2019 Writing and Life Recap

Hi all! I’m back to give you a recap of my 2019, since all the cool kids are doing it…

Life Stuff

No one single major thing to share this year, but a number of disconnected things:

• Early in the year, my social dance community voted to move to gender-free terminology, which is more LGBTQIA-friendly and less ableist, among other things. I was one of the people who made that happen (including writing most of the text at that first link).
• I turned 40 in the fall and had a lot of big feelings about that.
• Two months ago, I started taking antidepressants after a lifetime of fighting with my brain (and yes, after trying therapy and all the holistic/lifestyle/self-care methods you might think of…many of which I’m still doing). It’s been really good so far, but also it’s early days yet. I think the reverberations will be happening for a while.

Writing Stuff

On the publishing front:

• My co-conspirators at Turtleduck Press and I released Love Shines Through, an anthology set in the Fractured World (the world of City of Hope and Ruin). Each of us wrote one longish short story centered around a romance. Mine is called “The Shadow of the World” and features a pair of queer lovers reuniting to save a child and their community.
• I won third place in the Queer Sci Fi annual flash fiction contest for the second time (!), with my story “The Woman With No Name.” The 2019 contest theme was migration, and you can read all the winning stories in the anthology of the same name. (The first time was a theme of renewal.)
• Back at Turtleduck Press, I’ve been writing Coat of Scarlet, a pirate/tailor steampunk romance in serial form. (Why yes, I did pick “tailor” just so I could geek out about allll the 18th-century clothing details.) It’s ongoing, and there are five installments up so far.

And because publishing is not all there is to writing, here’s what else has been happening:

• I beat my previous yearly record for submitting short stories to markets and contests. I was aiming for 12 submissions, an average of one a month; I didn’t quite hit that, but I did make it to 10. That represents 6 different stories; 3 of the submissions were reprints (already published elsewhere). Of those 6, 2 have sold, and 1 is still out on submission.
• I tried National Novel Writing Month for the first time in ages, after winning (i.e., writing 50K in a month) multiple years in a row, a decade ago. I did not win, but I finished November with 13K words on my first new novel in several years. Then December hit and I haven’t gotten any further, but I’m looking forward to working on it again.
• Aside from NaNo, I’ve been focusing on short stories – polishing up some older ones and working on a few new ones in various stages of completion.

There were some periods during the year when my writing dried up – see note above about antidepressants. I’m hoping that things will flow more easily now…

And some bonus news: I’ve already logged my first publication of 2020 over at Turtleduck Press – two poems in memory of Ursula K. Le Guin, along with an introduction explaining how they came to be. (In case you didn’t know, I also blog monthly over there, alternating with my three co-conspirators.)

This blog is likely to be updated haphazardly,  though you can expect more posts than usual this January, as I’m still in “year/decade in review” mode. 😉 If you want to follow what I’m up to, head over to my Instagram. I’m also hoping to start an author newsletter this year, so stay tuned for that (and if you have any advice, I’d love to hear it!).

Wishing you all a happy 2020!

Book News: Third Place in Queer Sci Fi’s Migration Anthology Contest

I’m back with some author news!

Today is the release day for an anthology I’m part of. It’s called Migration: Queer Sci Fi 6th Annual Flash Fiction Contest. (Flash fiction is very short fiction–in this case, 300 words or less.)

I’m thrilled to be in it, and even more thrilled to have won third place in the contest. For the second time (the first was in 2017’s Renewal). And lest that sound like an inside job, it’s a blind judging process (no names on the submissions), which means they picked my writing out of 250ish contestants without knowing it was me!

Here’s a teaser from my story, “The Woman With No Name”:

Seabirds cried and wheeled over the fishing currachs rocking at anchor as the sea-breeze blew over the breakwater and into the village harbour. Brighid sat on the dock leaning against the woman with no name, not caring who saw them touch now. They’d had their last kiss that morning. It had tasted like the sea.

The judges’ comments:

Our final winner is a really sweet, touching story, and another first for us—never before has one author taken a top-three story spot in our contest twice. The Woman With No Name is well-written and packed with emotion—it really moved the judges: “Just because someone wants to go away doesn’t mean they don’t miss what they’re leaving behind,” and we didn’t want to leave this story behind, either. Congrats!

Queer Sci Fi has just released the annual QSF Flash Fiction anthology. This year, the theme is “Migration.”

MI-GRA-TION (noun)

1) Seasonal movement of animals from one region to another.

2) Movement of people to a new area or country in order to find work or better living conditions.

3) Movement from one part of something to another.

Three definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell. Here are 120 of our favorites.

Migration feaures 300 word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Other Worlds Ink | Amazon | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads 

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Giveaway

Queer Sci Fi is giving away a $20 gift Amazon certificate with this tour – enter via Rafflecopter for a chance to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d4774/?

