catherineldf | Entries tagged with queen of swords press

WisCon was quite pleasant, if a bit gruelling between juggling Jana's schedule, our book table, programming and so forth. But I got to see lovely friends who I haven't seen in far too long and that made up for a lot. I also met some new folks, sold a bunch of books, both ours and some from Stone Raven Press, who we were hosting, and some of Jana's blank journals. Did some wandering about in Madison, which looked a bit better than last year. The trip home was kind of scary because I was more tired than I realized and we hit heavy traffic near the Twin Cities, but we got home in one piece. I had, fortunately, paid our cat sitter for an extra visit just in case, so she made sure the beasties were fed (and would have done it anyway, if I'd asked, but always easier when already planned).

On Tuesday, my new audiobook of Silver Moon landed! I'm very excited about it and am hoping it does well. It's out on all the major audio book selling platforms. :-)

On Wednesday night, the Pride StoryBundle kicked off! Melissa Scott and I have really pulled together a gem of a bundle this time, with the assistance of a whole bunch of publishers. There are books by R.B. Lemberg, Nisi Shawl, Naseem Jamnia, Sean Eads, Laurie Marks and much more! At the $25 level, you get 17 books and can designate part of your purchase price (nothing extra!) for Rainbow Railroad, an international nonprofit that helps LGBTQ+ people in danger get to safer areas. The Bundle will be running for the whole month!

And working on getting our next title up and out the door. Little Nothing by Dee Holloway is a historical fantasy, set in Florida at the start of the Civil War with weird horse girls, even weirder horses, knot magic and a ghost queen! More coming soon.

And I hardly know how to process it. If you read my journal regularly, you know there's generally a lot of "wild" to choose from, but this is a whole nother level.So right now, in the midst of planning for WisCon (will be there in person! Look for me in the Dealer's Room and around. J is coming with me so my ability to plan before 6:00 is a bit off and I will have to play it by ear), guest blogs and interviews, the new Queen of Swords Press book release, last week's exhausting but wildly successful Rochester MN Pride, and sundry other things, what do I get but a serious inquiry about media rights for Silver Moon? If you've been around in publishing for a bit, you know it's not wildly uncommon to get queries about new books. I've had 2 other inquiries in the past, neither of which amounted to anything. But this is a pretty significant production company! I'm very curious about how they heard of me and my menopausal werewolf novels because my press is still pretty small and I'm hardly a household name in the genre. But I don't want to look too uncool by asking.

That said, the WGA is in the midst of a big strike and while I'm not a WGA member, I don't want to cross the picket line, so I have sent them a copy of the book and a polite note saying that I would love to discuss the possibilities if indeed it might work for them, but will not be signing or negotiating anything until the strike is settled. In the meantime, pretty, pretty egoboo! I don't have any big expectations, but I do have an in to a media rights agent or two just in case something looks more likely. And the strike is settled. Fingers crossed!

In other Silver Moon news, the audiobook edition comes out on 5/30 and is up for preorder now! Blood Moon will be out on 6/30. I suspect the production company heard about through Tantor's marketing and will ask if I get a chance. And of course, it came out in a German translation through Ylva Press last year so who knows? I admit the whole "smol press publisher plugs the hell out of her menopausal werewolf books, with the help of some awesome fans, and manages to more or less negotiate foreign rights sales and audiobook sales unagented" sounds pretty amazing on paper. But I have to admit that they came looking for me. :-)

Also coming up this week, because it all needs to happen at once: watch this space for the new Pride StoryBundle! Melissa Scott and I have found some gems this year and we are once again designating Rainbow Railroad for our charity. Goes live on 5/31 and runs all the way through June!

Lots of scrambling ahead this week to prep for Rochester Pride next Saturday (we have a Queen of Swords Press table! Come say hi!). Then it's mad prep for WisCon where I'll be running a Queen of Swords Press table in the Dealer's Room and on two panels (I'm having to bow out of the pirate panel on Monday morning - too many things to juggle). Who else is going to be there? Looking forward to it!

Queer Horror

Online Zoom Room 1 • Power, Privilege, and Oppression • Fri 2:30 PM–3:45 PM

Small and Indie Press in a Big Press World

Assembly • Fandom as a Way of Life • Sat 7:30 PM–8:45 PM

I was interviewed by a writer from Publishers Weekly a couple of weeks ago and leapt to the conclusion that an article on LGBTQ publishers would run in June. Nope! Today, in fact. It is paywalled, but I think they make things public eventually. Or you can read it if you had a subscription. A.J. Fitzwater's The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper and Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold's Death by Silver get nice shoutouts and I'm a tad less serious than a lot of the other folks quoted. Nice shoutouts for some good presses and editors, which was nice to see. Plus, holy crap, I'm featured in PW! I feel very "It Girl" today. :-D

And tomorrow, I will be on your radio dial! Or webpage, as the case may be. The lovely folks at Write On! Radio on KFAI FM, our fab local volunteer-run, incredibly diverse radio station, are having me back for an interview about Queen of Swords and what we're up to. In the past, they have been kind enough to refer to us as "their favorite local publisher," so let's see if I can keep that going. The show runs from 7-8PM with 2 guests and you can listen online or on the radio; it will go in the archive and the podcast as well, but that will take a few weeks.

