Yesterday was the last day of Writing Month. During November, 2024, I wrote 20, 418 words. I did not reach the goal I had set of 50,000 words. I knew the goal was probably unrealistic even in the beginning. But then my mother was in the hospital for the first week in November, which explains part of my lack of progress. I was also simply too busy with work. In the end, I was still satisfied with the progress I made.
Writing Month was a hack put together by a guy to replace NaNoWriMo. He had grander ambitions, but managed to only create a very bare-bones site by the beginning of the month. But he did! And the site worked flawlessly for me — at least in terms of tracking my progress. It didn’t really have any mechanisms for discovery or social networking, so I only found one other person as a “buddy” and never figured out how to see how they were doing.
The final statistic showed that 44 authors wrote a total of 40,174 words towards a total goal of 1,427,380 words. That suggests that maybe only one or two other people entered word counts. (Or maybe several did for a few days and then dropped off.)
I spent Writing Month working on my manuscript for The Ground Never Lies. This is a sapphic romantasy about a geomancer with an anger problem who has given up on love, but who then discovers a capacity for love she didn’t realize she had. I wrote a pilot for the story a couple of years ago, but shelved it because I couldn’t decide if a shorter version worked or if I should commit to writing it as a novel. I had this idea that the geomancer has a day job doing land assessments for properties in a karst region, where people want to be sure that a sinkhole won’t open up wrecking the property. But that the geomancer also moonlights as the crime-scene assessor for the local constabulary. But, as I wrote the story, I didn’t see any way to work in scenes of her doing other crime-scene assessments. Then I realized that there are two stories here: one is the original arc. But the other is how she became the person she is at the beginning of the story: embittered and disgusted with herself and life. So once I finished writing the original arc, I spent a week writing this second arc. Then I’ll have to figure out how to stitch them together.
I might using the Writing Month structure again in January, when it will be Intersession and I’ll have more free time to write.
I’ve served in leadership and Board roles in non-profits a number of times over the years. I’ve been a Secretary, Vice President, and President, in addition to serving on boards. I’ve learned some things about what makes a Board work.
Foremost is that the primary goal of the leadership should not be to make decisions, but rather to defend the power of the Board. I’ve served in organizations where tensions develop between the Executive Director and the elected leadership. And sometimes Presidents bring their own agenda that they would like to push through. It can feel simpler for the leadership to try to push their own agendas and treat the Board like a rubber stamp. But the leadership needs to resist that. The Board should remain in control and the leadership should only decide when the Board cannot.
Second, any decision you make as a Board is going to make some people unhappy. In dysfunctional organizations, the leadership can become paralyzed because it can feel like only way to avoid making people angry is to do nothing. Of course, doing nothing will also make some number of people angry. But it also guarantees the organization will founder and drift, rudderless.
A former Chancellor at my university had a saying about leadership that’s stuck with me. He said, “Money matters, quality counts, and time is the enemy.” Point being, money matters, but it’s not everything. Quality counts. If something is worth doing, it may be worth doing badly. But you need to prioritize, make tradeoffs, and not try to do everything if it means that everything is bad. Finally, the more time you spend deliberating and deciding will put the organization behind.
Since my recent election to SFWA, I’ve been reassured to find that the Board and leadership are aligned and prepared to work on addressing the real challenges that exist. I have great confidence that we are well positioned to more forward together as an organization.
One more observation: Shortly after I assumed a leadership position for the first time, I discovered an interesting phenomenon. The moment you step into the role, it’s like a target gets painted on your back. You assume ownership of all of the problems of the organization. And people who bear some grudge against the organization immediately start targeting you. So it has been here.
This year, the fixup for Revin’s Heart was published, which included three short stories. And I wrote a short story that was published in an anthology.
Brewer, S.D. 2024. Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California, including
“Where There’s a Will” pp 269-282,
“Curtains Rise” pp 283-302,
“Riva’s Escape” pp 303-329.
Brewer, S.D. 2024. Always a Destroyer (pp 99-111) in Romancing the Rainbow. Knight Writing Press, Parker, Colorado. 240pp.
It looks like the announcement that birdchan would start using everything everyone posted to train its AI finally roused a huge number of people to get up and leave the Nazi bar. And it appears that Bluesky is where the SFF community is going to land. Personally, I find this a bit disappointing as Bluesky is funded by venture capital. It’s currently very nice, but I suspect it will inevitably become enshittified. But, like it or not, that’s where the vast majority of the SFF community is going.
I decided, therefore, to see if I could create a bot to share the Wandering Shop Stories prompts at Bluesky in addition to Mastodon. I still prefer the vibe at Mastodon and am not planning to leave. But I’d like to be able to cross-post stuff. So it would be nice if the #wss366 hashtag would reference something. And there may be people that would like to play along at Bluesky. So, I decided to see how difficult it was to adapt the python script I use for Mastodon to also post at Bluesky.
It turned out to be super easy. Well… Sorta.
It also turned out that when I installed the atproto library, it updated something else that caused the Mastodon bot to quit working. I hate when that happens. After spending a few hours fighting with it, I decided to just do a side-install of a newer version of python and use a virtual environment to make sure that everything was separate from the system install of python. I should have done that in the first place, honestly.
Then, everything worked. Well… Almost.
It turns out you can’t just emit text and have it auto-format it, like it does if you post it. You have to run it through the filter on the client side to build rich-text using a utility called “textbuilder” before you submit it. That was a bit cranky and not well documented. But, eventually, I got that to work just tickety boo.
I used to do this kind of technical work all the time. It’s nice to see that I still can navigate programming and building reliable unix services. But, honestly, I’m pretty glad it’s not my day job anymore. My father always described these kinds of things as “just like using a computer.”
In the end, I’ve found spending a few minutes a day writing a very short story — especially when I’m otherwise too busy — to be really helpful at sustaining my creativity. The prompts that we choose are aimed to be ordinary words that have multiple meanings, so you can spin them a bunch of different ways. I love how it makes me feel to write something short and sweet.
Even more, I love seeing the contributions that other people make. I’m looking forward to seeing what people on Bluesky choose to contribute!
I attended a craft workshop organized by the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild about translating poetry by Jesse Lee Kercheval. She’s Zona Gale Professor of English Emerit at the University of Wisconsin Madison. The workshop had to be rescheduled when she had computer difficulties several weeks ago, but it was still pretty well attended for a Zoom event on a rainy Saturday morning.
She talked a bit about her path to translating poetry. She grew up speaking French, but learned English in her childhood. For the past 15 years, she’s been going to Uruguay and learning about the language and literature of the region. She’s published both original poetry and poetry in translation.
She brought several examples to show the kinds of choices translators make when trying to share a poem from one language to another. They were fascinating and gave the audience the opportunity to discover how choices throw cultural and linguistics aspect of both the original and target languages into relief.
One poem, translated by her and by another poet was particularly fascinating to me, as I could see how the other poet created a more masculine take on the poem showing cultural differences in how men and women speak. It reminded me of how in Japanese, men use a much rougher, more clipped, kind of speech.
Another poem showed the challenges — and limitations — of trying to bring a cultural construct from one language into another without intersecting with different cultural biases in the target language. The word “barrio” has different cultural connotations in the two communities: do you try to translate it or leave it in? Even the title of the poem, which was purely metaphorical: do you translate it literally? Or try to capture a corresponding metaphorical meaning in English? Choices!
For many, many years, (more than 30!) I have been writing poetry in Esperanto and trying to translate it into English. I’ve also done some limited translation of English poetry into Esperanto. And as an undergraduate, I studied Spanish for many years. So this was just a perfect fit for my interests and needs. I’ve been thinking about making a new chapbook of Esperanto haiku and now I’m even more excited to get started.
Years later, he wrote a round up post, where he collected some of his most meaningful reflections and provided a link to his Clarion at home page where he describes how to accomplish similar goals to attending the workshop, for people who can’t attend. Because attending Clarion is a huge commitment.
Clarion, as currently constituted, is difficult for most people to attend. It requires leaving home for 6 weeks, probably getting a leave from work, and being able to pay for room-and-board someplace while maintaining one’s current housing. Many people just can’t do that. Moreover, it requires living in close proximity to other people which I can’t do because of my chronic lung condition.
The other workshop I’ve always wanted to attend is Viable Paradise. In the past, I couldn’t attend because it takes place during the fall, when I’m busy with work. But now that I’m in my phased retirement, I’m only working half time and might be able to attend. Applications open in January and I may well apply.
Yesterday, I attended my first Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) Board Meeting as Secretary. It was a thoroughly positive experience. I took notes carefully and generated a set of minutes. I shared both my raw notes and my proposed set of minutes with the Board in order to get feedback in terms of how much detail people would like in the minutes. Some boards I’ve served on would like the full set of notes, but a set of minutes is generally a concise set of notes that captures only the essentials of what was decided. It will take me a while to get a sense of this Board to understand what is needed.
I had only met a few of the board members previously. We did around of introductions and it was interesting to see the range of perspectives and backgrounds present. I think it’s a nicely diverse board with members who bring very different life experiences, although many of us have teaching backgrounds. I immediately was made to feel at home and I think I will fit in well.
Initially, I had no plans to be Secretary. During the summer, when it became clear that SFWA was facing some challenges, I offered myself as a volunteer. Since I am beginning my phased retirement, I have more time available to dedicate to service. When the special election was called, I saw that someone had immediately offered themselves for Secretary and I was like, “Great!” If someone else wanted to do the work, I was happy to let them have at it. But then, due to some new opportunity at work, that candidate decided they had to withdraw. Seeing no other candidate step forward, I was happy to do so. I’m familiar with the work of being Secretary and happy to do what I can to support the organization.
SFWA is going through a major transition. I was aware of SFWA long before I began seriously writing speculative fiction. When I first started getting my fiction published, I was eager to join. At the time, however, the rules were such that it seemed an insurmountable challenge to become eligible. The rules required getting certain number of publications in markets that paid “pro” rates — except hardly any did. I spoke with my publisher — a small press — about the issue. They pay about a quarter of pro rates and admitted that without some other significant source of funding, they would not be able to sustain paying higher rates. But then SFWA changed the rules to be measured again absolute earnings through publishing. I was immediately able to join as an “associate” member and, when I renewed my membership the following year, I had reached the level necessary for “full” membership.
Not everyone is evidently happy about the change. It has produced a large influx of eager new members but, reportedly, some of the old-time members preferred the exclusivity of the previous, more restrictive, rules for entry. Personally, I think the new rules are better and produce a population that is more representative of the population of speculative fiction authors the organization is designed to serve. But I recognize the diversity of viewpoints on the matter.
A number of people have been worried about SFWA. The Romance Writers of America recently collapsed into bankruptcy. When SFWA experienced a number of resignations in a short time, people worried that there was some deep, dark secret that meant that the organization itself was in jeopardy. I have seen nothing that suggests this is the case. There are some challenges, but they are ordinary sorts of challenges. I have every confidence that the current board will meet those challenges and the organization will emerge all the stronger.
I would again like to thank everyone who had the confidence to vote for me for Secretary. I know that I was a bit of a dark horse. But I will work hard to repay your trust and help SFWA to meet its challenges.
On November 1, 2024, the curators of Wandering Shop Stories met up via Zoom for the first time. We had, in fact, cast a wider invitation, but we were the only ones who came. We had a good discussion.
We spent a bit of time just meeting one another (some of us for the first time) and talking about writing in general. But we quickly turned to Wandering Shop Stories. I spent a little time just reviewing the history of how wss366 came to be and contrasting it with vss365, which had been the inspiration.
All of us are very satisfied with how the project is working. We talked a bit about choosing prompts. We agreed that our current practice of choosing ordinary words that have multiple meanings gave us the most satisfactory results. We debated the importance of avoiding repeats (probably worth doing, but not always worth the time or effort).
Our initial impetus had been to discuss how we approach writing our story fragments. Each of us approaches it somewhat differently and it was fascinating to hear the various strategies.
Finally, I was able to announce that wandering.shop had approved allowing us to migrate from botsin.space that recently announced they were shutting down. I had originally chosen botsin.space because they welcomed bots and I sorta kinda personally knew the guy that was running. He had recently come to the conclusion that he needed to either substantially gear up to support the increased demand or shut down. He decided he really didn’t want to make the commitment to run the service, so he announced it would shutdown in mid-December. I approached the staff at wandering.shop and, after some discussion, they established a set of rules for allowing bots (from known members in good standing under defined conditions).
On November 3, I reviewed the documentation and made the necessary changes to migrate the bot. I was reminded of how straightforward it is to work with Mastodon as compared with when I did set up bots for birdchan and Discord. It only took me a a couple of hours to create a new account, configure it to receive the posts from my script, update the script, test, and then trigger the migration of followers from the old to the new account. It went about as smoothly as could be imagined.
We hope to have more meetings periodically. Perhaps we can have the next one between the holidays to talk about getting ready for the new year.
This semester, my writing students are studying lichens. Mostly not by choice, but because every semester I try to pick a different theme for my students to study and this semester seemed like a lichen kind of semester. To be fair, the students have been good sports, gamely looking at lichens and thinking deeply about how to study them.
On campus, there are lichens pretty much everywhere: on trees, rocks, buildings, light poles, benches, etc. But mostly not on the ground. Lichens get excluded anyplace where plants can grow well, so you generally only see them on very poor soil. But there are a few places in the region like that. One of them is the Montague Plains.
The Montague Plains are a delta where water from the glaciers flowed into glacial Lake Hitchcock during the last ice age. When a stream flows into a body of water, it creates a triangular (delta) shaped structure with sorted sediments: the gravel drops out first and then the sand. The silt stays suspended, but settles out on lake bed during the winter, producing varved clays. So most of the the delta is just sandy. Very sandy soil is tough for plants to grow on. It tends to be very well drained (i.e. dry) and there’s little organic matter, so few nutrients. And nothing for fungi to grow on, so few mycorrhizal relationships to help plants.
Few plants grow there. Some sparse grasses and trees, mostly pitch pine and scrub oak. Moreover, there tend be frequent fires, which end up burning off most of the organic material that might otherwise accumulate in the soil. So this is a recipe for lichens to grow. You have to look under the grass, leaves, and pine needles to find them, but they’re there.
It’s probably too far for any of the students groups to study there this semester. But I thought I’d stop by to take a few pictures to share with them anyway. Moreover, I always like visiting places with interesting geomorphology and botany to help me write fiction.
We had a good conversation. We discussed the expectations of the Secretary and a number of the upcoming activities: the business meeting and current thinking about how to organize the Nebulas.
He commented that I had received a very respectable number of votes — a surprisingly good showing for a write in candidate. I was gratified that my efforts of outreach — drafting a post to introduce myself, making postings in the SFWA Discord and Forum, and attending a SFWA Writing Date — were effective at introducing myself to the membership.
SFWA is currently facing a number of challenges. There have been a significant number of staff and officer resignations. And most recently, a newly elected board member had to be removed for cause. But it appears to me that the fundamentals of the organization are strong. I am hopeful that with new leadership, we can restore the organization to smooth operation.
My term is scheduled to begin on November 1, 2024 and will run through June 30, 2025 (since I am completing the term of the former officer). That should be plenty of time for me to determine whether I am a good fit and should continue in the role. I have typically enjoyed serving as Secretary: it’s work that I’m generally good at and allows me to play to my strengths. I look forward to meeting the rest of the board and getting to work!