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Excerpts

Each year, hundreds of writers send in stories for the Queer Sci Fi flash fiction anthology. Here are the opening lines from some of the stories chosen for the 2019 edition – Migration:

“Darkness has substance. It is tangible; different shades within the black, sounds, a taste. It is accompanied by self-awareness of time and thoughts, even when other senses fail.” —Hope for Charity, by Robyn Walker

“The sky has been screaming for five straight days when the shrimps come to take us away. They’ve been boxing up the others and hauling them off. Now they’re here for us, soaking wet, dragging cords and crates behind them.” —Shrimpanzee, Sionnain Bailey

“Allister always had faultless hair. He’d comb and gel it to perfection while gazing in the mirror. One day a pair of eyes stared back.” —Zulu Finds a Home, by Kevin Klehr

“On her sister’s wedding day Ari noticed that one of her ears had migrated to her hand. It was right after her high school crush, Emily, arrived with Cousin Matt.” —Playing It By Ear, Aidee Ladnier

“The wound was fatal. Their vessel wouldn’t live much longer. This is what came from leaving loose ends. Frantically they sought out a new vessel to migrate to. “ —The Essence, by L.M. Brown

“That night, we were sitting in the bed of her daddy’s old pickup truck and the radio was playing the best song. We had a pack of cigarettes between us and her hand was almost touching mine. The wheat field was silver in the moonlight. When they came, we weren’t surprised, just disappointed that our time was up already.” —Our Song, by Lauren Ring

“Willow said she was my wife, but I knew it wasn’t her, not the right her, anyway. Sure she looked like her with olive skin and bright pink hair. She even smelled of mango flowers, just like I remembered, but there was something about her smile that was slightly off, something about when she said she loved me that didn’t sit well in my old heart.” — They Said It Would Be Her, by Elizabeth Andre

“Agnes is eight when she first sees the river. Cutting its way through town, the only thing she knows not coated in coal dust. She sticks her toes in, comes home with wet socks and a secret. See, the river hadn’t been there yesterday.” —Stream of Consciousness, by Ziggy Schutz

“Terry twirled in her green synthsilk dress, looked at her reflection, liked what she saw. She felt good in her own skin, for maybe the first time.” —Altball, by RE Andeen

“The thing was in the corner. It had come through the window and had slid down the wall. Scratch went the sound. The noise of a hundred nails clawing at the wood. Nails of white bone. Alex pulled the sheets up quickly, covering every inch of skin and hair in a warm darkness.” —Whose Nightmare, by Jamie Bonomi

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Author Bio

A hundred and twenty authors are included in Migration:

