a most wonderful human being, and even work with her on the DragonCon news. DragonCon is also where I met Brandon Sanderson, which allowed me to invite him to write for Writing Fantasy Heroes. Not only did Brandon agree to write for that title, so did Orson Scott Card. I proudly lay claim as the responsible party to his own voiced statement in his respective essay that the Ender’s Game movie finally became possible after years of trying when he wrote my essay.

I met Richard K. Lyon through SFReader.com and because of Richard got to meet Andy Offutt, who was so very pissed when he found out I was a nothing of a publisher after Richard died and I had to finish up Rage of the Behemoth with Andy. After calming him down we actually hit it off and had several amicable conversations. The only ‘pro’ whom ever was a dick to me was Todd McCaffrey, who – rightfully or not – loudly wondered in public why he would ever work with someone as insignificant as I. He flat out told me I was beneath him.

Oh, I take that back; Jim Frenkel went off on me when I very first started at my very first convention in Madison, WI, when he found out I was working with the online Flashing Swords e-zine, as he claimed we killed his opportunity to revitalize that famous anthology line with our bullshit. He and I had other conversations after that though, and while they were never sweet, they weren’t horrible either.

Like I mentioned, I’ve argued with Gene Wolfe over lunch and later, unrelated and inadvertently, lost him as part of Writing Fantasy Heroes when we couldn’t get the Adobe contract to work properly for him. He is the only author I’ve lost like that, and the only pro I failed to completely get to work with once we’d started. I met Jaym Gates in Atlanta, both of us newbies but she far more experienced even then, though I instantly recognized her as the force she’s definitely become today. I met Mary Rosenblum online and we held many conversations via email and through her writing portal and she graced me with her creativity several times. Her plane crash death was a shock and the world lost a wonderful writing mind. I also held several email conversations with Charles Saunders and will forever be deeply saddened that he passed away alone amidst our back-and-forth for Robert E. Howard Changed My Life. I’ve been honored to publish the last pieces of several people, from Richard K. Lyon to Charles Saunders to Carrie Clickard (As You Wish!), and the last collaboration of Lyon and Offutt.

In all my years of working with authors there are only two whom I would rather not work with again, so I think that’s pretty darn good. Of course I’ve never verbalized that, and to my knowledge, no one has ever said they would never work with me again. Through Michael Ehart I was able to put RBE books in Michael Moorcock’s hands from the beginning and land Lois Tilton in Rage of the Behemoth in her last short fiction work. Through all of the above connections I was able to further connect with several people I’d previously not met, all of whom agreed to appear in Robert E. Howard Changed My Life.

In short, I’ve landed every living author I’ve pursued but three: George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, and Scott Lynch, all of whom I met in Madison and the first two of whom I’ve sat and conversed with. Okay, four: McCaffrey. I failed miserably on my very first professional invite. Technically I landed Wolfe then lost him, so I’m not counting that. 😊

Almost from the beginning I’ve been truly gifted with the online friendship of Clint Werner, who has been an encouragement from afar for so very long. I truly hope we meet one day. Speaking of meeting, it would be my delight to at least once connect in person with William King, Keith J. Taylor, Brian Ruckley, Adrian Cole, Paul Kearney, and Peter McLean, all overseas fellows who have graced my works.

I always tried to do something special, something different, something even unique with each title, hoping the unexpected was a welcome, pleasing surprise for readers and fans alike. All in all, it has been a good run, I believe. I am proud of the smorgasbord of titles, themes, and works I’ve published. I am delighted to have worked with practically all the authors I enjoy reading. I am beyond honored that they (a) worked with me, (b) let me edit them, and (c) still communicate with me. I am content with so many things in my publishing career. I’ve tried to list all the ‘bigger ticket’ items I can recall, but honestly? I am proud to have been trusted by so many to publish their work and I am so very gratified with the decades of encouragement from people such as you, Seth.

Rogue Blade Foundation Books

Tell us about the non-S&S RBE/RBF Titles. What inspired you to publish other genres?

Well, from the start I intended RBE to publish ALL heroic genres. I just started with my favorites 😊

There was always going to be Westerns and Pirates and Space, even Sci-Fi. I wanted RBE to really be THE Home of Heroics, where readers could find every heroic story under the sun and heroic writers could find a publisher eager to share their stories of heroes. From the start I intended to publish heroic nonfiction as well, and I had great plans for so very many things. As I began attending conventions and getting introduced around (most often by John O’Neill… there’s that name again!… and probably while I was carrying boxes of books to his vehicle), I got to meet authors I was reading and many of them were people I enjoyed talking with and absorbing their takes. So I started getting ideas of grabbing those thoughts of theirs and putting them out there for others to read.

