catherineldf | Entries tagged with podcast

I lost an entire post last night, so here's a much shorter one as a placeholder. Author Matthew Kressel and I were interviewed on the If This Goes On Podcast and we are super articulate and stuff about hopepunk, green businesses and such. More soon!

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.

I had a great time getting interviewed about some of the early history of LGBTQ science fiction, fantasy and horror on the Glitchy Pancakes Podcast on Sunday night and it just got posted today! Be sure and check out the notes, which have links and such for additional information. We're already talking about doing a followup episode, time frame TBD.

Queen of Swords Press is still participating in St. Cloud Pride this week so the coupon code StCloudPride for buying books from our website is good through 9/20. I think I'll just do an October sale rather than event coupons because I have back to back events pretty much the whole month and they don't seem to work very well for me.

Apart from that, I'm back to taking classes at the Cassandra School (movement and isolation) and am looking at a big life change. I just got offered a discount for signing up for a certification program in project management from the top IT school in the area so I'm thinking I'm going to make the leap. I'm just not enjoying QA work any more and current job is trying very hard to make sure that I'm utterly miserable for the next year and change (until my current position ends anyway) so I think it's time for a change. It's the kind of training that would be helpful in the long run for running Queen of Swords Press as well. So we'll see what happens next. Will be an interesting couple of months, in any case. The main problem is, of course, money, as usual.

Novel progress: Blood Moon is moving along at a reasonable clip. I hope to have this draft wrapped in the next couple of weeks. I'm also working on some new short stories and more chapters for my WIP for my Patreon. This is kind of a fun novel to write and I'm glad I'm getting back into it.

More bulletins as events warrant!

SO MUCH GOING ON! See local updates below. In the meantime:

I appeared on the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club YouTube channel, changed hats a lot and talked about Queen of Swords Press this week!

Watch on YouTube

I have a new letter up to my high school self at the Letters to Yesterday Podcast.

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.

Watch on YouTube

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

Let's start with the fun stuff. My story, " Cardinal's Gambit," is out at Heather Rose Jones' LHMPodcast, If you liked the pirate/spy couple that I introduced in "The Letter of Marque" and wrote about in "One Night In Saint Martin," they're back! Have a little distraction!

Okay, back to the horror. So last night we had a friend over for birthday dinner (Jana's and his) and he left right before curfew (a brand new thing, started last night at 8PM, both cities). When he left, we found a bag of food from a local restaurant on the porch. We tried unsuccessfully to reach them and there was no name on it, so into the fridge it went. More on that later.

Now many places, putting a "curfew" in suggests that it will be enforced, in this case by the MN National Guard and the local constabulary. Or, you know, someone in authority. But that was not how this rolled. I have said elsewhere that a number of our public officials are people that we elected in good times for good times, not necessarily people who could handle many, many simultaneous crises, back to back. Some of them are trying, but aren't good at it yet. Some are not trying and it shows. Last night, the rest of Lake Street burned, along with a big chunk of St. Paul and some of North Minneapolis. Today, we are finally wrestling with the notion that the Fire Department needs to be able to get to the fires in order to put them out. We are also dealing with the notion that if you start out with huge, interracial groups of protestors, then suddenly have small groups of white guys with suspiciously new gear running around setting fire to things and encouraging looting, then maybe you have a different set of problems.

Last night, we lost, amongst other things too numerous to even begin to list:

Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's Bookstore - the oldest indie sf-speciality bookstore in the country. Staff are unharmed, fundraiser likely coming soon.
Broadway Family Medicine Clinic, one of the largest medical facilities left in North Minneapolis
2 post offices (one of which housed my p.o. box as well as several things on hold that were due to be delivered when mail service resumed - the 2 shirts that I had ordered for Jana for her birthday, the DVDs I was looking forward to watching and some other things). My all time favorite mail clerk worked at our closest one.
More restaurants, nail shops, barber shops, gas stations, coffee shops, banks, pharmacies, drug stores, grocery stores, etc. than I can count.
A photojournalist has lost an eye to "nonlethal" rounds, DreamHaven Books was broken into and trashed, the Minnesota Somali Museum got trashed and the Midtown Global Market and its apartments were attacked (the tenants fended off the looters and arsonists and now it's one of the few buildings left standing). Paper Source got looted (Paper Source? I mean all the why?).

