Life During Wartime, Part 2

Feb. 27th, 2026 08:40 pm
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This month has been a...LOT. So whatever you may have seen on the news or heard online, Minnesota is still being occupied and the impacts of both that and this administration's b.s. are pretty intense. Currently, the four biggest crises at the local level are rent (families have been forced to stay home and haven't been able to work and rent is due), legal support for families trying to get their kidnapped relatives back, impacts to rescues and shelters from pets having to be surrendered or just plain abandoned when their people are kidnapped and our major public hospital (one of the biggest networks in the state and a huge employer as well as the main provider of healthcare to people who are uninsured) teetering on the brink of closure. If you can spare a couple of bucks, here are some recommended fundraisers:
  • Stand with Minnesota has an up to date list of rent funds. I live in Bancroft, but help is needed in Philips, Central, North Minneapolis, West St. Paul, you name it. Throw a dart at a rent fund and it will help.
  • Women's Foundation of Minnesota Immigrant Rapid Response - I've been an annual donor to the Women's Foundation for a very long time and they do great work so they're my pick in the area. Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota is another excellent chose.
  • Hennepin County Medical Center - they have a mobile pediatric clinic going to people's homes, a coat closet and a ton of other services, in additional to medical care.
  • ICE Hurts Animals Too - organization founded by several of my neighbors. In the first two weeks that this fund existed, they rescued 30 cats, got them vetted and fostered. In two weeks. They do house calls with vets, dog walking, emergency care, pet food and necessities delivered to families who can't go out, etc. Multi-species too.
What are we doing here, apart from patrolling, escorting, getting food to people, etc., etc.? There are about 3 benefits a day, every day, at a minimum, for all kinds of things. I haven't had full time employment since last July and I have contributed to 30 some odd fundraisers of one kind or another in two months. We're also holding space at DreamHaven Books and owners Greg and Lisa are donating to food banks, teachers who need books for their students who can't go to school, rent emergencies and more. MS Now broadcast the response to the State of the Union from the store on Tuesday night, which Greg and Lisa found very interesting. There are people coming from all over the country to meet Greg and visit the store with messages of support and more. It's been lovely so far, if very exhausting.

I'm teaching at the Loft Literary Center with Jennie Goloboy tomorrow morning and, snow permitting, going to the Lodge of Lazarus Crowe with the Diodes (local steampunk club) to try out a puzzle room or too, But in the meantime, also hosting an impromptu rent relief benefit on the Queen of Swords Press website - get a book by one of our Minnesota authors tomorrow (2/28): Jennie Goloboy, Michael Merriam, me or Emily L. Byrne and I'll make a donation to my neighborhood rent relief group.

Other than that, watching my boy kitty, Shu, slowly fade away, taking my data analytics classes, working on my next werewolf novel, an article I have due next month on a Margaret St. Clair story, a queer Arthurian tale set in Nazi-occupied France (go figure) and other sundry projects. Also: Queen of Swords Press submissions, Joyce Chng's new book, StoryBundle planning and more. Once I get a few more things picked off, it'll be back to looking at work options I can take on around the store. Good thing I have a fair amount of energy!
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And so, we start the year...

Jan. 29th, 2023 05:11 pm
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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.

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Full week in these parts and Flights of Foundry schedule

Apr. 13th, 2021 08:07 pm
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First the good stuff, because there needs to be good stuff.
  • My novel, Silver Moon, is going to be translated and released in a new German language edition by Ylva Publishing in 2022! Very excited about this since it's out first foreign rights sale.
  • Blood Moon got a lovely review on Hannah's Bookshelf, a great book-oriented radio show on North Manchester FM.
  • Queen of Swords Press has been invited to do a Small Press AMA (Ask Me Anything) at r/Fantasy on 6/4. Alex Acks, A.J. Fitzwater, Rem Wigmore, Jennie Goloboy and I will all be there, with some special guests, if we're lucky. Please join us!
  • The Tucson Steampunk Society's CommuniTea was delightful and my anthology class went well last weekend.
  • I have a new "6 Books with Catherine Lundoff" at Nerds of a Feather (big congrats to them for their Hugo Finalist nod!)
  • I got sick and migrainey a lot, a state that lasted until yesterday.
  • I'm teaching for Springboard for the Arts tomorrow night! Publishing Basics for Genre Writers – April 14th, 6:00-8:00 PM CST. Zoom, Springboard for the Arts.
  • I'm doing a couple of panels and a Dealer's Room table at Flights of Foundry next week. I'm also getting my second shot on Saturday afternoon (Jana is too), so we'll see how that goes. Flights looks like a great con again this year so you should definitely check it out.
The other things going on:
On Sunday afternoon, police in Brooklyn Center (a bedroom community about 10 miles away) shot and killed a young Black man named Duante Wright. For context, we are in Week 3 of Derek Chauvin's trial for the murder of George Floyd. Brooklyn Center is very diverse, majority POC city with a big immigrant population. The National Guard is out, the police presence and militarization is completely insane and the protests are substantial. The entire metro area is under curfew at present, which is every bit as useful as it was last time. It's enraging and horrible and frustrating and painful we need some big changes to do this better; if you live in Minneapolis and haven't signed the Yes 4 Minneapolis petition, please do it. This will enable us to vote to replace the current police department with a Department of Public Safety if it passes and let us vote for what we want to see (the Charter Commission crushed this last year and is putting forth another ballot to give the Mayor more control over the MPD, conveniently ignoring that he had full control last year and that didn't go so well). And here's a list of ways to help Brooklyn Center, which was already hurting quite a bit from last year. And please consider voting for Kate Knuth for Mayor.
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Catching up on October, sort of