That was the genesis of my first nonfiction, Writing Fantasy Heroes: I decided I wanted to put together a small book of advice on how exactly one goes about creating an appealing hero. I always have an angle though, and my angle on this one was that the authors could give any advice they wished… but they had to back it up with their own writing. While they could cite the works of others, they had to use their own words and works to bolster their claims.

Now some reviews slam the book for that, for including too much of the authors’ words, and that’s on me. I should have written that in my foreword, should have specifically told readers that this was not only guidance from the professionals but the actual advice they applied to their own writing. It’s easy to give advice if you don’t have to include examples of yourself following it. I wanted a stronger book and thought it a clever idea. Honestly, I realize I should have cut a few of the authors self-quoting slightly, but the package delivers what I sought and I am very happy with and proud of it.

Interestingly, the only tweak I would make (and might if I print a second edition) is in the title: I’d drop the ‘Fantasy’ and just call it Writing Heroes. Which is the advice I received when I shopped it around to a few big names. It is the one and only time I shopped a title to publishers and agents, and while it did not go anywhere, that was the one piece of advice I should have accepted from John Silbersack, the uber-agent Howard Andrew Jones introduced me to. I enjoyed a great discussion with John sitting over coffee in Atlanta, but in all truth, I was too green in the publishing world at that time to be shopping a title, talking to him, or probably even publishing such a book. But hey, it worked, right? WFH is the only Rogue Blades title translated into another language – Mandarin – at outside request from Fantasy Foundation Publishing of Cite Publishing Ltd, “the NO.1 publisher in Taiwan.”

Reviews in Mandarin: 2017   and Moonrogu 2020

As for RBF, the Foundation came about because I wanted to publish bigger than I could afford to pay for on my own books exploring heroics. A nonprofit or even another imprint were not my initial ideas, but after consultations, that proved to be the most beneficial path to getting a title I really, really wanted to publish out… the story of how Robert E. Howard impacted a dozen lives.

I owe the inspiration to that book all to Bill ‘Indy’ Cavalier, who gave the GOH speech at the first Howard Days gathering I attended in 2018. It was a speech and a story everyone else had heard over the years, but that was my first exposure to it and I was enthralled, not only with how Howard literally changed Indy’s life but with the idea that he could have done so to others. I intended to do a svelte 13-essay book that grew into almost 3 dozen essays and one of the most powerfully moving books I’m associated with. I am super proud of that title and, as I’ve yet to come across anything even remotely like it, I think it a one-of-a-kind special title that may very well never be matched. The book is filled with outstanding examples of the professional and personal impact of one solitary American author on the lives of many others. There are some tear-jerkers in there that fill me with a deep sense of wonder and gratefulness that their authors trusted me with their hearts. I’m delighted with the small impact and influence of many of my titles, but I think the long-term effect of this book will remain unmatched and I am proud it is a huge component of my legacy.

And then to follow it up with the combined work from so many hands of Hither Came Conan is simply mind-boggling to me. I am blessed not once but twice to have my name included on the spine of two of the major Robert E. Howard works of this century, possibly all-time. While there is a lot of opinion in HCC, there is also ALL of the facts one could ever want on every original REH Conan story. There’s nothing missing. The book never needs to be rivaled; it is complete and sufficient and a joy to have been part of with Bob Byrne, Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones, and Dierk Günther. Seven years ago, if someone had hazarded the idea my name would be forever associated with one, let alone two, major REH titles I would have laughed. But the germ would have been planted.

Rogue Blade Website  — Reflects Jason M. Waltz’s Passion and Motivations

Rogue Blades Entertainment (RBE) puts the HERO in HEROICS as a micro publisher of the heroic adventure and speculative fiction genres. RBE seeks to ignite an appreciation for the tales of true heroes infused with the vigor and excitement of pulp-era fiction for today’s readers. As publishers of heroic adventure from the fantastical to the historical to the inspirational, we’ve been ‘Sharing Heroes!‘ since 2008. Follow the Learn More button to read about our mission and genre definitions. Otherwise, look below to discover all of our titles.

