Dwelling in Probabilities

January:

• Madame Askew’s Sip the Tea - January 18th. Featuring Catherine Lundoff. We had so much fun the last time, we back for another round!

February:

• ReadOUT Festival - February 14th-16th, online and in person from Gulfport, FL. Author Dee Holloway (Little Nothing) will be a featured author on panels and readings.
• Queer Writes Romance Book Fair - February 16th, 11-3PM. The Machine Shop, Minneapolis, MN. Local event for writers, publishers and bookstores hosted by Twin Cities Pride. We'll have a Queen of Swords Press table.

March:

• MarsCon - March 7-9, Minneapolis, MN. We’ll be there with a book table and Michael Merriam and I will be on programming.

April:

• 13 Gears Steampunk Festival - April 5-6th, Squirrel Haus Arts, Minneapolis, MN. Queen of Swords Press will have a table with authors Michael Merriam and Patrick Marsh.
• Herstory Book Fair - April 12th, 12-3PM, Midtown Global Market, Minneapolis. Catherine Lundoff will be signing and selling her books.
• Minicon - April 18-20. The Hotel Formerly Known as the Radishtree, Bloomington, MN. Michael will be tabling for Queen of Swords Press on Friday and Sunday and will be on programming, Catherine will be there on Saturday (unconfirmed).
  
• Speculations Reading at DreamHaven Books - April 23rd, 6:30-7:45PM. Catherine Lundoff reads from her work and signs books.

May:

• Twin Cities Book Hop Book Fair - May 3, 10-11:30 AM, Open Book, Minneapolis
• Mother's Day Market at Dancing Bear Chocolate - May 11th, 10-3PM. Minneapolis, MN. Mostly Jana Pullman's art boxes, but some Queen of Swords Press titles too.
• Rochester Pride - May 17th, 12-5PM. Rochester, MN. Queen of Swords Press will have a booth.
• WisCon - May 23-25th. Online. More info as we get it!
• Balticon 58 - May 23-26, Baltimore, MD. Melissa Scott is hoping to be there.

June:

• Pride Month StoryBundle - Kicks off end of May and runs through end of June, placeholder. Lots of books by amazing queer authors and we're raising funds for Rainbow Railroad again!
• 4th Street Fantasy - June 13-15th, Minneapolis, MN. Catherine Lundoff will be attending.
• Temporal Textual Talks Virtual Book Club - June 22nd, 4:30-6:30 PM PST. Terror at Tierra de Cobre by Michael Merriam is the featured title and Catherine and Michael will be there.
• Twin Cities Pride - June 28th-29th, Minneapolis, MN. Queen of Swords Press will back in the Queer Writes Tent, near Harmon Place this year.
  

July

• Inbound Brewing Book Fair for Grown Ups - July 12th, 12-7PM, Education Building, MN State Fair Grounds, St. Paul. There is an admission fee with this one, but it comes with a drink ticket. Queen of Swords Press will be there with books.
• Readercon - July 17th-20th, Burlington, MA. Catherine is planning on being there and on programming.

August:

• Seattle Worldcon - August 13th-17th, Seattle, WA. Some of us will be there online and some will be there in person. Catherine, Alex, Jennie and Heather will be there in person! 

September:

• Pagan Pride Fall Festival – September 7th. Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis. Placeholder.
• Columbia Heights Pride - placeholder
• St. Cloud Pride in the Park - September 20th,  11AM-4PM. Queen of Swords Press will have a book table!
• Flights of Foundry - September 26-28th, round the clock. We'll be participating.
  

October:

• Queer Writes Book Fair - placeholder.

• Fediverse BookFair - placeholder.
• Twin Cities Book Festival - 11/8, 9:30-5PM. Union Depot, St. Paul. Queen of Swords Press will have a table.
  
• Fables & Flames Romantasy Gala - 11/21-11/23. Minneapolis, MN. Queen of Swords Press will have a table.

December:

• We're Here: Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2023 edited by Darcie Little Badger and Charles Payseur
  
• Point of Dreams (Astreiant #3) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett
  
• The Map and the Territory by A.M. Tuomolo
• These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
• Be the Sea by Clara Ward
• Fallen by Melissa Scott
• A Necessary Chaos by Brent Lambert
• Luminescent Machinations edited by Rhiannon Rasmussen and dave ring
• Fairs' Point (Astreiant #4)
• So You Want to be a Robot by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
• Price of a Thousand Blessings by Ginn Hale
• Reforged by Seth Haddan
• Welcome to Boy.Net by Lyda Morehouse
• Power to Yield by Bogi Takács

• Had a new heat pump dryer and high efficiency washer installed (just yesterday!). Energy + water savings + reduced gas use
• Had new window treatments installed to help block drafts and increase natural light (also to make me feel less like Miss Havisham)
• Continued to work from home so less driving time.
• Got an induction hot plate and cookware set (Costco, for the win!) to reduce amount of cooking on gas stove.
• Upgraded my convection oven so I use the gas oven less.
• Had an home energy audit done and got a low flow shower head and some insulation on the basement pipes.
• Started container gardening
• Doubled down on the pollinator plants and reducing the grass. Continue to avoid pesticides and herbicides.
• Switched to buying more used/refurbished electronics
• Continued involvement with Buy Nothing Club
• Switched Queen of Swords Press to recycled/recyclable mailers from Eco Enclose and recycled paper shopping bags from Nashville Wraps.
• Switched QoSP newsletter to Buttondown, a platform that doesn’t use AI (so far) and reinvests part of the proceeds in environmental projects.
• Continued with Windsource, continue to avoid AI use wherever possible, recycling, composting, reusing, etc.
• Support local and international green projects.