No, you do not get to tell me what I can or can't mourn or how I should do it. No one gets to tell those of us who are living through this right now that.

Today, I dropped off donations at the food shelf, helped raise the Bat Signal to assist DreamHaven Books, shared food from the restaurant delivery (I paid the restaurant even though they tried to give us the meal kit for free) with our neighbors, helped clean up DreamHaven and locked up our trash cans and recycling bin so they can't be used to start fires. The farmers we buy goat cheese from fought their way to our house to deliver the goat cheese order I couldn't get downtown to pick up.

Tonight, the word is that we are going to get an influx of white supremacists. The highways are closed. We no longer have mail delivery or public transit. All over the area, people are assembling block patrols. One of our favorite cafe owners to begging people to come and stay overnight to help her protect her restaurant (an East Coast Big 5 editor informed me today on Twitter that "no one did that," when in fact yes, they do). The full Minnesota National Guard will be out, along with troops from other states. Tonight, they have been told they can use lethal force. Tonight, I will be sleeping on the couch with a fire extinguisher and sundry other equipment and waking up periodically to patrol our yard and keep an eye on the surrounding houses. We are all angry and scared and I just hope we stop these fuckers tonight and save what's left of our cities.

And no, I haven't forgotten about George Floyd. Hell, I haven't even forgotten about COVID-19. But we're in in survival mode now and have to do the best we can with what we have. We'll get justice for him, but we gotta survive the night first. Good luck out there and stay as safe as you can.

I’ll do a MultiverseCon write up later this week, but the short version is that it went well and we had a good trip!
Other cool things:

Ginn Hale has a lovely piece up at Tor.com about queer communities and chosen family in fantasy. It includes a nice shoutout for Murder on the Titania by Alex Acks, as well as some other fine books. Ginn also has a new book out and you should get that too!
Host Wayne Goodman interviewed me on his podcast, Queer Words
My new collection, Unfinished Business, got a very nice plug in this fun queer horror feature at Lambda Literary
And a nice plug on Kirkus Reviews!

More later!

Just finished off recording a new podcast interview with Wayne Goodman, host of Queer Words. My interview will be up on 10/22, but there's lots of other interesting interviews out on his site. I'm looking forward to checking out some new-to-me queer authors!

And my class, "Breaking Out of the Slush Pile," just opened up for registrations. I'll be teaching online via Zoom for Hidden Timber Books, a lovely small publisher that I met up with when I was at the Untitled Town Book Fest in Green Bay in April. The class will happening on 11/10, from 1-2:30 CST and will include lecture and Q&A on some techniques to get your work noticed for the right reasons.

And now to collapse and watch Wynonna Earp for a bit.

So I have been burning my candle at both ends for a while so when I woke up this morning, I was, unsurprisingly, sick. Which meant that I missed the MN State Fair. I am sorely disappointed, both because the crop art was fairly epic this year and because my friend Sigrid won a second place ribbon for her knitted socks and I wanted to go and admire them. Also, Dessa is playing and I quite like Dessa. Sigh. And even if I am miraculously better tomorrow, I'm recording a podcast interview in the afternoon so I won't be able to make a trip to the Fair work. Sigh.

Other things I have been doing, in no particular order:

Went to see Maiden, a documentary about the all-women crew who sailed around the world in the Whitbread Yacht Race in 1989/90. This was very good and I'm glad they got them all together for interviews while they're all still around. King Hussein of Jordan makes a surprise appearance (and becomes their corporate sponsor, which is an intriguing bit of history I didn't know about). Anyway, pretty inspirational and well worth seeing in the theater.
Saw Ready or Not which is an entertaining horror film, sort of the unholy love child between Heathers (the movie) and Crimson Peak, but not quite as clever or well-done as either.
Worked on the "Breaking Out of the Slush Pile" class that I'll be teaching for Hidden Timber Books in November.
Worked on getting things prepped for my new book, Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic
Went to this entertaining talk by Dessa, Curtis Sittenfeld and Nora McInery on literary craft at The Parkway.
Started getting ready for my interview on the Queer Words Podcast tomorrow.