Rogue Blades Foundation (RBF) is a not-for-profit literary publisher of all that is heroic. RBF seeks to identify, promote, and perpetuate an open exchange of heroic ideals across cultures, nationalities, eras, and genders. RBF strives to encourage a love of the written word and to foster the bonds of communal ideals while facilitating a more vibrant literary community locally and globally.

Howard Andrew Jones: As I prepared a Black Gate tribute to HAJ that highlighted his passion for community building as well as writing, I was thrilled to unearth your name many times.  I reread your “Swords Drawn, A Tale of Heroic Promise” in  Return of the Sword , the flagship of RBE’s publications, which revealed your overlapping history with Flashing Swords eZine. You published his work several times, including in Neither Beg Nor Yield and Writing Fantasy Heroes, and you included Harold Lamb in Return of the Sword (HAJ edited the Harol Lamb series for Bison Books). Anyway, it seems you crossed paths and fought battles with/near him. Certainly you shared a S&S-bug to better the S&S community while writing it.  Any stories you can share?

Howard and I were friends, and I am very glad I got to see him one (unbeknownst to either) last time at Howard Days 2024. It had been over a decade I believe, since last we’d seen each other. We hugged and discussed health and writing and Hanuvar and Neither Beg Nor Yield.

Howard and I had an on-and-off online communication history, going periods without direct exchanges and then picking up again like no time had passed. I was really enjoying his presence and involvement in the original Whetstone Discord group created by Jason Ray Carney. Even through that medium his passions shone brightly. The most astounding thing about Howard was that he never said a cross word about anyone, ever, even during moments we shared in dismal agreement about some matter or another. I did all the cussing for both of us, while he was like the Southern Lady of the Manor, with his ‘Bless your heart.’ Howard’s empathy knew no bounds. His understanding and passion for Sword & Sorcery was unlimited, impressive, and true. I had been a Harold Lamb biography reader before meeting Howard, but he turned me on to Lamb’s fiction. And yes, he chose the Lamb story for Return of the Sword for me, when I asked him if I could include one.

We never fought any battles, though we did differ on the exact nature of Sword & Sorcery. It was an amicable discussion, never even reached the level of debate. We both weren’t sure about his inclusion in NBNY, to be honest. Howard didn’t believe he wrote my S&S Attitude, and I, too, was worried – not that he couldn’t but that he wasn’t currently writing such with Hanuvar. There were some early Hanuvar tales I would have loved to publish, most notably the story that grabbed Sean CW Korsgaard’s attention and put The Chronicles of Hanuvar in Baen’s hands, “The Warrior’s Way.” That powerful story is a shining example of the cream of S&S storytelling. Anyway, we talked it over, and due to the politics of some of fandom who were demonstrably worked up about another one of the authors within NBNY’s TOC, Howard voluntarily agreed to join, both of us hoping his name would bring unity and support.

He gave me three stories to choose from and quite truthfully he did give me a totally badass Hanuvar story that fit right into the rest of the S&S Attitude lineup. It’s a great story, I loved it… but when I read “Reflection from a Tarnished Mirror” I wept. And then I told Howard about both stories and that I thought he should not release “Reflection” early, that he should save it for the readers of his third book in the series, and I would accept the other. But he insisted that “Reflection” would be published early, so I said that if that were certain, though I disagreed, I wanted to be the one to publish it, that it was an extremely powerful tale and I’d be thrilled to have it included and to be the one who published it first. Howard agreed and graced me with a story equal to his “The Warrior’s Way.”

Again, as I mentioned before, I try to cover spectrums in my anthologies, I don’t want and readers don’t want to read all the same thing. I wanted NBNY to include the range of S&S Attitude to prove it is not one-dimensional like some negative voices shouted. And despite our early misgivings, Hanuvar and “Reflection from a Tarnished Mirror” definitely fits within the anthology by demonstrating that the S&S Attitude does not have to be physical, does not have to be borne by an oversized barbarian with a sharp blade and tongue. It can, in fact, be portrayed by any character with a personal motivation to see his challenges defied and defeated, even with an understanding heart.

Howard knew how to make things fit together and he could make them work. His insights in all three nonfiction titles I published are terrific, helpful pieces that all writers, regardless of their genre, should investigate. His foreword to Crossbones & Crosses reflects his historical bent and knowledge, and his story in The Lost Empire of Sol is thrillingly mysterious. I actually have a Dabir and Asim story of his that we’ve sent back and forth for years, originating all the way back to my failed-to-appear Roar of the Crowd. We had contemplated using it for NBNY, but he felt it was not properly reflective of where he now was as a writer. While I rarely met the man and never got to sit over as many meals and in-person conversations as I would have greatly liked, it was always my honor to name Howard Andrew Jones my friend, and to know, were I to call upon him, he would answer.