Many years ago, when NaNoWriMo was new, I tried to participate. It didn’t go well. But this year, we’re calling it Writing Month.
November has always one of my busiest months. In my writing course, students are finishing their proposals and then launching their research projects. When I was BCRC Director, I found that there was also a bit uptick with people who were supposed to have started something at the beginning of the semester but now, since the end was in sight, were desperately trying to do something. And, there were always a few proactive people already thinking about next semester. It was always a busy time. Too busy to take on other commitments.
But, now, I’m semi-retired! I’m only teaching the one class (and doing my various other service obligations).
Furthermore, I have a new manuscript I’m working on: The Ground Never Lies. I’ve had this idea for a couple of years about a geomancer with an anger problem (who thinks of herself as unlovable) who gets involved with, and then has to rescue, a naive young woman who idolizes her. I wrote a pilot but couldn’t quite decide whether to leave it a short story or expand it into a novel. I have now completed the outline for a novel and am ready to start cranking on it.
The problem, however, is that NaNoWriMo has become toxic in the writing community. Several years ago, it was revealed that the organization was not responding effectively to complaints and evidence that some predators were using the organization as a means to groom and make unwanted sexual advances to young people. And, this year, they received an infusion of money from a company that builds generative AI tools and they issued a tone-deaf statement that ambiguously supported using generative AI for writing. For these reasons, a number of people have decided to abandon involvement in NaNoWriMo.
That said, many people are interested in trying to write during November. It’s a dark time (literally, due to the axial tilt of the Earth) and a lot of people need something to help them keep going. So one guy created a new website called Writing Month. I’ve signed up and will use it to track my writing. Will I succeed in writing 50,000 words in a month? I don’t know — and don’t really care. But I do want to write this novel before January and this seems like a useful vehicle to help provide some discipline.
One year ago this week, I ran the first session of Straw Dog Writes for the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild. And we’ve met basically every week since. I’m satisfied that it’s been time well spent. (It was also the week when my son’s boxer puppy, Tanuki, pictured above, came home for the first time.)
Two years ago, I helped the Program Committee conduct a survey of the membership to assess whether there were unmet needs among the community. One of the needs we identified was that members were looking for more opportunities to socialize and write together. There were also a substantial number of members who lived too far away, had health issues, or didn’t want to drive in the dark during the winter, that were interested in more opportunities for remote interaction.
I proposed Straw Dog Writes modeled on the SFWA “Writing Date”, which meets weekly via Zoom to socialize for 15 minutes, write for 45, then repeat. With the support of the Program Committee, I worked with the organization to set up the resources and agreed to coordinate and run the program.
In the past year, more than 50 people have attended at least once. During the winter, usually there were usually four or five participants ― occasionally as many as ten. Attendance was understandably lower during the summer. About half were pre-existing members and another half were new members who joined to participate. Participants tended to be evenly divided among writing fiction, poetry, and memoirs. One current participant is working on a graphic novel.
I tried to persuade the administrative assistant to create a webpage to advertise the program, but she refused, saying that she thought the website had “too many pages” already. That was a significant disappointment to me, as it made doing publicity significantly more difficult, since there’s no landing page — just individual calendar entries. That’s why there’s no link to the program on this page: there’s no place to link to.
I had originally hoped to recruit guest hosts to actually run the sessions, in part because it might be a useful hook to draw more participants. I did get a few members of the Program Committee to guest host and it was fun. I reached out to a woman who coordinates one of the other regional writing groups that offers paid consulting to see if maybe their instructors/consultants would like the opportunity to promote their programming to my participants. But she didn’t seem interested. Maybe I can do a better job of finding more guest hosts this year.
Most people who attend indicate they get a fair amount of writing done. I know I do. When I’m writing, I usually get more than a thousand words written. Once I got nearly 2000 words and one of these days I hope to reach it. But I sometimes use the time for outlining or revising, rather than just writing. (And occasionally even grading.) In any case, I’m happy to keep doing it just for myself, if no-one else. But everyone’s welcome. Join me!
I submitted five pictures to the Head in the Clouds Amherst 2025 wall calendar and one was selected for April! This picture was taken just across the street from where I live, at the edge of the UMass Amherst campus looking toward Orchard Hill at sunrise. The picture was actually taken on December 15. My original caption was, “This photo shows the southern-most point of the ecliptic, when the sun appears to rise behind Orchard Hill. The hill causes our winter sunrise to be an hour later than local sunrise.” Since they wanted to use the photo for April, I instead proposed using a haiku from my 2013 chapbook senokulvitre about sakura buds. You can purchase copies of the calendar for $22.
Many years ago, I got interested in photography. For a brief time, I dreamed of being a wildlife photographer. Using a 35mm single-lens reflex camera, I tried taking lots of pictures using Kodachrome and got some really nice pictures. But relatively quickly, I discovered the difference between an amateur photographer and one who can take professional, magazine-cover-quality photos. I might walk by a field, spot a deer in the field, and get a great picture. But a professional would say, “This picture is OK, but the weather is all wrong.” So they’d come back day after day until the weather was just right and then say, “The lighting is wrong at this time of year.” Then they’d come back year after year until the weather and lighting were perfect, get an even better picture, and then say, “Now the deer needs to be facing the other direction.” I had no-where near the level of patience and persistence to get cover-quality picture photos. That said, I learned a lot about photography and composition.
I still like to take pictures — especially now that, with a digital workflow, you can take as many pictures as you want. Working with Kodachrome was very limiting: you needed to use a tripod (because the films were very slow), the film was expensive, the processing was even more expensive, and then getting a photo printed was even more expensive.
I really liked the other pictures I had submitted as well, so here they are.
This was where the playground of my children’s elementary school was, before the town short-sightedly closed it down.
This is the millpond in Easthampton. I liked the reflections in the water.
This sunken road is on the way to Hawley Bog.
This abandoned trolley line is in the Arcadia Wildlife Refuge in Easthampton.
I’ll never be a professional photographer, but its still fun to take pictures.
I used to love to write in cafes or libraries or other public places. But after I was hospitalized during the pandemic, I could no longer go into public places where people are unmasked. So, for a long time, that meant staying in my office.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my office! I have a big laptop with a portrait monitor and a fridge that’s usually well stocked with cold water bottles and beer. It’s located in the basement of my house and is quiet when I want it to be quiet — but I also have big speakers I can turn on when I want to listen to kpop or jpop. And I have poster boards with the covers of my books which make a nice background when I’m in Zoom for class or Faculty Senate or Straw Dog Writes or whatever else I do.
In the past, when I was working full time, I was in my office for many of my waking hours. But this semester, I have started my new phased retirement. This means, that I don’t need to spent nearly as much time running class or having consultations with students.
During the winter, my office used to get pretty cold. I used to have to wear a sweater or fleece and use fingerless gloves to type. But, about a year ago, we got insulation installed in the basement that keeps the temperature nearly always in the 60s — very comfortable during summer or winter.
For a long time, we’ve had a little tent gazebo set up in the front yard. We used to have an old, weird picnic table under it, which was OK. But not really very comfortable. So I proposed getting more comfortable furniture. My wife, always practical, pointed out that, to do that, we’d need to have a patio for the furniture to sit on. So, this spring, we arranged to have a patio installed. And then I ordered the furniture and set it up.
It is glorious. Now, whenever the weather is nice, this is where you’ll find me writing. It’s not exactly quiet, as there is a busy road behind the arbor vitae. And sometimes the sun shines on my laptop screen. But I love it. It provides a nice environment for being able to write that is comfortable. I appreciate the fresh air and quiet stimulation of having people walk by on the sidewalk. And seeing the neighborhood children waiting for the school bus.
It’s also a nice place for me to meet with people. Due to my health issues, I can’t meet people in cafes or bars or restaurants anymore (although beergardens are OK) so it’s wonderful to have a comfortable place where people can come to hang out with me. It’s also a great place to have a beer or cocktail with friends.
It’s a bit of work to watch the weather and cover everything up whenever rain threatens. And, eventually, I’ll have to figure out what to do for the winter. I plan to move the cushions indoors and then cover up the furniture. Winters are long in New England and so I’m sure I’ll be looking out longingly all winter waiting for spring.
But, at least now — for the fall, while the weather is nice — this is where you can find me. Writing.
I’ve realized over the past couple of years that my writing has been significantly influenced by reading manga. I’ve been tracking upwards of a thousand manga and, therefore, have read tens of thousands of chapters of manga over the past 10 years.
Manga are a somewhat guilty pleasure for me. Undoubtedly part of the reason I like them is that in Japan there is much less pressure against cultural appropriation and male-gaze fan service. I particularly enjoy seeing Western culture appropriated and viewed through a Japanese cultural lens. It’s fascinating to see how holidays (like Christmas and Valentines day) or even the use of English language gets re-presented. And manga are well known for drawing females with exaggerated “charms.” But I also appreciate a number of uniquely Japanese perspectives that are fascinating from a Western perspective.
Japanese characters are allowed to have flaws that would never be permitted in the West. In Naruto, for example, the three legendary sannin are Jiraya (the “pervy sage” who lusts after young girls), Tsunade (a drunkard and inveterate gambler), and Orochimaru (who becomes a literal villain pursuing life extension through medical experimentation on prisoners). The characters are actually drawn from Japanese folklore and embellished in the manga.
There are a bunch of story structures that are so common as to be tropes in manga that are totally unfamiliar in the west. One of the currently most-well-known is the isekai, where the protagonist dies in the first chapter (often stereotypically struck and killed by “truck-kun”) and is reincarnated in some fantastic other universe with their memories and knowledge intact. Another is the “otome game” where the protagonist becomes a player in a visual dating simulation that typically involves a “heroine” that needs to match with a handsome prince while being tormented by a “villianess”. And there are vast number of romance (“shojo“) stories and “slice-of-life” stories, often revolving around food, cafes, and onsens (hot spring resorts).
I can see a vast number of influences on my fiction are derived from manga. I really like episodic and serialized fiction. Both Revin’s Heart and Lady Cecelia’s Journey are written in novelette length episodes that each have a unique story arc, but play a role in a larger, overarching story. The short stories of Better Angels: Tour de Force are similarly episodic in nature.
Some of the character types I enjoy in manga demonstrate “gap moe” which is when a character has two personality traits that are in opposition to each other. The classic example is the tsundere: a character who seems aloof or distant but who is actually very sweet or vulnerable and is covering it up with a harsh exterior. Another tropish example is character who looks like a delinquent, but is actually a good guy (or girl) with a rough exterior. This was my inspiration for the Better Angels who look and act like pre-teen girls, but with different programming modules, can act like singing-and-dancing idols or ruthless killers.
Reading manga as I do has probably detracted significantly from the time I used to spend reading fiction. I should try to spend more time staying current with Western fiction. But though it makes me feel guilty, I like really manga: they’re a window into a different cultural experience that I don’t get from reading most fiction published in the West.
After 28 years of full-time employment, I am starting a new phase of life. This summer, for the first time since I started my career, I didn’t work over the summer. And this fall, I begin my “phased retirement” where I start working just half time. I’m excited to see what the new normal will be like.
Thirty five years ago, I began graduate school and have been working full time pretty much constantly since then. The last two years of graduate school, while I was working on my dissertation, I was also the full-time caregiver of my infant son, which was a fascinating experience but meant that I will busy nearly every waking minute.
I started my professional career in 1996 when I joined the faculty at UMass Amherst as Director of the Biology Computer Resource Center (BCRC). This meant that I was either running the BCRC and teaching a scientific writing class (during the academic year) or doing development and support during the summer (replacing hardware, updating software, building curriculum). I loved my work, but was constantly busy — I aimed for about 55 hours per week year round.
The year before the pandemic I was awarded a Professional Improvement Fellowship to develop a new honors course: Open Science Instrumentation and Data Collection, which let me bring together all of my skills. I proposed to mentor students coming up with a life science research question and developing an instrument that used a computing platform and sensors to collect and log data about their question. The fellowship offered me a semester off from my professional duties to create all of the instructional materials. It was glorious. But then the pandemic happened.
During the pandemic my department closed the BCRC and rewrote my job description as a teaching faculty member. I continued to teach the writing class and began to my new honors class. Since I was no longer obligated to spend my time doing computer support and development, I decided to repurpose that time for writing fiction and have written two books, Revin’s Heart and Better Angels: Tour de Force (plus several short stories published in anthologies).
Last year, I proposed the idea of a phased retirement to the department. I offered to continue to teach my honors class. However, because the “credit” for teaching the honors class would go to the Honors College, my college (the College of Natural Science and Mathematics) was only willing to have me teach the writing class, for which they get “credit”. So that’s what we settled on. This week, I’m getting ready to teach the writing class beginning next week.
Last year, when it wasn’t clear which class I would be teaching, I began putting off doing a bunch of the work needed to teach the honors class. That class required me to maintain and update a lot of instructional materials that had complex dependencies because the technology moves so quickly. Each year, I had to stay current with changes to the operating systems, development environments, campus networking, and the software carpentry instructional materials (which I was using for teaching). I had created a long list of tasks that I would need to do before teaching this year. And when I ended up not teaching that class, I was able to just throw out that whole list. As I’m getting ready for the fall, I’m still taking pleasure in discarding the last vestiges knowing that I won’t ever have to do that work.
In the past, I basically didn’t have time to write fiction during the academic year. I could only write during intersession and summer. But I’m hopeful that, this year, I will find that I have enough time to continue to write fiction year round. It will be nice to have that become the new normal.
I remember after I’d been writing fiction for a while, my son asked, “Why don’t you have any female characters?” I was flummoxed.
“But what about Mary?”
“She’s a yōkai — that doesn’t count.”
“But what about… Aless?”
“Who?”
“Aless — in It’s Not Just Black or White?”
“She dies on page 9.”
“Oh. Um…”
I had to admit that he was right. I really didn’t have any female characters.
As I wrote my debut work, Revin’s Heart, I added several female characters, but I realized that it still didn’t really pass the Bechdel test. Given that the story is a young man’s adventure story (though with a transgender protagonist) that’s not too surprising. But I wanted to do better. So for one of the side-stories, I decided to tell the story of the protagonist’s transition. And this included a number of strong female characters and a trans woman.
I’ve now written a number of pieces of short fiction (not all of them published) that have female protagonists. One unpublished manuscript is about an elderly witch that helps a female friend move. I’m not sure whether Better Angels or my weird little story, Always a Destroyer (in Romancing the Rainbow) really count, because although they have female protagonists, they are not really human.
Most recently, however, I’ve finished Lady Cecelia’s Journey, a sapphic romantasy road story. It’s told from the point of view of a somewhat naive aristocratic girl who, on the one hand, grew up very sheltered. But she also had many privileges and experiences that her girlfriend, a commoner, never got to have. Playing these contrasts off one another is part of the charm of the story for me. It’s a story I feel I can tell as I grew up in a well-educated, upper-middle-class family that moved to the countryside when I was in third grade, where many of my friends were members of the rural poor.
I’ve tried to craft three-dimensional characters for both of my protagonists. They each have a meaningful backstory that is not merely some dark tragedy. They each have goals and objectives in life that are not centered only around men. Or romance. They each have unique strengths and weaknesses. They each have a distinctive appearance, but they are not just their bodies. Or their clothes. And both grow and develop over the course of the story.