• • Butterflies, by A O’Donovan

• The Return, by A.M. Leibowitz

• A New Spring, by Aaron Silver

• Universal Quota, by Abby Bartle

• The Call of Home, by Adrienne Wilder

• Starfall, by Adrik Kemp

• Playing it By Ear, by Aidee Ladnier

• Rabbit, by Amanda Thomas

• That Does Not Love…, by Andi Deacon

• Inborn, by Andrea Speed

• Saving Ostakis, by Angelica Primm

• A Dawn Wish, by Antonia Aquilante

• Diaspora, by Ariel E. James

• Transmigration, by Ashby Danvers

• Across the Mirror, by Ava Kelly

• Between, by BE Allatt

• The Speck, by Bey Deckard

• The King of the Mountain Cometh, by Bob Goddard

• Before and After, by C. A. Chesse

• Home, by C.A. McDonald

• Too Much Tech, by C.L. Mannarino

• Ze Who Walks Into the Future, by Carey Ford Compton

• The Gate, by Carol Holland March

• Our Last Light Skip, by Chloe Spencer

• Passage, by Christine Taylor-Butler

• The Perils of Pick-Up Lines, by Colton Aalto

• Parched, by Crysta K. Coburn

• Changeling Dreams, by Damian Serbu

• Destinations, by Dave Creek

• Another Job, Another Planet, by David Viner

• Thiefmaster Rosalind’s Apprentice, by Devon Widmer

• A Weight Off Their Shoulders, by Diane Morrison

• Once a Year, by Dianne Hartsock

• Mettle, by Die BoothForever Bound, by E.W. Murks

• They Said It Would Be Her, by Elizabeth Andre

• Til Death Do Us Part, by Elizabeth Anglin

• Little One, by Eloreen Moon

• GBFN, by Emilia Agrafojo

• The Long Distance Thing, by Ether Nepenthes

• Call My People Home, by Evelyn Benvie

• Jace vs. the Incubi, by Eytan Bernstein

• A New Tradition, by Foster Bridget Cassidy

• The Curious Cabinet, by Ginger Streusel

• Ready, by Hank Edwards

• The Albatrosses, by Harry F. Rey

• A Boy’s Shadow, by Helen De Cruz

• Portrait of a Lady, by Isobel Granby

• Beam That Is In, by J. Comer

• The Hunt, by J. R. Frontera

• Repeating History, by J. Summerset

• Neil’s Journey, by J.P. Bowie

• Homeward Bound, by J.S. Garner

• Whose Nightmare?, by Jamie Bonomi

• A Moment of Bravery, by Jessie Pinkham

• Laetus, by Jet Lupin

• Where You Go, I’ll Follow, by Joe Baumann

• Ambrose Out of Ash, by Jonathan Fesmire

• Shooting Modes, by Joshua Darrow

• TerrorForm, by Juam Jocom

• The Curse, by Jude Reid

• Throwing Eggs, by K E Olukoya

• Fly, by Kayleigh Sky

• The Keep, by KC Burn

• Zulu Finds a Home, by Kevin Klehr

• The Risks and Advantages of Data Migration, by Kim Fielding

• Irreversible, by kim gryphon

• Looner, by Krishan Coupland

• The Essence, by L.M. Brown

• Our Song, by Lauren Ring

• O Human Child, by Lisa Hamill

• Goodbye Marghretta, by Lou Sylvre

• Choices, by LV Lloyd

• Endangered Species, by M Joseph Murphy

• Planet Retro, Unplugged, by M. X. Kelly

• Elemental, by M.D. Grimm

• To Wish on a Love Knot, by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

• Firebirds, by Marita M. Connor

• Breeding Season, by Mary Newman

• Kooks at Home, by Matt McHugh

• Spring, by Mere Rain

• Into the South, by Mindy Leana Shuman

• Not How We Planned It, by Minerva Cerridwen

• What Is Left Behind, by Monique Cuillerier

• How Far Would You Go for the One You Love?, by Nathan Alling Long

• Innocence, by Nathaniel Taff

• Heart and Soul, by Nils Odlund

• Tides, by Patricia Scott

• Killer Queen, by Paula McGrath

• Genesis, by Pelaam

• If Pigs Could Fly, by Penelope Friday

• Click, by R R Angell

• Be Kind to Strangers, by Raina Lorring

• Altball, by RE Andeen

• Far From Home, by Riley S. Keene

• Hope for Charity, by Robyn Walker

• Night Comes to the Bea Arthur, by Rory Ni Coileáin

• MIG Ration, by S R Jones

• Going Back, by Sacchi Green

• World Behind and Home Ahead, by Sara Testarossa

• The Call of the Suet, by Sarah Hadley Brook

• Research & Development, by Shaina Phillips

• Into the Void, by Shannon Brady

• The Silkie’s Dance, by Shannon West

• Seal Hunt, by Shirley Meier

• Shrimpanzee FIRST IN BOOK, by Sionnain Bailey

• The Woman With No Name, by Siri Paulson

• Memories of Clay, by Spencer Mann

• Simulacrum, by Steve Carr

• The Experience, by Steve Fuson

• Flight, by Steven Harper

• Birds of New Atlantis, by Stewart C Baker

• Lurching Forward, by Sydney Blackburn

• Spores of Retribution, by Tray Ellis

• Skin Hunger, by Treasure Nguyen

• Elvira, by Trevor Barton

• Ever After, by Warren Rochelle

• Into the Light, by Wart Hill

• Dryads, by X Marduk

• Stream of Consciousness, by Ziggy Schutz

 

Love Shines Through: A Fractured World Anthology

Surprise! Turtleduck Press has a new anthology out. Love Shines Through: A Fractured World Anthology is set in the same world as City of Hope and Ruin (the novel by Kit Campbell and me) but several hundred years earlier–only a few generations after the cataclysmic war that shattered the world into multiple dimensions. It features diverse romance stories by all four Turtleduck Press authors. All the details are below, after our beautiful cover. *drools*

 

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Blurb

The world was whole before the war.

But war is a terrible thing, and terrible things are done in the name of defense and protection. And this war tore the world apart, fractured it, separated families and lives and dreams. The reasons why no longer matter, but the effects still linger. They cause pain, though the war is over.

But despite the monsters and the poisons and the despair, there is a glimmer of light. And hope and love are not gone from the world.

These four stories, set in the Fractured World, explore how light can make it through the darkness. How hope can conquer fear. And most of all, how love can still flourish, even when the world is bleak.

A young woman braves monsters to see the sky.

A reluctant man chooses forgiveness over suffering.

Lovers reunite to save a child and their community.

Best friends risk everything for each other.

Come see the light for yourselves.