Extreme Edge vs. New Edge: Howard Andrew Jones espoused the need for a New Edge to be honed on the S&S Genre in 2005 in Flashing Swords eZine, a venue that inspired you and you became the assistant manager for.  In your bio section of Writing Fantasy Heroes, you declared RBE’s goal was to deliver an Extreme Edge.  How would you describe the extreme edge?

“He is an ardent fan of heroic tales and in addition to creating heroes of his own, he founded Rogue Blades Entertainment with the goal of delivering action adventure with an Extreme Edge.” – JMW  2013

Well I couldn’t copy Howard directly on everything, could I?

When I began trying to define what, first, Flashing Swords Press then Rogue Blades Entertainment was, I employed a lot of Howard Andrew Jones’ terminology from his original genre descriptions for Flashing Swords ezine and his own websites, swordandsorcery.org and his blog. While I acknowledged doing so and linked directly to them, I did tweak the definitions to my interpretations and expectations. From the start, it was obvious to me I loved violence more than Howard in my S&S, and so, since he was pursuing a New Edge, I decided I would take his New Edge to the Extreme and called what I wanted an Xtreme Edge. I tried to be edgy by dropping the ‘E’ in extreme, originally thinking of a logo with crossed swords as the X. Never happened, but that’s what I was thinking then.

I pump up easily and enjoy pumping up others and, as I’ve alluded throughout this Q&A, I was always pushing my ‘S&S Attitude’ without knowing what I was pushing. So Xtreme Edge is just the early-stages version of S&S Attitude, where the heroes are pushing the boundaries of Life beyond its limitations and laughing like maniacal fools whilst doing so purely in the joy of seeing if they could do it. Then and now I wanted to publish stories that inspire. That’s why I’m not so much a fan of calling S&S literature, or fantastical literature for that matter, escapism. Yes, I’m all for the idea JRR Tolkien espoused, the pursuit of “freedom of mind and soul,” but I also think calling stories that inspire and motivate and share ideals an escape is a disservice, lessening their importance. I think they matter, or can matter, and should not be deemed frivolous.

Non-S&S Heroic Inspirations: You are a fan of Westerns, Eugene Cunningham’s Triggernometry: A Gallery of Gunfighters, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Swift adventures. How have these inspired you to collect, share, and write stories?

Wow, you’re really making me work here. Self-analysis is good for the soul, eh?

After all the fiction of my youth (probably into my late teens, even early twenties), I established a pattern of alternating fiction and nonfiction, at least no more than 2-to-1, in effort to widen/better myself. I don’t regret that in any way, it just changed over the years, I grew less interested in nonfiction, though I still had areas I read and collected (see question 10). In my fiction I wasn’t as regimented, though I did try to frequently alternate my fantasy and science fiction reading. Eventually, and I honestly cannot point to when, but before I was 30, I read less and less science fiction and, at least in the fantastical speculative fiction genres, became exclusively a fantasy reader.

I may not know when, but I do know why: I found more wonder in fantasy than in science fiction and I grew tired of the preaching I found in so much of science fiction. Whatever I was going to learn and absorb from my fiction reading, I much preferred that which I learned from mythology, history, espionage, Westerns, and fantasy than the boring and often painful assaults of science fiction writers. They all had agendas and musts and it bored, disgusted, and frustrated me. Perhaps fantasy authors hide it better or my psyche doesn’t recognize it so easily, but I’ve never had that reaction to fantasy.

Anyway, my non-S&S heroic inspirations originate in Westerns (S&S heroes), espionage (S&S heroes), war (S&S heroes), myths (S&S heroes), jungle lords (S&S hero), river rats (S&S hero), and epic fantasy (S&S heroes). I’ve always been drawn to the lone warrior – or the loner among warriors: a Sackett, Tarzan, Mack Bolan, Batman, Jason Bourne, Huck, Doc Holliday, Edmond Dantès. Even though my earliest memories of stories are fantasy, the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia that my mother read aloud, it is Westerns that were my first reads that I remember most/best. As a genre, that is. I’ll always have Huck Finn and Tom Swift, Jr (my bad) and Robinson Crusoe and Tarzan, but it is the Western genre that is most assuredly my first love.