Mostly good stuff, so far. Which is awesome because I turn 60 at the end of the month and I thought I'd be traveling and doing fun things for this birthday, which between J's health stuff and the things I'm juggling, is not going to happen. In assorted bits of good news:

Just got my contract extended at my day job (my contract was up at the end of this month otherwise). The work itself is kind of nuts, but I like the team, I can WFH and the checks don't bounce so it's all good.
Speaking of checks, I got my advance from Tantor Media for the audio books of the Wolves of Wolf's Point books. Which is a pretty nice 60th birthday gift, if you ask me! And incentive to knuckle down and write the third book in the series, Blue Moon.
Got the preorder up for Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold (Lynes & Mathey #1). The gorgeous new cover is by artist and author Matthew Bright of Inkspiral Design and he's done a lovely job on the interior too!
Got in at another couple of events, including the FemFair at Hamline U., a couple of slots at Dancing Bear Chocolate and the new Raedial Bookfair in St. Paul this summer.
Started edits and chats about cover art for this summer's novella release, Little Nothing by Dee Holloway (Alternate history! Weird horse girls! Young lesbians battling the Confederacy! Good stuff!).
MarsCon was fun and I got to spend some time with friends and sold some books.
Got tickets to various fun things throughout the month.
Am enjoying the Acorn TV subscription that a friend gifted me with for my birthday.

More soon, as it happens.

Just realized that there's been so much going on, I hadn't announced the THING so here goes: I just signed the contract to have my menopausal werewolf novels, Silver Moon and Blood Moon, recorded as audiobooks by Tantor Media! I am so excited about this! Not just because it is happening at all and because I'm getting a decent advance (first time in years on that!) and because they're a well-respected company that will do a good job and because they've already requested an option on the third book (in progress!), but also because these are my passion project books. And, furthermore, they've never won any big awards or gotten reviews at the big sites or anything splashy, but they've been chugging along for years, recommended by book bloggers and readers passing them around, telling their friends about them, coming to my readings, following me online. All of that was enough to push sales over the top and inspire Tantor to pick them up, so for all of you who helped me get here: THANK YOU!

And a big THANK YOU to author and literary agent Jennie Goloboy who pushed me to try for it. I also pitched Jennie's hilarious and fun science fiction novel Obviously, Aliens, but the sales aren't quite there yet. I really want this book to find its people because I think it would make a terrific audiobook. Jennie is hitting the film festival circuit and starting to win awards and recognition for her scripts so this a chance to read someone's work on their way up. :-D

On a related topic, I have a Queen of Swords Press tradition in which when an author's book pass a given sales threshold, they get a mug with their bookcover on it. Michael Merriam's birthday is coming up on 2/19 and he's getting really close. We'd like to get him that mug next week so if you like urban fantasy, Welsh mythology, sapphic romantic fantasy, ghostly streetcars and Minneapolis circa 2007 nostalgia, Last Car to Annwn Station is perfect for you!

Otherwise, I finished a new f/f/ pirate/spy story for Heather Rose Jones's LHMPodcast, have nearly finished the preformatting and editing pass through Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold's Death by Silver (releasing soon!) and have worked with Melissa to assemble this year's Pride StoryBundle. In addition, Jennie and I are going to be teaching at the Rosemount Writer's Festival next month and some other things are afoot.

I also finished a 50 item To-Do list, which included various eldercare planning things for Jana, getting a new water heater installed, getting some things on my car fixed that have been making life somewhat less pleasant and getting in our new handywoman to work on the growing cracks in the kitchen ceiling which need to be patched, caulked, plastered and painted. I'm super tired, but have a great feeling of accomplishment. On a lighter note, have been to a couple of interesting performances and got to check out Owamni, the new indigenous cuisine James Beard Award-winning restaurant in downtown Minneapolis (it was amazing). Mixed bag otherwise on the personal front, but nice to have good news to report.

Some of it is pretty amazing, so let's start there:

Weightless Books is now stocking Queen of Swords Press titles! Weightless was started some years back by Gavin Grant, co-founder of Small Beer Press, back in 2010 as a DRM-free indie ebook distribution platform. They haven't been open to new publishers for the last couple of years so we're super excited to be part of the new group of adds!
I have great audiobook news that I can't announce yet.
Target has deigned to pick one of our titles up for the online store! They used to have most of them listed, but we got delisted about a year ago. They just added Last Car to Annwn Station by Michael Merriam. For the record, Walmart lists all our books for sale, just saying.
I'm making good progress on a new pirate/spy story for Heather Rose Jones's LHMPodcast! You can find the earlier ones in the series, plus a few extra fun things, out here.
Heather Rose Jones's terrific novella, The Language of Roses (Queen of Swords Press, 2022) is up for the ALA's Rainbow Roundtable Barbara Gittings Stonewall Book Awards today, has made the British Science Fiction Association Awards Longlist (members can vote for it!) and just got submitted for the World Fantasy Awards! It is also eligible for the Nebulas and the Hugos, FYI. Go, Heather, go!
Other cool things I can't announce yet placeholder.
I went to the most amazing show at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis last night. Back in 2021, I was on the grant reviewing committee for a local art funder and this incredible proposal came in for a multicultural, multi-artist dance show, based on Invisible Cities by Italian fantasist Italo Calvino and created by dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy (Ragamala Dance Theater) working with artists Kevork Mourad and several local dance troops. This weekend was the big debut - it was absolutely gorgeous and magical and my friend and I loved it!
Had a good check in with my small business attorney and a needed check in with the social worker who's working with me to plan for Jana's care, etc.