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Table of contents

• “Dream of Lions” by KD Sarge — F/F (lesbian) romance, set in the City
• “The Forest and the Fog” by Kit Campbell — M/F (straight) romance, set in the outside world
• “The Shadow of the World” by Siri Paulson — M/NB (male/nonbinary) romance, set in the City
• “Of Poison and Promises” by Erin Zarro — F/F romance, set in the outside world

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Want to read more about Love Shines Through? (stay tuned for updates!)

• An excerpt from my story, read aloud by the fabulous Angel Martinez
• An excerpt from KD’s story, on the website Queer Sci Fi
• NEW: An excerpt from Erin’s story, on a blog called Kittenwylde by Marie Brown

Want more Fractured World stories?

• City of Hope and Ruin is the novel that started it all. Read an excerpt here.
• Get City of Hope and Ruin and four other LGBTQIA romances for free in April when you join QueeRomance Ink–a site built to help readers find exactly the types of queer romance books they want to read.
• “A Constant Companion” by Kit Campbell is a short prequel to the novel, featuring one of the two central characters, Briony.
• “Brothers” by Siri Paulson is a side story to the novel, featuring a secondary character, Astrolabe.

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Buy links

Amazon US: Kindle | Print  ~  Amazon Canada: Kindle | Print

Smashwords (ebook format of your choice)  ~  Turtleduck Press page for the anthology

Holiday News Roundup: Works in Progress, Holiday Sales, and More

Hello, lovely readers! I’ve been busy over here, working away behind the scenes. Here’s what’s new in my corner of the world…

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I’m working on two things set in the world of City of Hope and Ruin (Fractured World). First, we’re doing a prequel anthology, set several hundred years before the novel. All the stories are centered around a romance; mine is a M/NB pairing (if you don’t speak romance/fanfic acronym-ese, that means the two main characters are male and non-binary). The anthology will be out in the spring–watch for more details soon!

Second, my co-author Kit Campbell and I are working on the sequel to the novel. It will be out…sometime later than the spring…so all I will say at the moment is that it picks up right where City of Hope and Ruin leaves off. Yes, that means more Theo and Briony action, and new adventures for both of them.

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Need a last minute Christmas gift or late Hanukkah gift? If you’re in the Toronto area, join me at Earlscourt BBQ (1278 St. Clair West, Toronto) on Saturday, December 15. I will be one of around ten artists setting up shop for the afternoon, selling copies of City of Hope and Ruin as well as several of the Turtleduck Press anthologies. Check out the other vendors on the Facebook event page.

The Earlscourt BBQ staff will be serving eggnog made with Jim Beam bourbon for the adults (bourbon-free for the kids), hot apple cider and more!

Bring a few extra dollars (as much as you can) to donate to The Stop Community Food Centre.

Admission is free. RSVP optional.

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Looking for a good holiday romance with queer (M/NB and ace) representation in an SF setting? My holiday short from last year, A New Year on Vega III, is 30% off all this month, along with the rest of the stories in the queer romance collection from Mischief Corner Books that it was part of. See the collection here.

On the colony planet Vega III, everyone knows Beck—outgoing, fabulous, and genderqueer—and nobody notices Anil, the quiet plant biologist. But when Anil finds Beck hiding in his greenhouse, lonely and missing Earth, it’s Anil who is able to comfort Beck by letting them talk about what they miss most—the feeling that comes with celebrating the holidays with loved ones, especially New Year’s Eve.

​The two of them are drawn to one another, but both of them are hiding secrets about their sexuality. With trust between them already on shaky ground, Anil’s elaborate plans to cheer Beck may well backfire.

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Earlier this year, I was one of the judges for a flash fiction (very short story) anthology contest run by Queer Sci Fi. (It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about how to write very short stories!) The anthology, Impact, is now on sale for 2.99 (25% off) the eBook or $9.99 (33% off) for the paperback…

Amazon eBook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FC91HH2/
Amazon Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732307520/
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/impact-j-scott-…/1129055097
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/impact-84
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/impact/id1409688669

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For my second trick at Queer Sci Fi, I’ve signed up to do the occasional book review over there. My first review is now posted, for J. Scott Coatsworth’s Slow Thaw. It’s both a holiday romance (M/M with a trans main character) and a near-future SF survival story set in Antarctica (both main characters are scientists). Yes, really. Does it work? Find out here.

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Finally, you might have noticed that the Ursula K. Le Guin reread has stalled. In fact, I’m continuing to read through the Hainish cycle–it’s just the blogging that has stalled (whoops). Hoping to get back to that sometime soon, as I do have more to say!

In the meantime, if you want to know what I’m up to, follow me on Instagram, check out my monthly blog posts at Turtleduck Press, or “like” the Turtleduck Press Facebook page to get all the essential news and a certain amount of random musings.