Perhaps it is because my own hero, my grandfather, moved to the West from the Midwest when I was five years of age and he looked very similar to John Wayne. My grandfather was a huge icon, a basketball, football, boxing star, a WWII Army sergeant, and a huge man. He lived large, his hand covered half a basketball and, well, he read Westerns and espionage books and so then did I. He became The West to me, I guess, and being like my grandpa was my goal. He had every Louis L’Amour book and I read them too, but my favorite character by far was and still is Max Brand’s Dan Barry.

I love/d Dan Barry and – sorry, spoiler – his slaying shocked me to the roots of my soul. Of all my favorite characters that I’ve ever imagined being, Dan Barry is number one – I’d choose to be him in a heartbeat. (Though Steven Erikson’s Cotillion is a quite close second.) The Western character was forever emblazoned upon me, and I read all I could find, fiction and nonfiction, falling in love with many of the colorful characters of the American West, good guys and bad. I did many book reports and term papers on them, the West, and even my grandfather.

Later on, for an unknown reason, I grew to enjoy immortals, from the Vampire Lestat and Raistlin and Shade being favorites to collecting the Casca novels to being fascinated with Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane. Solo wanderers who defy Death for eternity. I’ve dabbled with writing such characters myself, Direk being borderline immortal, rather I call what he’s becoming unmortal, but so far he’s still mostly just a mortal man. A few years ago I created a character made immortal during WWI, though while I have several plots in my head, I’ve never completed a story of his.

However, this past March I finally hit upon my own truly immortal character who I’ve begun exploring and have many, many plans and ideas for. His first story was just rejected, but I know the reason (I suspected it would be even as I submitted it), so I’ll be reworking that and jumping into following tales that, like Conan’s saga, will leap about his lifespan and even genres. I’m excited about this guy, though like I said, I have to sit my ass down and write… but be on the watch for stories of The Once Celestial Now Fallen Conrēdāremō (The Nine Who Fell But Didn’t Rebel) and their Ducātus, the Archangel Leontius. I don’t often reveal things unfinished but there, I’ve done it for accountability, now hold me to it.

Non-Fiction Inspirations: George Patton, World War II, biographies attract you. Your highlighted quote on your new podcast is from Horace Walpole. Elaborate on how history inspired your adventure writing?

“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” – Horace Walpole, a favorite quote of JMW

Guess what I wanted to be as a child. I’m not even going to give you three guesses; you’ll never get it. Beyond those characters and heroes I played at and pretended to be, for real life I wanted to be a United States Supreme Court Justice. Somehow I hit upon the idea that they were the most powerful people I knew of, and that’s what I wanted to be. That lasted a few years, actually, then slowly trickled into wanting to be an attorney, until that, too, dribbled down the drain of reality.

Once I understood, or thought I understood, the game of life at the ripe age of eighteen I adopted that Horace Walpole quote as my axiom in life and have never looked back. I softly debated for years whether overall life was a comedic tragedy or a tragic comedy, forgot about determining it for more years, then returned to it and settled upon a comedic tragedy.

Despite (or because of?) that, I have always believed in heroes. And so the large ones drew me in, like Patton and George Custer; some of whom really stuck with me, like Patton, and some of whom I learned weren’t all they were stacked up to be, like Custer. Heroes were in the military, Right?, and my grandfather, who was my hero, was in the Army, in WWII, so WWII became a fascination for me. Again, I did term papers on it. In fact my junior high school history term paper remains unfinished – my teacher still likes to bring it up now and again, to talk about the student of his whom he had to finally tell ‘Enough!’ when even after an extension he still had not finished his required 20 page paper, and so I handed it in only 3/4ths done at 60 pages. What can I say, I’ve always talked too much. Note this interview.

Anyway, already hooked on WWII history, once I chose to join the United State Marine Corps I also became addicted to WWII USMC history. Actually I have lots of books of USMC history pre-WWII as well. I don’t really pick up Marine things from the years after WWII, but I like reading individual and unit biographies of all the Marine engagements in any era. Glancing at my biography shelves I see mostly Western and military titles from ancient times to modern, but there’s also Humphrey Bogart, Brett Farve, Joe Montana, Jack London, and Percy Bysshe Shelley (my favorite poet). I’ll never get to read all the military history and biography books I have, and that’s a shame, as knowing our real history and our living heroes is important and they shouldn’t be forgotten.

