How did we get here? Sometimes I think about the idea in some models of physics that time isn’t really linear, we just perceive it as linear. Wouldn’t it be nice to rewind, relive important moments, or even pause and savor them?
How would we be different as people–as sentient beings–if we could do that? (With today’s photos, videos and even blog entries like this one, we’re trying to do it in our own way, aren’t we?) Would we be wiser? Or would we rush through life even faster, knowing we could look back if we wanted to?
Guess I’m starting 2024 in a philosophical mood. How about you? In writing news, The Bicyclist’s Guide to the Galaxy is available from the publisher and many bookstores, online and physical. I saw a copy in the dealer’s room at a convention last weekend, a first for me as a writer. And the Queer Sci Fi flash fiction collection Rise is also available, for those who want a ton of bite-size stories from all aspects of the LGBTQ+ experience.
I’m going to try to do more writing in 2024. I also hope to make more of a dent in the piles of books I bought during the pandemic. I’m working on a 2023 writing and media wrap-up article; hopefully I’ll get that out by the end of January but no promises.
Happy New Year! What are you looking forward to reading (or watching, listening to, playing, etc.) in 2024?
Hello friends! Happy last few weeks of summer! I took a cruise around Boston harbor in a (replica) schooner and managed to catch a shot of the sail being raised and whipping in the wind. It feels like an apt metaphor for the speed of my life these days. Whoosh, whoosh!
I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m writing short pieces: flash fiction or even shorter. Press 53 has a 53-word story contest every month, and I’ve been giving those a try. I’ll post one that didn’t win below
I also successfully submitted a story to the Queer Sci Fi 300-word flash fiction contest for their annual fund-raising anthology. “The Queen of Birds” will be in the anthology coming out later this year. Check out their Facebook group if you want to learn more about it and about LGBTQ+ speculative fiction in general.
And I’m thrilled to announce the my story “The Princess Book” will be in the forthcoming anthology The Bicyclist’s Guide to the Galaxy: Bike & book SFF stories. The Kickstarter is funding now! Please take a look, pledge if you feel so inclined, and spread the word! I love the books in this series from Microcosm press and it’s an honor to be a part of it.
I’ll leave you with my 53-word submission from a prompt of “script:”
Always Have Your Circle of Salt Handy
“I want my soul back.”
“Why?”
“Nothing happened! You promised–” He slammed the ancient scroll down.
The Wise One scowled, pointing. “Look again. I gave you the key to the cipher.”
A pause. An indrawn breath. “Ah! So the name is M—”
The explosion was written off as a gas leak, as usual.
Happy a week past Halloween! It’s been a long year. Wait, it’s been (more than) a year? A year since I blogged? How did that happen?
Has 2021 been rushing by in a blur for you, too? What are we rushing toward? Or are we just swept up in the tide of time…
I didn’t use to believe that time would go faster as I got older, but it definitely has recently. The pandemic — and the stress going along with it — has made it worse. So many layers of uncertainty in the world: threats to democracy, changing climate, evolving viruses…
Writing has been a refuge, even though I haven’t published much. And I’m around on Twitter–follow me there (@AveryVanderlyle) if you want more glimpses into my life. I warn you, I back way too many projects on Kickstarter.
Circlet Press has published erotic Halloween Microfictions on their website every year for a few years. I wrote one last year, and wrote one this year as well. Microfictions as they define them have a maximum of 1500 words. I’m not a natural at these shorter forms, but I enjoy the discipline they require to fit a complete story into a compact form. I never blogged about last year’s microfiction “A Little Knowledge…”, so today you get a blog entry with a double dose. It’s especially appropriate to talk about them together, since both are sequels of a sort of previously published works.
“A Little Knowledge…” is set in the same world as “Rule 34,” from Grumpy Old Gods. While “Rule 34” is humorous, there are hints that events in the story could also have negative consequences. This microfiction explores some of those consequences. but pulls back from the brink of disaster. It’s also explicitly erotic (unlike “Rule 34”), so adult readers only, please.
This year’s microfiction is titled “A Little Magic In Me,” and it’s a sequel to my story “Passage, Performance, Passion” in Circlet Press’Like a Spell 2: Fire. It takes before Jonah and Raavi meet the wererats in their story in His Magical Pet. It can be read independent of the longer stories, but I hope fleshes out the characters and their relationship just a little bit. I hope you enjoy it.