Happy holidays!

 

 

 

New Book Promo: The Rising Tide by J. Scott Coatsworth

It’s a book birthday for a fellow author! Book two in J. Scott Coatsworth’s queer SF series is out today. He’s a sweetheart, so I’m thrilled to host him here. And isn’t that cover pretty? Here are all the details about The Rising Tide…

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J. Scott Coatsworth has a new queer sci fi book out: “The Rising Tide.”

Earth is dead.

Five years later, the remnants of humanity travel through the stars inside Forever, a living, ever-evolving, self-contained generation ship. When Eddy Tremaine and Andy Hammond find a hidden world-within-a-world under the mountains, the discovery triggers a chain of events that could fundamentally alter or extinguish life as they know it, culminate in the takeover of the world mind, and end free will for humankind.

Control the AI, control the people.

Eddy, Andy, and a handful of other unlikely heroes—people of every race and identity, and some who aren’t even human—must find the courage and ingenuity to stand against the rising tide.

Otherwise they might be living through the end days of human history.

Series Blurb: Humankind is on its way to the stars, a journey that will change it forever. Each of the stories in Liminal Sky explores that future through the lens of a generation ship, where the line between science fiction and fantasy often blurs. At times both pessimistic and very hopeful, Liminal Sky thrusts you into a future few would ever have imagined.

DSP Publications | Amazon | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads

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Giveaway

Scott is giving away two prizes with this tour – a $25 Amazon gift card, and a signed copy of “The Stark Divide,” book one in the series (US winner only for the paperback). For a chance to win, enter via Rafflecopter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d4734/?

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Excerpt

Eddy Tremayne rode his horse, Cassiopeia, along the edge of the pastures that were the last official human habitations before the Anatov Mountains. Several ranchers along the Verge—the zone between the ranches and the foothills—had reported losses of sheep and cattle in the last few weeks.

As the elected sheriff of First District, which ran from Micavery and the South Pole to the mountains, it was Eddy’s responsibility to find out what was going on.

He had his crossbow strapped to his back and his long knife in a leather sheath at his waist. He’d been carrying them for long enough now—three years?—that they had started to feel natural, but the first time he’d worn the crossbow, he’d felt like a poor man’s Robin Hood.

He doubted he’d need them out here, but sheriffs were supposed to be armed.

He’d checked with Lex in the world mind via the South Pole terminal, but she’d reported nothing amiss. In the last few years, she had begun to deploy biodrones to keep an eye on the far-flung parts of the world, but they provided less than optimal coverage. One flyover of this part of the Verge had shown a peaceful flock of thirty sheep. The next showed eight.

The rancher, a former neurosurgeon from New Zealand named Gia Rand, waited for him on the top of a grassy hill. The grass and trees shone with bioluminescent light, and the afternoon sky lit the surrounding countryside with a golden glow. The spindle—the aggregation of energy and glowing pollen that stretched from pole to pole—sparkled in the middle of the sky.

The rancher pulled on her gray braid, staring angrily at something in the valley below. “Took you long enough to get here.”

“Sorry. The train was out of service again.” Technology was slowly failing them, and they had yet to come up with good replacements.

She snorted. “One helluva spaceship we have here.”

He grinned. “Preaching to the choir.” Forever didn’t have the manufacturing base yet to support anything close to the technology its inhabitants had grown used to on Earth. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you asked him. With technology came new and better ways to kill. He’d seen it often enough in the NAU Marines. “What did you find?”

“Look.” Her voice was almost a growl.

Eddy looked down where she was pointing. “Oh shit.” Her missing sheep were no longer missing. They had been slaughtered.

He urged Cassiopeia down the hillside to the rocky clearing. A small stream trickled down out of the mountains there. He counted ten carcasses, as near as he could tell from the skulls left behind. Someone had sheared a couple of them and given up. It looked like they had skinned and cut the rest up for meat, the skin and bones and extra bits discarded.

Gia rode down the hillside behind him.

“Didn’t you report twelve sheep missing?”

She nodded. “Bastards took the two lambs. Probably for breeding.”

“That actually might help us.”

“How’s that?”

He dismounted to take a closer look at the crime scene. “They’ll have to pasture them somewhere. May make it easier to track them down.”

“Maybe so.” She dismounted and joined him. “This was brutal work. Look here.” She picked up a bone. “Whatever cut this was sharp but uneven. It left scratch marks across the bone.”

“So not a metal knife.”

“I don’t think so. Maybe a stone knife?”

He laughed harshly. “Are we back to caveman days, then?” It wasn’t an unreasonable question.

She was silent for a moment, staring at the mountains. “Do you think they live up there?”

“Who?” He followed her gaze. Their highest peaks were wreathed in wisps of cloud.