To be honest, I see many aspects of myself in both of them.
Men are frequently accused of writing female characters very poorly. The line that sticks in my head was the one attributed to Mary Robinette Kowal: “She breasted boobily down the stairs.” I think men who do this don’t see women as fully complete human beings: they can only see them through their own mental filter as an object. I hope ― and believe ― that I have done better.
But I guess I’ll just have to wait to see what people say.
I have been fortunate enough to travel rather widely in my lifetime which helps me create settings in my fiction. But, I have also studied both geomorphology and botany which informs the salient features to describe settings realistically in my writing. I believe these both contribute levels of detail which add to the verisimilitude of my storytelling.
Geomorphology is the study of landforms. The earth has many interlocking geological processes that combine to produce landforms. The canvas upon which geological process act are the rocks: Igneous rocks, generated by volcanic activity; sedimentary rocks, created by deposition; and metamorphic rocks, that transform igneous and metamorphic rocks, through heat and pressure, to adopt different forms. As rocks are uplifted, through orogeny, weathering causes them to erode. Often, during uplift, rocks are deformed, broken, or folded, and these patterns can be exposed by weathering. And, in many places, glaciation creates particular forms of erosion that yield many unique landforms that remain behind after the ice has retreated.
The geology coupled with hydrology represent the biotic factors that determine what kinds of plants (and other organisms) that will grow there. And they, in turn, create the conditions for a succession of communities of organisms that follow. Knowing the communities of plants can really help create the atmosphere for a setting: Are there evergreens? Or deciduous trees? Or just grassland? Or maybe just a crust of lichens on bare sand? All of these can really help bring a scene to life.
As a student, when I took the classes, I went on many field trips where I had the opportunity to see the land forms in real life. You never forget when you’ve seen an esker (a sinuous hill of gravel that forms in channels under glacial ice) or a swarm of drumlins (tear-drop shaped hills that were overrun by moving glaciers). Or the drama of a terminal moraine — a huge hill that formed at the furthest margin of a glacier where it left a huge deposit of transplanted sand, gravel, and clay. All of these can add to the realism of a setting’s description.
Last year, my son and I drove to California for Baycon. I got to travel through some regions I’d visited before. Like the Badlands (pictured above) which was formed of many layers of volcanic dust eroded way revealing the colorful layers. But others were wholly new to me: One of the most interesting was driving from the Central Valley of California to the Pacific Highway that runs right along the coast. It was more than 100° F in the Central Valley when we started driving through the Coast Ranges. It became increasing arid as we entered the rain shadow of the mountain range. But then, as we cleared the peaks, became a cool rain forest with giant redwoods as we approached the coast. It was chilly in the low 60s by the ocean, just 50 or 60 miles distant, as the crow flies.
Some of the characters in my fiction can only describe their settings in general, qualitative terms. But part of why I wanted to write a series of stories about Lady Cecelia is because she’s a botanist. So she knows the plants and can appreciate the significance of the various plant communities they pass through on her adventure.
Alone, Cecelia cautiously got to her feet and, keeping a hand on the bed, carefully stepped to the window to look out. The view quite took her breath away. She was in a high room of a grand chateau that was situated along the side of a mountain valley. In the depths, she could see a cascading whitewater river that tumbled over immense boulders. Looking upward, she could see the tips of snow-capped mountains peeking up out of a vast evergreen forest. She opened the window and let the crisp, cool air into the stuffy room. It was scented with a delightful piney smell and she could hear the roar of the river in the distance. She breathed in deeply and smiled.
Lady Cecelia’s Journey, a sapphic romantasy road story will be serialized as six novelettes.
Worldcon in Glasgow wrapped up today. I didn’t attend any of the last day’s events. Of course, I didn’t end up attending Worldcon in person and only attended a few events remotely. I had signed up very early (I had a badge number in the 3000s as opposed to 15k or 16k by the end.) And I had purchased plane tickets and made hotel reservations before January. I signed up before they announced their “disease mitigation policy.” (Due to my chronic lung condition, I have to be very careful of respiratory infections that are likely to put me in the hospital.) I had been hopeful they would adopt a masks-required policy. But they didn’t. Even so, I planned to attend until I learned that I hadn’t been afforded a place on the program. At that point, I decided to cancel my plans to attend.
I was able to recover some of my sunk costs. I had (at significant expense) purchased fully-refundable airline tickets, so I was able (at some significant effort) to get the airline to refund them. The hotel had required us to basically pay for our stay upfront as a non-refundable deposit, so that was a huge loss. And, of course, I had purchased attending memberships for myself and my son, which were worthless. I offered my attending membership to someone on Mastodon who might want to attend in person, but no-one expressed interest. So I ended up using my membership to attend online. (Someone suggested that I could offer the memberships via other networks, but I said, “F— ’em. If they can’t bother to follow me on Mastodon, they deserve NOTHING.”)
I had been planning to travel to Glasgow with my son, my brother, and his wife. Instead, they flew here (as we had originally planned) and then we just hung out and spent the week together visiting. It was wonderful. I had just finished constructing a new patio with comfortable patio furniture, so we had a marvelous time.
I did attend a few events online. Although, to be honest, it made me feel bad every time since I had been so excited about attending and it was merely a reminder of what I was missing.
I did notice, however, that — in spite of the “disease mitigation policy” which said “We strongly recommend that every member wears a mask, particularly indoors or in crowded areas, such as the registration area and programme rooms” — the number of people actually masking was extremely low. I got several views of the audiences in presentations and counted masked and unmasked participants, and the ratio was between 1/5 and 1/10. So, if I had attended, I probably would have spent a lot of time having to cower in my room. Brrr.
Instead, I had a great time with my brother. My mom, who is over 90, lives with me and I always feel a little guilty that my brother doesn’t get to spend as much time with her. So it was great to have us all hang out together. And we’ve been going on fun adventures. We went to Hawley Bog together today. We’ll go to the Bridge of Flowers tomorrow. And we’ve visited a number of breweries — totally appropriate for Brewers.
In a couple of days, they’ll head home and then it will be time to start getting ready for classes to begin in the fall.
So, in the end, it was an expensive lesson. But it’s just money. We had a nice time anyway, even if I didn’t get to go to Glasgow or have the opportunity to promote my writing.
If you want to be a writer, that’s cool. All you have to do is write.
It doesn’t really matter if you get published. Or show anyone what you write. If you write, you’re still a writer.
The more you write, the better you’ll get. If you want to be a good writer, you have to write a lot.
There’s no certain path to being a great writer. Nobody knows what makes a great writer. But all great writers were good writers first.
If you want to be a famous writer, it’s the same. There’s no sure path to fame. But you can’t become a famous writer unless you write and keep writing. Each time you write something and put it out there, there’s the chance it will catch fire and go viral. And that can’t happen if you don’t keeping putting things out there.
There’s no right way to write. Just as there’s no wrong way to write. Just write.
For some people, writing is easy. For some people it’s hard. But there are all kinds of writers and you can be one of them.
If you show your writing to other people, some of them will like it and some of them will hate it. But if you like your writing, that’s enough.
And if you don’t like your own writing, you can write more. And the more you write, the better your writing will become.
Don’t let anyone discourage you from writing if that’s you want to do. If you want to write, write.
As July ends, I typically find myself consumed with regrets. With August imminent, I sulk as I see the end of summer approaching and recognize I need to start working to get ready for the fall. And I invariably feel like I didn’t accomplish enough during the summer. I didn’t relax enough, enjoy myself, write enough, travel enough, etc.
Enough. I need to let go of these regrets and just let myself enjoy the time that I have. So today, on the last day of July, I propose to do exactly that. It doesn’t matter if I don’t write. Or don’t organize my office. Or don’t register for some upcoming conference. I need to just not dwell on negative thoughts and let myself be happy.
Last year, before Baycon, I created a ‘zine about the Islands of Revin’s Heart. I had made a map of the islands (for my own purposes mostly) and saw this as a way to get it to people. Plus it was just a fun way to do something creative. I like playing with graphics and design and page layout.
I did the page layout using Scribus. Scribus is free software for desktop publishing. I’m told Scribus is similar to QuarkXpress though I’ve never used the commercial software. I learned it twenty years ago and have laid out five books of haiku and art with it. I have also taught countless students to use it to make scientific posters. When I ran a poster printer, you could count on Scribus to generate correctly-structured postscript files that would actually print accurately — unlike most other apps people use (cough Powerpoint cough).
When I wrote the Better Angels, I had the idea for a ‘zine that would be a guide to each of the Angels that would include a snapshot and other information. I originally had the idea when we did the cover, but we were both busy and so I didn’t push the issue then. But this summer, I finally got around to requesting the artist to create the snapshots of the Angels for me.
The snapshots turned out great! She provided nine (one for each Angel), plus one bonus “freebie.” The artist, Kelley York of Sleepy Fox Studio, does fantastic work. She really captured a whole series of cute expressions for each Angel. (Note: the images are computer-generated (CG), but not AI generated. Although, since the Better Angels are non-human biological androids, I rather like the uncanny-valley-esque appearance of the CG photos.
Originally, I was planning that the photos would be just headshots. But that proved to be difficult, because their costumes are off-the-shoulder and so they simply looked naked! After some consideration, we zoomed the photos out just a bit so you can see the top of their magical-girl dresses.
I had originally planned to give the ‘zines away at Worldcon, since I would be unable to sell copies of my books there directly. But, when the organizers declined to allow me to be a participant, I canceled my travel plans altogether. So now I have the ‘zines, but don’t have any immediate plans to attend a con where I could give them away.
Instead, you can get a copy of the ‘zine by ordering a signed copy of Better Angels: Tour de Force from the publisher. I will include a free copy of the ‘zine with every book. It’s a really nice book, BTW — especially the hardcover edition! And signed by the author!
I don’t imagine this promotion will somehow kick off a whirlwind of purchases but you never know, right? Sometimes you just have to sow the wind and hope for the best.
In May of 2022, I had an idea for a new story. I had basically just finished the last part of Revin’s Heart and was looking for something new to write. At the SFWA Writing Date I banged out a 1,900 word pilot and immediately knew that, what I had, was the first chapter of a novel. The semester was just ending, and so I had plenty of time to write. I worked assiduously and, in little more than a month, I had finished the rough draft of a 50,000 word novel.
A young man desperately wants a strong magical familiar but, instead, is captured and made the familiar of a powerful demon that intends to train him up for something. But what?
When I reached the end of what I had intended to write, I kept having fun ideas about what the characters could do afterwards. This happened about three times until I remembered that I was the author and I could just keep writing. I ended up writing two more chapters and another whole ending.
I revised and polished the manuscript over the summer. I got good comments from my faithful beta reviewers. My younger son, rolling his eyes, commented that he had been worried about his own writing being too weird until he read this manuscript. Sometimes the meaning of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. By fall, I was ready to start trying to submit it for publication.
I checked with Water Dragon first, but they were in the middle of publishing Revin’s Heart and Better Angels, so it didn’t work into their schedule.
I briefly considered trying to pitch it to an agent. But I decided it wasn’t really long enough and was weird enough that it would fit better at a small press. I saw one small press looking for “cozy fantasies” so I pitched it to them. I mean, I think of it as cozy fantasy. Unfortunately, they didn’t see it that way, objecting to “overt themes of sexual abuse and sexual coercion” — which seems harsh and exaggerated to me. But, they can publish what they want. I tried a few other publishers but had a hard time finding a home for the manuscript: it’s too cozy to be dark and too dark to be cozy.
I was gratified when I got Water Dragon to take another look at it this spring, since I thought it would be a good fit. And, this time, they agreed! I have now signed the contract and it will be worked into the schedule to come out this winter.
I really like this story and I think readers will like it too. I can’t wait to get it into your hands!
On July 15 (less than a month before the convention) I was notified that my request to be a participant at Worldcon was declined. I was pretty disappointed. Since I had been given eight participant roles at my previous Worldcon, I had expected I would get at least some role — even if just to read. But I was not selected for anything.
Given the huge expense of traveling internationally coupled with the heightened risk of COVID transmission on long flights — plus the decision of the convention to not require masking — I decided to cancel my travel plans altogether and not attend the convention.
Given my health issues, I had purchased fully refundable plane tickets. I will have to pay a non-refundable deposit to the hotel. And, of course, I paid the registration cost of the convention. But the expense is little compared to the disappointment of not being a participant.
My younger son and I brought books for Water Dragon Publishing and Small Publishing in a Big Universe (SPBU) to Readercon33. It was the first time we’ve tried to sell books at that convention. We did alright. Many of the other vendors said that sales were down from last year, which was a little strange as the number of attendees was higher.
I’ve now run — or helped run — a dealer table at a convention perhaps a dozen times. At most conventions, the dealer tables are much more diverse. Often, there are t-shirts, jewelry, gaming supplies, artwork, etc. But Readercon is almost exclusively book-focused. Since we’re also (almost) exclusively book-focused, it seemed like an opportune moment for reflection on our process: what we’re doing right and wrong. I thought I’d share my thoughts here.
As my first step, I decided to walk around and photograph all of the other dealer tables in the bookstore to reflect on differences between what we’re doing and what other groups are doing to gauge effectiveness and assess what we’re doing right and what we could improve.
It’s hard to make too many generalizations because a lot of decisions are site- and con-specific. In this case, our tables began second along the main aisle people took into the bookstore. The tables made an L with two tables along the main aisle and one at 90 degrees forming an aisle to right. Since people were entering and walking along the main aisle — and couldn’t see our banners at a distance — I put some signage at the end of the table that people would be facing as they came in the door. And, where there was a gap where tables abutted at the corner, I had a small aluminum table I could fit in the gap that gave us some extra space.
I also made some site-specific decisions about organizing books. In general, I put a book in front on a bookstand, a second book behind on a stack of books, and a third book on a taller stack of books at the back. I put the books by attending authors in the front along the section people came to first. I put the rack with the “Dragon Gems” short fiction books in the corner, and I put the anthologies just around the corner in a group. Finally, I tried to put authors with multiple books in a row so you could see book one, book two, and book three in a series in a row. I kept a two-book wide space open in the back for a spot where authors could sign books. And placed giveaway items (cards, ribbons, stickers, etc) in the front. Each book has a colored price tag tucked in between the pages sticking up where it’s easily viewed.
A few observations…
It makes a huge difference for an author to be there. There’s almost no point in having books available from authors who aren’t at the con. And certainly it doesn’t make sense to feature their books. Speaking of which…
I think we may have too many books on display. People seemed to be daunted by the sheer number of titles: we had around 50 Water Dragon titles (spread over 2.5 tables) and more than 20 SPBU titles on one table. It was a cacophany of different authors and genres. People couldn’t decide what to focus on. And, looking at other booksellers that have shelves, we didn’t get many people that would stay to browse, perhaps because people felt self-conscious with us just standing there. Having bookshelves might really help so people can more comfortably browse. I also wonder if we might do better having more books simply spread out on the table and fewer books on bookstands: so the books on bookstands stand out more. Currently, people seem overwhelmed. I think we’d do much better to feature a handful of books: the books by authors at the con and a handful of the newest books. But the others should be much less prominently displayed: people should be able to browse them, but they shouldn’t be set up in parallel with the books we’re featuring. Ideally, they should be in bookshelves. But see below…
We’re limited by the scale of our operation. It would be great to have bookshelves, but we need everything to fit in a volunteer’s car: we don’t have a package truck to move rolling bookshelves like the other book stores. Similarly with respect to signage: it would be great to have some kind of lighted overhead sign, but with only one or two people setting up — and needing to fit everything in a regular passenger vehicle, there are limitations.
