Sales and other updatey things

Jul. 1st, 2025 08:18 pm
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[personal profile] catherineldf
Spent the weekend peddling books at TC Pride and it was a....LOT. Hot, sporadic rainstorms (with a big one overnight that trashed some folk's tents) and other wackiness. Full writeup here. Short version: terrible location, lower sales than last year, a state funeral next door with all that goes with that, primo people watching, good chats, nice folks and TC Pride in all its gigantic glory. Also, vendor pals gave me a piece of really tasty homemade coffeecake and Alexa (my assistant) is a champ.

The other cool thing that happened was that the Queen of Swords Press reissue of the classic gay fantasy, Point of Hopes (Astreiant #1) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, won the Midwest Book Award from the Midwest Independent Publisher's Association! Very pleased about this. Hopes was our third title to be a finalist for these awards and is now our second award-winning title after The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater, winner of a Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collection. :-D

2 days left on the Pride StoryBundle! Melissa and I got a really great lineup this year and we've raised $770 for Rainbow Railroad so far. I might add that the proceeds from this will also be a nice help to the participating publishers and authors, including my own press, and that, seeing as I will be unemployed by Thursday, my half of the curator's fee will help cover my travel expenses for Readercon which would be super helpful. If you're in a position to get one and it looks appealing, maybe pick one up?

The Summer/Winter Smashwords Sale has also kicked off today and you can get a great deal on Queen of Swords Press titles, including my own books. This is traditionally a solid sale for us and it means that I can pay myself more this month if it goes well. Also, speaking of sales, the audiobook for my second Wolves of Wolf's Point novel, Blood Moon, is on sale right now through 7/15. The narrator that Tantor hired is really good - I've been enjoying listening to her reading my books while I get regrounded for/in Book 3.

What am I going to do for the next couple of weeks? Honestly, rest. Write. Read. Get caught up on projects like the developmental editing class I paid to take online...last year. Clear some stuff out of the house. Put some things up for sale. Spend time with people who I've wanted to see for quite a while. Spend some time with my kitties (I don't think Shu will be around a whole lot longer). Can I afford to retire? Alas, no. But I have got to unglue from the ceiling and the last 8 months of this job have been toxic with a cherry on top. I will need to start job hunting soon after I get back from Readercon though and possibly exploring other areas of endeavor if IT has dried up for me so lots of uncertainty ahead. In the meantime, if you are in a position to support me recovering for a bit, consider pledging the Patreon and buying a book or two. I also have a Ko-fi and will be more active out there soon. Stay tuned! More updates ahead.
And hugs to everyone who needs them.




Robert and Gracia Fay Ellwood

Jul. 1st, 2025 10:03 am
sartorias: (Default)
[personal profile] sartorias
I think one or two old Mythies might still be reading here; at any rate, these old friends had been on my mind this spring. Came back to discover that they died a week apart at the end of May/beginning of June.

They met in the very early sixties at the U of Chicago, where both were studying. Robert was a bit on the spectrum; he said, and he stuck with it, he would never date anyone who couldn't read and love Lord of the Rings, which had blown him away when it came out. In retrospect I don't even know how he stumbled across it because to my later knowledge of him he didn't read fiction. Maybe he thought it was a northern saga when he stumbled on the first volume? Anyway, his field was religion and Japanese literature, and I remember him sitting in his rose garden reading copies of ancient Japanese texts for pleasure.

She was also blown away by it, but not especially by him. But he'd fallen hard for her, and when she also loved LOTR, he wasn't about to give up. They married around 1963, I think; by the time I met them in 1967, they were living in West LA, he a professor of Religious Studies at USC. They used to host many meetings of the early Mythopoeic Society; he'd disappear while she socialized with us gawky teens. She was a great role model for us; she was a scholar, married to someone who respected her brains, which was tough to find during the mid and late sixties.

I was on hand to deliver both their kids, now middle-aged. He married my spouse and me in 1980. They became Quakers later; they were firm pacifists and human rights advocates.