“The Ghosts.”

The Ghosts had been a persistent myth on Forever since their abrupt departure from Earth. Some of the refugees had vanished right after the Collapse, and every now and then something would end up missing. Clothes off a line, food stocks, and the like.

People talked. The rumors had taken on a life of their own, and now whenever something went missing, people whispered, “It’s the Ghosts.”

Eddy didn’t believe in ghosts. He personally knew at least one refugee who had disappeared, his shipmate Davian. He guessed there must be others, though the record keeping from that time had been slipshod at best. He shrugged and looked at the sky. “Who knows?” It was likely to rain in the next day or so. Whoever had done this had left a trail, trampled into the grass. If he didn’t follow it now, it might be gone by the time he got back here with more resources.

Gia knelt by one of the ewes, staring at the remnants of the slaughter. “Could you get me some more breeding stock? This… incident put a big dent in my herd.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He took one last look around the site. It had to have taken an hour or two to commit this crime, and yet the thieves had apparently done it in broad daylight. Why weren’t they afraid of being caught? “I’m going to follow the trail, see where it leads.”

Gia nodded. “Thanks. We’re taking the rest of the herd back to the barn until you get this all figured out.”

“Sounds prudent. I’ll let you know.”

Slipping on his hat, he climbed back up on Cassie and followed the trail across the stream toward the Anatov Mountains.

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Author Bio

Scott lives between the here and now and the what could be. Indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine, he devoured her library. But as he grew up, he wondered where the people like him were.

He decided it was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at Waldenbooks. If there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

His friends say Scott’s brain works a little differently – he sees relationships between things that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week. He seeks to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something unexpected.

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that bring queer people together to promote and celebrate fiction reflecitng their own reality.

Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com

Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth

Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jscoatsworth

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth

QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ/

Publishing News Roundup: Steampunk Serial and Much More

Hello blog readers! Hope you’ve had a good summer (or winter, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere). Here’s what’s new(ish) over here…

Coat of Scarlet

I’m doing a free serial story over at Turtleduck Press. Coat of Scarlet is a M/M (gay) romance set in an 18th-century steampunk/clockpunk universe. Part 2 has just been posted, so it’s a good time to catch up.

Here’s the blurb:

Marius the tailor is minding his own business when Niko walks into his shop with a beautiful coat and sets him a challenge he can’t refuse. But when you’re dealing with devastatingly handsome airship pirates, they have a habit of changing the terms…

Part 1 | Part 2

Fun fact: when you’re writing a serial, it helps to reread previous installments as you’re writing later ones. I almost forgot a plot point from Part 1 and had to shoehorn it into Part 2 at the last minute. Oops?

Fractured World News

If you look at the cover of my debut novel, City of Hope and Ruin, you’ll notice that the subtitle is A Fractured World Novel. So far it is the only Fractured World novel, but that’s going to change, because my co-author, Kit Campbell, and I are working on book 2 in the series!

Novels take a while, though. In the meantime, Kit and I and our two partners in crime at Turtleduck Press, KD and Erin, are working on a prequel anthology set in the same world, which will be released before book 2. More details to come…

To tide you over while you’re waiting for that, we do have two short stories also set in the same world:

• A Constant Companion (a Briony prequel short story) by Kit Campbell
• Brothers (a short story featuring secondary character Astrolabe, set during the events of City of Hope and Ruin) by Siri Paulson

Non-TDP Release: Timeshift anthology

I told you before about my flash fiction piece “When the World Stopped” being accepted into an anthology called Timeshift, which released in August. Initially the anthology was an ebook-only release, but there is now a print edition due to popular demand. Here’s the blurb:

Timeshift is a reprint anthology collecting time and time travel flash fiction stories from 36 authors in the genre. In the anthology are time stories spanning the adventures (and mishaps) of time travel, time manipulation, time zones, time loops, paradoxes, accidents, twisted futures and so many more penned by both established and emerging authors in the genre.

Kindle | Print

Non-TDP Release: Impact anthology

Also as mentioned previously, I helped judge a flash fiction contest this spring for the website Queer Sci Fi (my reward for placing third in last year’s contest!). It was a fun experience and I got to read a ton of good stories — doubly impressive when you consider that the stories had to be no more than 300 words long.

Impact: Queer Sci Fi’s Fifth Annual Flash Fiction Contest was released in July and is available on ebook from all the usual suspects.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | iBooks | Angus & Robertson

Blog Recap: Ursula K. Le Guin (re)read

This year I’ve been reading and blogging about Ursula K. Le Guin’s early Hainish novels and short stories. So far I’ve covered “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, two novels, and three other shorts. It’s been fascinating to watch her early development as a writer. We have one more novel to go (and maybe a couple of shorts) and then it’s on to The Left Hand of Darkness! You can find links to all the posts here: Genre Classics (Re)read: Ursula K. Le Guin. I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.