The not great parts:

I haven't taken our local light rail in about a year and half and there's been a huge hoopla about crime, etc. on the trains so going downtown for an evening performance, then back again, on a super cold night was kind of a thing. My friend (another middle-aged white lady) and I didn't feel threatened and people were perfectly polite and pleasant (even the inebriated gentleman) under the circumstances, but between the person coughing up a lung in the far end of the car and the people clearly forced to basically live on the trains because they have no other decent options in dead of Minnesota winter, it was a disturbing trip. The doors open all the damn time and it's freezing cold, not to mention the safety and sanitation issues. This is still too rich a city for this to be acceptable and it's been demonstrated that drop-in centers and warming centers can be made available and people can use them to get additional help, but Boy Mayor and his minions aren't prioritizing that and people are going to die as a result.
I'm in the process of turning an author loose from their book contracts. It's not a situation that I sought or welcome, but you either want to work with us and be published by us and have some faith that we're trying to do the best we can by everyone or you don't. If the latter, there's no point in hanging around. So not great, but it is what it is.
J is definitely getting worse. We're going to look at adult daycare next, but I'm very worried that memory care is looming and all the ways I can think of to tackle that are dire. Fingers crossed that my next eldercare attorney meeting brings something more promising.

Onward and more news soon.

It's been a hard couple of weeks on a number of levels, but last night and now today have been lovely. Queen of Swords Press is officially 6 years old and we are feeling the love!

My online pal Jamey Morris of the heavy metal show Fistful of DOOM is hosting an Instagram book drawing for Alex Acks's terrific steampunk books, Murder on the Titania and Wireless this week.(We are metal AF! :-D)
Acclaimed author Judith Tarr (!) has a whole Tor.com piece up today about my werewolf books! I mean, I'm still alive and everything and have a slice of career retrospective by one of the shining lights in the field - how cool is that? I'm so excited!
Rem Wigmore's Wolfpack comes out on Thursday and we have a very nice early review from a Pagan perspective by author and reviewer Nimue Brown who read both books back to back and has thoughts comparing them in ways that had not occurred to me. Druidlife review.
Our plumber came today to give me an estimate on installing a tankless water heater. Due to various things about our basement, it just isn't feasible, short of spending a LOT of money, but he did discover that our current water heater is well past its projected lifetime limits, so we're getting a new standard, but more efficient one installed in a few weeks. Why is this a cool thing? We didn't find out by finding a big flood in the basewment and it's a repair that was already budgeted for!

Here's hoping the rest of the week brings good things! We could use them.

Well, this month is proving to be the proverbial mixed bag. So far:

I fell in the basement last weekend (tripped over the steps into the crawlspace) and got very banged up. Nothing broken, but lots of big, swollen bruises that really slowed me down for a few days.
J had a mysterious bout of projectile vomiting and I discovered a. the closest urgent care clinic to us had closed and b. If you put a quilt and multiple pairs of jeans in our washing machine, it creates much unpleasantness. Short version: by the time I got everything cleaned up and the washing machine bailed out, she decided she felt better, so I got to work late to make up time.
My car's tire pressure light went on, which shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it is a. difficult to find functioning air pumps around here (I will be buying one soon) and b. for whatever reason, I am startlingly inept with them, which is why filling the tires was something Jana used to do. Big shoutout to the nice young man with the neck and knuckle tattoos at the local garage, now under new ownership, who dealt with the problem before I could make it worse. I tipped him well for his help and everyone ended the day on a much happier note.
Other stuff happened, including my good glasses breaking in my hand when I put them, and it was a long, grueling week.

On the jollier side:

My essay, "Gothic Queer, Edward Gorey and Me" is out in Divergent Terror: At the Crossroads of Queerness and Horror edited by W. Dale Jordan (Off Limits Press) is out! This is my Edward Gorey made me a queer Goth biographical essay, for those wondering. :-)
I got a bunch of the release work for Wolfpack by Rem Wigmore (Queen of Swords Press's January title) underway and preorders up on the website.
I'm working on a new f/f pirate/spy story set in the seventeenth century Caribbean.
I submitted a proposal for an academic article on early queer speculative fiction writers.
Jennie Goloboy and I have been invited back to team teach another class at the Loft Literary Center in the spring.
I've been invited to give a talk at the library in Eau Clare, WI, in January, about which more coming soon.
The Sherlock Holmes exhibit at the MN History Center is pretty fun and I heartily recommend Slash/Back (group of 14 year old Inuit girls stop alien invasion, movie on Shudder and elsewhere).
And, on the bright side, despite a very grueling day, I managed to set up our table for the MN Women's Art Festival for tomorrow without injuring myself and had a decent dinner.