Time is just so relentless! But they used theirs well, living gently and kindly, always loving beauty, grace, and laughter.

culture consumed (June, 2025)

Jun. 30th, 2025 10:05 pm
hermionesviolin: a build-a-bear, facing the viewer, with a white t-shirt and a rainbow stitched tattoo bicep tattoo (pride)
[personal profile] hermionesviolin
The last few months (March, April, May) I keep just posting a draft private-locked because I get overwhelmed trying to write up something or other from the month.  But I think I managed a publishable June one.

film

As mentioned [in the private-locked May entry], I got a virtual pass for NewFest Pride (May 29 - June 2).

  • Heightened Scrutiny
    A riveting documentary that sees ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, veteran journalists, and unwavering activists show strength and resistance in the face of an actively unfolding story around anti-trans legislation


    From the intrepid filmmakers behind the groundbreaking DISCOLURE, this riveting documentary traces the arc of an epic legal battle alongside a revealing breakdown of anti-trans mainstream media bias. Follow Queens-based ACLU attorney, father, and cat lover Chase Strangio – the first out trans person to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – as he strategizes to fight a 2023 Tennessee state law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, with a consequential decision expected in June 2025.


    Resistance and logic are key as veteran journalists and activists – along with Strangio – lucidly dismantle distorted, panic-inducing rhetoric and collectively respond to the shocking complicity hard-won trans rights being rolled back. HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY compelling captures the timely fight against anti-trans legislation all the way to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court and provides a powerful call to action for bodily autonomy, civil rights, and truth.

    I'm glad I managed to see this film before the Skrmetti decision dropped, because I think it would have felt a lot harder to watch it afterward.

  • I was bummed that Enigma didn't show up as available for me in the virtual pass, even though it was originally listed as included in that pass.  I know the film fest indicated that due to licensing agreements, virtual screenings could also "sell out," so it's possible that happened?  But I would have thought it would say that -- rather than just not showing up at all.  I guess I could have tried to reach out at someone at the festival about it, but apparently I was not that invested.

books
live music
  • Kinsey Scales Pride Concert 2025! at my local library with Abby
    🏳️‍🌈 Come join us at the Medford Public Library for our free annual Pride Concert! 🏳️‍🌈

    Saturday, June 21st, at 4:30pm

    The theme of this year's concert is POWER! We will be performing a cappella arrangements of music from artists like Rage Against the Machine, Diana Ross, and many more, centered around reclaiming power and celebrating strength in community.

    - Masking is strongly encouraged

    - Be advised that some songs may not be appropriate for small children

    See you there! 🌈🎶

    Yes, they legit did an a cappella arrangement of Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name." (It was the last song before the intermission, and they warned people that they might wanna take their kids out to intermission early.)

    A bunch of the songs are conversations, and I thought the acting was particularly good in "The Wedding Song" from Hadestown (though generally good overall).

tv
  • Ironheart episodes 1-3 with Abby

    It's the new Marvel mini-series -- starring the black woman MIT student who has a part in the second Black Panther movie.  The first 3 episodes dropped last Tuesday, and we watched them over the weekend.  The next 3 episodes drop tomorrow night, and we'll probably watch them separately (Abby left town tonight for some travel, and we won't see each other for over 2 weeks -- and we'll first see each other while visiting my family for a few days).

***

Currently Reading:

[bff book club] Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction by Shira Hassan (with Foreword by adrienne maree brown & Introduction by Tourmaline) (2022)

Changelings: An Autistic Trans Anthology edited by Ryan Vale and Ocean Riley (2023) -- a trans-masc and non-binary anthology, though apparently Extraterrestrials, the trans-fem and non-binary anthology they worked on next, is in fact in progress (I reached out to Ryan over the weekend, and he said, "We are currently in the editing stages and are hoping to publish by the end of 2025.")

Reading Next:

As mentioned above, potentially more of the Amelia Temple books (the Beneath Strange Lights sequels).

This month I definitely leaned into some less brain-heavy reading, and I think that will continue.  I got a bunch of queer YA and some trans memoirs from the library, since that was the closest I could figure out to what my brain was wanting.