 

New Turtleduck Press Book Release: Fireborn by Erin Zarro

It’s out! Erin Zarro’s paranormal romance Fireborn is out in the world, meaning you can buy it in your ebook format of choice as of today. Congratulations, Erin!

Here’s the blurb again…

Former Grim Reaper Leliel and her new husband Rick have settled into a routine of normalcy after their life-changing trip to the Underworld. They can finally relax and be married and deal with mundane problems, like money and learning to use all the modern-day technologies that are new to Leliel. But they’re up for the challenge.

Until Leliel starts having frightening visions of people on fire. The fires appear to be suicides—young adults—but something isn’t right. She senses that they were forced to act against their will. This isn’t their time to die. Even though she’s no longer a Reaper, she needs to fix it. Somehow.

When she and Rick investigate, they encounter resistance from not only the police but also the families and friends of the dead. Complicating factors are the Tarot cards left at the scenes, the mysterious happenings at the college that all of the dead turn out to have attended, and the disturbing new abilities that Rick is developing.

And then Leliel’s own Tarot deck turns up the Death card–twice–and she realizes that she’s gotten the attention of something evil…something she must face without Rick by her side.

Meanwhile, the deaths are mounting…

—

Read the teaser excerpt at Turtleduck Press.

Buy the ebook on:

Kindle | Kobo | Nook

 

Double Anthology News: Timeshift and Impact

I have two pieces of news to share with you today…

First, the anthology I’m in, Timeshift, is now available for preorder on Kindle. It beat its Kickstarter goal, which means all the authors get paid the industry-standard rate for reprints. Yay!

Timeshift features all sorts of speculative short stories related to time — time dilation, time manipulation, time travel (of course), and more. There are some pretty big names in it, so I’m delighted to be included. It releases August 1.

Second, there’s an anthology I’m not in, but got to help judge. I read 178 flash fiction stories on the theme of IMPACT, and rated them according to a rubric (these folks are organized!). Then we held an online meeting and hashed out our favourites. There were a lot of strong contenders. Things got tense. There was blood! (Not really.)

We eventually managed to agree on three winners. It helped that we each got to pick one story that didn’t make it into the top three. Here’s what I said about my Judge’s Pick, “Low Impact” by Tray Ellis:

This story makes me cry every time I read it. It’s straightforward, yet so effective. I’m always astounded when an author manages to use 300 words to span multiple years, making a tiny flash fiction piece into an epic tale. There’s a big relationship story here that’s just hinted at, but the hints are all that’s needed. I also liked that this isn’t an Issue Story: the queer relationship just is, no big deal. (Of course it’s important to tell those stories too, but not to the exclusion of all other queer stories.) And finally, like many of the best science fiction works, this piece filters science through characters to say something thoughtful about the world. Well done.

Impact: Queer Sci Fi’s Fifth Annual Flash Fiction Contest is available on ebook from all the usual suspects, releasing July 25.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | iBooks | Angus & Robertson

Turtleduck Press Cover Reveal: Fireborn by Erin Zarro

Turtleduck Press has been a little bit quiet lately, so I’m thrilled to present a sneak peek of our latest offering, Erin Zarro’s paranormal m/f romance novel Fireborn…

Former Grim Reaper Leliel and her new husband Rick have settled into a routine of normalcy after their life-changing trip to the Underworld. They can finally relax and be married and deal with mundane problems, like money and learning to use all the modern-day technologies that are new to Leliel. But they’re up for the challenge.

Until Leliel starts having frightening visions of people on fire. The fires appear to be suicides—young adults—but something isn’t right. She senses that they were forced to act against their will. This isn’t their time to die. Even though she’s no longer a Reaper, she needs to fix it. Somehow.

When she and Rick investigate, they encounter resistance from not only the police but also the families and friends of the dead. Complicating factors are the Tarot cards left at the scenes, the mysterious happenings at the college that all of the dead turn out to have attended, and the disturbing new abilities that Rick is developing.

And then Leliel’s own Tarot deck turns up the Death card–twice–and she realizes that she’s gotten the attention of something evil…something she must face without Rick by her side.

Meanwhile, the deaths are mounting…

—

Want more? Read an excerpt over at Turtleduck Press.

Fireborn will be out August 1. While you’re waiting, check out the prequel novelette, Reaper Girl. There are two ways to get it:

• Buy the Turtleduck Press anthology Under Her Protection, which also features three other tales of women to the rescue, including my own steampunk-in-India story, “The Raja and the Madman” (m/f romance), OR
• Sign up for Erin’s author newsletter and get Reaper Girl for free.

