Category: writing

extreme closeup of boxer dog

I have selected my theme for my writing course for the fall of 2025. Each semester I’ve taught the class since 2002, I’ve tried to pick a different theme for my students to research and write about. I can’t say that I’ve never repeated themes, but I always try to think up something different. This semester, I intend for my students to study the biology of Canis familiaris, the dog.

I’ve always tried to select something I don’t know much about. It allows the students to be the experts. And it prevents me from becoming too directive (which happens all too often when I already too much about the subject). It also keeps the course fresh for me and has let me learn a vast amount of biology over the years.

Some themes have worked better than others. Students tend to be strongly biased toward animals, so although I’ve been very pleased with the semesters we studied plants or fungi, students were often less satisfied. I’ve generally shied away from vertebrates, simply because there are a lot of practical and regulatory complications for conducting research on them. So we’ve studied planarians, tardigrades, terrestrial gastropods, worms, millipedes, wood lice, spiders, and many types of insects, which has usually made students happy. (They didn’t like the semester we studied cockroaches, tho. Go figure.) But dogs will be something new.

My thinking was undoubtedly influenced by the excellent panel on dogs I participated on at Worldcon. There’s a wonderfully rich literature about dogs that students can dig into. The real question will be, what kinds of research projects can students propose and conduct? My course asks students to write a proposal — preferably about something they could actually do — and then to select a proposal to actually undertake as a research project.

I encourage students to follow their interests. If they’re genuinely interested in some topic that we can’t actually do, they’re welcome to write it up as a proposal. I often use the example of studying the biology of Mars. We don’t have the resources or time to visit Mars to conduct a project. But that shouldn’t stop them from proposing that, if that’s really what they want to do. It’s typically more fun to pitch something we can actually do. And it’s fun when your idea gets chosen by the class for a whole course research project.

I don’t require that the whole course pick just one project. Each group can choose to do their own proposal or any of the other proposals. Or something different altogether, if something more interesting has occurred to them. But it does sometimes happen organically, that one proposal rises to the top and everyone coordinates to conduct 8 or 9 projects all centered around a single proposal.

I wonder what kinds of projects the students will propose. I think there’s a lot we can do. We could observe dogs at local dog parks. Or simply by walking downtown. Some students will undoubtedly have pets. Or we could look for evidence of dogs in the environment.

Before we write proposals, I have the students perform a “METHODS Project” where they make a multi-panel figure that relates to the theme to get them thinking about the kinds of data they might collect. This year, I’ll ask them to collect photographic evidence of the presence of a dog in the local environment. The challenge for this project is how to collect data that is replicable: Can they think of something to photograph that another student can reliably also document? I can think of a few ideas, but it’s tricky. I’ll enjoy seeing what they come up with.

I’m always happy when I come up with an idea that I’m excited about and that I think the students will also enjoy. I think this is going to be a winner. Now I just need to come up with one more idea for next semester, which will be the very last time I ever teach this class.

a handmade box that contained a delicious mexican sweet.

Today, the #WritersCoffeeClub prompt at Mastodon asked contributors to “Talk about an affirming experience you’ve had among your writing peers.” This was really difficult, only because it was so difficult to choose. There are so many people and groups that I value and appreciate. After some consideration, I decided to write about Wandering Shop Stories:

Post by @stevendbrewer@wandering.shop
View on Mastodon

I realized that after my recent unfortunate interaction with another author at Worldcon, it was good for me to think about all of the positive interactions I’ve had within the writing community.

I really appreciate my brother, Philip M. Brewer, and my younger son, who serve as alpha readers of my fiction. When I write my initial draft, it’s really useful to have a few eyes to look it over and help me think about story structure and pacing. My brother is particularly good at coming up with ideas to strengthen the story and heighten the drama. And Daniel likes to mock the weak points, in a friendly and supportive way. His raillery always leaves rolling on the floor in hysterics. I am filled with gratitude for their support

In addition to #wss366, which I organize and manage, many other Mastodon writing communities are wonderful and supportive. They include #WritersCoffeeClub, #WordWeavers, #PennedPossibilities, #ScribesAndMakers, #LesFicFri, #WIPSnips, and others. It’s interesting to reflect on the questions, to read the responses that others write, and to receive positive reactions from the community.