I'm gonna be traveling for most of July and don't have much book club reading for that month. Though I also have a week until I travel, so I can't actually save all my library books for my travel -- plus I'm not in transit that much, so I shouldn't over-expect how much reading I'll get done in transit.

my one book club book for July:

[July 30 "June" DEI book club -- Pride Month] The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen (2020) -- YA fiction, graphic novel, gay son of Vietnamese immigrants

and for August:

[Aug 10 feminist sff book club] Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (2023)

[Aug 14 local library rainbow book group] The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy (2024) -- my suggestion! (and The Transfeminine Review 2024 Reader's Choice Award winner for Outstanding Fantasy -- and shortlisted for TFR’s Best Transfeminine Fiction of 2024 Award)

[Aug 22 work book club] Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao (2025)

[edit: I have not actually asked if we wanna do DEI book club in August. June's meeting got pushed to late July because of people's vacation plans, so I'm imagining we'll punt August and just do September. It doesn't feel like it makes sense to try to discuss August plans when people's being-around overlaps so little, since it would then be a very long asynchronous conversation process.]

So I will definitely potentially try to do some book club reading during my travels since my August is front-loaded with book clubs (and the first two August book club books are both kinda long).

sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Pursuant to yesterday's (locked) post where I discussed federal public health funding:

'Where's our money?' CDC grant funding is moving so slowly layoffs are happening (NPR)

God, that's eerie, to see NPR saying the same thing I was saying.

The grants mentioned in the article are all national in scope, btw: it's everybody who's not getting these grants, not just Texas or North Carolina. These grants aren't flashy or sexy, but they absolutely save lives.
catherineldf: (Default)
[personal profile] catherineldf
It's Twin Cities Pride this weekend and I'm headed in to do some preliminary setup this morning. It's been raining for days, with some more expected this weekend and 3 of the interstates are closed - what could go wrong? No, don't answer that. At any, Queen of Swords Press will have a table in the Queer Writes Test/Zone (called different things on the map), space #496. I'm "between jobs" (out of work/taking a short break) as of 7/3 so if you can't make it to Pride and are up for buying a book or two, now would be a great time. Library requests help a lot too!

Readercon 34 - I will be attending (please buy a Pride StoryBundle if you can! My half of the curator's fee is funding my trip cash for July and these are some great books. We're also raising money for Rainbow Railroad too!). My schedule is here and I'm on everything from small press publishing to aging in sf to erotica and horror to doing a reading.  Looking for ward to it! Will I see you there? Let's get a meal/snacks.

I am also adding an October trip to Iowa City on 10/11 to accept a posthumous Laura Young Award for Jana from Guild of Bookworkers at their Standards Conference. That will be something of a whirlwind, but if you're in the area, breakfast on Sunday could be a thing.

I have a Seattle Worldcon schedule but it doesn't look quite baked yet. I also apparently promised a debut reading of Blood Moon, (Wolves of Wolf's Point #3) from some months back when I had 10K words...then had to revise and reset in a different character's head. Apparently, there will be a lot of writing in the next couple of weeks to get some things ready for readings at both cons!


Sidetracks - June 26, 2025

Jun. 26th, 2025 10:24 pm
helloladies: Gray icon with a horseshoe open side facing down with pink text underneath that says Sidetracks (sidetracks)
[personal profile] helloladies posting in [community profile] ladybusiness
Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. You can also support Sidetracks and our other work on Patreon.


Read more... )
catherineldf: (Default)
[personal profile] catherineldf
Well, I'm hella tired. So sleep and doing odds and ends are looking very appealing. Also writing and editing. I'm signing up for various workshops and classes and just came across a developmental editing class that I signed up for...a year ago. I should probably finish that. In a couple of weeks, I will be looking for editing, teaching, speaking, writing gigs, but I definitely need to recharge a bit. Let me know if you're interested in my sundry nonIT skills. For the IT end of things, my contracting company will keep looking and the very large healthcare co. that currently rents my services has expressed interest in having me back in another capacity so we'll see if anything works out there. In the next couple of weeks, I have vending at Twin Cities Pride this weekend (500,000+ people, 3 day marathon - come see us at the Queer Writes Tent in Loring Park!), the Inbound Book Fair for Grownups in 2 weeks (4-5000 people last year, 2 day marathon - come see us at the Fairgrounds in the Education Building!), followed immediately thereafter by Readercon (my schedule is lit!). Then back for a couple of weeks, then off to Seattle for Worldcon. Somewhere in there, I will freak about money if I haven't figured something out, but I also figure I've been planning for this for the last year and if I don't seize the moments where I can, when will I?