Now to rest up for what will hopefully be a good sales day tomorrow.

Honestly? I miss Twitter. I/we are still on it for brief intervals, but I deleted one account and am inactivating the other two. And I recognize that as necessary. But I miss my friends and the communities that I had out there and the ease of popping on to chat or get news from trusted sources. I hope EM suffers horribly for, well, everything he's done to so many people.

But onward because there are no other options. So I'm out on Mastodon as clundoff on wandering shop and mastodon.lol (one of the queer and progressive instances). I'm hoping to get on the new book publishing instance soon too. I'm reconnecting with friends from the Bird app and with new folks and eventually, I think it will feel good, but right now is in the learning stages. I/Queen of Swords Press are also out on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Discord, plus a monthly newsletter. Which one would think would be enough, but the Bird app was our main channel for outreach and discoverability. Grrr.

This is likely to go on for a while. In the meantime, Thanksgiving was fairly lowkey. I learned last year that I can order in dinner from one of the co-ops instead of toiling over the stove so we did that. Worked on a puzzle, watched stuff, did a video call with Jana's family, with mixed results. I think they got an introduction to sundowning that they weren't expecting. Friday, we went to the Merriam's new place and hung out with them and their housemate/bff Kevin. We ate ridiculous amounts of yummy food and watched the Worricker trilogy, with a pause between Page Eight and Turks and Caicos for me to run Jana home and get her settled in. Then back for the next two films. It was delightful! Saturday, I had breakfast with my friend Sheila and ran some needful errands. Sunday, we visited and reconnected with our friend Jeff, who has had health issues of his own resulting in him disappearing for a while. Then more errands and edits and cooking and so forth.

Rem Wigmore's excellent Foxhunt sequel Wolfpack now has a glorious cover by artist Laya Rose and is off for formatting. I've started the preorder process and expect to have that in full swing by next week. Then its on to the next couple of book we have planned for next year and the anthology I've been wanting to do for ages. Jennie and I had another class accepted for the Loft Literary Center and I've got some ideas for nonfiction proposals of various kinds I need to get cracking on. Fiction projects are inching along slowly. And now I need to go to bed. More news soon!

It's been a lively couple of weeks and a whole lot going. I/we made it to the end of the 9 or so events in a row, with only one weekend off and it was a LOT. Twin Cities Con alone was 3 12 hour days at the Convention Center, which would not have been possible without help from our authors Michael Merriam and Jennie Goloboy, my assistant Alexa and my intern, Annie. The cosplay was great, the event had definite moments and we did some fine networking...but we did not make our table costs back, let alone the costs for paying people, stocking the table, etc. and it was a pretty spendy event. So no Twin Cities Con for us next year unless we win the lottery or something.

My DreamHaven reading, on the other hand, was pleasant and went well. It was nice to see folks. And my Springboard for the Arts class was hopping. So a good month on the event front, if a very tiring one. And the steroid shot does seem to be helping my hip, albeit very slowly.

And there's more coming, of course. I am grieving the loss of my Twitter community and platform and information, but scrambling to keep things in motion for the press. I did join Mastodon, along with other platforms. More on this and other topics soon, as it is now bedtime.

5 days after getting the steroid shot in my hip and I'm still pretty achy. It also comes with bonus insomnia, which I've gathered is normal, as my body's urge to shed all the fluids, right NOW. So I'm very tired and still sore, but hoping this week sees some serious relief, hopefully in time for next weekend's 3 day marathon - Twin Cities Con at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I'll have help but it will be brutally long days in a giant echoey space filled with more people than I'm used to these days. Less hip pain would make for a much better weekend so fingers crossed on that score.

Then, of course, I'm teaching Genre Basics for Fiction Writers online for Springboard for the Arts on Tuesday 11/15 and reading at DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis on 11/16. In a rare moment of higher common sense, I cancelled on everything but the essentials as of yesterday afternoon, so this weekend was table prep, laundry, submitting a reprint, cooking meals for Jana when I'm in and out at weird hours, lining up Jana's PCA for weekend coverage, sending in a bio for a forthcoming anthology, working on edits to our books and more.

In other news, I have a new essay up at Ylva Publishing to celebrate the new German translation of Silver Moon too! I love saying that. The translator, Florian Kranz, reached out today to say something nice about the book and I love that part too. :-) Most of the reviews seem pretty positive too.

The new day job contract continues along. I'm pushing for more formal onboarding practices than finding myself on a call and a disembodied voice announcing that something is now my problem, which is mostly how it's been going. I'm getting in some quality Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple time, Miss Scarlet and the Duke time and time spent trying not to freak out about Tuesday. And Twitter, which has generally been a solid platform for meeting people, outreach and marketing and it hurts to lose it to the stupid.