I love serving on the Board of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). The organization is such a positive force in support of the genre writing community. The Board is really excellent. It’s the best non-profit Board I’ve ever served with, composed of deeply committed people who are both talented and dedicated to supporting the community. When I joined the Board, SFWA was in a crisis with a loss of leadership and staff. Now, we have great leadership and are fully staffed with truly outstanding people. The organization is really hitting on all cylinders. Somewhat perversely, it’s much less work for us on the Board and truly wonderful things are happening all the time. Everywhere I turn, people are commenting how they like the direction SFWA is taking. It’s been incredibly rewarding service.

I also love the Straw Dog Writers Guild. I enjoy serving on the Program Committee and helping organize interesting workshops and presentations. I’ve been able to invite really excellent people to contribute to our programming. And I really treasure my small community at Straw Dog Writes. There are a handful of us that meet nearly every week on Wednesday evenings to write together via zoom and a number of others that drop in and out periodically. Everyone has been very supportive and friendly.

It’s so important to have community to fall back on when things are rough. I really value everyone’s support.

Representing disability is important in fiction. Many years ago, I saw someone who said that, rather than calling some people “disabled,” we should call everyone else “temporarily abled.” Because if you don’t have a disability now, you will. If you live long enough, almost everyone will go through some period of their life with a disability: a broken foot, gout, a bout of depression, etc. After I was hospitalized, I discovered that I have a disability: a chronic lung condition that limits my life in significant ways.

Today, my wife and I attended a flag raising for Disability Pride Month. The Town Council of Amherst wrote a proclamation and raised a flag to recognize and celebrate people with disabilities. And to commemorate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been transformative for ensuring access for disabled people. It was an opportunity for to me to reflect on the writing I’ve done representing disabled characters. I have several stories that represent characters with disabilities, both physical and mental. But one character stands out.

One of my favorite characters in the Revin’s Heart series is the Professor. Revin’s first meets him when he sees a glider fly from the mountain top of the island where the pirates have their base and land on the beach.

[The glider] skidded to a stop, and then flipped over. Revin, with his sharp eyes, could see someone strapped into the device with a harness.

Revin sprinted down the switchbacks of the trail to the sea. A few of the most athletic pirates got ahead of him by running straight down, bypassing the switchbacks. But five or six of them arrived at more or less the same time to see the man — for they could see now it was a man — with wild white hair and a gray beard scramble out of the harness. But Revin could see something was terribly wrong. The front half of him was crawling out of the harness, but he was leaving his legs behind.

“Aaaa! What’s happened to your legs?” Revin asked in shock.

“Those aren’t my legs,” the man growled. “Those are just for balance.”

“But you don’t have any legs! What happened to your legs?” Revin persisted.

“Airshark got ’em,” the man replied, gravely. “Have you ever seen an airshark? Terrible creatures.”

Revin was dubious. He started to open his mouth, then realized that all of the pirates were standing in a circle, watching his facial expressions, and trying not to laugh. He turned bright, bright red and they exploded with laughter, rolling on the ground. Gently hazing the new cabin boy was a popular pastime among the pirates. And now the strenuous efforts of the pirates to get there ahead of him were explained.

The backstory of how the Professor came to not have legs is never described in the books. Revin discovers soon, however, that the Professor brilliantly supervises the team of pirates that maintains the airship and keeps it airworthy. He uses hand-braces to move around and is clearly a genius inventor, scientist, and engineer. He’s blunt, plain-spoken, and gruff, but you soon learn that he really cares about Revin and the other pirates.

Grip […] sent Revin to the Professor to request he construct a practice sword with similar properties to the real sword. He looked at the sword, then looked at Revin fiercely from under his bushy eyebrows.

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you play with these things,” he grumbled.

“I want to be able to protect my friends,” Revin said.

“Worry about yourself first,” the Professor said. “You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.”

“Please?” Revin said, sweetly.

“Ugh. It’s your funeral,” the Professor said. “We’ll have something for you by tomorrow.”