UCC General Synod - Banned Books

Jun. 23rd, 2025 08:14 pm
hermionesviolin: image of Matilda sitting contentedly on a stack of books, a book open on her lap and another stack of books next to her (Matilda)
[personal profile] hermionesviolin
I am skeptical about the utility of the Synod service project this year -- like, how effective is it necessarily to build a Banned Books Library in a church? (Last year's project -- putting together packs of menstrual hygiene products -- felt to me much more like we were doing something actually helpful.)

But am I gonna seed this service project by donating some banned books written by trans people?  Probably.

(Speaking of supporting trans authors: The Transfeminine Review's Pride Month mutual aid drive)

There was a webinar this afternoon:
Join us to learn more about our General Synod service project this year focusing on creating Banned Book libraries in Kansas City and across our wider Church! We'll dive deeper into why banned book libraries matter, how to participate in this year's service project and how to create a banned book library in your congregation.
Synod this year is in Kansas City -- co-hosted by the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference and the Missouri Mid-South Conference (Missouri; Arkansas; and Memphis, Tennessee) -- and one of the panelists on the webinar (who's on the staff of the Missouri Mid-South Conference) said that Missouri is the #3 state in the country for the most banned books. I'm not sure where that stat comes from -- and if it means number of books banned or number of book bans (so, like, if Book A gets banned 10 times, does that count as 1 or 10), and if this is a cumulative total or for the last year or what -- but it does help suggest why this issue is so big for the Synod organizers. [Interestingly, I had just been on this banned book list from the project's toolkit, and Kansas is not on it at all. In fairness, it's a September 2023 article that says, "Reproduced here, the PEN list covers books that were banned or challenged during the first half of the 2022 school year—the most recent data available." So it's not the most comprehensive list. But still.]

On the subject of, "how effective is doing a Banned Book Library in your church?" excerpts from the chat during the webinar: Read more... )

Happy Juneteenth!

Jun. 19th, 2025 09:06 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] 50books_poc
Today is Juneteenth.

These book lists feature black authors.  Take a look if you're searching for black books to read.

 
jesse_the_k: ASL handshapes W T F (WTF)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

I always enjoy the wide variety of postcards which appear regularly from [personal profile] fflo. Tuesday, [personal profile] fflo posted about the "Best Wrong Answers" to LearnedLeague. These are a series of punchline-worthy responses to Jeopardy!-style questions. For example:

In photography, the overall brightness of an image is determined by the "exposure triangle" of aperture, shutter speed, and a third factor which is a measure of the sensitivity of the camera's sensor (or the film) to light. This third factor is known as what?

  • REMEMBERING TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF

Even though I got online before the WWW, I’d never heard of LearnedLeague, which is a very dedicated group of trivia fiends. Here’s what I found:

Like any tight-knit community, there’s a ton of jargon. Participants are called LLamas (the double L matching Learned League). Membership is by invite only, though there is some public content at
LearnedLeague.com

Some of the world-readable "Best Worst Answer" tallies follow the URL pattern

https://learnedleague.com/hist/awards/100.php

Where 100 references the season—I had some fun plugging in random numbers.

From season 97:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L'Engle in what 1962 novel?

  • 3 REASONS TO HAVE HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

Public, unofficial Learned League groups on Reddit and Facebook. More fun to be had from grazing the #BestWrongAnswers tag on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bestwronganswers

I'm back.

Jun. 19th, 2025 01:13 pm
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[personal profile] sartorias
Please forgive mush-mindedness; I'm three days out of the hospital and it's taking time for the simplest thoughts to come back on line.