That said, for the sake of anything you care about, please go vote and vote blue. The alternative is terrifying.

I forgot to mention that we also voted early and got our COVID boosters and flu shots. Also sold or rehomed several items as part of my cunning "let's start cleaning out the house just in case" longterm plan.

So this week:

Silver Moon is out in the new German translation from Ylva Publishing today! Get your menopausal werewolf fix in Deutsch! Right at this moment in time it is #1 in Lesbian Fiction for Kindle and #2 for print. I'm savoring this delightful event for a bit.
Started my new contracting gig and it is every bit as much chaotic nonsense as I anticipated, but the people are nice so far. So we'll see how it goes. Also, I'm tired and my sleep is hosed, but such is the nature of first week.
I'm teaching Crimson Peaks and Menacing Mansions: Writing Gothic Horror at the Rambo Academy on Sunday, 10/23 and we got room for more signups! I'm fun, I'm entertaining and I know my shit! Come take a class with me!
I got profiled as a entrepreneur for Canvas Rebel this week.
Jana's new companion care PCA started today and it sounds like they had a pleasant outing. We're easing into this with 2 hours a week, which is about what our friends were doing for free, but cannot do consistently right now due to kids being back in school, etc. PCA care is not cheap so if you have room in your budget to do a bit of gift shopping on Jana's Etsy, it would help (she also sells things at the Open Book's MCBA Shop).
You can still sign up for Jennie Goloboy's upcoming virtual reading from Obviously, Aliens at Space Cowboy Books this Tuesday 10/25! Jennie gives a good reading and Space Cowboy Books (in Joshua Tree) has been getting a lot of big names in lately. Come join us!
Queen of Swords Press news - Rem Wigmore's sequel to Foxhunt, Wolfpack, will come out in midJanuary instead of mid December to give us all more time to get stuff done. Rem has a great new essay up at the Climate Fiction Writers League here.
More Queen of Swords Press news: the ALA's Barbara Gittings Stonewall Book Awards committee requested a review copy of The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones for consideration! A book has to be recommended by a librarian or two get considered for this and it's only our second book to be nominated. Roses is also up on the Nebular Award Reading List - it is eligible in the Novella category for the Nebs, the Hugos, World Fantasy and anything else that considers fantasy at the 40k word limit. Please consider nominating it!
Looking forward to another fine Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society show this Sunday night! Seriously, they helped me stay sane during lockdown and I haven't missed one of their shows in a couple of years now.
Going to The Queen's Ball: A Bridgerton Experience next month because I have the perfect group of friends to go with. And I need good, fluffy fun. Especially after I spend 3 days at the Minneapolis Convention Center the weekend before that tabling at Twin Cities Con, which is going to be wild.

And now to bed and trying to catch up on sleep. I hope the coming days bring good things your way.

The big news for this week is that I got a new day job contract. It's projected to start on the 17th, so I'll get through exciting cycle of weekend book tables and classes before then. I'll also be going back to healthcare and some work related to what I used to do at the job I held prePlague. New companies (contracting co and renter of services), new software, etc. I made them laugh a few times during the interview and they wanted me immediately, unlike last year's endless cycle of "we like her, but we want 3 more interviews." In the meantime, I need to knuckle down and get a LOT done beforehand.

Last week's table at Open Streets Minneapolis went okay. Not, perhaps, the liveliest territory for book shopping but lots of interest by afternoon. And presenting at the Loft's Wordsmith Conference on Sunday went swimmingly. Next up, Columbia Heights Pride this Saturday 10/8, then back to Dancing Bear Chocolate on Sunday with books and Jana's handmade boxes and journals. Then next Saturday, it's the Twin Cities Book Festival - Michael Merriam (Last Car to Annwn Station) will be a featured local author and we'll be tabling. Stop by one of these - should be fun!

Accomplished in the last month, while unemployed:

Edits out to author, cover discussion launched, cover copy and description written
Discussions with other authors and contracts sent
1-2 events every week
Getting the process of selling some of Jana's tools moving along (these are the ones she already decided to shed)
Verbally contracted with a companion care PCA to spend time with her
Contracted with an elder care attorney who help me get stuff organized
Sent in class proposals
Did some writing
Began catching up with people I haven't seen in years, in some cases
Did 2 Patreon posts
Took Shu to the vet for an injured paw (he's doing better)
Started the fun of scheduling fall maintenance on the house and yard
Watched and read some things that have been on my list for a while
Dragged Jana out shopping and managed to get her some needful things.
Financial stuff that I need to wrangle.
Saw "The Woman King" and a couple of fun live performances.
Cleaned out my closet and starting getting stuff out to consignment shops
Opened a discussion with the MIA about donating a piece of art I inherited from Mom.

Need to finish:

A lot. Tomorrow, I start investigating green burial versus green cremation. I may have found a place to spread my mother's ashes in a meaningful way, though not as she originally intended. And start work paperwork and other fun. Everything else is pretty much in progress so more to come!