It isn’t until much later that Revin learns that there’s larger backstory to the Professor than he realizes. They travel together on a secret mission when Revin discovers that the Professor is actually a famous member of the Royal Academy. Everyone in academic circles knows the Professor.

[Revin] stood conferring with the Professor about what to do for the night when someone said, “Professor Grexin? Is that you?”

“Eh?” the Professor said, turning toward the newcomer, a middle‑aged academic wearing University garb.

“It is you!” the man continued excitedly. “You probably don’t remember me: Niles Ender. I saw your talk five years ago on hydrogen generation using algae and we spoke for a bit at the reception that followed. What are you doing back here?”

“I’m just visiting my nephew,” the Professor said, clapping Revin on the back.

“Wow! You must be so proud to have a famous uncle like Professor Grexin!

When they’re attacked by highway men, Revin learns that there is more to the Professor than meets the eye.

Revin and the Professor got ready to sleep. They were about to get into the bedrolls when Art [their coachman] appeared around the corner of the wagon accompanied by two other men. With their swords drawn, they charged toward Revin and the Professor.

Revin drew his sword and put himself en garde. Considering the Professor no threat, Art and the two men bypassed him to attack Revin. Revin began to panic, wondering how he could possibly defend himself against all three of them. Suddenly, the two other men staggered and, with their eyes rolling up in their heads, collapsed. Art looked surprised and distracted at the sudden loss of his allies. Revin lunged forward and caught him in the throat. Art fell over clutching at his neck and expired with blood spurting through his fingers.

Revin stared wild‑eyed at the Professor, who stood with his arm braces raised.

“What just happened?” Revin gasped.

“I keep each of my arm braces loaded with a poisoned dart,” he said. “They must have figured me for no threat. But they were wrong.”

When they arrive at the Hermitage (a research institute), the Professor is again recognized as the famous scholar he is and they are invited to attend a formal dinner, Revin learns yet something new about this enigmatic character. When a toast is proposed that celebrates using science for war, the Professor pours out his glass on the floor and hand-walks out of the room.

With the toast out of the way, Revin was concerned that his lack of knowledge about polite dining would make him stand out. But he needn’t have worried. The scientists couldn’t care less about etiquette and appeared to use forks and spoons randomly — or not at all — which allowed Revin to relax and enjoy the meal. Watching the servants, though, he began to awaken to how easy it was to become complacent about your station in life. And to become complicit in sustaining inequalities. His respect for the Professor went up, to be willing to be true to himself and publicly demonstrate his commitment to his principles. And he began to see how the Professor and Will, a captain of pirates, had found common ground.

The Professor is one of my favorite characters in Revin’s Heart. He continues to show up in the (as yet) unpublished sequels to Revin’s Heart. In Ecorozire, Revin visits the Hermitage, where the Professor has retired after the pirates disbanded.

“How is your second retirement going?” Revin asked.

“Oh, it’s wonderful!” the Professor said. “I just come in, sit around, and argue with people all day.”

“Not getting bored, then?” Will pressed.

“Oh, no. No boredom here!”

“Well, then,” Revin said. “I guess you wouldn’t want to go investigate these mysterious coins with eternite in them.” Revin pulled out the necklace shook it at him

“Eternite?” The Professor’s eyes lit up.

Oh, Professor. Never change!

June was super busy, with the Nebula Conference and the two Pride bookselling events. July looks to be quieter. There are a bunch of events I could have attended, but I’m currently only scheduled to go to Readercon. Look for me in the dealer room where I will, again, be running the tables for Water Dragon and Small Publishing in a Big Universe.

If you’re an author planning to attend Readercon and you don’t have a place to sell books, there is probably still time to request a spot at the Small Publishing in a Big Universe table. It costs very little and gives you a place to tell people to buy your books. Plus you can stand behind the table yourself to meet with readers and sign copies. It doesn’t work so well for authors who are not in attendance but, if you’re there in person, you can really make a lot of sales that way.