Oct. 8th, 2020 07:18 pm
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First, this last week. Day job situation continues to suck rocks, but I have at least started my project management class. Not far enough along to know if it's a total fit yet, but I'm feeling engaged in IT-related stuff for the first time in a while. I definitely think I can use at least some of the things that I'll be learning, regardless of what happens next.

I spent much of the weekend at C'monfluence, this year's pandemic version of Confluence, Pittsburgh's long running sf and con. It had the usual online con ups and downs; I had 4 panels and a Kaffeeklatsch with Sarah Pinkster. Sarah was delightful, as were most of the attendees (I could have done without the one doing variations on "Of course, I've heard of Sarah, but who are you?" because fans gotta fan. I have not missed this behavior in my hiatus from in person cons). On the other end of the scale, the panel I surprise-moderated on "Who Was that Punk I Saw You With?" was fab - good panelists, interesting discussion, good vibe. Easily one of the best panels I've been on, ever. I also enjoyed my other panels and the other programming items that I made it to, including an interview with Martha Wells. So, good con all around, nice to see some friends online; I'd like to go in person someday.

On Sunday, I made lasagna, which I haven't made in forever, and had a friend over for dinner and "Vampires Versus the Bronx" on Netflix. Quite enjoyed it and would recommend. Monday night, I helped rescue a lost, injured dog by connecting various people online and finding the dog's owner, so that was nice. Otherwise, it's been work and classes and a talk by Alison Bechdel at the U. of MN last night. I also cranked out more on Blood Moon (soooo close) and some other projects and read submissions.

Oh, and George Floyd's murderer got bailed out so things around here are pretty tense. Prior to that, the mural got vandalized again and some fuckers burned down the medical tent at at the square the night before last (Cash App: $612MASH, Venmo: @MedicalBus, if you can chip to help). Last night, we got all the helicopters  for a peaceful gathering at George Floyd Square. At this point, most of us in this area have some form of mild PTSD and man, do the helicopters kick that off! Everyone starts freaking out that we'll be dealing with more arson and other fun and it makes it hard to concentrate on the more important things, like supporting each other and making better communities. Not looking forward to that aspect of this weekend.

Tomorrow is Twin Cities Quorum's National Coming Out Day Event (online) and Queen of Swords Press will have a virtual table in the vending hall, which should be interesting. Quorum is the Twin Cities LGBTQ Business Association and this is their biggest event so I'm hoping for some sales. On Saturday, I'm off to Hopkins for Cream & Amber's Fall Mini-Market; Mike Merriam and I will be amongst the vendors with tables in the parking lot where we'll be peddling our wares. Lots of cool stuff to choose from and the cafe is open for takeout and patio service (and selling books). Sunday, we're going to the American Swedish Institute, which just reopened and taking in "Mr. Vampire" at the Trylon Cinema (little art cinema near us, limited to 20 people, masks on, no sitting near people you don't live with, etc.). "Mr Vampire" is the first of a gloriously weird series of Chinese vampire films that I remember fondly. Onward and upward!

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Sundry updates and bits of news and signal boosting

Jul. 5th, 2020 07:03 pm
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It has been a very full month. We just wrapped up the Pride StoryBundle - many thanks to everyone who participated, bought and/or boosted the Bundle. We raised nearly $600 for Rainbow Railroad's work with LGBTQ+ refugees and that feels pretty great. The last couple of nights of constant fireworks barrage have ensured that I didn't get much sleep; when your city burns, you tend to sit up watching for sparks because some fools are using your street as a launch pad for sparkly artillery. But I did come up with the arc for the rest of Blood Moon, so it wasn't for nothing.

We went to the newly re-opened Russian Museum on Friday - they're sanitizing, limiting entry, requiring masks, etc. The current big show are very large paintings from the Soviet era that touch on the time period after World War II. Some of it is very grim, but the artwork is spectacular and it's nice to be able to go to a museum again. Saturday, we went to the May Day Cafe for one of their neighborhood benefits (pay what you want for baked goods and they split the money between local organizations). I made chicken karaage, greens, cornbread and homemade goat's milk strawberry ice cream and we watched Hamilton. I figured we'd try the network thing for a month and see how it goes so I signed up for Disney and Netflix; I suspect the first will get scrapped in a month or two, but might keep the second. I was perfectly happy renting, but out local shop closed down a couple of years ago, the libraries are intermittently accessible, I can't go to the movies right now and I really don't want to buy everything, so here we are. Liked Hamilton a lot and I want to see it back to back with 1776, the musical.