Scintillation was wonderful, as always. And so was Fourth Street Fantasy Convention--what little I saw of it. No fault whatsoever to the con. All fault is due to the trash human in front of me in a very crowded assisted seating area, who coughed and hacked for the entire eight hour ride, refusing to put on a mask. "It's not a rule! And masks are all political anyway!"

By the next night I had a high temp, joints with ice picks stabbing them, skin like the worst sunburn ever. So I missed a lot, but managed to get to some programming including my panels. And I almost made it, tho by then I hadn't eaten for four days, and drunk only sips of water, which tasted terrible, like rusty pipes.

I was moderating my last panel, and I thought it was going okay when we opened to Qs from the audience and I realized that everyone was curiously black-and-white, then the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, surrounded by voices.

Here's where perceptions get kind of surreal. I slowly became aware that someone was stroking my arm. I've always known that Marissa L has an infinite capacity for genuine empathy, but I understood it was real. That empathy convey through the slow, reassuring touch, even though when she murmured "non-responsive."

Oh dear. I was not doing my bit! Worse, I'd totally spoiled the panel, yet here I was having somehow floated gently to the ground. I had to get up! Return to my room. Rest! Apologize to everyone for my dumbass move! Yet it felt so much better to lie there, and let trusted voices do whatever they were doing. So reassuring.

I knew those voices. I trusted them. Marissa, who seemed genuinely pleased that I was responsive after all, but she kept up her reassuring touch. (I do know the difference. I've had to drop my head between my knees a few times at distressing moments, and this one specific time, a person I'd known since college kept pawing me, the angle changing in the direction of their voice, as if they were busy looking around the room)

Then E Bear asked for my phone code, and I knew that voice, it's Bear, of course she must need my phone. I trust Bear. Then came the questions as I began to rouse a bit. Scott L, long-serving firefighter and fully trained EMP started what my spouse (who was a volunteer fireman for 20 years, and worked alongside EMTs) called the litany. Scott's strong, clear voice foghorned something much like, "Sherwood, I hate to do this to you, but what asshole is currently infesting the White House?"

And I laughed. I don't know if the laughter got past my lips, but it's strange how humor--laughter--can rouse one. I muttered, "Yesterday was NO KINGS DAY."

Then it seemed they wanted to send me off to emergency services; there was talk, then a fourth trusted voice, belonging to Beth F, insisted that it was not a good idea to be sending me off without anyone knowing where. She informed the company that she was a Registered Nurse and this was SOP, or the like. Beth's on the team, I thought.

Shortly thereafter they got my wreck of a bod onto the conveyance and I was in for an ambulance ride. It was beautiful teamwork--cons these days have security teams, and here I was proof that their protocols were functioning swiftly and smoothly, which would permit them to pivot straight back to con stuff.

While I was in for a wad of tests. So many tests. I soon had two IVS going, one in each elbow.

Presently the doc came in and said that I had an acute case of influenza, compounded by severe dehydration. Beth F heroically came to spring me, and saw me to my room, promising me a backup call the following morning.

Another perceptual eddy: I thought, wrongly, I'd wafted quietly and softly to the floor. Maybe even discreetly. Ha Ha. When I stripped out of my influenza clothes I discovered gigantic bruises in weird places--the entire top of one foot is discolored, another baseball-sized bruise on one calf, and so one. I began to suspect that I had catapulted myself whammo-flat with all the grace of a stevedore hauling a sack of spuds.

The following days I slept and slept, forcing a few bites of salad and oatmeal. I have zero stamina, must work on that, but at least I am home, and I guess all that unwanted experience can sink into the subconscious quagmire.

Juneteenth: American Cowboys

Jun. 19th, 2025 11:39 am
sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Happy Juneteenth! Just a quick post:

The Black, African, and African-American employee group at work shared this documentary with us for Juneteenth, about the early days of the Pendleton Round-up (a prestigious rodeo located in Pendleton, Oregon), and two cowboys of color who competed in the 1911 bronc-riding finals: George Fletcher and Jackson Sundown.

(Note: contains discussion of genocide, namely the US govt's war against the Nez Perce. Also, predictably, discussions of racism. Also archival rodeo footage, including bronc-riding and calf-roping.)

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