I was so busy in June, I didn’t get much writing done at all. Some people can snatch moments here and there to write. For me that can work alright for the little story fragments that I write for #wss366, but it doesn’t work for making progress on my serious writing projects. I did, finally, get back to writing in the past week and wrote the final, climactic scene of one of the storylines in The Ground Never Lies. I had been putting it off for months. Now I only have one or two world-building scenes left to write and then I can try to merge the two storylines. After that, I hope to pass it off to my trusty beta readers to see if the whole thing hangs together. It will need a lot of revising, but July should be perfect for that.

In August, I will be attending Worldcon in Seattle. The schedule has not been finalized, but my draft schedule looks great. I’m currently scheduled for seven panels (serving as moderator on one) and a reading. The reading is from my forthcoming book A Familiar Problem which has been delayed since January. I’m really hopeful it will be out in time for Worldcon. (Of course, I also really hoped it would be out for Boskone and Watch City and the Nebula Conference and Readercon, but… Well… Sigh…)

I finally bought our plane tickets. The most convenient airport for us is Bradley, in between Hartford and Springfield. It’s nice because it’s a somewhat smaller airport and only half the distance to Boston. But Boston tends to have more direct flights. When I fly to Europe, I’ve usually flown out of Boston. I did a search and found that there were no non-stop flights to Seattle from Bradley. There were two from Boston. When I checked, however, they were operated by Alaska Airlines and the cost was nearly twice as much as having one stop. So, we’re flying out of Bradley.

After Worldcon, I will be busy with family and then getting ready for the fall. The fall… Sigh… I have to teach the writing class two more times (in Fall and Spring) and then I will finally be able to retire and be done with working. Then I can dedicate myself to writing full time. I’m really glad I did the phased retirement, but I’m looking forward to wrapping it up.

At the Nebula Conference this year, Kat Brehm organized a live-action slush reading panel. She said this has been a dream of hers for several years and she was super excited to pull it off. She got Scott Edelman and Erin Roberts to read the openings to manuscripts (the first 500 words) and had a panel of slush readers who were to raise their hand when they were ready to reject a manuscript. And once three raised their hands, the reading stopped and she asked the slush readers to explain why they had rejected the manuscript (or why not). I decided to submit a piece to the event and attended the panel.

It was interesting to see what the slush readers liked and didn’t like. To be honest, I couldn’t always tell the difference between the things they gushingly extolled and the things they rejected out of hand. A common factor was starting the story at the wrong place: they sometimes thought a story had too much set up, but frequently were willing to tolerate (what seemed to me) like. a vast amount of set up if they liked something or were intrigued by something.

Obviously, it was about striking a balance. Some had too much worldbuilding. Some had not enough worldbuilding. Sometimes reviewers agreed and sometimes they disagreed.

Their responses were also calibrated to what kind of submission it was: short stories needed an immediate hook while they were willing to let a novel start more slowly, acknowledging there was time to let the action develop,

My piece didn’t fare very well. It wasn’t the worst (which was someone who used a mirror trope that got universally rejected within the first two sentences.) But mine was rejected before half way through.

The first reader rejected it almost before the narrator started reading. They said it was “not the type of story they vibe with.” Two or three more raised their hands at more-or-less the same moment about halfway through. Most of their comments didn’t really tell me anything I don’t already know about my writing.

The goal of my opening was to present what I thought might appear as a conventional (perhaps even cliched) scenario and then take it a different direction with a twist. But all of the slush readers simply rejected it as appearing too conventional. They never got to the twist because they didn’t give it a chance. That’s really useful for me to know about slush readers. I’ve been a slush reader before (though not very much) and one of my goals was to try to actually get through a story, unless it was really intolerably bad. But that was my privilege, since I don’t have to do it very often.

Another comment they made was that the language was too ordinary or matter-of-fact. This is an intentional stylistic choice I make. I hate flowery, literary writing. It gets in the way of me being able to enjoy a story. So I strive for relatively simple, prosaic prose. But I can see that, at least these, slush readers would prefer something that sounds less ordinary.

