This week's events...

Things are sort of settling down here, in the sense of not actually being on fire. Still lots of demonstrations, a permanent memorial going up in our neighborhoods, lots of needs, lots of destroyed and damaged building and businesses. Fewer gunshots and cars with out of state plates driving very fast on the residential streets, or at least on ours. Lots of hot debate about what it means to "defund the police," lots of discussion around "who will protect us?," etc. Still navigating the virus and things sort of reopening and trying to support everything I can. On the brighter end of things, some stuff that looked like it wasn't coming back is, Chicago Avenue is likely to be renamed "George Floyd Avenue" or equivalent and people are paying a lot more attention, much of it in good ways. There was some of this awakening around Philando Castile's murder, but this is much more pronounced and stronger. Here's hoping it leads to good things.

So speaking of helping things recover, I'm doing my annual talk on running a small press at DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis tomorrow night. Dreamhaven has reopened but repairs are still in process from the burglary, vandalism and attempted arson. They can allow up to 10 people wearing masks into the store at a time so you can attend in person if you're in the area (but will have to scatter around the store in any case). I will be broadcasting live on Facebook from the Queen of Swords Press page though so you won't be missing anything if you opt to watch and listen there. In the meantime, please consider supporting the store's Go Fund Me and buying books online or in person, particularly Queen of Swords Press titles (they carry all our print titles), but anything helps, really.

Then, this weekend, I'll be at Rainbow Space Magic, a new online LGBTQ+ sff con for writers and readers. I'll be doing a reading with some other authors on Saturday evening (depending on your timezone) -

• PT 4:00pm / MT 5:00pm / CT 6:00pm / ET 7:00pm
• Kim Fielding, Catherine Lundoff, KS Murphy

Then I'll be on this panel on Sunday morning:

Sunday June 21st

How Does Our Queer Past Influence the Queer Sci Fi Future?

Sunday PT 8:00am / MT 9:00am / CT 10:00am / ET 11:00am

With Trevor Barton, RR (Bob) Angell, Catherine Lundoff, and Michael G Williams

Description: The queer community has historically suffered oppression and discrimination, and still does in many places. When writing about the future, how do we honor that past without recreating it? Let’s talk about what the queer future might look, and how it can honor our past.

Looks like fun! And it's free so please register and join us!