And in between all that was day job and hanging out with friends and the doing of miscellaneous things. Really glad to have tomorrow off and not just because I'm sick. Now off to bed early in hopes of sleeping off the crud.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who bought and/or boosted the Pride StoryBundle! We had strong sales this year and raised over $600 for Rainbow Railroad to assist with their refugee resettlement efforts. Thanks for helping make that happen! :-D

New story out! My historical fiction tale, “By Her Pen, She Conquers,” is set in Regency London at the Drury Lane Theater. Will Penny Armstrong ever get to see one of her plays on the stage? And will anything come of her flirtation with the intriguing Jess? Check out this Regency slice of life tale based loosely on the lives of several real women playwrights from the time period, as read to you by the very talented Heather Rose Jones on her show, the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast!

In personal news, the Furnace Neverending is seemingly done, waiting only upon the final inspections and sign off. And the rest of the bill, of course. Then we get a month to recover before tackling the attic. The bathroom is also now a hideous showcase for its existing flaws and new huge HVAC pipes, so that has to get moved up the list of things to be fixed too. Sigh. But I think central air and much more efficient heat will be nice, so there’s that. I have had some pleasant meals and in the case of last night’s foray to a feminist comedy benefit, hanging out with lovely friends I don’t see very often. And tomorrow, I get to go to a tea/Gentleman Jack viewing party that I’m very much looking forward to! I’m also going to a “Meet the Bees” event at the Tiny Diner this week. I’m making progress on a new story and on my new collection and on a novel and...at any rate, more stuff soon! I am also angry and freaked out and stressed, because I contain multitudes.

Now back to trying to make myself useful and get stuff done.

Looking for historical fiction featuring female pirates and spies and ladies flirting and swordplay in the 17th century Caribbean? Check out the podcast reading of my story, "One Night in Saint Martin," on the LHMP podcast! https://thelesbiantalkshow.podbean.com/mobile/category/lesbian-historic-motif-project/

I need to do a con writeup for Worldcon 75 (it was swell) and a trip writeup (it was mostly good) but am still massively jetlagged and wrangling the aftereffects of a horrible migraine yesterday. Blergh.
But I still have updatey things!

Followup from Worldcon panels:
Older Women in Speculative Fiction: Catherine's book and story list of older women as protagonists in science fiction, fantasy and horror. Sidsel Pedersen had turned it into a Goodreads list that you can add to or use to build a reading list of your own. Catherine has a shorter Goodreads list of her reviews of some of the books in the bibliography.

LGBTQ Science Fiction Goes Worldwide - Catherine's original history of LGBTQ speculative fiction posts here now here. Her updated versions which include more horror and are longer are being posted on a monthly basis on Queer Sci-Fi and her list of speculative fiction with queer female protagonists cane be found here. The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards have a reading list of early works here (see also the award lists) and LGBTQ Reads for more recent works.

Podcasts - I had a two part interview up at author Heather Rose Jones' Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1 is my work and Part 2 is book recommendations.

More soon!

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2026

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New podcast interview!
Updatey things....
New podcast interview and misc.
Appearances and other fun
Warzone, Day 5....and a new story out!
Lots of cool news!
New class and new podcast!
Miscellaneous things make a post
New story out and misc updates
Podcast!
Older Women in Spec Fic updates, Podcast news and other fun

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1: My, it's been a few weeks...
2: Anne Shaw RIP
3: Readercon write up
4: Sales and other updatey things
5: And here we go again...
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7: Catching up...
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Dwelling in Probabilities

Catherine Lundoff's blog

Entries tagged with podcast

New podcast interview!

Updatey things....

New podcast interview and misc.

Appearances and other fun

Warzone, Day 5....and a new story out!

Lots of cool news!

New class and new podcast!

Miscellaneous things make a post

New story out and misc updates

Podcast!

Older Women in Spec Fic updates, Podcast news and other fun