Finally, one or two slush readers pointed out that they want to know more about the protagonist’s feelings — to have more interiority. Again, this is a stylistic choice I make (which I’ve described elsewhere). Since we can’t get inside other people’s heads and only ever hear our own thoughts, Unless I’m writing in first person, I much prefer to write about things are observable: people’s words and actions. But it’s obviously out of step with what these slush readers were expecting. Or, rather, what they were looking for. They probably expect most manuscripts to be terrible, which is why they don’t bother to read more than a few sentences before rejecting them.

This isn’t really a surprise to me. I know that the stuff I write isn’t what a lot of editors are looking for. But I like it. And I was disappointed that people didn’t even get to the twist to see where the story was going. It’s given me some useful perspective to figure out what to consider going forward. But it leaves me with a question.

How much should I try to change my writing to satisfy others? If they’d read the whole story, I expect they’d have a bunch of other complaints about my writing. I don’t like a traditional three-act story structure either. I’m not big on the whole “dark night of the soul” thing. I like more episodic fiction with different kinds of pacing and stakes.

I really appreciated John Wiswell’s comments in his Nebula acceptance speech. He described being rejected again and again and again until he gave up. Then he really doubled down, quit trying to satisfy editors or agents, and wrote something as “weird and neurodivergent” as himself. Thanks, John.

For a couple of years, I’ve been, off and on, working on a new book: The Ground Never Lies. It’s about a geomancer with an anger problem who has come to believe she is unloveable, but discovers a capacity for love she didn’t know she had.

As I wrote the story, I realized that I couldn’t tell the story with a single time line. I wrote the “present day” timeline first, and then went back and started writing an earlier timeline that explains how she has come to the conclusion that she is unloveable — and explains how she developed her other abilities and skills.

Now that these are both (mostly) written, I need to somehow marry them together. As a first step, I’ve begun to carefully separate the two narratives into individual scenes. As I’ve done this, I’ve had a surprising realization: I suck at writing “scenes.” I have a tendency to just write the story. Maybe if I had ever had any instruction in writing, someone might have explained that stories can have “structure” and you can use it “intentionally.” Oh, well. Live and learn.

Now that I’m doing it, it’s giving me new insight into how to organize each scene and give each a dramatic arc that leads naturally from one to the next. Fascinating! What an idea!

Better late than never, I guess.

During the winter, I do all of my writing in my chilly, basement office. It’s a nice place to work. It’s brightly lit. I have a laptop and a portrait display. I have posters of my book covers surrounding me. It’s a great place to write! But all winter I can’t wait for spring to arrive, so I can emerge from my cave, set up my tent, and write out in my yard.

One of the first things we bought after we moved into our house was a picnic table. We put it in our front yard so it was convenient to the kitchen (there was no door into the backyard when we bought the house). And we also liked hanging out near the street so we could chat with neighbors as they walked by. Or use the table to meet with guests when they arrived.

It took on new importance during the pandemic when we could no longer invite people into our home. The table became the de facto place where I would meet with friends and colleagues to have a beer and talk. And, while for many people the pandemic is “over,” my chronic health issues mean that I still can’t meet with friends indoors or at restaurants or cafes (except outside).

Pretty soon after getting the table, however, we discovered a shortcoming: mosquitos. During the daytime, mosquitos were not too bad but, once the sun started to go down, the mosquitos made the table almost unusable. And, of course, even a light rainstorm was enough to chase us inside and leave the table too wet to sit on for hours.

One other hazard was our delightful sakura tree. Not the tree, itself, of course, but the flock of cedar waxwings that comes to gorge on its tiny, bitter cherries every year. After the birds “process” the cherries, they leave droppings everywhere and the table would be covered with them.

Our solution was to buy a tent for the yard that we could erect over the table. We tried several models that didn’t last very long but, eventually found a frame that was sturdy enough that we’ve had it for years. We have to replace the canopy and mosquito net every two or three years due to UV damage.

Last year, after a quarter century, the picnic table finally gave up the ghost. My wife and I discussed what to replace it with and I said I wanted to get a patio sectional sofa. She was skeptical. She said that we would need to get a patio to put it on! And I said, “Let’s do it!” So we hired our local handyman to do the work. He dug out a hole, packed sand at the bottom, and laid the patio blocks inside. Then I purchased the sectional sofa to sit on top. Boy, is it a wonderful place to work — when the weather’s nice.