There’s lots of fun, free, smoking hot stories in these sets of microfictions, so check them all out from the 2020 Roundup and the new 2021 Roundup. Happy Reading.
First, if you’re reading this in the USA and you don’t have a plan to vote, drop everything and figure out a plan to vote. Vote early if you can, if you plan to vote in person. Otherwise, take your mail-in or absentee ballot to an official drop-box if you can, or mail it as soon as you can. Look up your local county, city and state rules for your options and deadlines. Vote.org is a good resource site that can send you to details for your state.
His Magical Pet is now available with my new story in it! “If Not for the Rat” features Raavi and Jonah, who met in my story “Passage, Performance, Passion” in the Circlet Press anthology Like a Spell: Fire. Two years later, Raavi is still opening magical portals, and Jonah is still appreciating the wonders of magic (and Raavi). In a new city, they meet a wererat, and returning him home leads them to a group of people who need their help.
I’ll admit it, “If Not for the Rat,” is fluff. It’s a fun and happy story, where people solve problems with art and words and throwing an awesome dance party. I guess I wrote a bit of a world I’d like to live in.
The other stories look fun too, both in His Magical Petand in the companion anthology Her Magical Pet. All proceeds from these stories go to OutRight Action International, helping fight for human rights for LGBTIQ people around the world. Please spread the word, and support these anthologies if you can. These collections are for the Kindle only at the moment, but paperbacks will be coming soon.
We live in a diverse world and I try to populate my world with diverse characters. I wrote briefly in my previous blog entry about the work it takes to do that authentically and how educating myself is an ongoing project. I’m going to add a bit more here; however, there are many, many people more qualified than I am to discuss this and I hope you’ll seek them out. One advantage of so many SFF conventions and other events going online this year is that many of them have left their sessions available online for free; a little googling and you’ll come up with a wealth of panels discussing how to write diversely. I learn something new every time I listen to one of these panels.
Also, read diverse authors. There are more non-white, non-straight, etc. authors than ever before getting traction in the speculative fiction space. Some are with mainstream publishers, others are with small independent publishers and some are self-publishing. Whatever sub-genres you’re into, you can find a diverse group of authors writing in that arena.
Once you find an author(s) you like, following them on twitter or other social media is a great way to find other authors of a similar demographic, and once you’ve followed some of those others you’ll have a great pool to read from.
Just a few links to get you started:
Author Olivia Helling has 15+ Must-Read LGBTQ+ Sci Fi and Fantasy Books by BIPOC Authors. In addition to a very solid list of books (I’ve read a few in this list and have my eye on some others), there are some bonus links at the bottom to other lists and YouTube videos. I’m looking forward to checking out the ones I haven’t seen yet.
I’m a fan of Gail Carriger’s work, so I’m definitely checking out her recommendations, especially for Queer Comfort Reads by Black Authors. Gail also has a list of recommended books by Black authors broken down by characteristics of her varied bibliography (steampunk, YA, etc.) with many more lists at the end.
It’s looking to be a long winter so what better time to try out some new, diverse authors. Happy reading!
Update: Fiyah, the magazine for Black Speculative Fiction, and the associated Fiyahcon, just announced the winners of the first Ignyte Awards! The list of nominees and winners is a great way to jump into reading great books with authors from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Which makes this as good a time as any to announce that I’ll have a story in the Circlet Press anthology A Beastly Affair (erotic retellings of Beauty and the Beast). I just found out so I don’t have a publication date yet, but this might be my favorite of all my stories. I’ll let you know the details when I have them.
Last month was my annual attendance at local science fiction convention, Arisia. Friday night included a panel on the genius and creativity of gay erotica author and satirist Chuck Tingle. While he started with gay dinosaur porn and erotica featuring animated inanimate objects, Tingle has branched out into erotic political satire (for example, Pounded by the Pound: Turned Gay by the Socioeconomic Implications of Britain Leaving the European Union.) U.S. politics are also subjected to his unique style as well. In online forums, Tingle spreads a message of love and inclusion to his internet followers. This entertaining panel discussion included the reading of an email from “Dr. Chuck” himself, and I was left feeling the love and appreciating this unique talent even more.
