Current state of things

Oct. 15th, 2023 02:05 pm
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Just the Me things, not the world things. Because that would be way too much.
It's been a lively couple of weeks. On the cultural side, I went to:
  • The Minnesota Orchestra to see them play background for "Werewolf by Night." My friend Matt wore his new bespoke suit from Heimie's Haberdashery in St. Paul and looked amazingly dapper. Principal Conductor Sarah Hicks showed up dressed as a werewolf and a fun time was had by all!
  • Went to Theater Pro Rata's production of "Bernhardt/Hamlet" about Sarah Bernhardt's ground-breaking performance as Hamlet in 1899. really good performances and fine production.
  • Went to hear Boiled in Lead at the Hook & Ladder and it was, as usual, a fine show.
  • Went to a Prime Productions reading of "The Oldest Profession" at the Jungle. Prime is a local theater company dedicated to theater by and about women over 50. It was, as are all of their productions I've seen so far, very good. looking forward to the next two in the series, coming up at the Capri and the Gremlin, respectively.
  • Off to Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society at Bryant Lake Bowl tonight.
Teaching:
  • I taught my intro to genre fiction publishing class at Springboard for the Arts last Tuesday and it went pretty well. Lot of no shows though, so that was disappointing.
  • Both my class with Jennie and my Gothic horror class got canceled, which was disappointing and anxiety-producing. My day job just went Magic 8 Ball this week (I'll likely be looking for a new job at the start of the year, unless there is a minor miracle) and the microwave is going to be quite expensive to replace. Granted, I needed the rest too. But mixed bag.
  • Teaching again with Jennie at the Loft next month so please send your friends!
Everything else:
  • A Death at the Dionysus Club by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold is up for preorder in ebook and print! Coming out 12/7 - more gay, Edwardian murder mysteries!
  • Twin Cities Book Festival was delight, if pretty exhausting. Saw many people and sold books.
  • Big announcement about next year's books coming soon!
  • State of the Spouse - I've been trying to get on the CADI Waver for 8 months now. It keeps feeling longer. Still trying to get overnight respite care so I can leave town in February for Capricon, but no luck so far. Got an interview coming up this week though so fingers crossed.
  • Doing some writing again, finally.
Now to go prep dinner for spouse and deal with sundry hygenic things before I can leave the house. Sigh.
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There is, as usual, lots going on

Jun. 8th, 2022 10:07 pm
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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!

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So much going on!

Apr. 20th, 2022 08:30 pm
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Some of it very good on the personal level, just for variety. After an action-packed couple of weeks, we have the following to report:
  • Flights of Foundry was once again delightful. Good panels and discussions and a fun virtual time all around.
  • I'll be teaching So You Want to Put Together an Anthology for Cat Rambo's Rambo Academy (online) this Sunday April 24, 11:30-1:30 AM CST and there's still room for a few more signups!
  • My essay, "Queer Gothic, Edward Gorey and Me" has been accepted for Divergent Terror: The Crossroads of Queerness and Horror edited by Waylon Jordan (Off Limits Press, 2022). It's the first of the things that I've been poking at as a result of getting a literary grant from Ladies of Horror Fiction last year. More queer horror-related stuff coming soon, I hope!
  • Thanks to dave ring of Neon Hemlock Press, I'm going to be part of an online small press science fiction and fantasy panel for Library of Congress staff in June. :-D
  • Jennie Goloboy and I will be teaching a free workshop on demystifying agent and publisher relationships and processes for Clarion West Online in June and it just opened for signups! We'll also be teaching at the Loft Literary Center and the Rambo Academy later on this summer.
  • Queen of Swords Press title Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore is a Sir Julius Vogel Award Finalist for Best Novel! And our latest, The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones, is getting some lovely reviews!
  • Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is awesome, very queer and very much worth seeing.
Otherwise, things are complicated and stressful. I'm juggling a lot and we'll see how it goes. More updates coming soon!