This has been, on the one hand, several weeks of some big accomplishments. It has also included getting carjacked at gunpoint on my block, which my friend whose car was stolen and I could have very much done without. We had gone to the Riverview to see Thor: Love and Thunder (it was okay, but definitely not as good as Ragnorak) and we were chatting in the car before I got when my friend looked over my shoulder and said, "Oh shit." I turned around to find a masked teenager with a gun pointed at us gesturing at me to roll the window down. His companion was on the other side of the car and they demanded our cash and our phones, (along with unlock codes). We turned those over and they had us get out out of the car, took my friend's keys and one sped off in the car and the other made a getaway through our back yard.

We waited until they were gone, then went inside to borrow my wife's phone to call the police. Despite all the dire predictions to the contrary, they showed up within ten minutes, burbled at the cats, were quite polite and set off in pursuit of where my friend's phone tracker suggested they had gone. We spent a jolly hour or so changing passwords and I had to wake J up repeatedly because I just could not remember her pictograph sign-in. Then we got to spend another hour and a half trying to get my friend back into their secure building without keys or an onsite resource. We did eventually succeed but I didn't get to bed until 1AM.

And, since I don't have vacation or sick time, went back into work the next morning for hell week. My friend's car was found, but he can't get it back until they're done processing it. I spent a week without a phone because my now former service provider, Credo Mobile, simply could not grok that I did not have handfuls of spare phones laying around and refuse to work with me unless I called. The 10 hour work days, plus no phone, plus the r/Fantasy AMA on Friday (which was fun, but I was really scattered because work did not let up) made that impossible, so on Saturday, I took myself off to the T-Mobile store in St. Paul and their nice staff made it all better. New phone, new plan and all.

So, exhausting and scary, but survived. And the AMA was lots of fun, as was West St. Paul Pride. This week's adventure will be our Thursday night reading at DreamHaven - do come by if you're up it and live in the area. I moved the Dancing Bear book/art table to August 14th because even I know I'm running on empty.

Otherwise:

Finished a new article for DreamFoundry
Applied for Social Security for Jana and got the process rolling to cash in a small retirement before it vanishes into the ether.
Did a bunch of stuff on my various accounts to consolidate and simplify.
Did some writing, including a Patreon post about the Twin Cities street car system, which features prominently in Michael Merriam's Last Car to Annwn Station, which we released this month.
Got in touch with an eldercare business and am starting the process for evaluations, etc.

I am unbelievably tired. We are also running sales for various books on Smashwords, DriveThruFiction and later this week, Amazon. And Jana has her Etsy. It's been an expensive month and things won't be sorted for a bit, so books and pretties for sale for them as are interested.

Well, June has been quite the month. On a personal level, I co-taught a workshop at Clarion West (online) and was on a small press panel at the Library of Congress. I did my first Twitch event for GeekGirlCon and wrote a new article on what goes into publishing small press books forDream Foundry. I kicked off a new TikTok channel for Queen of Swords Press. And finally, the Pride StoryBundle ends on Friday 7/1 and right about now, I'm hoping for a big final lift as the result of the anthology We're Here edited by C.L. Clark and Charles Payseur (Neon Hemlock, 2021) winning the Locus Award for Best Anthology last weekend; it's been a struggle this year, what with everything, and I would so prefer not to add financial stress to everything else. Sigh.

A bit of good news today: I finally, after months of trying, got a copy of Jana's birth certificate, which means that this weekend I can apply for Social Security for her! And then, wait. I also got in touch with a local company that assists families with elders in negotiating everything from getting PCAs to assisted living. They helped me build a plan for my mother when we were moving her around so I'm going to throw more money at them and have them help me with some of that as well as setting up an emergency support for J so I can actually be away occasionally to teach, etc.

Other than that, it's been about work and releasing Mike's new book and being very tired and very angry. How do I feel about the loss of Roe? Well, I was active in a lot of prochoice reproductive rights stuff for a very long time and for most of that time, I think a whole bunch of prochoicers did a lot of screaming into a vacuum. So here we are and the terrorists have won and we've lost and people are angrily demanding magic fixes and ignoring all the work that has been done to date and kind of being idiots, sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes less so. Ironically, after years of "Listen to Black women and women of color," etc., we've got right back to ignoring them in favor of babbling about a whole bunch of things that not only will not get any rights back, they will make things much, much worse. I need to spend less time on Twitter, for sure.

And also, get more sleep.

Jana's good friend Sue Bjerke died this month too. She was a very talented box maker and woodcarver, two things she took up while working in IT. By all acocunts, she was an excellent teacher and she was also a good friend and colleague to Jana. She was quite sick for the last couple of years, unfortunately, so her passing was not unexpected, but I think we'll still miss her quite a bit. :-(((

Ooops, I almost forgot! I was invited to a friend's birthday party last week and actually went. I don't know him and his housemates very well, but I thought it was time to go bond with some new folks. As it turned out, I had a lovely time and knew several of the other guests, either from other circles or from online. It made for a lovely Pride weekend kickoff. Pride itself was fun, if hot and crowded and we wrapped up the weekend with a Sunday matinee Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society show.