Today, I went to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with a friend. They're timing entry and have shut down all the side paths so you get in a solid 45 minutes to an hour hike with a lot of distance between parties. they've also provided a bunch of guides (print as well as online) so you can ask about plants, etc. Quite lovely, even in this heat. From there, I went to the Cafe Meow, the cat rescue/adoption coffee shop in Uptown. Then, for whatever insane reason, I decided to rip the proverbial bandaid off and got visit the absolute worst swath of destruction in the city at Lake and Minnehaha. Picture, if you will, every news story about bombed out cities - Beirut, Damascus, etc. It looks like that. Whole swaths of Lake Street are burnt rubble right now or boarded up and closed and it was very, very hard, even just to drive past. So here's a couple of fundraisers for various things; most fans already know about DreamHaven (recovering) and Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's (rubble, but fundraising for a future) so these are general funds or other things worth supporting because their survival impacts us. If you are a new donor to either the Lake Street or Longfellow funds and are interested, I will enter you in a drawing to be held on 7/12 for any Queen of Swords Press title, winner's choice. Queen of Swords Press is also open for submissions; check the website for details. Please, please donate if you can; it truly hurts to see our city so wounded on so many levels.

Fundraisers:These two are a bit different. Geek Partnership Society runs a space in NE Minneapolis that the local geek community uses for everything from game and movie nights to craft fairs; given that all of our cons have cancelled this year and we're still in semi-lockdown, losing this space will make it harder to recover our robust local fannish communities. They're trying to come up with enough money to get through the rest of 2020 and strategize for next year.
The Seward Cafe is one of the oldest continuously worker-run restaurants in the U.S. They closed for COVID shutdown, then had started to ramp up semi-weekly home deliveries of food and coffee, then George Floyd was murdered and the city burned. They've been running a food bank and critical supplies free store for the last month (bear in mind that we lost grocery stores, pharmacies, etc. and now have a bunch of food deserts/healthcare, etc. deserts that we didn't have before and there was no bus service or mail for a week), which despite being desperately important work, means they're not getting paid and bills are coming due. So please kick in, if you can.
Please hang in there, everyone.

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Appearances and other fun

Jun. 24th, 2020 11:31 am
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SO MUCH GOING ON! See local updates below. In the meantime:
If the 15 minutes video above intrigues you, there's a much longer video from DreamHaven Books last week.DreamHaven is still recovering from the burglary, etc. so please consider buying books and contributing to their fundraiser. They do sell Queen of Swords Press titles as well as bunch of other fun things. And I may be in Publishers Weekly soon as a plug for the store; awaiting updates.
  • Queen of Swords Press is also a vendor at Twin Cities Pride Virtual Marketplace on 6/27 and 6/28. I'll be doing a virtual hangout on Sunday night from 5-7 (check TC Pride website for code). I'm also running a sale that's going on right now: get 15% off any purchase over $3 direct from the QoSP website using code TCPride2020 now through 6/29. Print and ebook available1
  • The Pride StoryBundle is going into its last week and change. Pick up your copy today and help support Rainbow Railroad's work with LGBTQ refugees at the bonus level!
  • Me and Minneapolis - well, things are still very lively, though with less sense of immediate peril. There's a bunch of volunteer requests at the George Floyd Memorial site as well as at the new homeless sanctuary in Powderhorn Park and for various food giveaways and cleanups (too many to list - ask around or check online). Fundraising is still ongoing for everything, but a lot of restaurants, etc. are calling it quits since between the COVID shutdown, the economic impact and the riots, there just isn't anything left to keep going (so please keep donating to emergency funds here and elsewhere in the Twin Cities - it's going to be a very hard summer).
  • I took a sick day yesterday (mostly due to just being very tired and having a growing migraine) and went to see my dentist - she's an African-American woman in her sixties who runs a dental practice that's entirely staffed by women of color, located a few blocks east and south of us. They're all pretty edgy about everything, not surprisingly, but on the pandemic front, they have the whole office divided into tents and are sanitizing like mad. I'm noticing that those of us who live here are beginning to talk about time in terms of before and after George Floyd's murder so I think it will be a pivotal event for a very long time to come. At any rate, after that, I did a Seward Co-op run, then went up to Lake Street briefly. I find that I'm having to take it in small doses.Yesterday was a visit to Bill's Imported Foods (open) and an attempt to stop by Steamship Coffee and Games (open, but not when I was there). I could see take-out signs in front of Bryant Lake Bowl. They all looked pretty good, but the gas station is a burnt out husk and several of the other businesses were trashed and are either closed forever or for repairs. From there, I went on to the Lake Harriet Rose and Peace Gardens (open for walking) and spent a lovely soothing hour there before heading home to read and nap and recover. Doing a bit better today.

  • The video from last week

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