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A press birthday, upcoming events and sundries

Jan. 30th, 2022 01:56 pm
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It's been quite the month. Lot of stress, lining up new events (teaching at Clarion West Online! Author Guest of Honor at MarsCon! Etc.), lots of projects in various stages of completion!  Here's the big stuff:
  • I started the next menopausal werewolf novel! If you've heard me talk about this, you may recall that I always planned on 3 books, for a generous interpretation of "planning." Well, Blue Moon has some words on the page now. Onward!
  • I have a Capricon 42 schedule with a virtual panel on queer science fiction and a reading for next Saturday!
  • I have an r/Fantasy StabbyCon schedule for 2/8 too! I'll be talking about Gothic Fantasy and Queen of Swords Press author Rem Wigmore will be on the panel about gender in speculative fiction.
  • Queen of Swords Press is officially 5 years old. I have piloted this little ship for 5 whole years now! Huge shoutout of thanks to my authors, my staff, our interns, our cover artists, our webmasters, our editors, our reader, reviewers, Patreon supporters and everyone else who helps us spread the word! Come check out the Birthday Sale, which ends tomorrow!
  • Uncle Hugo's Bookstore is coming back to Minneapolis! Losing Hugo and Edgar's was a huge, crushing blow to the owner, the staff and the community as a whole, geeky and otherwise, and I think we've all had a rough time with it. Planned reopening spot is the current Glass Endeavors building, next to the field where the Post Office, MIGIZI and Gandhi Mahal used to be on 31st just off Lake Street, across from Moon Palace Books, Arbeiter Brewing and the Hook & Ladder (and the burned out shell of the 3rd Precinct). Big Longfellow shoutout for a neighborhood that suffered so many loses and is still trying to come back. The Glass Endeavors owners, who managed to keep going despite the lockdown and losing all their immediate small business neighbors to fire during the riots and everything else have decided to retire so selling the building is a happy thing for everyone. :-D
  • I'm going to have a story in the next set of Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives edited by John Linwood Grant! More news coming soon!

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2020 in review - Writing, Publishing and Teaching

Dec. 31st, 2020 02:37 pm
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Let's start with the good parts first, shall we?
Here's a list of my own 2020 publications:
  • "The Adventure of the Missing Fiancé." The Book of Extraordinary Sherlock Holmes Stories edited by Maxim Jakubowski. Mango Books, 2020. (Mystery).
  • "Cardinal's Gambit," LHMP Podcast, 2020 edited by Heather Rose Jones and narrated by Cherae Clark. (Historical F/F)
  • "The Rani's Dream," Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives edited by John Linwood Grant. Belanger Books, 2020.(Mystery, with supernatural elements)
  • "Inheritance," March, 2020. Haunting Shadows: The Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Anthology edited by Matt McElroy.  Onyx Path Publishing. (Media tie-in/Horror)
  • "Class Photo" - Letter to Yesterday Podcast, June, 2020. (Autobiographical essay).

Queen of Swords Press published the fabulousness that is The Voyages of CInrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater and Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks made the finalist list for the Midwest Book Awards.I am so proud of both of these books! And A.J. and Alex both worked their butts off this year, as did I. Here's a list of some of the events and places that one, two or all of us appeared in 2020:
  • CoNZealand
  • RainbowSpaceMagic (online LGBTQ convention)
  • Fights of Foundry
  • SFWA Nebula Conference
  • WORD Christchurch
  • Super Relaxed Fantasy Club (U.K. YouTube reading series)
  • Hannah's Bookshelf (Radio show in Manchester, England)
  • Verb Wellington (NZ Writer's Conference)
  • MileHiCon
  • Madame Askew's Temporal Entourage Book Club
  • LHMPodcast
  • DreamHaven Books
  • Cream & Amber's Fall Mini-festival
  • MultiverseCon
  • 13 Gears Steampunk
  • Twin Cities Pride
  • Glitchy Pancakes Podcast
  • The Not So Silent Planet Reading Series
  • St. Cloud Pride
  • Duluth-Superior Pride
  • Columbia Height Pride
  • WomenVenture's Women Mean Business
  • Quorum's Coming Out Day Luncheon
  • WisCon
  • Twin Cities Book Festival
  • CONvergence
  • C'monffluence
  • Geek Girl Con
  • Pueblo PrideFest
  • Outwrite DC
In addition, A.J. did blogs and interviews at Mary Robinette Kowal's My Favorite Bit, Cat Rambo's Kittywumpus blog, John Scalzi's Whatever, Helen Lowe's blog, LGBTQ Reads and several newspapers and podcasts in New Zealand. I taught 7 workshops for Cat Rambo and 1 for Broad Universe and had 2 other classes that didn't carry elsewhere. I also resurrected a novel in progress from a few years back and started working on it for my Patreon. It has been a LOT. Oh, hey, and I finished my Silver Moon sequel, Blood Moon, that I've been working on forever. Stay tuned for cover reveal and preorder links tomorrow!