Another bright spot for this week: Give Out Day is Thursday, June 30th. It's the largest day of giving for LGBTQ nonprofits around the country and they're doing to need it, especially in places that are hardhit. If you can toss a coin or two to your Witcher, now would be good.

Onward!

All my tests were negative, so apparently last week's sore throat, etc. were the usual con crud. Which was good, because I recovered in time to teach online for Clarion West on Sunday. Jennie and I had a fun time - the students were engaged and asked good questions and I hope we get to do it again! And we launched the Pride StoryBundle in the midst of things last week and being sick always makes things like that more of a challenge. This year's StoryBundle is very cool: we have an epic fantasy novel by Melissa Scott, 3 anthologies from Neon Hemlock and Speculatively Queer, a couple of novellas from Cynthia Ward's vampire series, a new ghost story by Andi C. Buchanan, Queen of Swords Press titles Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore and The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones, a new spin on gay vampires by Jerry Wheeler, a climate fiction novella by Sim Kern, fantasy novellas by Ginn Hale and Nicole Kimberling and queer robot stories by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor and Vincent Scott. Our charity is once again Rainbow Railroad, an international nonprofit that assists LGBTQ+ people at risk and refugees to get to safer areas, something that is even more critically important now. The Bundle runs through 7/1 and I hope you'll give it a look.

Also coming up next week, I get to do my first Twitch event with Geek Girl Con. I'll be on a panel about world-building in art and fiction on 6/14. Then it's off to St. Louis Park for 4th Street Fantasy and a couple of panels on immortality and modern sensibility and progressive narratives, plus other interesting discussions. Then we do our panel at the Library of Congress the week after that! It is an action-packed month!

Speaking of which, our next title, a new edition of Last Car to Annwn Station by Michael Merriam is up for preorder! I am gleefully describing it as "Last Car is the most Minneapolis fantasy novel since War for the Oaks!" And it is - phantom streetcars, visits to Uptown, evil rich people living on Lake Minnetonka, a race through Lakewood Cemetary - good stuff! We'll be doing a DreamHaven event in July to kick it off.

The home situation: I've been trying to get a copy of J's birth certificate so I can file for Social Security for a month and a half now and finally broke down and spent the money for a service that expedites gov docs. Then to hope that we can get her application through in a reasonably timely manner. I also just set up an emergency contact failsafe with some neighbors (I wanted to get to know them better, anyway). I had to push our doctor's appointments out to August due to the crud, since I wasn't sure what it was, but now I get to follow up on some new issues she's having. I, meanwhile, could really use a checkup myself. Sigh. Still have to figure out how to handle my Novel in Progress teaching weekend in early August as I think the thing I was hoping for will not work out. She did have a good run at the WisCon Art Show, so big thank you to the Art Show staff and everyone who bought her work!

Onward!

And, of course, happy May Day/Beltane, however you're celebrating it!

I decided that I was long overdue for addressing some chronic pain issues from some old injuries and am dabbling my toes in the waters of acupuncture again. This time around, I'm going to a community acupuncture clinic where the acupuncturist sees multiple people at the same time rather than to a setup where they are focused on one person. So far, I'm two sessions in and seeing some improvements and I'm not having a huge "Oh god! Needles! I hate this reaction!" which I've had in the past. I'm not phobic about needles but I don't like feeling like a pin cushion so I wasn't sure if this model would work for me. Going to give it a few more treatments and see how I'm doing then.

I was asked to fill in for a guest who cancelled on the If This Goes On Podcast yesterday and had a delightful time chatting with the hosts and with author Matthew Kressel about hopepunk, running green business and our current projects. The link should be going up soon here and elsewhere. And last week's anthology class at the Rambo Academy went really well - good questions, lots of engagement and I'm inspired to get off my butt and start dealing with the next anthology project. Edits on Michael Merriam's Last Car to Annwn Station are off to the author and the cover for the German translation of my novel Silver Moon (coming from Ylva Publishing in October!) looks amazing.

Other stuff: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once really is that good and you should see it as soon as you can.

More other stuff: I looked at some options for Jana and since the evaluation didn't go particularly well (it upset her and annoyed me) AND what she'd get from Disability, even if we can get her on it, would be minimal, I'm working on getting her set up to apply for regular Social Security early. Currently awaiting a copy of her birth certificate so I can (hopefully) get the application in before her 62nd birthday at the end of this month. Beginning to look for a PCA as well; right now, our former neighbors are taking her out on shopping expeditions every other week or so when they have time, but I'd like to get someone/an organization in place for when I need to be out of town as well as for future care needs. If you're in the Twin Cities area and have recommendations for PCAs who work with folks with dementia.

Otherwise, off to revamped In the Heart of the Beast May Day with friends today, enjoying Our Flag Means Death, planning for more events and doing a bit of writing. May be picking up another short term side project soon and will be looking for more editing, coaching, etc. in a month or two. Also writing and editing my own stuff and getting caught up on Queen of Swords Press Projects. So, lots of stuff, quite a bit of it good or benign.

posting a couple of times a month thing is going well. Sigh. Like everyone else, I've been watching events elsewhere and like most people not collecting a side gig paid in rubles, I'm rooting for Ukraine and the Ukrainians. In case that needed saying.