I purchased the red izakaya lantern years ago. My innovation this winter was to buy a string of 75% off holiday lights after Christmas to clip around the frame. They really light up the tent and gives it a very festive atmosphere inside. My sister-in-law who saw the pictures said it looks like “glamping.”

Does it improve my productivity? Probably not. But it makes writing a whole lot more fun. And it’s an even better place to meet with small groups of friends and colleagues for a beer.

Writing takes both patience and persistence. Unfortunately, I’m rather lacking in both.

I want to be patient, but I am constantly chafing at the bit. But so much of writing is a waiting game. No matter how much you want to move quickly, there are limits all along the way, in writing, revising, and publishing.

I can only write so much at a time. I’ve known for a long time that my creative output is uneven. Some days, I can only write a few hundred words. Frequently, I find I need to find my way through a story by taking a break to turn things over in my mind before I can write productively again. But it’s hard to wait.

Revising requires leaving some time after writing before coming to look at the text again. If I try to revise something too soon, I can’t see the problems: I remember too clearly what I was trying to say and so I can’t see what I’m actually saying. But it’s hard to wait.

Publishing requires the most patience of all. Submitting work and waiting for a reply. Submitting work over and over again through rejections. And, when something is finally accepted, waiting while the work is edited, edited again, proofed, and then scheduled for release. It’s so hard to wait.

Through all the ups and downs you just have to keep going. The writing life is filled with disappointment. You constantly have to put yourself out there and, more often than not, there’s simply no reaction. Or you get get rejected. You submit manuscripts and they’re rejected. You offer a reading and nobody comes. You apply to appear at a convention and aren’t scheduled. You apply for a writing retreat and are passed over. The worst is when you just don’t hear anything. Sigh…

That said, now and then, all of the work really pays off. Recently, I took a few minutes to look at my very first book of haiku, Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo. Published in 2010, it’s fifteen years old now and it still holds up pretty well. All of the work it took to produce it has paid off for me in terms of having something that stands the test of time. I’m similarly proud of all of my books. If anything, they’ve just gotten better. Now if other people would just notice…

No matter. I can wait. I’ll just keep to my path writing and publishing books when I can.

One of the writing prompts on Mastodon got me thinking about goals for the new year. Mostly, I’m just going to keep having fun. I also want to work on promoting my work and trying harder to get my work out there. And I’ve got a bunch of current writing projects to work on. Finally, I’m going to keep working to give back to my writing communities.

My primary goal with my writing has always been to have fun. That’s why I’m doing this at all! Early on as I began trying to become a published author, I wrote a post about how to measure success as a writer. Writing — and all of its associated activities — is satisfying to me. And if it became less fun, I’d probably look for something else to do.

I want to work on improving my efforts toward publicity. You can write all you want, but if you don’t publicize your work, it doesn’t get read. I’ve been disgusted that getting people to sign up for a mailing is seemingly still the best way to build an audience. If you look at the upper right-hand corner of the window, you can sign up for my mailing list.

I also want to do a better job of keeping my manuscripts working for me. And that means re-submitting them when they get rejected. It’s tedious to keep sending them out, but that’s the only way you get stuff published. It’s one of my least favorite things to do as a writer.

Of course, I have a number of current works-in-progress that I’m going to keep working on. I’m getting close to a first draft of The Ground Never Lies. This is a sapphic romantasy about a geomancer with an anger problem. I also want to finish the third novella of the sequel to Revin’s Heart: the first two, Devishire! and Campshire! are done, but I think a third will round out a book. And I have another half-dozen things to work on: a sequel to A Familiar Problem, a book about Curtains (a character in the Revin’s Heart universe), and a handful of other on-going projects. It’s not impossible that I might write some more Better Angels adventures.

I will continue to try to support and give back to my writing communities. I’ve become Secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). I continue on the program committee of the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild and run the writing group Straw Dog Writes on Wednesdays. I support (and participate in) the Wandering Shop Stories groups on Mastodon and Bluesky.

In spite of all that’s going well for my writing life, I can’t say it’s going to be a good year. In fact, I’m sure with the coming change in the Federal administration, a lot of the coming year is going to be horrible to watch. But I’ll keep doing what I can to push back.

