catherineldf | The Year in Review: Writing and Publishing in 2022 (Reply)

This has been a very hard year on a number of fronts and thus will be a two part post. I got some stuff done! It was a tad bit less than I normally manage! I got many other things done/started. I am super tired.

My Fiction -
Fiction - 2 stories, both of them new.

"Grimwood." Queer Weird West Tales edited by Julie Bozza. LIBRATiger, 2022. (Weird Western).
"Ghosts of Yesteryear." Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives Vol. 3 edited by John Linwood Grant. Belanger Books, 2022. (Mystery with supernatural elements).

My Fiction in Translation!

My first menopausal werewolves novel, Silver Moon, came out in a new German translation from Ylva Publishing.

My Nonfiction:
1 article, 1 essay, both of them pretty worthwhile reads in my opinion.

Gothic Queer, Edward Gorey and Me" - December, 2022. Divergent Terror: At the Crossroads of Queerness and Horror edited by Waylon Jordan. Off Limits Press.
"Publishing Checklist: Making Books" - June 23, 2022. The Dream Foundry.
I also managed to start another werewolf novel, did a lot of work on the novel for our Patreon and am currently cranking out a draft of a new f/f pirate/spy in the 17th Century Caribbean story to submit in January.

Publishing:
Queen of Swords Press released 2.5 books this year!

They were:

The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones. This is a novella length retelling of Beauty and the Beast and it is gorgeous! And award-eligible! Looking for good novellas to read for possible nomination? Add this one to your list!
Last Car to Annwn Station by Michael Merriam. Urban fantasy set in Minneapolis! Seriously, the most urban fantasy set in Minneapolis since Emma Bull's War for the Oaks! Full of mid-oughts Uptown goodness, Welsh mythology, sweet lesbian romance and more! It's a reissue of a novel previously released as an ebook so it is not, alas, eligible for most things this year.
Wolfpack by Rem Wigmore - up for preorder now! This is the sequel to Foxhunt and we thought we were going to release it last month. Ha! Between COVID, various delays, illnesses, injuries and other commitments, it will be out in January. It's a great story and if you liked Foxhunt, I think you will definitely enjoy this. If you haven't read Foxhunt yet, it's on sale this week at Smashwords.
Next year, Queen of Swords Press is also releasing Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold (gay Victorian supernatural mystery!) and Little Nothing by Dee Holloway (alternate history set during the American Civil War and featuring a young lesbian couple, waterhorses, spies and more!). And maybe something else if I can get it together.

Teaching, Events and Sundries

I taught or team-taught (with Jennie Goloboy, who is awesome to teach with) classes at the Rambo Academy, Clarion West Online, the Loft Literary Center and the Novel in Progress Bookcamp.
I was on a virtual panel for the Library of Congress, along with other cool small press publishers.
Melissa Scott and I curated another successful StoryBundle and raised $$$ for Rainbow Railroad (thanks for buying it!).
I was on Write On! Radio on KFAI with my local authors.
I was Author Guest of Honor at MarsCon (Minneapolis, not Virginia).
We all did a Queen of Swords Press r/Fantasy AMA.
We were on programming and/or in the Dealer's Room at Capricon, Flights of Foundry, WisCon, SMOLFair, 13 Gears Steampunk, 4th Street Fantasy, WORD Christchurch, Chicon 8/Worldcon, DFW Con, Twin Cities Con, BayCon, the SFWA Nebula Weekend, StabbyCon and the Minnesota Women's Art Festival.
We did events at DreamHaven Books, Eat My Words Books, AZ Gallery, Space Cowboy Books, Argo Bookshop and Quatrefoil Library.
And we tabled at various Prides, including St. Cloud Pride, Rochester Pride, Columbia Heights Pride and West St. Paul Pride. We were also at Open Streets Minnehaha, Dancing Bear Chocolate Sunday Markets, Tiny Diner Farmer's Market and Twin Cities Pagan Pride.
Oops! And podcasts! Space Cowboy Books Podcast and Tales from the Trunk Podcast. Links to everything are in the events post that precedes this one.

How did we do? Best year of sales so far, even though we didn't quite meet my goal. We're celebrating our 6th birthday in January and I'm starting to line up stuff for next year. We talked to so many people! Big shoutout to everyone who hosted us, bought books from us, reviewed our books, recommended them to others, bought my stories, helped with packing up and setting up, took books and promo stuff to events, watched the table when I needed a break and everything else! More specifically, thank you to Alexa, Annie, Mike, Jennie, Matt, Terry, Nathalie, Rem, Elissa, Sherry, Nicole at Blind Eye Books, Heather, Kevin, A.J. and Alex! You all rock!
Let's do the fun parts again next year!