luninosity

Got a few neat things to share! Lots of stuff happening all at once, as stuff tends to do…

First, my upcoming release, out Feb 15! It’s called “A Valentine for Violet,” an MM romance novella, and it’s one that I really love – brand-new characters, a sort of alt-Victorian English country village setting (no magic, but same-sex marriage is accepted), and paper-making and valentines! I hope you’ll all love it too – I had such fun writing this one!

It’s available for pre-order now here at JMS Books – and currently on pre-order sale!

Second, I’ve done a little author interview over at J. Scott Coatsworth’s blog! (Hooray for author-friends!) It’s got a lot of me rambling about sword-and-sorcery, writing scenes out of order, and what’s currently in my refrigerator! ❤

You can read that over here! It’s also got a picture of Miss Merlyn the Magnificent, to tempt you. 🙂

Third, it’s the February Blind Date with a Book event! Including one of mine…but which? Comment on the blind date posts, over the next two days, for a chance to win books that sound up your alley – winners posted starting Friday!

Fourth (oops, I guess there’s a fourth!), I sent off an academic essay I’m kind of proud of / nervous about, so I feel accomplished! It’s about Patricia Nell Warren’s novel The Front Runner and its influence on the genre of gay romance, and I inadvertently ended up making an argument about the importance of fuzzy genre definitions and implications of that, and also quoting myself as a romance author (I was asked to contribute to the book in part as a romance author), so it’s an odd little hybrid essay that brings together several of my selves, academic literature-analyst and queer person and queer romance author…so that should be interesting! I used first person and self-reflection far more than I normally do, among other things. I hope the book (a whole scholarly collection of essays on PNW) will be good; I feel like I might be an oddity, but the editor did specifically ask me to be, er, me, in all the multiple selves, so…we shall see! He did already tell me the draft was “wonderful,” so that’s nice? *being brave*

So I've got a couple of exciting author events coming up, plus some Demon for Midwinter series news!

First, on the more academic side, my scholarly publisher McFarland (they specialize in pop culture studies) is having a Virtual Author Fair this Saturday, March 6, from 1pm to 5pm EST (that's 10-2 in PST, where I am)!. We'll have 18 authors talking about their books and scholarly projects, on topics including film, history, ethics in Terry Pratchett's fantasy, gender and superheroes, the music of Bruce Springsteen, religion in horror films, memoir, motherhood, and more!

The full schedule and event link is available here at the Facebook event site (most info is under the Discussion tab) - I'll be the second speaker, talking about ethics and Sir Terry Pratchett, and then popping in again for the roundtable at the end. (If you can't find or need help with the Zoom link, just ask - we're using my Zoom because it's unlimited!) It's all free, so drop in and out as you like!

McFarland is also providing a discount code you can use on the books by participating authors - use code VVAF for 20% off, through March 14! So come join us on March 6 for some scholarly pop culture discussions!


Second, the second (heh) Rainbow Space Magic online LGBTQ+ science fiction and fantasy convention will be happening March 12-14! We'll have a wonderful array of workshops, panels, and readings - you can find the full schedule here and registration (free) here!

The times for my events specifically are:
panel: Fandom & Fanfiction, Saturday PT 7:00pm / MT 8:00pm / CT 9:00pm / ET 10:00pm (come listen to us chat about interpretations, subversions, and transformations of narratives!)
reading: Sunday PT 8:00am / MT 9:00am / CT 10:00am / ET 11:00am (*assuming we stay in listed order, I'll be the last one reading) (I'm thinking probably something from "Frost & Raine" because that's recently published and I think - I hope? - sometimes decently funny...though maybe I'll pull out something brand-new and currently in progress, like the opening of Magician, because I'm enjoying writing it so much! I mean, our titular magician likes tropical beaches and hot baths and honey in his tea, and does not enjoy being disturbed by terribly earnest young princes On A Quest...)


Third, the Demon for Midwinter news! Two things are happening!

~First, there'll be a tiny ~free~ bonus scene short story releasing March 20! It's called "Bedknobs & Brimstone," and it's very short - just under 2k words - and it's essentially about...well...let's go with, "oops, I have a lot of magic now and accidentally set our bed on fire while we were mid-foreplay, sorry?" Poor Justin. At least his husband's an empath and can reassure him!

~Second, there'll be a box set of the completed series coming - also in March, more or less! As soon as that final free bonus story comes out, the whole set will go into Kindle Select first for three months, and then wide everywhere! With a shiny new cover!


I think that's all the exciting news! Maybe I'll see you at some of the above events? I hope so! <3

...oh, wait, one more thing! I've started putting bits of Magician up on AO3 so that I can chat with people about it and feel motivated and get excited! (And, after all, it's technically properly fanfic for a published story of mine, now, in a way...) The first two chapters are up now, if that is of interest! It's got a magician in need of redemption, and an optimistic prince who likes books, and tropical fruit, and also (eventually) only one bed at the inn...

Come read along at AO3 here! <3

Oh, one more one more thing - I got my first Pfizer vaccine dose yesterday! And have the second dose scheduled in three weeks! *throws confetti and bakes a cake* Such a relief!