New short story out now! A witch, his boyfriend, powerful magic, and some impressive hurt/comfort…
Luke is absolutely happy with his gorgeous and talented witch boyfriend Primrose. In fact, he’s even thinking about them moving in together. But when he comes over, he finds Prim attempting a magical rescue…and in mortal peril. And Luke will have to come face to face with the dangers of magic…
It’s in the Kitten & Witch universe, but all new characters! (For the record, the publication order is: Port in a Storm, Fire and Ink, The Arch-Mage’s Firebird, Primrose Magic, and – eventually – The Warlock Affair…)
I’ve got a new (old) short story out now! Well, technically yesterday, but gosh, this semester’s teaching schedule is brutal, and I have very little free time to do things like promo…
“An Exchange of Hearts” is fantasy-romance, a sort of spin on the princess-in-a-tower and glass-mountain fairytale motifs. Except the princess is also a magician, and the prince on the quest is less interesting than his brother, also a magician, who initially just came along to help…except there’s something intriguing about the person who could create such magic, and such a challenge… (I did do some rewriting to clearly have bisexual main characters and a queer-normative world; that was actually always the case in my head, but I made it more overt in this version.) I always liked the idea of them falling in love through magic first – being impressed by each other – and also the light subversion of whose quest it ends up being!
This story, as I mentioned, is both old and new – the oldest version was actually one of my very first pro story sales, maybe a decade ago! That speculative fiction magazine closed, and we got all our rights back and everything. So I figured I’d see if JMS would like it!
The new version is a couple thousand words longer (hey, it’s me: any editing will add more words…) and lightly edited (and retitled) to be a little closer to my current writing style, though the core of the story is the same.
I still like it – in fact, I’ve got a lot of affection for it! – and I hope you do too!
And look at the gorgeous cover! It never had a cover before, just being internal inside the magazine. JMS did a lovely job!
It’s a book release day! And it’s currently free at JMS Books! Until midnight (EST tonight)! “Illuminations” is a brand-new story in the more recent era of the Magician world…set in the little interval between “Sorceress” and Magician, in fact!…in which two apprentice magicians fall in love, it’s winter, and there’s a missing magical lantern…
Amazon etc tomorrow, but today, here’s the JMS link! (On sale for actual money starting tomorrow!)
This year’s JMS Books Advent Calendar is live! A brand-new, never-before-published, free romance ebook every day! And one of mine will be December 3, tomorrow – it’s called “Illuminations,” and it’s a new story in the Magician universe, set right between “Sorceress” and Magician, in fact…with new main characters, and a winter setting, and awkward magical falling in love…
New short story out today (at JMS Books) & tomorrow (wide): “Gifts,” a bonus story for Gareth/Lorre from Magician: their first anniversary!
In which our magician and his hero learn how to celebrate! Or, the story in which Lorre has never cared so much about making someone happy, and Gareth has a a very good idea, and water is important…and oh, right, there’s only one tiny volcano to deal with…
I’ve got a new short story out Saturday: “Gifts,” for the JMS Books anniversary month! A bonus story for Gareth/Lorre from Magician: it’s their first anniversary!
Lorre has never cared so much about making someone happy, and Gareth has an idea, and water is important…oh, and there’s only one tiny volcano…
A couple days late, but I’ve been hideously busy! But – I had a short story out on Saturday (the 8th)! And, last I checked, it’d made it to number 10 in the Amazon LGBTQ Short Reads, which is quite nice!
It’s called “Sunlight and Skystone,” and It’s an established-relationship MM fantasy short story – what happens after you’ve won the war and reclaimed the kingdom from your wicked uncle? Well, new king Harth and magician Tris would like to finally get married – but now a stranger’s shown up, and he’s claiming to be Tris’s secret brother…
Yes, this is a stealth sequel to my flash fic “Starlight and Stone” – but you don’t have to’ve read that first, I promise! I hadn’t even really intended to write this one – the opening scene just turned up: there’s someone here to see you, and he says he’s your brother…
And then of course we really didn’t know much about Tris’s family, aside from his father; and, well, how would Harth react, if someone showed up to make a claim, with very convenient timing…
And then we had a story! I hope you enjoy reading it – I had a lot of fun coming back to play with these characters!