An interesting tidbit or two about history, only some of which I’ve read and even less of which I’ve lived, is that there truly is nothing new under the sun and that truth is often stranger than fiction. If you really want to be a writer whose stories are read, you really need to read of history and of those who’ve lived it. Creating real characters, believable characters, is how authors connect with readers and how readers remember authors. If you wish to be immortal, give the masses a character they grow addicted to.

What would you say to advise/inspire writers (in 30 secs or less, this question was borrowed from the 24 in 42 interview list)?

LOL, you’re welcome. I’ve said a ton, hopefully some of it helpful, above, but I’ll share the two basic, foundational pieces of advice I always begin with, for myself as much as anyone interested. If you want to be a writer put your butt in the chair and allow yourself to write crap.

If you allow me to continue, I’d expand by saying first, everyone says they have a story, everyone says they could write a story. But they don’t actually, and they can’t. Don’t say, do. And I truly direct that at me, because I procrastinate a lot. Second, stop trying to fix your writing as you’re writing. I say it’s like riding your brakes while you’re driving – just get to the destination. Sure, you’ll still get there if you ride the brakes, hopefully, but wouldn’t you rather arrive without having wrecked your ride, your tires, your nerves, etc? It took me years to break that habit of on-going self-editing and I really hope to rescue potential writers from that battle.

“If you want to be a writer put your butt in the chair and allow yourself to write crap.” — JMW

What would you say to advise/inspire community builders?

That’s a tough one. I have not considered myself a community builder. I love being part of a community and interacting and helping, but I don’t think I’ve ever led such an effort, just been part of the team. So let’s go with that: be part of the team.

I like talking just as much as anyone else (ahem), but try to learn when that talking is appropriate, when it’s truly helpful. If you can sit in podcasts or panels or roundtables or workshops, be helpful. Be constructive. Be liberating. Learn to share constructive criticism. Writers groups are great, join them and contribute your own writing and feedback on the writing of others. See above though, it’s not just feedback, it’s constructive criticism. Lend a hand. Think about how you would appreciate receiving feedback and figure out what is most beneficial. Giving face-to-face constructive criticism or penning a non-generic rejection letter is difficult. But if you care about helping you do it. Otherwise, why are you there, in that position to be giving such a response?

I see all you do, Seth, and I admire your work ethic, your spirit, your giving, your encouragement. There have been several times over the last 15+ years that a word from you came at just the right moment and helped me, boosted my spirits, made me smile. Those are precious, and I thank you.

[SIDE BAR: Seth blushes. Thanks, Jason!]

Tell us about the 24-in-42 Podcast.  What is the scope and vision? Any highlights to share as you churn through Season 2?

The vision I had in creating 24 in 42 holds two parts: keeping my name in the game (since I’m semi-retiring) and getting to the heart of author character creation (since I’m a character reader and writer and teacher).

While I’m known mostly for ‘Heroes’ and ‘Sword & Sorcery,’ I never intended 24 in 42 to be S&S-specific. I want to cover all kinds of writing from all kinds of writers, people who I know, who interest me, whom I’m introduced to. I thought this would be both a fun and easy way to stay relevant and be helpful through exposure for authors and information for readers. It’s not as ‘easy’ as I thought, and I readily admit to it being somewhat slapped together, but I’m going to keep this small and easy and hopefully fun. I’ve made plenty of snafus, like having to redo an episode because somehow the recording software I use only recorded the guest and not me, making for an awkward episode. Fortunately, the guest was super gracious and redid the whole thing with good cheer. As were you, when I couldn’t get the tech to cooperate and we went later and later into the night.

I’ve had poor audio experiences, spliced together interviews as technology suddenly stops or turns off and again, gracious guests have dealt with me. There are no real highlights that aren’t revealed in the episodes. I’ve had an overwhelming response, folks eager to sit down with me, so that’s really cool, as I was slightly worried about landing guests when I began. I’ve only had a handful of declines, two due to technology (they don’t use) and two from folks who simply don’t do live interviews. I can’t always get everything I ask for, though I’ll say I have been quite lucky in getting lots of cool stuff and having dreams and wishes come true in this publishing life… all but the big money, eh? 😊

[For listeners of the podcast] Would you like to live in a Yellow Submarine versus following the Yellow Brick road?

While I like the song “Yellow Submarine” I am taking the Yellow Brick Road with glee! I look forward to meeting strange companions and facing down mysteries and threats and discovering magical things.

In the 24-in-42 Podcast, you have guests reveal their 3C’s [cold, current, and coming-out projects].  Let’s chat about those you revealed so far.