Personal stuff goes in the next post. HUGE thank you to everyone who hosted us, bought books, reviewed our books, recommended them, supported the Patreon and in any other way helped us get the word out about our work! You are much appreciated! Next year will be better, dammit! Hugs all around!


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Teaching! And more teaching! Also, game stuff!

Apr. 3rd, 2019 09:29 pm
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Last week's class on writing effective sex scenes went well, so now I'm prepping for this Saturday's class:
So You Want to Put Together an Anthology?- The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, April 7, online, 9:30-11:30AM PST. Workshop on what goes into editing an anthology, creating a call for stories, finding writers, paying for things, etc. I gather this one is starting to fill up but there are still a couple of slots available.

And I'll be offering a class on writing Gothic horror in October. Stay tuned!

Mostly, I'm engaged in frenzied prep to get a bunch of things out the door before heading off to ClexaCon next week. Lots of writing, organizational stuff, packing - the works. In the meantime, if you're interested in my gaming tie-in work, Onyx Path is running my World of Darkness: Ghost Hunters story, "A Cry in the Night" as a two part plug for the forthcoming anthology. Part One and Part Two. I've got another WoD story on submission now, so if they like it, I'll announce that when I hear back.

I'm also working on a couple of game proposals for Choice of Games. Here's hoping I come up with something coherent!

Back to the grindstone...
 

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New Loft classes!

Oct. 7th, 2015 10:27 am
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Or, more accurately, I'm offering classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis again. They are updated versions of  classes I taught a few years back, but as there was some popular demand, I'm offering them again. Please spread the word and/or sign up if you are so motivated. 

I'll be offering two classes at the Loft Literary Center in February, 2016. Both are one day workshops, 3-4 hours long.


The first is "Inflagranti Delicto: Writing  Good Sex Scenes," offered on 2/13 (just in time for Valentine's Day!). This class will focus on building blocks for good sex scenes, integrating them into your plot and determining what purpose they serve in your story.

https://www.loft.org/classes/detail/?loft_product_id=160549


I'll also be offering "Lavender Ink: Writing and Selling LGBTQ Fiction." (2/27/15) This is a class for working with different kinds of fiction with queer protagonists and options for publication as well as ways to reach your audience. 

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My Loft class is now open for registration

Apr. 19th, 2009 10:14 am
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Please spread the word! I'd love to see this fill, for obvious reasons. :-D

Here's the info and link -
Inflagranti Delicto: Writing Good Sex Scenes
Instructor: Catherine Lundoff
Class: L111, 1 Day Class, Summer 2009
Location: Open Book
Date(s): July 18
Time(s): 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Enrollment: Open
Member Price: $48.00; Nonmember Price: $52.00

 


"Sex sells" may be a cliché, but remember that it sells better if you do it well. Do you have a story that needs spicing up? A romance whose characters never seem to get intimate? A mystery in which you throw your hero out of a plane to avoid writing about his relationship with his girlfriend? Writing a sex scene doesn’t have to be scary nor does it need to be entirely about the sex. This class will help you figure out what sex scenes can do for your plot and how to write to make them fit your story. We’ll look at examples and discuss options for what you can do to write and improve the sex scenes you want to include in your story. Resource list provided.



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Reading suggestions

Apr. 18th, 2009 01:56 pm
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For me and not from me, in this case.
I'll be offering a workshop at the Loft Literary Center (link as soon as the summer schedule goes live) on writing good sex scenes. As part of the class, I'm planning on reading a couple of very short sex scene excerpts from writers who do it well and perhaps one or two from writers who do NOT. I'd like to do a range of orientations and genres, and the scenes need not be particularly graphic. Sensual and sensuous will probably be better with the class makeup I'm likely to get. It also needs to be from things I can get my hands on fairly easily.
So given that, I'm looking for suggestions. Got any favorites? Got any scenes you love to hate? Share, share!
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