All for now! I’ll blog about Fireborn again when it’s available to buy.

Ursula K. Le Guin (Re)read: Planet of Exile

Today in the Ursula K. Le Guin (re)read, we’re returning to the Hainish cycle with book 2, Planet of Exile. (If you missed the discussion of Book 1, Rocannon’s World, click here.)

Le Guin herself didn’t see the Hainish books as any kind of coherent series–they’re a set of loosely connected stories all set in the same universe, but widely separated by distance and time. They’re linked by ideas such as the ansible (a faster-than-light communication technology, available even though her universe specifically does not have an FTL drive for ships) and a Federation-like entity that is sometimes called the League of All Worlds and sometimes the Ekumen.

What the Hainish books do not have are recurring characters or overarching plots across the series. What they do have are thematic links. And sometimes more…but we’ll get into that when we hit City of Illusions.

So, on to Planet of Exile…

Basic premise: A young woman (Rolery) from a low-tech alien culture meets a man (Jakob) whose people were stranded on her planet long ago. Both cultures are facing pressure from change, external forces, and the unforgiving nature of the planet itself.

This is still very early Le Guin, but you can already see her preoccupation with culture and her way with language. (I want to be her when I grow up.) I read this shortly after Rocannon’s World, which aside from the prologue (“Semley’s Necklace”) is a standard quest story / planetary romance, and pretty lightweight emotionally. Planet of Exile starts out in a similar vein, but midway through it takes a turn into classical tragedy, and I was surprised how affecting the ending was.

On an SFnal level, the planet’s orbital period is 60 Earth years long, with four seasons. That allows for a lot of fun worldbuilding. For one thing, it means the locals (the Tevarans) have a very different way of thinking about time, especially since they are nomads and live in a different place each season. Their winter homes, for example, fall out of living memory and become semi-mythical…as do the stranded aliens, who live in the same place all Year. The result is a mythic or allegorical feel to the book.

Sadly, its age is showing. The gender relations are distinctly old-fashioned — the old Tevaran leader Wold is the most obviously sexist character, but nobody questions, for example, the idea that Rolery should hide in a safe place nursing the wounded while Jakob goes off to fight. It’s amazing to think that this was published only three years before The Left Hand of Darkness (famous for its exploration of gender).

Similarly, the race relations are clunky — both the Tevarans and the aliens look down on the other and see themselves as the “humans”. The indigenous Tevaran people see the alien exiles as “not really people” and arrogant for acting like they think they ARE people; the aliens can’t believe the locals haven’t even invented the wheel. The aliens are dark-skinned, the Tevarans are light-skinned (and a third group, the Gaals, are even more so), and both can’t stop commenting on the other’s looks. The Gaals are even more “othered” — they’re not really thought of as people at all but as a biological force, like the years-long winter, until one character comments on this very late in the book.

A side note before I get into the real spoilers: The aliens follow a form of the Prime Directive, laid out by the League of All Worlds — no exposing the locals to high technology. Since they’re stuck on the planet, this means that they too are losing their technology despite efforts to the contrary. This is a shift from Rocannon’s World, where some of the locals were explicitly taught high technology (and lost some of their artistry in the process).

[SPOILERS for the ending…]

 

There’s a sense of melancholy among the aliens — their society is stagnant and slowly dying, because they’re stuck on a world that’s not theirs. (They seem to be Earth humans.) Until… (dun dun dun) That’s the real conflict in the book: the sense of dislocation and isolation of a people. Jakob and Rolery are just proxies for its resolution (another thing that gives the book a mythic quality). I was sort of expecting the aliens to escape the planet at the end, maybe because I mistook the Stack for a forgotten spaceship over the mantelpiece. The aliens are forced by circumstances to work with the locals, it all goes wrong at the midpoint, but they still end up retreating together and starting to integrate. The biological part of the solution comes out of nowhere near the end — it would have been better if hinted at earlier. Though I guess it kind of is, with Jakob being able to mindspeak with Rolery early on — that’s a proxy for biological transmission. Regardless, watching the aliens have their idea of “home” shift from “a place we’ll never see again” to “here in this place we’ve made”…that’s what tilted this book, despite all its imperfections, into a classic for me.

 

[END SPOILERS]

By the way, here’s some neat Le Guin news:

(1) The Earthsea novels are being reissued this fall in a new collected edition, illustrated by Charles Vess (!!!). Details and sneak peeks available in this article at The Verge.

(2) There’s a new feature-length documentary about Le Guin, by filmmaker Arwen Curry, and you can watch the trailer and read a bit more about it right here.

Next up, we’ll be looking at a couple more short stories from The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, and then it’s on to City of Illusions, more shorts, and then the biggie, The Left Hand of Darkness (which I’m rereading right now). Hope you’ll join me!