Recent and Upcoming Appearances
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.
Revin’s Heart Inexorably Advances
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.
Stories Published, Written, and In-the-Works
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.
I also have written three haibun in Esperanto that were published and one took second prize in the Beletra Konkurso. And I self-published four chapbooks of Esperanto haiku (Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo, Premitaj Floroj, senokulvitre, and Ideoj Ĝermas.)
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.
And I have three pieces of short fiction published in anthologies this year: Something Else To Do in Modern Magic, The Right Motivation in Corporate Catharsis: The Work-from-Home Edition, and Imaginary Friends in The Future’s So Bright.
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.
It looks to be a busy summer.