Signage: We have banners hanging from the tables. Behind the table, we have a tall standing banner and I bring the covers of two of my books printed on foam board that stand up on easels. Other places have table-top signs, computer displays, or overhead frames with lighting and signs. I think our signage is pretty good — I saw someone taking a picture of my book covers and the standing banner, which made me feel pretty good. Our banners are 8 feet long which is too long when the table is only six feet. It might be worth getting 6 foot banners which will fit better on a 6-foot table, but still look OK on an 8-foot table.
Some of the vendors use QR codes extensively. If we had signage with QR codes, it might be helpful to make it easier for people to visit our websites. At first, I put QR codes on my book covers with the links for Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher. One guy used them. But with the book covers farther back, behind the table, it didn’t seem worth it. But maybe its worth putting up more QR codes.
I almost didn’t see anyone else using visible price tags on books. I have some inkscape files with price tags at the edges of paper. I print them on colorful card stock, cut them up, and stick them in between the pages of our books. A few groups that had books laying flat on the table (like the Clarkesworld table) had some price tags laying on the covers. I remember at Rhode Island Comic Con, having price tags was really important as everyone kept asking how much stuff cost. I keep meaning to make sure I get enough of each price printed (every time I end up having to write a bunch by hand which is not difficult, but annoying). Just having different colors is good, as it adds visual interest.It would also be good to have a consistent color scheme so that the different colors of tags “mean” something. If we used colors consistently and had a key (e.g. blue for fantasy, orange for scifi, pink for romance, etc). Still, it would be hard to pigeonhole the books since it might also be nice to mark which are LGBTQIA+ and what do you do about “romantasy” and other cross-genre books?
Some groups have various giveways or raffles where people can sign up. This would be a really good idea to get people onto our mailing list. One table had a kind of gumball machine that had little plastic containers with prices — maybe on slips of paper? At Boskone, MIT press had people fill out slips of paper for a chance to win a boxed edition of a beautiful, colorful edition of a D&D book. We need something like that. Alternatively, a tablet computer where people could enter their email address directly might be good. But that might need power.
Depending on how one could set up the bookstore, it might be fun to have some seating. People might look at books longer if they had a place to sit down while browsing. That couldn’t work in some setups, but it might sometimes be possible.
Sometimes, we’ve had some kind of display on the tables. Lisa had a treasure chest once. And Jay Hartlove had a mermaid mannequin for his Mermaid Steel books. I’m not sure it always makes sense, but something that adds visual interest is always worth considering.
The most important part of running a book table is having effective pitches for the books. As people walk by the table, I usually ask people either “Would you like to be an airship pirate?” or “May I tell you about my books?” People are usually amenable to letting me make a pitch. It only works about 10% of the time. But nearly all of the sales I make are directly the result of me making a pitch. If you don’t have some kind of pitch there’s no way for someone to pick your book out from all of the others. I would pitch all of the books except most of the authors haven’t provided a pitch for me to use for their books.
It’s been sad to watch BayCon happening and to not be there. Last year, I traveled to BayCon and got to meet my publisher and a bunch of the other authors with Water Dragon Publishing. This year, I decided I couldn’t attend because they no longer required masking.
Due to my health conditions I need to cautious of respiratory infections. Up to now, I’ve only attended conventions where masking was required. (Except for Rhode Island Comic Con early in the pandemic, where I ended up getting the respiratory infection that put me in the hospital.) Unfortunately, ReaderCon, which I’m attending next week, may be the last convention where full masking is required. I decided to attend WorldCon in Glasgow in August before their COVID policy had been established, but they adopted a policy of “masking recommended”) and I suspect that is going to be the trend going forward — until we have the H5N1 pandemic or something.
So I didn’t go to BayCon this year. And now I’m watching my fellow authors attend and feeling sad that I’m missing out.
Partly, I’m just remembering the wonderful trip that my son and I took to drive all across the country. That was amazing! We saw so many wonderful things and visited a lot of people along the way.
I do have WorldCon coming up in just a month. That’s going to be exciting, although I’m not really looking forward to the trans-Atlantic flight. And all of the rigamarole of crossing an international border. I still remember the misery of going through the hideous check point at Heathrow. It was in a gymnasium-sized room with a line that snaked back and forth 8 or 10 times until it reached a line of booths. We spent at least an hour shuffling back and forth across the room until we finally got to the booths. It was horrible.
I learned a long time ago that I have a lot of inertia. When I haven’t traveled for a while, I don’t want to go. I’m comfortable not going anywhere. But, once I start traveling, I’m happy traveling and then I don’t want to stop. So I know that once I start going, I’ll have fun.
That said, it’s hard watching everyone enjoying themselves at BayCon and not be able to be there.
Last winter, during Intersession, I was inspired to write a short story. It was accepted for publication in Romancing the Rainbow, an anthology by Enrapturing Tales. I wrote a little author’s note to describe it.
This weird little story weaves together a bunch of imagery that has played out in my imagination for many years.
The setting is an island, strongly influenced by my many visits to a Caribbean island. The time is vaguely in the future, after an apocalyptic war that has left the remaining humanity sheltering in arcologies due to persistent bioweapon spores.
And the characters are artificially constructed organisms: one is the embodiment of an elite weapon that used to be treated with great respect and privilege. She is now viewed, not unreasonably perhaps, with distrust and suspicion. The other was constructed to serve people—but now all of the people she used to serve are gone.
Thrown together by circumstance, these two very different characters must try to understand each other—and themselves.
Author’s Note: Always a Destroyer
The book is a fundraiser in honor of an editor, LJ Hachmeister, who passed away recently. She had just organized an anthology fundraiser for a good cause, but didn’t live long enough to see the fruition of her work. I submitted my sotyr knowing that at least half of the proceeds would go to her family. I donated all of my share of the royalties, as did several others, so more than 80% of the proceeds will go to the cause. I hope folks will buy the work to support her family in their grief. And I hope they enjoy my weird little story. I think it’s one of my better pieces of short fiction.
At the 2024 Nebulas convention, I attended of the very last sessions, Planning Your Own Publicity Campaign presented by KC Grifant, Jaye Viner, Eva Elasigue, and Robyn Dabney. It was a great presentation but, as I said in my earlier post about the Nebulas, I didn’t feel like there was a whole lot here that was new to me. It was still nice to know that I wasn’t missing anything obvious. Since I took relatively detailed notes, I thought I’d summarize them here.
The first question for the panel related to the timeline for planning a publicity campaign. Aim to start at least a year out: establish an online presence for yourself: set up a website, start a newsletter, identify people to help and support your campaign, and make a plan. Three to six months out, you should start trying to schedule in-person events (readings, book signings, etc.) You can find a lot of resources on the internet about running a book launch and you should educate yourself. And make sure to have fun.
Another question asked what can you expect your publisher to do. The short answer, of course, is doodlysquat. In the past, trad-pub’ed authors could expect a publisher to mount a publicity campaign for you, but that’s pretty rare now. Small presses mostly don’t have the resources to do very much. They might contact some of the higher-tier trade reviews and provide ARCs, but you mostly have to do the rest. Reviews are critical. The panels suggested reaching out to book bloggers, bookstagrammers, and booktokkers and the like: familiarize with their work to make sure they review stuff like yours, politely send a message with an ARC, and don’t follow-up or expect a response.
Several people talked about planning joint events with other authors, which can increase the draw for readings and signings.
Most panelists agreed that your local indy bookstore is, after your publisher, the most important relationship to foster. They are generally supportive of genre fiction and can help you organize a launch event. Local libraries can also be effective partners.
The moderator asked how people spent money in support of their campaign. Few panelists found advertising to be very effective. It’s an artform and requires a lot of expertise to pull it off effectively. This is consistent with my experience as well. One mentioned boosting some posts at Facebook for $15. But swag was a popular thing to spend some money on: stickers, bookmarks, and other promotional materials. And events: conferences, conventions and, in particular, local comicons, which would often have an “authors alley” where you sell books and meet with fans.
One potential way to spend money is to hire publicist. Nobody on the panel had worked with one. One suggested that they tended to be outrageously expensive (e.g. a $10k monthly minimum).
They mentioned some expenses that didn’t really sound like “publicity” to me. One mentioned the importance to a cover when selling on the internet and not cheap out. Also it might be worth paying for a developmental editor to help sharpen your story. Or line editing. These are definitely important, but seem like they should be part of the publishing process. But perhaps important to remember for self-publishers.
They finally offered a few closing thoughts: Don’t try to do everything. Go for it, but remember to be happy with your book. And, finally, always be writing the next thing.
For the first time, in many, many years, I’m actually free this summer.
When I began my career at the University, I was hired on a 12-month appointment to direct the Biology Computer Resource Center (BCRC). After the first year, the chairman — with some help from the dean — rewrote my job classification to put me on a 9-month appointment so that I would be able to apply for grants to supplement my salary during the summer. But, with the understanding, that I would not “vanish” during the summer and would be available to provide support to students and faculty that needed it.
In point of fact, the summer was indispensable for running the BCRC because it was then that I could update software, replace hardware, and build the server infrastructure that made running the facility possible. It was the only period when I had the uninterrupted blocks of time needed to really accomplish significant projects. And I did: setting up instructional materials and resources, engaging in curriculum design, and writing papers.
Perhaps eight years ago, I proposed to develop an online version of the writing class I teach to be taught during the summer. Most summer classes are taught only over a 6-week period. I tried the class that way but found it unsatisfactory: students can’t write enough in 6 weeks to get a full-semester’s worth of writing experience. So I taught the course over the full 13-week period spanning both summer sessions. And that worked pretty well. It was a pretty light load spread out that way, but it was still an obligation.
When the Biology Department closed the BCRC and rewrote my job description during the pandemic, I no longer had the obligation to spend my summers working on infrastructure, but I continued to teach the writing class. This year, however, I decided to stop. Mostly, I just wanted to have the time to write, but the fact that I would have had to migrate all of the teaching materials to a different LMS played no small role in my decision as well. I notified the Department back in October I wouldn’t be teaching it, so they could find someone else, if they wanted to. But nobody stepped up.
But, for the first time in nearly 30 years, I’m free of obligations during the summer. I can’t say I don’t like it, because it’s glorious. It’s not like I’m not “working” in that I’ve already written tens of thousands of words of fiction. But it’s great to be able to focus without distractions — and to let serendipity guide how I spend each day.
For the second year, I proposed myself as a participant for the Nebulas Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) convention, but wasn’t selected. I was on the fence about attending and agonized for several days but, at the last minute, decided to register for the online track. I’m glad I did.
In point of fact, I don’t feel like I learned all that much. I attended panels about novellas and novelettes, short fiction, genres, making a collection, religion, microfiction, LGBTQIA+ characters, and book promotion. The panels were fine, but I’ve been involved in publishing and marketing my own books now for long enough that these topics are mostly familiar. Even if I didn’t learn much new, that’s useful too: determining that there isn’t something obvious that I’ve been missing.
I spent a fair amount of time networking with people via Zoom. I met a bunch of new people and reconnected with a number of people I’d met before. Being unable to socialize much due to my health circumstances, I really value the opportunity to meet with people remotely.
One person I saw was someone I had clashed with in a different, text-based, online environment. I was somewhat concerned that it would be awkward but, as has typically happened with me, when you’re dealing with people face-to-face, someone that’s happy to flame and deride you in text, will instead be nice as pie. I like to think I’m pretty much the same person regardless of context and circumstances, so I’m always surprised when other people who will slam you in writing, will turn out to be perfectly nice to your face. Weird.
I would have liked to stay up the award ceremony, especially to hang out in the Zoom session to chat with people while it was going on. But the event, running on Pacific Time, didn’t start until 11pm and I just couldn’t make myself stay up that late. So went to bed early.
As an author, I’m constantly looking for ways to get the word out about my work and to engage with readers and other authors. And one part of my strategy is social media.
Before social media, there were blogs. Long before I was a published author, I started blogging. I first start blogging using a wiki, then switched to Drupal. I maintained a blog at Esperanto-USA while I was webmaster there. Many people used blogs primarily to link to and comment on the other things they were reading.
Most people didn’t have the technical chops or resources to set up their own blogging environment, so they chose a site managed by a third party. Typically, these were offered “free” in a limited form as a kind of loss-leader supported by venture capitalist trying to make a bet on what the “next big thing” was going to be.
One of the most popular with authors was Livejournal. I wasn’t a published author in those days, but I was aware of the robust author community there. But when Livejournal was purchased by the Russian state and began to censor and persecute users, most of the writer community abandoned it.
This was around the time people began to use microblogging platforms that became what people collectively termed “social media”. The most popular with authors was probably Twitter, which I’ve written about elsewhere. As I took my first steps into the author community, it was great to have a place where the other authors were active: sharing perspectives and supporting one another. And occasionally quarreling.
I predicted that when Twitter became a Nazi bar, the community would move somewhere else. I was hopeful that they would settle on Mastodon. With Livejournal getting purchased by a repressive regime and then Twitter getting purchased by a narcissistic billionaire, I thought maybe they would have learned something. Unfortunately, it appears that the largest part of the active author community has settled at Blue Sky where they are once against suckling on the teat of venture capital.
But there is no longer a clear center. Blue Sky seems to have more of the established authors. But the largest microblogging community may well be Threads. And Facebook and Instagram are still the largest overall communities, though young people are more likely to be on Tiktok or Discord.
So it’s not at all clear which community is the best to focus on. I’m still guided by a presentation about book promotion I attended a couple of years ago that said, “Don’t pressure yourself to do it all.” I like the community at Mastodon. So that’s where I spend the most time. And I forward a few of my more announcement like posts at Blue Sky and Facebook. And then I call it a day. Because, in the end, I would rather spend my time writing new fiction.
I think the very time I ever sold books was at the first Queer Pop-up Market in 2022. At the time, I only had the first two novelettes of Revin’s Heart out, The Third Time’s the Charm and For the Favor of a Lady. Storm Clouds Gather was about to be released. I printed out business cards to hand out with the QR code for the landing page on the back.
I didn’t yet have a real table or a canopy or signage or anything. But when I look at how far I’ve come with doing the work, it’s nostalgic to look back and remember how new and exciting it all was. I did pretty well in terms of sales too: I sold perhaps a dozen copies — not bad at all for a new author with only the first two books of a series.
The Queer Pop-up Market was canceled in 2023, so I didn’t get to do it last year. But I’m glad they’re doing it again this year. I had a great time doing it the first time and I’m really looking forward to being back at the Mill District again.
After that, the next event I’m scheduled to do is Readercon July 11-14, 2024. Although they rejected me as a participant, I’m still going to attend to staff tables for Water Dragon Publishing and Small Publishing in a Big Universe Marketplace. I’ve heard that this is a particularly good event for selling books, so I’m hopeful we’ll do well there.
Being an author has ups and downs. It’s a constant rollercoaster. When you submit manuscripts you get acceptances and rejections. The same when you apply to present at conventions. Or apply for grants. You can torment yourself by watching the book scan sales numbers. Or Amazon ranking. Or reviews at Goodreads (and elsewhere).
When good things happen, it’s wonderful. Getting a manuscript accepted is a great feeling.