My year in writing has been a year of transition. During the spring, I negotiated with my employer to begin a phased retirement. I was distracted during much that time trying to figure out all of the ins-and-outs of this huge life change. There’s a lot to learn and a huge number of details. Luckily, my life partner is good at this sort of thing — much better than me — and she did the lion’s share of the work. I’m so lucky to have her. But starting this fall, I began teaching half-time, which has freed up a lot of time for writing.

I attended several events related to my writing. I was both a participant at Arisia in January moderating a panel on gender and sexual identity in media and serving on several other panels. I was a participant at Boskone during February where I served on panels about evolution and romance. I ran the Small Publishing in a Big Universe (SPBU) Marketplace table at the Watch City Steampunk Festival. I also ran Water Dragon and SPBU tables at Readercon in July.

I offered several readings as well, at Arisia, Boskone, and for Straw Dog. I mostly did readings from Better Angels: Tour de Force with selections from Military Morale Mishegoss and all of The Super Sticky Situation.

To support sales of the signed edition, I made a Better Angels ‘zine similar to the Revin’s Heart ‘zine with snapshots and descriptions of each of the Angels with their vital statistics and “three measurements.” I was really pleased with how it turned out — especially the pictures of the individual Angels. They’re really kyuto!

I continued to offer Straw Dog Writes for the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild. Roughly forty people have signed up or attended at some point, The average attendance was four with a range of 1 to 9. Attendance was lower during the summer but a few loyal attendees came nearly every week.

I set up and ran Wandering Shop Stories beginning in 2024. I have written a story fragment almost every day as a warm up exercise. We have four or five other participants nearly every day. In December the server we had used to operate the bot was scheduled to shut down, so I migrated to wandering.shop. Nearly 100 people have signed up for the feed. And in late November, I created a bot to offer the prompt on Bluesky as well.

I had two works published in 2024. The collected edition of Revin’s Heart came out from Water Dragon Publishing with the original seven novelettes plus three “side quests” — short stories from the perspective of other characters. I also had a short story, Always a Destroyer, selected for the anthology Romancing the Rainbow by Knight Writing Press.

I have signed the contract with Water Dragon Publishing for A Familiar Problem. A young man desperately wants a strong magical familiar but, instead, is captured and made the familiar of a powerful demon that intends to train him up for something. But what? The book is tentatively scheduled to be released in January 2025.

I did a lot of writing. I finished writing a new series of six novelettes: Lady Cecelia’s Journey with a seventh omake novelette for the extended edition (totaling 74,000 words). I’m calling it a sapphic romantasy road story:

Love blossoms between two young women, aristocrat and commoner, who risk everything to pursue a life together in face of parental and societal disapproval. Their hope takes them from their small town, across the island, to the Capital following the passionate dream that they can be together openly.

I also have written tens of thousands of words of The Ground Never Lies another sapphic romantasy about a geomancer with an anger problem who thinks herself unlovable, but discovers a capacity for love she believes she had lost. I had developed an original outline and when I finished writing it, I realized I only had about half a novel. But then I realized that I could write another timeline of the events that led to her disillusionment and intersperse the two timelines. At least that’s the plan.

I have several other works in progress. I have two novellas written as sequels to Revin’s Heart with a third in in progress. I’ve written several other short stories set in the same universe as Always a Destroyer.

In the fall, when the candidate for Secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) dropped out, I proposed myself as a write-in candidate. In October, I was elected and took office on November 1. It’s been an interesting experience and a good fit for what I can offer to an organization. It’s been a steep learning curve to get up to speed with the current challenges and culture of the organization. But I’m very happy with the rest of the leadership team and feel appreciated for making a useful contribution.

Not everything went well in 2024, however. I was very disappointed when I was not offered a participant role at Worldcon in Glasgow. I had already purchased plane tickets and lodging. I ended up deciding not to go. I was able to recover some of what I had spent, and it turned out that many many people got COVID, so it was perhaps for the best.

I have some exciting plans for 2025 that I look forward to sharing soon.