Cold: Direk Collections 3 available now, 6 planned, and an omnibus! Do tell us about who the heck Direk is!

Direk. Sigh. My poor boy. I sure put him through the wringer. Direk is my exploration of the bindings of duty, loyalty, even love via a fantasy Jack Bauer. I’ve a four-book series semi-plotted (book four is the least planned) that progresses through phases of all three. I began book one, then decided that I was better suited to writing shorts and that by doing so I would get Direk into the world and known by the people (readers). (It’s really a clever way of procrastinating.) So I write these stories as individual examinations of what he is going through both personally and globally. I think the 24 series was excellently written and performed by giving our hero an over-arcing dire challenge AND personal battles that vied for his attention, commitment, persistence WHILE trying to defeat/solve that global thing.

Long story short: Direk and two buddies went into a war on behalf of their kingdom wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. Amidst all the carnage the trio stumbles upon a trio of swords in an otherwise empty valley. When they grab up the hilts, the gods hidden there waiting to see who they’d ensnare, appear and extract vows of service from the three. They, of course, readily swear their pledges for the powers that come with the swords will help them save the day, the kingdom, and put them in power. Direk becomes the King’s Left Hand, the Lord of Vengeance. He is the counter to the King’s Right Hand, the Lord of Justice. When the King can no longer pursue Justice, or when Justice does not provide the answer, he unleashes Vengeance.

Early in his reign, the King never demands Vengeance and Direk essentially has an easy life. Slowly, years into the empire, he begins to be set after others more and more until he realizes he’s become a dog of both his king (his friend) and his god (Vengeance), sicced upon targets who less and less deserve the King’s Vengeance. Something is wrong, and he must solve that problem before he loses his king, his friend(s), his own mortality, his mind, and his soul.

I intend, though they’ve slowed down as you can tell, six 2-story volumes in Kindle-only, then a final print and Kindle omnibus of those dozen plus 3 more stories. The entire set is meant to cover an arc of Direk’s life that originally was supposed to be about the middle of book one, covering the transition period between challenge setup and part one’s solution reveal. These 15 stories are meant to share Direk’s personal battle with who – and what – he is.

Current: <em>Neither Beg Nor Yield</em>: Your salute to S&S Attitude and your “Swan Song” in publishing. Tell us more!

There probably is not anything new I can say about NBNY that anyone reading this hasn’t heard or read elsewhere or even garnered from all the above. The book is my glorious statement of what Sword & Sorcery is to me, the Attitude I’ve finally emphatically defined. It is my peroration, the denouement of my career. Like all my Western heroes, this is my riding shot into the setting sun after my culminating victory… that’s supposed to be me on the back cover there, saying goodbye with a glance over the shoulder hinting that ‘If you need me, I may be back.’ Take it or leave it, NBNY is my mic drop as a publisher. Now I’m going to try to make my statement as an author.

Coming: Originally planned for RBE, 2010/2012, this collection revolves around the barbarian Kaimer in the city of Skovalis, a shared world. What is this about?

I admit, as a new publisher I bit off pretty much everything I could think of or came across or stumbled into. It was a fast and furious time and I did, tried to do, way too much way too fast with far too little knowledge. One of the things I tried to do right away after establishing RBE and in an effort to more strongly identify me, RBE, what we/I published and wanted to be known for, was to suggest to some writers I wanted the logo character M.D. Jackson had created to BE an actual character. I wanted the logo to stand for RBE, to be a character that could be read about. I wanted a house author like Gold Eagle Books’ Mack Bolan had, to write this character’s tales, and I planned on putting his tales scattered throughout RBE titles and other venues.

It takes a lot of effort to design a world, a character, a system, who’s in, and who does what, let me tell you. That’s one reason this book took so long to arrive. It’s difficult running a shared world, and probably not something I should have tackled out the door. I invited in some authors, there was some back and forth with a few, people rolled in and out of the group, and finally we had a nucleus. Then we started hammering out a character description, a name, and then a name for our house author. Then some more changes in the people happened, and then we finally settled into our foursome with an open invite to two others to join if they had time/interest in the future. That never happened, probably because it took me too long to get Kaimer out the door.