When bad things happen, you just have to grit your teeth and go on.
But sometimes you have a long run of bad luck. It can get very discouraging when everything seems to get rejected or turned down. When that happens, you question what you’re even doing. Why keep trying? Why bother? Why not just do something else.
I got to see John Hodgman perform in Northampton a few years ago. This was around the time he was promoting Vacationland. One of the themes was the ineffable quality of celebrity. People kept asking him how he became a celebrity, as if there was some secret or recipe. He said he spent a lot of time trying to figure out why *this* thing had gone viral whereas all these other things he’d been doing before or after did not. Eventually, he decided there wasn’t any difference. It was just luck or happenstance. But, even though you couldn’t predict what might lead to success, it was clear that the only way to be sure to fail was to not keep doing your art. It could only happen if you were making stuff and putting it out there.
So, even when I’m down. Even when I feel like nothing is getting traction. Even when I feel like there’s no point. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and soldiering on. And maybe — just maybe — one of the things I write will find an audience and lead to greater things. Maybe.
Twenty-eight years ago, I joined the Biology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As a freshly-minted PhD in Science Education, I was hired to the direct the Biology Computer Resource Center (BCRC) — a small computer lab that was both a computer classroom and drop-in space for undergraduates.
I really enjoyed the educational and technical work I did for the Department and University. The Internet was new and we built a lot of interesting and innovative educational resources. When I was hired, I had no formal teaching responsibilities, but over time I developed a number of face-to-face and online classes which offered unique learning opportunities for students.
During the pandemic, the Department closed the BCRC and my job responsibilities became solely teaching. When I was no longer obligated to spend all of my summers, breaks, and intersessions maintaining computer systems, I decided to repurpose that time for writing fiction. Since then, I’ve published several short stories and two books of fiction. And written a number more that are, as yet, unpublished.
Last year, after a long stay in the local hospital, I was diagnosed with a chronic lung condition that makes it likely I will become very ill from any respiratory infections. I’ve been working remotely since then, and I’m so grateful that the University has provided this accommodation that has allowed me to continue working. But remote work is isolating and difficult. And I’d also like to have even more time for writing fiction.
This evening, I was notified that my application to do a phased retirement over the next two years has been approved. Beginning in Fall 2024, I will teach only half time for two academic years and then fully retire. I’m looking forward to making a gradual transition into retirement and being able to devote myself more to my new creative endeavors.
Four years ago, I discovered what shimenawa were and I made one for my beloved sakura tree. But it was time for a new one. The old one had gradually disintegrated in the weather and only part of a single shide remained. So I gathered supplies over the past week and reminded myself how to construct the tassels and shide to put up a new one in time for the cherry blossoms
Our tree was grown from cuttings gifted to the Town of Amherst by the Nation of Japan in honor of William Clark. The tree has struggled in recent years since we needed to have a trench cut in the front yard that impinged on its roots. But we’ve been working with an arborist to nurse it back to health.
I look forward to the cherry blossoms every year and this year, perhaps, more than ever. Now I’ll have a nice, fresh shimenawa to go with them.
Currently, we are scheduled to have four or five authors sharing the table. I will be sure to bring Revin’s Heart, which is steampunky fantasy adventure. (And I’ll also bring a few copies of Better Angels: Tour de Force, just in case.) But Water Dragon Publishing has a few other steampunky offerings. And, as I say, there will several other authors there as well.
The SPBU model has been doing very well! It lets indie and small-press authors share the cost of a vendor table and avoid the need to get a tax identity or manage the purchasing system to sell books independently. A big traditional publisher might be able to just justify a table of their own, but very few indie or small press publishers could. We tried out the approach experimentally at Worldcon in Chicago and we’ve had tables for SPBU at Baycon, Arisia, and Boskone. It’s been a boon for authors who want to attend a con and they can tell people where they can buy their books.
Recently, I was gratified to receive two extremely generous reviews of Revin’s Heart. Reviews are critical for getting the word out about new books.
The first was by The Faerie Review. The reviewer, Lily Shadowlyn, had read the entire Revin’s Heart series at the time the final novelette came out and had written a series of enthusiastic reviews about each of them. In the last review, she had said, “I would love to see all the stories compiled into one larger book or even a box set bundle someday, although it would be a hefty tome, the stories it would contain would be worth it!” So, when the collected edition came out, she reread the stories and the additional material had many nice things to say.
[T]hink Treasure Planet with magic and LGBTQIA+ rep. The story moves along smoothly, and the action will get your heart racing. The characters are unforgettable, and you won’t see the twists coming.
Lily Shadowlyn
The second review was a complete surprise to me. Damian Serbu wrote a review for Queer Sci Fi. In his review, he speaks glowingly about the worldbuilding, story structure, and pacing of Revin’s Heart. But his description of Revin made me feel wonderful that someone really got what I was aiming for.
Revin himself is a fabulous character. You pull for him from the first. He possesses a charming combination of hurt because of not being accepted for his true nature with a hope for a better future and acceptance for those around him, no matter who they are. And Revin blends a youthful naïveté about the world, especially within the realm of the pirates, with a bravery and courage in his exploits.
Damian Serbu
I’m so grateful for the excellent reviews. It’s really hard to get reviews. Every author wishes that more people who read books would share a review — even if only to say, “I read this and it was OK.” But to get such lengthy, positive reviews is extraordinary and I hope they lead to more people discovering Revin’s Heart and enjoying it.
Trying to publicize your books is hard. It’s one of the things that you don’t think much about until you try to transition from “writer” to “author.” At least I didn’t. But I had seen enough authors talking about the need to do publicity that I had some idea what I was getting myself into. What I didn’t know anything about, however, was advertising.
Last summer, I saw a Facebook group that was going to offer a free starter class for people who wanted to learn about advertising using ads at Amazon. I decided to spend a little money up front just trying out the advertising system. I first tried letting Amazon construct the ad (basically just showing a book among search results, I think). But I think I clicked something wrong and it didn’t work at all. It didn’t cost anything because nobody clicked on it — whatever it was (I couldn’t figure out how to get it to show me what the ad was that it was even showing). But it tried again and got some tiny number of clicks. But it was clear that a lot more fine tuning was required. So I tried the class.
The class was based around long screencasts. I quickly found I couldn’t stand to watch the screencasts at all. But accompanying the screencasts were click-by-click directions for the activities. This I could do, so I set up a handful of experimental ads like they recommended. The results were quite discouraging. I didn’t get any sales (as far as I could tell) and, when I spoke with another author who had taken a similar (but more advanced class), he indicated that you needed to get orders of magnitude larger responses in order actually see appreciable sales. And he had decided it wasn’t worth it.
Several people said that Facebook ads were a better fit, so I decided to hold my nose and give those a try. I truly and wholeheartedly despise Facebook. But I gave them some money to “boost” a post I had already written to promote Better Angels: Tour de Force. The interface was less complicated and it seemed like I got better results. So, after that ad finished, I decided to run another. When I did, however, I discovered how enshittified the Facebook ad system is.
The first ad you buy has reasonable defaults that make sense: it defaults to $14 for a week with a goal of getting people to click on your link. But when you try to do the next one, it dicks with the defaults. It tries to get you to spend $42 or $56 or some much larger amount. And it defaults to other weird goals like “get more engagement” or “get more messages via Facebook Messenger”. And it tries to get you link Instagram and What’s App accounts with your Facebook account. Ugh. I feel so unclean.
Since I’ve been playing around with my book promotion posts already, I will probably continue to purchase ads at some low level. Since it does seem to actually put my ad in front of people who do, at some level, click through to the book page. And maybe some of them actually buy a book. If nothing else, it gives me some additional metrics on which book promotion posts are more effective.
Last year, I was scheduled to appear at Boskone, but ended up going into the hospital the week before. Tempting fate, I have again proposed myself as a participant and have now received my final schedule.
On Friday Feb 9, since this is during the academic year, I will have office hours at 10am, and then will teach class (remotely) from 1:25 until 3:45. Then, I will be free to participate in the convention for the rest of the weekend.
At 7pm on Friday, I will serve on a panel Write My Doctoral Thesis: Science Edition (in Burroughs). This looks like it will be a lot of fun.
Saturday is my busy day: I have a reading (in Galleria – Cabaret) at 12:30, then Speculative Evolution (in Marina 4) at 1pm, followed by the Boskone Book Party (in the Galleria) at 6pm, then Romance in Speculative Fiction (in Harbor 2) at 7pm.
But Sunday, I’m totally free!
Mostly, when not otherwise scheduled, I’ll be at the Water Dragon Publishing table in the Dealer Room. I’ll have plenty of copies of Better Angels: Tour de Force, as well as bundles of Revin’s Heart. Stop by and visit!
David read the rest of the book to Bebe. By the last page she was finally asleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. He laid the book down and tiptoed out as quietly as he could. Then he turned and found the rest of the Better Angels standing in their nightgowns.
“We can’t sleep, David! Read us a story too!”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “What story do you want?”
“Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile!” they all said in unison.
“But…” David said, turning to look back at the door. Then he put his foot down. “No. You’ll have to pick something else.”
This story was originally written for a set of prompts for #wss366.
I’ve been rather surprised to discover that I seem to be pretty good at selling books. It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have books that people want to read. But a huge part of successful selling is to have a pitch that lands with the prospective buyer. And that’s what I seem to be good at.
I think it derives from the years I spent doing educational assemblies. To make those performances work, you need to hone a series of stories and statements so that the wording and timing resonates with the audience and they get caught up in the performance. When it works best, the audience will play along and you can hear them respond and engage with what you’re saying. It’s not a conversation, but you can hear through their laughter or groans when they’ve understood something or gotten the silly joke you were trying to tell.
The first step is judging when to engage with someone approaching or at the table. Some people stand back or refuse to make eye-contact. Or are clearly focused on looking at the books themselves. I usually just offer a quiet “Hello.” Or “Can I help you with anything?” Or, if they seem unsure, I might ask, “Would you like a tour?” Or, occasionally, “What do you like to read?” I’d rather not ask that, because I want to steer them to what I want them to read.
When I’m selling Revin’s Heart, I often begin by pointing at the Airship Pirate ribbon and asking, “Would you like to be an airship pirate?” Most people at science fiction conventions would like to be an airship pirate, although there are exceptions. The ribbon is particularly good because its immediately recognizable to LGBTQIA+ folks who can tell immediately that the book might appeal to them.
I leave a beat while they consider the ribbon and then, as they take it, I say, “It’s for my steampunky fantasy adventure with pirates and airships and a trans protagonist.” I usually tick off on my fingers as list the items.
I leave another beat and say, “It was serialized as seven novelettes. They’re five dollars each, but — if you buy all seven as a bundle — you can get them for $25… [beat] which is like two free!”
If they express interest in the first one, I point at the Third Time’s the Charm and say, “Pro tip: don’t name the first book in a series ‘the third’ something.” This almost always generates a smile, if not a laugh.
At this point, I generally point to Better Angels and say, “This is my newest book. It’s about a group of non-human biological androids [beat] that look like pre-teen girls [beat] and serve as magical girl singing-and-dancing idols [beat] but they can change up their programming [beat] and become a covert military force.” Usually, by this point, people are totally caught up in the pitch and are expressing wonderment or laughing. When I did this pitch at the Steampunk Isn’t Dead panel at Arisia2024, I had been honing it all weekend, the audience responded, as I performed it, with a rising volume of amazement, “aaaaaAAAAAAH!” ending in laughter and applause.
I’ve got a few other pitches. I learned an effective one for the Grimaulkin series from the author. And for two of the Water Dragon anthologies, I will say. “The Future’s So Bright is the bright, hopeful, optimistic stuff while Corporate Catharsis is all the dark stuff you wish you could do to your boss.” This usually generates a laugh and immediately helps the prospective buyer situate those books in their mind.
After making the pitch, there are plenty of other things I can tell buyers about the books. But I’ve realized that having an effective pitch that’s delivered as a performance, sets the stage for everything that follows.
I attended Arisia for the second time as a participant. Last year, I was only one one or two panels and had a reading. This year, I moderated a panel, served on four more, and had a reading. I dressed up in cosplay for the panel “Steampunk isn’t dead.” Well. Sorta.
I moderated the panel on Gender and Sexual Identity Representation in Media. Originally, there were supposed to be four participants plus me moderating. Normally when there are four, the moderator can focus solely on facilitating the conversation. Unfortunately, one of the participants was unable to join us and so I tried to both moderate and participate in the conversation. I was satisfied with providing enough structure to keep the discussion on track and making sure that all of the participants were able to make contributions.
I served on three additional panels which were all fun. The Food in Science Fiction and Fantasy left me with an appetite to write more about food. The Bi+ Panel provided new insight into bisexuality, pansexuality, and current thinking in queer culture. And the panel on Invertebrates and Entomology in SFF was fascinating due to the other interesting participants that each had useful stuff to contribute. I felt like I made good contributions on each of the panels.
I got to offer a reading on Sunday afternoon. The audience was around a dozen. I think they were mostly there to hear the other participants, who all write much more poetical stuff, so my weird space opera stuff left me the odd-man out — quite literally. But the selections I had made (Military Morale Mishegoss and Super Sticky Situation) worked well together I got a polite, enthusiastic response. The other authors were jealous of my giant poster of my cover.
Water Dragon had a dealer table again this year. Last year, I was the lead in running it, but this year another author and his wife attended and took the lead. It was great! Four other authors from the publisher took turns at the table as well and it was great to get to meet them as well. I really value the vital community of authors that Water Dragon Publishing fosters.
I had a new book just out Better Angels: Tour de Force as well as the novelettes that form Revin’s Heart. The copies of Better Angels arrived just in time, but the additional stock of Revin’s Heart didn’t arrive in time. So I plenty of one, but ran short of the other.
I was grateful they required masks. Due to my underlying health conditions, I can only attend events where everyone is masked. Knock wood, it appears I came through the Convention without contracting any respiratory infections.
I generally had a good year writing. But I was hospitalized for 12 days in early 2023, which caused me to miss being a participant at Boskone and required much of the spring to convalesce before I was really back to normal. In spite of that, I had many significant writing accomplishments.
I only made 17 fiction submissions, most of which are the previous stories that still haven’t sold. I’ve given up on several manuscripts that I will either need to abandon or rework significantly.
I wrote two pieces of flash fiction for Valentines Day on the Truck Stop: The Better Angels and the Super Sticky Situation and The Better Angels and Lambda and Tau. I think Super Sticky Situation may be the best piece of flash fiction I’ve written so far. (Both of these are included in the Better Angels: Tour de Force, described below.)
I gave several readings. I was selected for the Straw Dog Writers Guild January Author Showcase for 2022 and gave a reading from Crossing the Streams. I did a reading at Arisia with James Cambias and A.J. Murphy. And, in April, an hour long reading at an online convention.
While at Arisia, I also served on a panel about Gender and Sexual Identity in Media. I also was the primary organizer of the Water Dragon Publishing dealer table. After that positive experience, I was well prepped to sell books at Baycon.
I had been hospitalized and was convalescing during the time participants were being selected for Baycon so I didn’t make it onto the program there. But ultimately I decided to attend attend anyway and drove to California with my younger son. We had an epic road trip and I was available to help support the dealer table at Baycon, where I sold out of copies of Revin’s Heart.