What else has been going on? It's been very lively. I sold our second car, my solid, sturdy Corolla which we've been driving around since 2005 because we are down to one driver in the house. it is off to go live with the college-age daughter of friends of friends and I think it will serve her well. I've started some attempts to deal with some the various issues that have come up around me being the only driver in the house.

I wrote and submitted a new Weird West story on Monday. This is significant because I haven't sat down and blitzed through 600 words of new fiction in a week in far too long. Is it any good? Well, I like it, so there's that. I got to go to the "Supernatural" show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art with a friend and really enjoyed it. I introduced another friend to "Black Sails," so that's all good. Apart from getting sick yesterday, we've been relatively healthy. I'm making keffir in the yogurt-maker I got for Xmas and dehydrating herbs and fruit in the dehydrator. Taxes are in progress to go to the account. We have enough to eat and people who care about us and no one is doing anything really terrible in our vicinity, so that's all good.

Other things:

I have a story in Vol. 4 of Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives edited by John Linwood Grant and the Kickstarter is doing pretty well. 20 days left to get your mitts on some fine Sherlockiana and bonus Carnacki stories.
I'm looking forward to 13 Gears Steampunk this weekend. First in person event of the year! I'll be tabling with Michael Merriam and Patrick Marsh and there'll be deals on Alex Acks's steampunk books and our tea! Also, crafts, music, tea dueling and other fun.
Next Wednesday (the 9th), I'll be on Querying Tips, a Q&A hosted by Dot & Dash with author Jenna Miller, literary agent (and Queen of Swords Press author!) Jennie Goloboy and a publisher (me). Register if you want to join us.
After that, I'm Author GOH at Marscon here in Minneapolis. It is in person and promises to be fun! Come join us if you can!
Then, on the 15th, Jennie Goloboy, Michael Merriam and I will be guests on Write On! Radio on KFAI Radio talking about ta-da, Queen of Swords Press, and our work as authors. It will be streamed on the web too!
Then, we wrap the month with SMOLFair, an online small press book and zine fair. We'll have an FB Live event and do a book giveaway and a virtual table and all that other fun stuff.
Finally, Queen of Swords Press author, Rem Wigmore, has had a couple of stellar interviews this week. Here they are on Hannah's Bookshelf on North Manchester 1066 FM (U.K.) - streaming link is at the bottom of the page. And on the Queer Words Podcast, also out this week. Listening to people excited about writing and books and their work is a balm.

More news coming when I have it. I just sent an acceptance to an author and when we finalize things, will be making a cool Queen of Swords Press announcement!

The family health issues have been confirmed and are worse than I had thought, but I need to have some discussions with other people before talking too much about it. The next few months are going be very hard and likely very expensive in the bargain. I'm already looking at picking up side gigs and rearranging deadlines and such. It continues to be a good day to buy something from the Etsy or Queen of Swords Press, or both.

Apart from that, I have been to an online, interactive play (Reboot: Walking Shadow Theatre Company); seen Death on the Nile (lordy, but that was some scenery chewing. And so much emoting. ALL the emoting); and been to the MN Opera for the first time in years. The Anonymous Lover was a lovely bit of fluff and now I have a crush on the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the composer. Seriously, absolutely fascinating man and there needs to be a movie or three and some romance novels about him, stat.

We also went to see the snow sculptures in St. Paul, which were impressive, and the Como Park Conservatory, which was lovely and warm and green. I am enjoying "Around the World in 80 Days" and Vienna Blood: Season 2." "Gilded Age " is silly, but good to watch while working on things. I have started the next werewolf novel, a new chapter of my serialized novel for my Patreon and a new short story. I am also addicted to Wordle.

I just finished loading up the next Queen of Swords Press title, The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones (coming in April!) for preorder. It is a glorious retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" that goes to many unexpected places. And Heather is a terrific author so I'm excited to be publishing her.

Otherwise, it looks like a friend of a friend will be buying our now "extra" car, so that's good. I'm getting better at making keffir (the yogurt is just not getting solid) and dehydrating things in the dehydrator I got us for the holidays. The day job is survivable most of the time. And I'm looking forward to some fun events and such this year. More soon...

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Dwelling in Probabilities

Catherine Lundoff's blog

Entries tagged with queen of swords press

So many things going on, all at once!

Something absolutely wild happened...

Rochester Pride and WisCon schedule and so forth

Queer Horror

Small and Indie Press in a Big Press World

Bits of excitement!

And March begins...

BIG NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT!

And so, we start the year...

Oh wow! Cool things!

New essay, new hijinks and more

The Aftermath...

November catchup

Updates and updatey things

Silver Moon translation is here! And sundry other things

Catching up, again

And the latest...

Catching my breath, kind of...

There is, as usual, lots going on

Updatey things....

So I see that the whole...

And 2022 is on track to be a seriously mixed bag of a year