Kaimer finally arrived, though, as the physical representative of RBE. Stories appeared as planned in RBE titles, and one was finally accepted to appear on Black Gate as part of their online fiction (after they ceased their print magazine) as his first outside publication. And then that ceased to be, and Kaimer never found release through anyone else. He also never got all his owed stories from one (ahem) of the names behind Frederick Tor, the house author. Okay, okay, it was me. I realized I wasn’t as strong a writer as the other members of the house and it took me years to be confident enough to write my stories. One of those stories took me almost ten years to complete because I could not figure out, after numerous attempts, how to connect the two-thirds I’d written with the end I wanted. Let me tell you, I struggled with that a lot. I was even dissatisfied once I finally turned in my ‘finished’ product, but it got a decent response and suddenly publication of a Kaimer collection was finally possible.

He almost arrived in 2017, then again in 2019, but life, my life, and extenuating circumstances dominated things for a bit each time, shunted Kaimer and Skovolis aside. Fortunately, everything we’d created remained and stayed and we finally got through all the delays. And so, finally, the embodiment of the S&S Attitude, RBE incarnate, Kaimer is live and ready to face the world in all his defiant glory. I really hope y’all enjoy him and his dying city, the grand old Skovolis.

KAIMER SWORD & SORCERY Cover Blurb

Well met, Kaimer!

Discover the RBE iconic Sword & Sorcery character Kaimer! Man of deadly action locked within the vast, decaying city of Skovolis beneath a dying sun. Man of fierce prowess hacking out existence in a dark metropolis larger and deeper than any other. Man of calculated purpose forced to survive in a foreboding stone jungle holding threats man-made and supernatural. Man of vicious skill battling through crime, grime, and the desperation of ancient religions, mercenary lords, and predatory merchants. Man of feral appetite thwarting dark hearts and dark powers across a sprawling, violent urban center so large and multi-leveled it’s possible to get lost from one district to another and vanish into the bleak world of the dark undercity. Man of deadly resolve intent upon reaving vengeance upon the horrific occupants of Skovolis and revealing its secrets and corruptions.

Welcome to Skovolis!
Discover a city larger than Constantinople, older than Memphis, prouder than Babylon, more decadent than Nineveh. Skovolis – The greatest of all Sword & Sorcery playgrounds! City of defiance that has stood for nigh two millennia beneath a now dying sun. City of domination that has ruled the known world for generations. City of a thousand thousand tongues – suffering and superficial, swearing and silenced. City of power, whose ruling seats and thrones are constantly shifting and striking within the shadows. City of dark depths, filled with treasures and torments enough to sate or suffocate any who dare to trod its byways. Skovolis – City of Thrones.

Well met in Skovolis, Kaimer!
Reaver, warrior, soldier, Kaimer’s cold, green eyes, like shadowed emeralds, have seen much that would send lesser men to despair and doom. Scout, clansman, mercenary, Kaimer’s height-and-a-hand tall frame towers over most of the humanity scurrying about him, his powerful shoulders and climber’s physique readily recognized and avoided. Guard, slave, prisoner, Kaimer’s seen everything Skovolis hides, been everything the city needs, knows every throne his city holds. Skovolis is Kaimer’s city.

Classic Sword &Sorcery tales with an extreme edge written by Frederick Tor exclusively for Rogue Blades Entertainment.

Jason M Waltz

Jason M. Waltz believes in heroes and strives to bring the heroic through presentation and publication. He is the proud recipient of two Robert E. Howard Foundation Valusian Awards for his Rogue Blades Foundation titles Robert E. Howard Changed My Life and Hither Came Conan. Jason is equally proud of his Rogue Blades Entertainment titles, from his first anthology Return of the Sword, which heralded the renewed rise of Sword & Sorcery twenty years ago, to his last anthology Neither Beg Nor Yield, his emphatic answer to the burning riddle of Sword & Sorcery…also nominated for the 2025 Valusian Award.  After 20 years in small press publishing, Jason has recently returned to his own writing again, finding acceptances online and in print at Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery, Savage Realms Monthly 23, Crimson Quill Quarterly Vol. 5 & 7, Monster Fight at the O.K. Corral Vol. 2, Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Vol. 7, and Swords & Heroes EZine. Jason is also host of the author interview videocast 24 in 42 at Rogue Blades Presents and author of the Substack newspaper Word Dancing with The Rogue. Heroes: They’re what Jason—The Main Rogue—does, whether through writing, publishing, teaching, or reading.

• Linktree https://linktr.ee/jasonmwaltz
• JMW Substack  https://substack.com/@therogueofrb
• Substack newspaper “Word Dancing with The Rogue” https://therogueofrb.substack.com/

 

 

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