These bookselling successes, prepped me to get a tent and table to set up a dealer table at the Amherst Farmer’s Market Artisan’s Alley. They were pleased to have another draw and I was welcomed with open arms. I sold books there a couple of times at the end of the summer and also ran a booth at the Mill District Holiday Arts Market.
As a guest interviewer, I interviewed Kathy Sullivan for Small Publishing in a Big Universe. I had met her at Arisia and thought she had a lot of insight about the relation between fandom and authors that I wanted to learn more about. Our conversation did not disappoint.
I had hoped to get back to writing The Ground Never Lies but ended up spending most of my time writing Better Angels stories which will appear on December in Better Angels: Tour de Force, which includes 17 stories (including the original Better Angels story plus 16 more, including the flash fiction stories from Valentines day.)
While I was working on Better Angels stories, I hit on the idea of a group of cooking girls on Volpex who sometimes get mixed up with the Better Angels called the Butter Angels. I’ve got this story mostly finished, along with a piece of flash fiction. I also wrote a flash fiction story for Christmas on the Truck Stop called Just One Question.
I’ve also been working on two new Revin’s Heart novellas, Devishire! and Campshire! plus a new Revin’s Heart series, that begins with Lady Cecelia’s Flowers. These have not been accepted for publication. Yet.
In the fall, I established Straw Dog Writes for the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild. It’s a program modeled on the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers Association Writing Date. I’ve gotten about 20 participants (about half of whom might show up on any particular week). And about half are pre-existing members, half new members (who’ve signed up to participate), and a handful of people who are not yet members but who are considering it. This has been about as good as I could possibly have hope.
I’m looking forward to 2024 with plans to attend Arisia, Boskone, Norwescon, and Worldcon in Glasgow. And writing, of course: lots and lots of writing.
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Tricks of the Trade in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQJJRSQ
Brewer, S.D. 2023. It’s Better to Know in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQDMK19
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Not a Wolf in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQHZK8V
Brewer, S.D. 2023. What Friends Do in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQGDMN2
Brewer, S.D. 2023. You Can Bank On It in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQFYPH2
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Three’s a Crowd in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQGQ7V9
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Bears Will Be Bears in It’s Complicated, Amazon Vella. ASIN: B0BZQDTS2X
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Better Angels and Lambda and Tau. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Valentine’s Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: [truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/make-the-...](https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/make-the-truck-stop-your-romantic-destination/better-angels-and-lambda-and-tau/) [Feb14, 2023]
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Better Angels and the Super Sticky Situation. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Valentine’s Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: [truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/make-the-...](https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/make-the-truck-stop-your-romantic-destination/better-angels-and-the-super-sticky-situation/) [Feb 14, 2023]
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Rewriting the Rules. Part Seven of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California.
Brewer, S.D. 2023. Then They Fight You. Part Six of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 47pp.
Revin, a young man from a poor mining town, has pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become the student apprentice of a law professor. But then, everything goes wrong: their airship is captured by pirates and Revin loses his mentor. Born female, Revin must make his way in a world oriented toward men while he struggles with his own identity.
Set against the backdrop of a war between island nations, a young man must navigate a world divided between the aristocracy and the common people. And, as a promising young man, he must choose whom to align himself with — and to serve. But what does Revin’s Heart say?
Several months after I joined Water Dragon Publishing the editor invited me to submit a manuscript to their shared-world anthology The Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy. This was just as the first other stories were being prepared to appear. But I was game to give it a try. It sounded like a lot of fun.
Patricia Monk wrote a, interesting review of shared universes in 1990 and concluded that they represent an extension of collaborative writing that can become an effective way to foster in-group bonding among authors. And they can be an effective way to help readers bridge the gap to becoming writers.
I hadn’t been there for any of the initial discussions and creation of the shared-world setting so I didn’t really have any idea what it was all about. But, in a couple of days, I knocked out a weird short story and ran it by the editor, who was enthusiastic. It was about a somewhat odd man named David who is trying stop a bad guy from selling non-human biological androids, called “Little Angels,” as sex slaves.
David knew from past experience that the “Little Angels” did not exhibit a programming interface. All androids, whether biological or mechanical, were required by law to exhibit a public programming interface, even if locked, that would allow anyone to confirm their status and the responsible party: the owner or manager of the android. But it wasn’t just a feature of daytime dramas for rogue androids to have their interface turned off.
from Better Angels
By the end of the story (not to give too much away), the Little Angels have been rescued and have been returned to their original mission as singing and dancing idols called “Better Angels”.
It was just a short story, only available on-line as an eBook, but I really enjoyed writing it. And I particularly enjoyed playing with the characters. As a daily writing exercise I participate in the #vss365 group, which offers a prompt word every day. Early on, I actually found participating very helpful to let me sharpen my ability to tell an actual story with a problem, rising tension, and some kind of payoff — in just a few characters. I found myself telling some Better Angels stories this way.
In many of them, the Angels make David’s life difficult:
“Play dodgeball, David!” the Better Angels called. Reluctantly, David joined the game. One by one, the girls were eliminated until it was just David and Zaza. Zaza tossed it to David who tried to not catch it, but it stuck to his hands. “I’m out!” shrieked Zaza. “David wins!” “Wait! Who covered the ball with glue?”
Or where Zaza is one step ahead of the other Angels:
“Let me hold your hand, David!” Zaza said. David held his hand out and Zaza took it. “No fair! No fair!” the other Angels called, crowding around. “Here!” David said. “You can each have a finger.” After two steps, Zaza said, “I have a thumb!” “No fair! No fair!” David sighed.
Most of them could have the caption “Poor David”:
“What should we eat tonight?” David asked. “Fun Meals!” shrieked the Angels. “No!” David said, putting his foot down. “You need a balanced diet. You can’t keep eating Fun Meals everyday!” “Look, David,” Zaza said with a sly look, opening the replicator. “We already made Fun Meals for tonight. But we made you a Fun Dinner.”
For Halloween that year, a friend persuaded to me to write a Better Angels story which I did:
The lights suddenly cut out and there was darkness. There were a handful of screams in the giant space. Then the drums started up and the space stadium erupted with cheers. The bass picked up the beat. Then a spotlight stabbed down illuminating Zaza, wearing a pink-and-blue magical girl costume. She made a dramatic gesture and the stage lights came up, illuminating the rest of the Better Angels who struck a pose while the crowd went wild. They moved smoothly into their first number, a cover of a favorite PuzzyCure song.
The Better Angels and the Very Scary Halloween
My editor was interested enough that he encouraged me to write a few more stories. And then I found I couldn’t stop. He finally suggested constructing an anthology to contain them all. Eventually we got to sixteen and I thought a title might be The Better Angels and Sixteen Seriously Sweet and Significantly Sanguinary Stories Set on the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy. My editor suggested that would simplify creating artwork for the cover, since there wouldn’t be room for any. But then I wrote one more story so the number wouldn’t work anyway. And, after much discussion we settled on Better Angels: Tour de Force. I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.
On Sunday, Nov 19, 2023, I set up a vendor table for Water Dragon Publishing to sell books. The event had originally been scheduled for the day before but the weather looked iffy, so they exercised their rain date for the following day. There were some 50 vendors there selling different arts and crafts.
I was in the second group to set up and arrived around 9am. I’m starting to get the hang of setting up and running a vendor table, but it’s still a lot of work to do by myself and I have recognized the need to set up a checklist to make sure I get everything and do everything in the right order. But I was easily set up well in advance of when the public began to arrive.
The occupant of the booth next to mine was a woman I had met earlier in the week via a Zoom meeting because she also teaches a course for the Honors College at UMass. She was as surprised to find that I was an author as I was to learn she was a potter. It was nice to have a friendly face nearby and we found several moments to exchange pleasant conversation over the course of the day.
Revin’s Heart once again sold extremely well. I didn’t sell out, but sold nearly half of the books I had received from my publisher. And a handful of other books, including a book of haiku. I had hoped to have Better Angels: Tour de Force ready, but we just couldn’t make it happen. The woman commented that she was impressed at how well Revin’s Heart sold and said that my pitch was very effective. From a strictly monetary perspective, I shouldn’t quit my day job. But it’s fun to meet with the public and talk about my writing.
In the morning, the weather was sunny and it was very comfortable. But by noon, the weather turned cloudy and a cold breeze started up. I nearly lost the canopy of my tent and had to take down the Water Dragon banner because it was like a sail blowing the tent around. I will need to get some weights to hold down the tent going forward — another thing to add to my checklist.
By the end of the day, I was utterly exhausted. Loading the car, setting up, spending a whole day interacting with people, and battling the wind had left me totally beat. I came home, just left everything in the car, fixed a strong cocktail, and then went to bed by 7:30pm. But I had mostly recovered by the next morning.
Overall, it was a very successful day. And I look forward to doing more of these events in the coming weeks.
The Better Angels. Entertainment. Music and Dancing. (And Rescues!)
Life is tough for non-human biological androids trying to make their way in a big galaxy. You have to be prepared to install whatever programming modules are needed for any given circumstances. Join the Better Angels and their associates as they launch their careers on the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy.
Tour de Force, an anthology of Better Angels stories, comes out December 15, 2023!
During the academic year, my time for pursuing my writing is extremely limited. Almost all of my time is devoted to reading and commenting on student papers. But I do find time for a few things.
I do continue to do several small writing activities. Using the #vss365 prompt on Mastodon, I’ve started writing a story about the Butter Angels: A group of girls who are minor celebrities because they do a cooking show on Volpex and who occasionally get mistaken for the Better Angels.
On Wednesday evenings, I continue to offer Straw Dog Writes. It’s been very successful, with a growing attendance. It’s a fun support group of writers and it’s given me a little time for writing each week that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
I’m hopeful I will be a participant at several upcoming conventions. I have returned the participant survey for Arisia-2024 and have been notified I will receive the survey soon for Boskone-2024. I have also requested to be on the program of Norwescon-2024. I’m also planning to attend Worldcon in Glasgow in summer 2024.
I have joined the volunteer staff for Readercon. I’ve ostensibly joined the “tech team”. But I’m also doing some flyers and other simple graphic design stuff. I’m not really a graphic artist, but I can use vector illustration programs and simple page layouts.
I’m looking forward to the imminent release of Better Angels: Tour de Force. I’m hoping to have copies available for sale in time for the holidays. I’m planning to be at the Holiday Market in the Mill District in North Amherst and the Amherst Farmer’s Market. Books always make great gifts!
And we’re still on track for the release of the Revin’s Heart fix-up with additions and three side-stories in January! Watch for it!
This fall, I’ve launched a new program at the Straw Dog Writers Guild: Straw Dog Writes. Modeled on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association Writing Date, I offer a Zoom session where Straw Dog members can come for some light socializing and two 45-minute writing sessions. I’ve found this as a really useful way to enforce a little productivity and networking. I’ll be offering these at least through mid-December and then we’ll decide whether to continue the program into the new year.
Recently on Mastodon there have been several interesting daily prompts for writers: #WritersCoffeeClub, #WordWeavers, and #PennedPossibilities. During the academic year, when my professional responsibilities give me limited time for writing, these are a fun way to reflect on my writing and let me feel like I’m still engaged.
I also write a lot short fragments on Mastodon, some of which find their ways into finished works. I credit writing the fragments with helping me improve my sense of story structure: writing a complete story in 500 characters really forces you to cut the story down to its essential elements. It reminds me of when I was a graduate student and writing haiku was a way to keep doing Esperanto in a small way. I have a lot of fun with the fragments and they often give me ideas for larger stories. I often post mine using the hashtag #vss365.
In mid-September, I delivered the final manuscripts for the Better Angels anthology: Tour de Force. It’s like a TRIPLE entendre. We spent a long time workshopping titles. I had been inclined toward “The Better Angels and Sixteen Seriously Sweet and Significantly Sanguinary Stories Set on the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy.” My publisher said, “Oh, great. Well, at least with that title we won’t need to worry about cover art.” The anthology should be out by mid-December.
I’m also working on the fix-up edition of Revin’s Heart. This will include the seven novelettes, but also three side-stories that tell stories where Revin isn’t present: Where There’s a Will (about how Will and Grip meet and fall in love), Curtain’s Rise (how Will and the Baron originally met), and Riva’s Escape (Revin’s transition). I’m currently writing pieces that will bridge between the novelettes. It’s giving me a chance to expand on things that readers have asked about, or expressed interest in.
I’ll be appearing in a local holiday market on November 18 at the Mill District in Amherst. I’ll have not only my own books, but also a selection of other books suitable as gifts. There are discussions about a winter market I may also attend. Stay tuned.
I’m hoping to appear at several upcoming conventions. But the current surge in COVID cases requires that I be cautious.
I had planned to attend LOSCon, but it’s looking less and less likely that I’ll be able to attend. The aren’t committed to masking and I had applied to be a participant, but they haven’t gotten back to me. time is getting short to buy plane tickets and secure housing.
I’ve applied to be a participant at Arisia (which is close by) and they’ve already committed to requiring masks. So, with any luck at all, I’ll be able to attend.
I’m hoping to attend Boskone this year. Last year, I was hospitalized and wasn’t able to make it. But, hopefully, this year will be different. I still haven’t heard that they’re requiring masks, however.
I will plan to apply to be a participant at Baycon. It’s fun to attend a conference that so many of my fellow Water Dragon authors can attend.
I’ve signed up to volunteer for Readercon. I will also apply to be a participant. I applied last year, but wasn’t accepted. Maybe by volunteering, I’ll get greater consideration.
I’ve already signed up to attend WorldCon in Glasgow in 2024. I’ve just filled out the survey to agree to be considered for participation. I had a great time at the WorldCon in Chicago and I’m super excited about going to Scotland.
I had an exciting summer! I drove cross-country to attend BayCon in July and then visited the tropical island of St. Croix where I did a lot of writing. But soon the fall classes begin and I will be swamped with academic work.
In December, the Better Angels anthology will come out. We’re still nailing down the title, but you can expect sixteen alternately sweet and sanguinary stories featuring everyone’s favorite non-human biological-android magical-girl singing-and-dancing idols.
In January, the compiled Revin’s Heart anthology will come out. It will include revised and extended versions of the novelettes plus three special side-stories, that provide histories for some of the key events leading up to Revin’s Heart. You won’t want to miss it!
I have a whole series of conventions coming up. I have registered to attend WorldCon2024 in Glasgow! I am super excited! I have been hoping to attend LOSCon in November, but with the appearance of new COVID variants, I may not be able to make it. My pulmonologist has given me orders not to attend public events that are not double masked and it is not currently listed as a “masks required” event. I’m hoping to attend both Arisia and Boskone this year. I didn’t make Boskone last year due to my hospitalization. I have my fingers crossed for this year.
I’m starting a new program for Straw Dog Writers’ Guild members: Straw Dog Writes. Members will be able to join a Zoom meeting Wednesday evenings at 7pm to write together. In a survey last year, a number of members were interested in ways to meet other members and write together. And were looking for events that didn’t require driving in the dark. I’m hopeful this will find an audience.
On November 18, I will attending the Mill District Holiday Market to sell books. I will have my own books plus a selection of other books people might want to purchase as gifts. In February, I’m hoping to arrange readings at local bookstores.
I was not expecting to come to love Revin, Grip, and Will as much as I did over the course of the series. […] Brewer has done a masterful job of bringing this world and it’s inhabitants to life, and while there have been some dark moments, they’ve been balanced by the light-hearted and heart-warming ones.