Out today – my new short story, “The Isle of Skiy”! And look at the shiny Amazon number one banner – thank you all!!
“The Isle of Skiy” is something slightly different for me – this short story is more fantasy than romance, though there is an MM romance in it! It’s about…ocean magic, and an isolated island, and a new-to-the-throne young king who has some questions about what, precisely, keeps his people and his island so hidden away from the world…oh, and his new household minister might be harboring secret radical tendencies, not to mention being terribly attractive in an officious sort of way…
By the way, this is version three of this story – my draft labeled ‘version two’ is about twelve years old, something I wrote in grad school! It’s very Ursula K. Le Guin inspired, and also Patricia A. McKillip – Earthsea, The Changeling Sea, along those lines. (I have no idea where, or how old, the mysterious version one might be. I suspect it’s on an old computer someplace.)
A little announcement for today – something new, coming soon!
“The Isle of Skiy” is something slightly different for me – this short story is more fantasy than romance, though there is an MM romance in it! It’s about…ocean magic, and an isolated island, and a new-to-the-throne young king who has some questions about what, precisely, keeps his people and his island so hidden away from the world…oh, and his new household minister might be harboring secret radical tendencies, not to mention being terribly attractive in an officious sort of way…
Release date June 29! (And much love to JMS Books for giving this one a home even though it’s more fantasy-with-romance-in-it than pure romance! )
Also, I’ve got ARC copies if anyone would like one! Just ask!
By the way, this is version three of this story – my draft labeled ‘version two’ is about twelve years old, something I wrote in grad school! It’s very Ursula K. Le Guin inspired, and also Patricia A. McKillip – Earthsea, The Changeling Sea, along those lines. (I have no idea where, or how old, the mysterious version one might be. I suspect it’s on an old computer someplace.)
Our extended deadline is June 16! I presently have that awkward number of proposals that is too many for one session and not enough for two, so I would love at least a couple more, so we can fill two sessions!
As your Fantasy & the Fantastic Area Chair, if you’re working on some research that is fantasy-related (any media, time period, and genre welcome!), I encourage you to send proposals my way, if you've got something dealing with any aspect of, well, fantasy and the fantastic! Happy to consider proposals from independent scholars or creative folks, as well. We will be in sunny Palm Springs this year, in November, so come visit Southern California and hang out with us!
I'll copy my specific CFP below, and the link to my session - deadline for proposals is April 30!
Fantasy & the Fantastic
Fantasy and the supernatural, broadly defined, shape many popular narratives and universes—from Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones, from World of Warcraft to The Witcher, from classical and medieval tales of monsters and dragons to the worlds of N.K. Jemisin, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ursula K. Le Guin. As a genre, fantasy engages with questions of rhetoric, identity, and power in multiple ways, across media, subgenres, and cultural traditions; the enchantment of fantastic and supernatural narratives casts a persistent and global spell. For this standing session, all proposals that explore fantasy's evolutions and impacts, the fantastic and the supernatural, and/or intersections of fantasy and diverse genres, media, traditions, or time periods are invited.
Proposals which intersect with the PAMLA conference theme of “Translation in Action” are welcome, particularly those which consider related questions of translation, mediation, interpretation, power and subversion, challenges and impossibilities and discoveries, histories and practice and representation of translation, language-learning and world-construction, and cosmopolitanism.
My next m/m romance fantasy novella, “Arrows,” is out today – and part of the JMS Books 45% off Memorial Day sale!
It’s essentially about…well, Van and Milo, being the soldiers (archers) in a war that doesn’t happen, and a magician, and a daydream come true, and figuring out what (and who) you really want…
It ended up being some of my favorite writing of mine, honestly – so I hope you like it too! It’s a little unusual for me, in that Van has to, er, sleep with the wrong person in order to figure out who the right person is…but it’s also not entirely wrong, because, well, Lorre needs a friend, too. And I really do love some of my writing in those bits. 🙂
(Technically it’s a Magician prequel, but that doesn’t really matter; it’s a stand-alone, new main characters, and so on. It’s actually one of the historical tales Gareth mentions knowing about Lorre in Magician!)