Saturday, I had a wonderful afternoon hanging out with other Circlet Press authors and then attended an amazing panel on “LGBTQ SF/F/H Authors You Should be Reading.” Read on for the extensive list of publishers, authors and other resources that will keep your reading list full.
The college students are back rambling across the street without looking and crowding the subway cars. That’s life in Boston.
It’s also election season. Don’t forget to vote and register to vote if you haven’t already.
Whew. Got the serious stuff out of the way. Starstruck comes out September 12th! You can buy it through the link above, through my Amazon author page, or at other e-book sites.
I’m very excited to tell you all that I had a story accepted into DreamSpinner Press’ anthology Starstruck. Release date is early September and I’ll have more information for you as the day draws nearer.
In line with my themes of geekery and miscellany, I put a nerdy twist on the anthology’s subject of celebrity romance that I hope you’ll enjoy. And I put a cat in a story for the first time. (Pretty amazing it took me this long!)
These are not my cats, but don’t they look like adorable trouble?
The summer can be a tough time for writing for me since I’d rather be outside than in front of a computer, but we’ll see. I’ll definitely give you all another taste of my flash fiction in the near future.
Hello all, and welcome (more or less) to Spring here in Boston!
Since I last wrote, Owen Franks posted an interview with me about last year’s Coffee: Hot anthology. And I have a new story coming out, hopefully this summer, in a new Circlet Press anthology, Like a Spell: Erotic Stories of Wizards. My story in Like a Spell is set in the same world as the story in Coffee: Hot but with all new characters.
To get a preview of the new story, you can hear me reading the first scene as part of the Nobilis Erotica podcast (I’m about 20 minutes in). As soon I have a release date or any other news, I’ll share it here.
Circlet Press hosts an author/editor retreat every April in Cambridge, MA, and this year I was able to attend the whole thing. You can search #porncamp on twitter for highlights from my fellow attendees. A few things that stuck in my mind:
I was finally able to play the party card game Slash: Romance without Borders. Yes, I’m putting the “porniest” of the porncamp activities first. As a slash fiction fan, I’d wanted to play this game since I heard about it and had a great time. It was the perfect geeky and romance/sex-positive crowd to play with. (Mr. Spock with Professor Moriarty? What do you think of that pairing?)
Got some amazing writing tips from Annabeth Leong and ShariAnn Lewitt. Annabeth shared her technique for identifying and organizing scenes for a short story or novel and I can’t wait to try it on an upcoming project (imagine index cards all over the rug and cats sniffing them and kicking them around just when I think I’m done). ShariAnn described how to add description to set the time/place/season to creatively orient the reader. Definitely advice I will keep in mind.
Laura Antoniou, author of The Marketplace series, gave tips on writing a series. Since I have ideas for an erotic fantasy series, this was very useful and timely information.
I found this fun graphic on Facebook the other day, and traced it back to the keepcalm-o-matic web site. Historical fact of the day: despite the prevalence of “Keep Calm and Carry On” in internet meme circles, the saying was not actually circulated during WWII. You can read more about the history on the keepcalm-o-matic site, and can design your own slogan.
Dragons are on my mind (more than usual) because Dracones is coming out this week! You can pre-order it on the Storm Moon Press website for a discount (it will also be available on Amazon and other online booksellers once it comes out). This is a print as well as e-book anthology, and my story leads it off.
My year started off great with the news that I have another story accepted by Storm Moon Press. It is scheduled to be published in an anthology that will come out the end of April. More details soon.
I’m very excited. This is the long steam-punkesque story I was wresting with. It’s fantastic that SMP wants to include it in the anthology. I’d love to return to that world someday, too. Ideas for a sequel are starting to percolate.
On the pure geekery side, this coming weekend is Arisia, the local science fiction convention. I’ve been going for more or less twenty years and always look forward to it. Between seeing old friends, meeting new ones, learning, shopping — there is always a lot to do.
I plan to go to more of the writing panels than I have in recent years. I’m a habitual note-taker, so I’ll write them up for the blog afterwards and share the wisdom. I hope to do some networking with other writers as well, including another SMP author who will be there.