Liliyana Shadowlyn in the Faerie Review
As Sssindy would say, “Now you’re makin’ me blush!
When I was hospitalized in February, it threw my BayCon plans into doubt. Finally, I decided to travel by throwing caution to the winds and making a cross-country road trip with my son to sight-see along the way. We rented a car drove from Massachusetts, through Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, finally arriving in California. We saw the Dells, the Badlands, Yellowstone, Portland, Crater Lake, and drove the Coastal Highway — about 5000 miles in total. And, after BayCon, we will surrender the car at the airport and fly home. It’s been an incredible odyssey.
I’m looking forward to BayCon. I mostly intend to be at the Water Dragon Publishing dealer table to sell books. It looks to be a great weekend. Drop by to say hello!
After a long, dark winter and a busy spring, summer finally begins! Being hospitalized in February and then spending the spring trying to recover and stay current with my teaching, I got very little writing done. But summer promises to be better.
The final installment of Revin’s Heart, Rewriting the Rules, comes out June 23! I’ve been writing posts for a blog tour that should happen the week before it comes out. It’s been fun writing the posts, but it’s meant I haven’t been posting anything here.
I didn’t get NO writing done. I wrote a piece of flash fiction A Bad Night in Cloudrise, which I submitted to the Queer SciFi Flash Fiction Contest. And I also wrote a Better Angels story over spring break: The Better Angels and the Military Morale Mishegoss. But, other than my #VSS365 fragments, I didn’t get much fiction writing done at all.
That makes sense, in that my students come first. My writing class was among the best I’ve ever had! They really brought passion and commitment to their Proposals and Projects. I was impressed and touched to see their drive and excitement. Just a few students can really tip the “feel” a course has, but this was like a groundswell. It was wonderful. My honors students were, as always, an ongoing source of inspiration. It’s simply amazing to get to know students throughout a whole year and watch them develop skills and self-confidence. I’m so grateful I get to teach this course.
This summer, I have two projects I need to wrap up and then a big project I want to focus on. While writing Campshire! (a Revin’s Heart project) a story occurred to me that I wanted to tell. Lady Cecelia’s Flowers is about 2/3 written and I just need to write the buildup, the climax, and the epilogue. I know what’s going to happen — I just need to let the events flow onto the page. And while I was writing the triple-M, I had an idea for an ambitious Better Angels story: The Complicated Camping Catastrophe. I’ve got it outlined and have written a dozen scenes, but I want to get it wrapped up before I move on to the Big Event: The Ground Never Lies.
For about a year, I’ve been writing scenes and vignettes for a story about Veronica Bellox, a geomancer with an anger problem, and Sophie, the sheltered girl who falls in love with her. I wrote a kind of pilot short story that went off the rails. But there’s a fun story here and I think it will need to be a novel to tell it properly. And that’s what I hope to spend the balance of the summer on.
Due to my uncertain health, I was unable to plan to attend events during the winter and so was unable to propose myself as a participant for BayCon, but I’m still hoping to attend, to meet people and sell books at the Water Dragon Publishing dealer table. It’s not yet certain I’ll attend, but I’m working on it. Watch for details soon. I may also be at a local Queer Pop-up Market on Saturday for Pride. Fingers crossed.
During the academic year, I don’t have much time for writing. I’ve managed to do a few things. But I can’t wait for summer!
My serial, It’s Complicated (aka “The Mary Stories”) has begun coming out at Kindle Vella. The first three chapters are free-to-read. Chapters will release weekly on Fridays until June 9.
On April 22, 2023, I submitted the final manuscript of the Revin’s Heart series: Rewriting the Rules. This is the last novelette in the series and it ties up all of the loose ends in a very satisfactory way.
I was also invited to write the Foreword for the Spring 2023 Dragon Gems anthology. My first effort was praised for being excellent, but only for — ahem — a more specialized literature. So it was conserved against such time as such a thing might be published and I was invited to try again. So I did try again and (as a joke) wrote one for a horror anthology. And then the editor said, “Hey! We’re doing a horror anthology in the Fall and I’m totally saving this for that. So can you try one more time?” So, I did and produced a satisfactory Foreword. So, you should totally buy the anthology to read my awesome Foreword. Oh! And there are some excellent stories in the anthology too.
I’ve written a new story that’s pretty exciting (if I say so myself): The Better Angels and the Military Morale Mishegoss. The Angels are on a morale boosting tour on the planet Palisade when fighting heats up.
“‘Pedes incoming!” was blasted over the loudspeakers.
The soldiers, with good discipline, began to scatter to their positions. The Angels fell back to the cargo hatch. Cap’n Tau started the engines which first whined and then grew to a grumbling roar. David from his perch, spotted movement coming from the west.
“‘Pedes on the base!” he reported, and took aim with his Ublyudok particle rifle.
The ‘pede soldier morph was a large centipede-like creature. They had little intelligence and carried no weapons, but were vicious and single-minded. They were highly flattened with thick exoskeletons, huge pincers, and many legs, that could roll at great speed like a hoop. There were dozens rolling across the tarmac toward Angels’ Wings.
David fired the Ublyudok, which emitted a deafening scream, and hit five ‘pedes in rapid succession. But there were many more coming.
from The Better Angels and the Military Morale Mishegoss
And there’s yet another Better Angels story in the works. And I’ve got several manuscripts out to markets. Hopefully I’ll have more good news soon.
In just a few weeks, the academic year will wrap up and I’ll have the summer to focus on writing. I’m hoping to finally start working on The Ground Never Lies. I can’t wait!
On March 18, 2023, I offered a presentation at @nerdsummit, Publishing 101: Writing books for fun and profit. It went well and was well received. The recording is now available at youtube. At 41:18 you can hear me reading The Better Angels and the Super Sticky Situation, a 500 word bit of flash fiction i wrote for Valentines Day at The Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy.
Coming up in April, I will be appearing at Flights of Foundry, an online writers convention. I will be offering a reading on April 14 at 7pm Eastern time and on April 16, I will serve on a panel about Geology for World Builders at 3pm.
I’ve proposed myself to be an online participant at the Nebulas May 12-14, so keep your eyes peeled.
J. Scott Coatsworth asked folks at QueerSciFi how many stories they’d written versus how many published. I did a quick assessment to figure it out.
My first three speculative fiction stories were in Esperanto and were all published. Milos kaj Donos was a kind of parable, Kion Dio Farus was an odd story about a bisexual protagonist, and Krepusko sub Fago tells the story of an ace teenager who helps her community through poetry. This last received an honorable mention in the international Beletra Konkurso.
In English, I’ve written about 41 stories. Of these 12 have been published, and another 18 are “in press” in one form or another. Most of them are as series.
The first story I wrote, much revised, was eventually published as The Third Time’s the Charm and became the foundation of the series Revin’s Heart. There are six more novelettes in the series and three side-stories that will be collected together in January 2024. Plus I’ve written a follow on novella Devishire! and am currently working on Campshire!
The Better Angels, written for the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy, has led to another series of short fiction which currently numbers seven additional stories (two of which are flash fiction). Four of these have been published: the initial story with the three appearing only briefly associated with holiday events. Current plans are to release some individually and publish them all (and others I will write) in a collection later this year.
Next month, I’m planning to release a series I had written earlier, It’s Complicated, via Amazon Vella over 10 weeks beginning April 7, 2023. It’s what might be considered a “light novel” in Japan and was highly influenced by my passion for Japanese manga and literature. You might think of it as grappling with the question of what happened to all of the yōkai in the West:
She was dressed the same as the night before, with an old-fashioned ruffled blouse & skirt, a red cape, white stockings, & patent-leather shoes with gold buckles. Her hood was up today, wet with rain, covering her pretty curls.
“He said he had fun with Mary. Are you Mary?” I asked.
She cocked her head over on one side, then smiled. “You not ‘member. You call me Mary.”
“W-What are you?” I asked.
She raised her hands up next to her face & spread out her fingers.
“I scary monster,” she said.
from “To What Do I Owe” in “It’s Complicated”
There are ten chapters, currently. The first three are free and then people will have to pay to read more. Depending on the response, I might draft some more during the summer. There is a lot more story I could tell.
In terms of thus-far unpublished works, there is a Truck Stop novella about neoboxers, An Exchange of Services. I have a novel, A Familiar Problem (with a side-story A Different Midsummer Night’s Dream). And then a number of pieces of short fiction: Just a Little Breathing Room, A Bitter Lesson, The Silver Tongue, and Not Just Black and White.
Finally, I’m currently planning to write a sequel to A Familiar Problem, A Familiar Problem II: The Wooing of Aimee and an entirely new novel The Ground Never Lies.
On March 24, 2023, Then They Fight You is being released by Water Dragon Publishing. This is Part Six of Revin’s Heart. This installment is quite different from the others. Revin has been appointed — very nearly impressed — as the King’s Special Envoy to negotiate an end to the war between the islands. It’s a huge change from anything he’s done before. Although he struggles and has many travails, he rises to the challenge to best of his ability.
Almost exactly one year earlier, on March 25, 2022, the second part of Revin’s Heart was released. I had started writing it basically as soon as the first one was published. What a difference a year makes. Even while I was finalizing the manuscript For the Favor of Lady I had finished drafting They They Fight You. I knew what the title was going to be even before I started writing. I had begun with the manuscript for The End of His Rope and done this on the title page of the very first version: The End of His Ropen They Fight You.
I can’t say I knew exactly where the story would go as I wrote it. My process for writing has changed a lot from the first couple of stories, that I largely “pantsed,” to the later versions, where I began to rigorously outline before writing. It’s been an adventure.
There’s only one more novelette in Revin’s Heart that will come out in June: Rewriting the Rules. It promises more excitement, intrigue, and perhaps just a bit of romance. But even after it concludes, Revin’s adventures will continue!
In January, 2024, Revin’s Heart will be published in a collected “fix-up” edition that will include all of the novelettes (with some revisions and enhancements), plus three “side stories.” These are stories about characters from Revin’s Heart that take place when Revin isn’t there. The first “Where There’s a Will” describes the events that bring Will and Grip together. This is alluded to in For the Favor of a Lady:
“Just how long have you and Will been together,” Revin asked.
“It will be two years next week. On Thursday.” Grip said.
“You know it to the day. That’s very sweet,” Revin said.
Grip looked down, blushing. But he looked happy. “They’ve been the best two years of my life.”
“How did you meet?” Revin asked.
“Oh, that’s a long story for another time,” Grip replied.
The second, “Curtains Rise“, describes how Will and the Baron initially met, as was mentioned in Storm Clouds Gather:
Then Will saw the Baron and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Well met, William,” the Baron said.
“It’s Curtains!” Will said.
“What?” Grip said, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Curtains! That’s what they called him back when…” Will said, then broke off when he caught the Baron’s expression. “I’ll… I’ll tell you sometime later.”
The final side-story, Riva’s Escape, begins with Revin before his transition: before he left home and began his adventures. It was, in many ways, the hardest story to write. But very satisfying to bring to light.
After Revin’s Heart, Revin has continued to have adventures as well. One novella, Devishire!, has already been written. And Campshire! is well underway.
It’s been a treat to share Revin with the world. It’s been a pleasure to work with Water Dragon Publishing that has been a supportive partner through the entire process. I look forward to conveying Revin’s ongoing adventures for as long as they’ll let me.
Although it was bitterly disappointing to not be able to attend Boskone, I was pleased to see that Revin’s Heart sold reasonably well, in spite of my absence. The next installment, Then They Fight You, will come out in March. The final part, Rewriting the Rules, is scheduled to come out in June. The fix-up volume, that will collect all of the parts plus three side-stories is tentatively scheduled for January 2024. And I’ve finished drafting a follow-on novella that will come out after.
After the interest generated by The Better Angels and the Very Scary Halloween, I was invited to submit a couple of new Better Angels stories. They have not yet been scheduled for publication, but look for them in the coming months at The Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy. In fact, I couldn’t stop with just two new stories and I wrote three. And then, after my hospital stay, I was inspired to write another that is plotted but not yet written. So you’ll be seeing a lot more of the Better Angels very soon.
I will giving a talk at NERDSummit on Saturday March 18, 2023. I was one of the co-founders of the NERDSummit conference (which evolved from Western Mass Drupal Camp, that I also co-founded). I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned about publishing in the last couple of years, in part because it gives me an opportunity to reflect on and organize my experiences.
I have been selected as a participant for Flights of Foundry April 14-16. I don’t think the times are firm yet, but it looks like I’ll have an hour (!) for reading. I remember last year, the readings were great as they allowed significant opportunity for attendees to ask questions and discuss topics with authors. I’m hoping people will come by to chat with me and I’ll have enough interest to read some of my newer unpublished stuff, rather than just my published work to push book sales.
In addition to the reading at Flights of Foundry, I will also be a panelist on “Geology for Worldbuilders” which is a topic near-and-dear to my heart. One of my particular interests is the intersection between geoscience and ecology to have plant communities reflective of the underlying geological conditions. Of course, not every protagonist is a naturalist and can rattle off the plants and minerals by name. But that I know them guides me in terms of the descriptions I can write in terms of the look and feel of the landscapes. And I appreciate the increased verisimilitude, even if no-one else does. My next novel, tentatively entitled “The Ground Never Lies” is about a geomancer, and my knowledge of geoscience has been critical in setting up the story and many of the key scenes.
Unfortunately, after my hospitalization, it appears that face-to-face events are going to be off the table for the foreseeable future. I had planned to attend BayCon this summer but, unless things change, that now looks unlikely. But I really can’t complain as things could have been so, so much worse.
In mid-February, I needed to be rushed to the emergency room and spent 12 days in the hospital. It’s the first time I’ve been hospitalized since I was a child. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the emergency room and hospital for family members, but being there for yourself is different.
I was particularly crushed because I ended up missing Boskone. I had been selected to moderate and serve on panels, I was scheduled for a reading, and I was the primary representative of the dealer table for Water Dragon Publishing.
That said, it was fascinating, as a biologist, to see medical science up close. I underwent a number of procedures that generated fantastic amounts of data and it was interesting to see how the medical practitioners used those data to falsify some hypotheses and make others. I discovered a lot about myself and much of it was reassuring: I do have some chronic medical conditions that will require long-term treatment. But many of the scariest possibilities were excluded and it was encouraging to learn that those that remain can likely be managed.
I was cared for by more than 50 people during my stay, the majority of them nurses. Nurses are amazing. I have new-found respect for nurses who must accomplish many thankless tasks while providing emotional support yet, at the same time, must be prepared to enforce the rules on a patient that deviates from the care guidelines. It’s a delicate dance.
It gave me an idea for a new Better Angels story which will hopefully make it to the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy before too long: the working title is “Better Angels and the Nighty-Night Nurses.”
Note: I selected the image for this post because it is my “medicine basket”. Many years ago, I traveled to the desert southwest and visited a museum where, among the displays, was a medicine basket that had been discovered in a archaeological dig which had a whole variety of interesting items inside: ground minerals, feathers, dried plants, bones, etc. which researchers believed were used by a shaman for ritualistic purposes. And I was seized with the inspiration to make one for myself. So I purchased a basket at a native market and have collected all kinds of weird things that I keep in mine.