…if anyone might like ARCs of “Arrows,” the next Middle Lands story (chronologically the earliest – Lorre’s only around 80 years old)…I have got those to share! Let me know if you’re interested!
If you might like to read & review, if you like fantasy and magicians and wars that don’t actually happen and our POV character figuring out what (and who) he does in fact want…
Release date May 25! Roughly 21k words, m/m, of course a happy ending!
(and, yes, this is the story, or one of them, that Gareth mentions in Magician while listing some of the Epic Historical Events that Lorre has been around for! but really it’s Van & Milo’s story: being on the front lines, as army bowmen, and having an encounter with a magician, and falling in love…)
Up for pre-order, just in time for the JMS Books 40% off St Patrick's Day sale this weekend - "The Merchant Witch," the third Aric and Emrys story!
Sword-and-sorcery, established relationship, our swordsman and his genderfluid half-fairy partner...and a job guarding a wealthy client...who just might be hiding a dangerous secret...
Out now from JMS Books - the re-release of what was once upon a time my very first novel, A Prophecy for Two! And it’s on sale for Black Friday - only $2!
I'm so thrilled to see this story out in the world again - it's so special to me, in the way that first creations are: maybe a bit messy, but glorious, and full of enthusiasm and joy and also the honor of everyone believing in me. So it's for all of you!
This new edition contains:
~princes; or rather, a Prince and his Fairy Companion, who has a Secret
Lots of news, including this year's JMS Books Advent Calendar, and more! (My Advent Calendar free story will be available December 20 - but more soon...) But for today, a happy bit of news - Apprentice's Luck, the new novel in the Middle Lands (the world of Magician), is now out in paperback!
It's high fantasy m/m romance, set ~150 years before Magician (you might recognize a name or two - no one knows where Lorre is, at the moment!), so it's got all new main characters; it'll stand alone fine if you've not read the others. And it's about Talis, an apprentice magician who doesn't think he's very good at magic, and Jer, a royal guardsman who thinks he's overheard a threat to the King...but no one else believes him...but perhaps a magician can help...
And of course there's falling for each other along the way. And tea. And Talis having a lot of emotions while watching Jer be quietly competent at weapons training. And opera-related jokes.
Jer and Talis have honestly become some of my favorite characters (I might have to write one more story for them...), so I hope you like them too!
Out now! Just in time for Halloween - and all your m/genderfluid sword-and-sorcery romance needs!
Ghosts are real. And now they’re Aric’s problem.
Even legendary swordsmen need time off, and Aric and his half-fairy partner Emrys are traveling south to visit Aric’s brother. But, on a stormy night at a roadside inn, an old friend stumbles in nearly frozen, swearing that the mountain pass is haunted … and deadly.
With travelers and friends in danger, Aric and Em will try to solve the mystery of the murderous hauntings, but that won’t be simple. Swords aren’t much use against specters. Any use of Em’s magic will draw attention from a powerful fairy king.
And this quest is making Aric think about his past, his future, and settling down in one spot with Em, someday … if Emrys wants that future, too.
The recordings from the Rainbow Space Magic virtual convention are up over on the RSM YouTube page!
The playlist has my reading session, and also the panel I was on/moderating about writing fantasy and medieval history, and also K.S. Murphy's panel on research & experience!
Happy release day to me! By which I mean I have a surprise SECOND story out today (surprised me too! I don't do the scheduling over at the RoMMantic Reads 'zine) - so you get two shiny things!
First up, the big one! Apprentice's Luck is out now! *throws confetti* And currently #212 in Amazon's *overall* LGBTQ Fantasy category - not just Romance! It's got...
~one apprentice magician with troublesome luck
~one honorable guardsman with a problem
~m/m high fantasy romance!
~a stand-alone story, but in the same universe as Magician and The Twelfth Enchantment!
~the plot I have described to people as, "tea and magic and sexy forearms and jokes about opera! plus a palace conspiracy!"
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