I’m been myopic and needed glasses since I was in middle school. Around the time, I turned 40, I asked my optometrist about when I might need to start using reading glasses. He looked over his glasses at me and said, “You’ll know.” Sure enough, a few years later, I discovered my arms weren’t log enough anymore and I got progressive lenses.
I’ve been very happy with progressive lenses for most things: you just rock your head up and down and things generally just come into focus. When you’re first getting used to them, you have to be careful because there are certain things you simply can’t focus on anymore — like your feet — and it’s easy to trip until you get used to it.
During the pandemic, I got a second monitor and set it up in portrait mode next to my computer. It’s awesome for looking at whole documents (and most responsive web pages). But, I discovered that it was really hard to focus on the top region of the monitor because I had to tilt my head way back. So I decided to invest in some “computer glasses”.
Computer glasses are dedicated to a single, middle-distance focal area. Stuff is out of focus both close up and far away. But the whole region of the computer is in perfect focus, which makes all kinds of stuff easier. It’s been a great investment and makes doing my computer work significantly easier.
I’ve also found they’re great for cooking. I had never noticed, but it’s hard to read the spice bottles over my head above the stove. With the computer classes, the whole range, counters, and cabinets are in focus.
To be clear(er) Water Dragon Publishing has been developing a short fiction program for several years called “Dragon Gems”. Novelettes accepted for publication get their own individually designed cover and are published as both ebooks and printed books. Shorter fiction is now collected together in quarterly anthologies.
I submitted a novelette, The Third Time’s the Charm, to the Dragon Gems program which was accepted for publication. I then succeeded in persuading my (soft-hearted? soft-headed?) editor to open-endedly serialize subsequent novelettes as Revin’s Heart.
In the end, I wrote seven novelettes with the intention of collecting them together as a fix-up (along with several side-stories.) I did it partly because, like Charlie Jane, I really like episodic fiction. (Tho partly it was also because that’s where I was in my fiction writing at that point — I hadn’t written any longer fiction and I was nervous about taking on longer projects.) It’s worked out well for me as it’s given me the a year where every three or four months I could go back and promote something. As a new author, it must be difficult to publish a debut novel and then say, “Well, I’ll be back in two years.”
Now, Water Dragon has asked me to write some new stories extending my Better Angels stories with the goal of eventually developing a collection. So far, I’ve written seven stories (maybe eight, depending on how you count). So I expect you’ll be seeing more of those this year.
I’ve now helped run the dealer table for Water Dragon at Worldcon, ComicCon, and Arisia (and, in a few weeks, Boskone ). It’s been interesting to see the reactions that readers have to the Dragon Gems. A number of people have said that, for whatever reason — pandemic, social media, dystopia, planetary collapse, take your pick — they are looking for shorter fiction and the Dragon Gems are just what they want. Similarly, many authors have stopped by and been giddy to see that Water Dragon accepts novelettes.
And neither of them are talking about Amazon’s Kindle Vella or Radish which are yet further takes on serialized fiction.
In any event, I was very pleased to see Charlie Jane’s post because it dovetails with my experience perfectly. There’s a lot of short fiction out there, but the market for it is broken. And there are too few mechanisms for people to discover it.
Only a month after Arisia, I will be returning to Boston to appear at Boskone where I will be reprising my role coordinating the dealer table for Water Dragon Publishing and serving on a variety of panels.
I’ve never attended a full Boskone before, but I did drive over for a day a few years ago. It was great. So I’m really looking forward to it this year.
It’s a little tricky because I have to teach a class in Amherst at 1:25. But I’ve made arrangements with my department to teach my class via Zoom and then I will run downstairs for my first appearance.
Below are the program elements where I’m appearing:
Serving up a Tasty World (Friday 4pm in Burroughs)
Inventive gastronomy can really spice up speculative fiction. We look at how food and local cuisine can explore character, society, setting, gender, and more. Our panelists dish on the culinary delights that tantalize us in fiction, from regional teas to tasty grubs and kingly feasts. How can we redefine, re-imagine, or recover the historical aspects of the kitchen and the cook fire in fiction? And what should you know about writing food-centric scenes that sizzle?
Reading (Sat 12:30pm in Griffin)
I’ll be reading with Laurence Raphael Brothers!
In Our Own Voices (Sat 7pm in Marina 2)
The world is a many-splendored and wondrous thing! If you are from a marginalized community, how do you tell your story? What restricts your opportunities to do so? For what audience do you write? Where can your voice be heard? Our panelists discuss why this is important.
Disability in Speculative Fiction (Sun 10am in Galleria Meetup 1)
Disability takes many forms, both visible and invisible. In the past, characters in the background were often given disabilities just to check the diversity box, but that’s changing. We take a look at disabled characters across the speculative fiction genres and how their disabilities are featured within their stories, the roles they take, and the types of stories they tell. Why don’t we see more disabilities in stories that take place in eras or worlds without decent medical services? And what does it take to tell these stories well? And why are they so important?
Bioethical Issues Raised by SF (Sun 11:30 in Marina 2)
Ongoing advances in biotechnology and biomedical research have delivered some important benefits and promise more. But they’ve also brought ethical concerns, new moral dilemmas, and calls for moratoria or fresh regulation. There may or may not be something wrong with playing God: but are we playing blind? What might we unleash with stem cell research, modified viruses, bioengineered cures, self-replicating nanobots, cloning, and regrowth of organs or limbs?
I attended the Arisia science fiction convention in Boston for the first time. I signed up to be a participant and also agreed to set up and run the booth in the dealer room for Water Dragon Publishing. In other news, I am also a masochist and glutton for punishment. In fact, I had a great time. But it was not without complications.
The books came late. I had been planning to leave midday on Thursday to drive during the daylight, but a critical box of books wasn’t scheduled to arrive until Thursday. All we knew was that it was to be before 9pm. The day came and we had snow changing over to rain. I waited and waited. I was in a perpetual flight/flight state waiting for the books to arrive. But, once they did, I was fine. I drove to Boston, found a parking spot right by the elevator, and was good.
At one point during shipment, the tracking website had gone haywire and I worried the books might not actually arrive on Thursday, so I thought it prudent to make a backup plan. I asked a friend if he thought he might be able to drive to Boston if the box didn’t come until later. I was on the program on Friday, so I really couldn’t wait. But everything turned out OK. Except my friend had cleared the possible trip with his wife who then expressed interest in driving to Boston even in the absence of any need. But another box of books arrived Friday, so he brought that one. (And now he claims he’s mad at me because of how much his wife made him spend at the Ikea store, but that’s another story.
Yet another heavy box of books arrived on Monday. But that too is yet another story.
I was signed up to moderate a panel on Intersections Between Ecofiction and Science Fiction. I had been a bit concerned that I had been unable to reach the participants ahead of time. (It was new that you had to opt-in to share your address and many participants seemingly hadn’t understood that.) But they changed the participant list a couple of times and then finally closed the panel for a lack of participants. So that was a little disappointing.
I was a participant in a panel on Gender & Sexual Identity Representation in Media. I was really excited about this one because one of the participants of a similar panel at Worldcon that I had moderated was to be the moderator of the panel. But when I saw the final list, he wasn’t on it anymore. And when I went to room where that panel had been scheduled, it wasn’t there either. Luckily, since I always leave plenty of time, I was able to look up where it had been moved to and I was still the first one there.
I always worry that I won’t find anything to say when I’m a panelist but I’ve always found that if you stick a microphone in front of me, I can babble surprisingly cogently at length about almost anything. I was able to offer a number of perspectives that the audience and other panelists seemed to appreciate. And I learned a lot too, although I wished I had a keyboard so I could have taken better notes.
I was also scheduled for a reading. The session I was signed up for had five people on it and included another Water Dragon author, so that was exciting. But I got an email asking me if I was willing to be flexible so they could rejigger things. I said sure, so they moved me to the next day but there were only three of us, so I got 20 minutes instead of just 10. But more excitingly one was James Cambias. I had seen him read at the Odyssey Bookshop several years ago with Elizabeth Bear and Max Gladstone. And I just been scheduled for a panel with him moderating at Boskone. And he had just stopped by the Water Dragon booth and I had had a chance to catch up with him. So this was just icing on the cake.
The reading went well. We had been chatting ahead of time and I had mentioned Better Angels and the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy, so everyone called on me to read from that first. So I did. As I was reading it, I was like “Wow. She keeps saying ‘Master’ a lot. Is that really OK anymore? And Gaetz says the F-word a fuck of a lot times. Shit! Was this really a good idea?” Then Amy J. Murphy read for 10 minutes. Then Jim read for the full 20 minutes. It was fabulous — a really funny bit. I read a scene from Crossing the Streams and Amy read another from her books. It was a small audience, no more than 10, but enthusiastic and generous.
I had been really worried about being responsible for running the table in the dealer room, but everything went great. I was able to roll everything in Thursday night and set up Friday morning. We had two tables set in an L shape. I had the insight that the corner would be the prime real-estate so I set my stuff up on one corner and left the center and other corner for my two co-conspirators.
Neither of the authors helping run the table were actually Water Dragon authors. One was Kathryn Sullivan who has been attending conventions and selling books for decades. She had two middle-grade fantasy books and an anthology. She had connected with us via a friend and it was great to have her help and insight. The other was a new author, Greg Stone, who’s been published by Paper Angel Press (the general publisher of which Water Dragon is an imprint). Among the books I had been waiting for was his first novel, a cozy mystery set in Vermont. And my friend brought the hardcovers on Saturday.
I had fun interacting with readers who came up to the table. I’ve developed a pretty good line of patter for many of the books, though I don’t know all of them well enough to say something meaningful. Some people just want to browse silently. Others want a whole tour. I’ve tried to adopt a just-in-time approach to providing information. When someone is looking at the short fiction, I would say, “Anything that isn’t marked is probably $5.” Or when they got to the Truck Stop stories to explain what the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy is. “Like Callahans,” one old-timer said.
A number of other dealers were unhappy with the low attendance and, in particular, that the con-suite wasn’t co-located with the dealer room. Evidently, that was a big draw that brought many people through the dealer room to get snacks and drinks. But they had put it somewhere else mainly to protect us from people not wearing masks while they ate/drank, so I couldn’t fault them.
When things wrapped up, I was very grateful for the help of my co-conspirators and was able to get a prompt start driving home. Google initially told me I was on the fastest route, but then started trying to get me to get off the ‘pike and drive through Boston to get to Route 2. I turned off Google and just accepted that I would be delayed a bit on the ‘pike. And I was. But I got home in good order and went to bed just a couple of hours later, utterly exhausted.
I could tell you about the next day, but that would be yet ANOTHER other story.
When I first wrote The Third Time’s the Charm, it was more like the first chapter of a book than it was a short story. So I had a sense of the larger story that lay beyond the initial foray. But, to be honest, I only had the vaguest idea of the overall arc of the story. I hadn’t made many of the important world building decisions. I went through many rounds of revisions to give it a satisfying arc of its own, but the rest was still there, taunting me and I really wanted to tell the whole story. It speaks volumes that Water Dragon Publishing was willing to take the risk to serialize Revin’s Heart and give me more-or-less free rein to develop the story as I wanted.
I wrote For the Favor of a Lady, primarily to learn more about the characters. I had only the vaguest idea about Grip’s origins. When I wrote Storm Clouds Gather, the Etheric Storm Generator arc presented itself which led directly to Crossing the Streams. And it was at that time, that the shape of the rest of the series took form. But I still had to get from here to there: that’s what The End of His Rope is: a bridge between the earlier arcs and the arcs that follow. It also introduces a couple of important new characters and gives us an opportunity gain more insight into Revin’s character.
As with previous parts, there are many (of what I hope are) “warm, fun interactions between likable characters”. And there are several of the dramatic airship scenes that I know are popular with readers. And some nail-biting action. And, if I say so myself, the ending is particularly satisfying and really sets the stage for the last two parts that follow.
After I finished writing Revin’s Heart, I wrote three side-stories that recount events where Revin is not present. Since Revin’s Heart is told from his point-of-view, these couldn’t be included. But I thought readers that had gotten to know the characters might enjoy seeing how they came to end up where they had. The first of these, Where There’s a Will, is about how Will and Grip met and fell in love (this is teased in For the Favor of a Lady).
“Just how long have you and Will been together,” Revin asked.
“It will be two years next week. On Thursday.” Grip said.
“You know it to the day. That’s very sweet,” Revin said.
Grip looked down, blushing. But he looked happy. “They’ve been the best two years of my life.”
“How did you meet?” Revin asked.
“Oh, that’s a long story for another time,” Grip replied.
from For the Favor of a Lady
The second, Curtains Rise, describes the history that Will and the Baron, (Grip’s father) share. This is teased in Storm Clouds Gather.
Then Will saw the Baron and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Well met, William,” the Baron said.
“It’s Curtains!” Will said.
“What?” Grip said, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Curtains! That’s what they called him back when…” Will said, then broke off when he caught the Baron’s expression. “I’ll… I’ll tell you sometime later.”
from Storm Clouds Gather
These stories were a delight for me to write. But there was one more side story I decided that I really needed to write: Revin’s origin story. That is, the story of his transition from a woman to man.
I was worried about writing this story because I knew it was going to require to me to make a number of choices that might not support choices I had made in writing Revin’s Heart. But, when I had finished, I was was pleased with the results that required no more than token changes to the stories. And gave me a lot of deeper insight into Revin’s character.
I’m telling this story now because I realized when a beta reader reviewed the manuscript, that there were a number of unanswered questions about the series that some readers would want to know that I now knew the answers to. And there were a couple of perfect scenes that I could elaborate in the The End of His Rope that would allow me to tell this story. So I did. Long after the manuscript was “done” I got it out again and added a thousand words. I hope you’ll be pleased with the results.
Back in August, I was interviewed for the Small Publishing in a Big Universe Podcast. To be honest, I can’t remember it all that well: I remember babbling incoherently for a long time and then the interviewer finally said, “OK, OK. Got it. Put a sock in it. You can stop talking now. Sheesh! We had enough half an hour ago!” *
It was a wonderful experience, to be honest. It was fun to have a chance to chat about my writing experience and to reflect on my first year as a published author.
But now, after having been edited, the podcast is ready for you to enjoy in all its glory. (And for me, because, as I say, I have absolutely no recollection of what I said. :-))
In October, I got the opportunity to be on the other side of the microphone when I interviewed Francesca Forrest. It was a blast to talk to another author about their writing. Her interview should be ready early next year.
* Note: Some people’s individual recollections regarding these events may differ.
Below are my publications that were (or will be) released in 2022.
Brewer, S.D. [in press]. The End of His Rope. Part Five of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California.
Brewer, S.D. [in press]. The Right Motivation in Corporate Catharsis: The Work From Home Edition, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California.
Brewer, S.D. [in press]. Something Else to Do in Modern Magic. Knight Writing Press, Parker, Colorado.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Imaginary Friends in The Future’s So Bright, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. pages 290-297.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Better Angels and the Very Scary Halloween. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Boos-Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: [truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-sto...](https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-stop-boos-day/very-scary-halloween/)
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Who’s Afraid of Whom. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Boos-Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: [truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-sto...](https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-stop-boos-day/whos-afraid-of-whom/)
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Crossing the Streams. Part Four of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 42pp.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Better Angels. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 25pp.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Storm Clouds Gather. Part Three of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 36pp.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. For the Favor of a Lady. Part Two of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 42pp.