Currently hanging out in a hospital waiting room while a friend gets a routine procedure and contemplating how I’m feeling about sf and f prodom and fandom as a whole. Been a couple of things bringing this on, one of which happened a couple of years ago. An author who I used to publish sent me a lengthy email rant and announced they didn’t want to work with me anymore. I was (still am) pissed about it, but provided a date for their rights to be reverted to them, told them to expect their quarterly royalties on schedule and followed up on that. I assumed that we were done but they decided to try and weaponize SFWA’s Griefcom against me and shenanigans ensued. What became very clear was that a. SFWA didn’t distinguish well between multinational corporations and smaller publishers and b. any publisher was the enemy. So there was bullying and threats and it was all a highly unpleasant experience that took some months to wrap. Interestingly enough, no one ever claimed that I was defrauding the author either in terms of rights or money, which would have been the most logical reason for SFWA to be involved at all. What I got from it was that SFWA did not represent my current interests (I will not be renewing this year) and that it was remarkably easy to weaponize its processes, something they were utterly unprepared for.

Fast forward to the now. There is a collective Bluesky meltdown going on about another small press, its financing, biz practices and such. I’m not immersed in the detail level enough to comment very directly, but the most recent precipitating incident appears to have been one of the publishers posting that cash flow wasn’t good and they might have trouble paying royalties this month. I will note that I do not at this time know of any of the press’s authors who are claiming that they haven’t been paid, which strikes me as an important thing here.

At any rate, there are a number of posts in response and a great many people associated with the large press corporate system have many opinions about how small presses *should* function, a considerable number of which revolve around “be a multi-billion dollar corporation!” Only smaller. So I posted a thread about what I’d been doing for the past 8.3 years, cash flow, expenses, juggling and so forth.  A number of other small press folks thanked me for my honesty and boosted it. A random literary agent popped up and with some virtual pearl-clutching, demanded to know if I had an entirely separate account for author royalties and if not, was I just paying authors on (horrified sniff!) “some sort of honor system.” This went over super well and I pointed that gosh, I did book keeping and provided royalty statements and everything and then suggested that since they were clearly looking for a fight, they should look elsewhere. And I blocked Agent Annie, as I will call her for my purposes here, and I went on with my life. The next day, a Tor author pops up on my feed and expresses her “great disappointment” in me based on our long professional association because Agent Annie is the Best of Us All, kindness and sweetness personified, never fights with anyone, etc., etc. Da fuck? First of all, I have never published this author, met them in person or been on a panel with them, or so I thought. I eventually recalled being a panelist on a virtual panel at a virtual con some 3 years ago that might have included them, but that’s it. We don’t even follow each other on Bluesky.

Viewed in a more benign way, she might have me confused with someone else. Or she might be someone who confuses liking a TikTok video with having an actual social connection. But I think and said in response that I didn’t know her and that this was clearly just part of the ongoing pile-on and suggested that she and Agent Annie could go look for blood in the water elsewhere. My sweet summer children, I was active on LJ when Requires Hate was most active. I know how pile-ons work. I also know that there are minor players looking to curry favor with whomever who go looking for auxiliary targets because that happens every time. So let’s just say that they succeed in driving this other small press under and perhaps they dent us too because I’m a “meanie” who doesn’t recognize that the Great and Popular and their hangers-on are so much smarter and better at this than I am, what next? It is very difficult to get a small press launched and keep it going, particularly under current circumstance, especially if they emphasize diverse authors and books for various values of “diversity.” And a press that is paying their artists and writers and so forth consistently is to be appreciated. Who’s going to replace that? Note that the same people never complain about established presses that owe their authors thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties, stolen rights, etc. At least not until someone Important does it first.

I will tell you another thing for free: those big corporations you love so much and are so convinced are the one true way to get published are going to start culling their lists soon. They will swing with the prevailing climate in the U.S. and that date is not that far away. What will you do then? Having seen this before, I’ll tell you: some of you will stop writing. Some of you will go indie or go to smaller presses. Some of you will make your characters a lot whiter and straighter. So what you’re doing right now is going to make things harder for you when things change. And they will. That Big Time Author you’re courting right now has their own issues and concerns and they are unlikely to concern themselves with yours based entirely on taking their side in an internet kerfuffle. I recommend sitting with that for a while, preferably offline.

As for fandom, that’s a murkier issue, but lordy, I am seeing a whole lot of “we have always done things this way” like lockdown didn’t happen and like the entire landscape hasn’t shifted. Sometimes, it’s inviting the same guests over and over again. Sometimes, it’s ignoring market conditions and insisting on lots of hoops for vendors or higher costs. On a not unrelated note, if you’ve got the resources, not including a virtual component is a Bad Idea (Wild West Con’s venue just shut them down on Day 2 for unspecified “health reasons,” for example). And so on. I admit to being very tired of getting passed over for guest lists, being an afterthought for Dealers Rooms and so forth and am more and more inclined to take my business elsewhere unless a con makes it worth my while and I’m hearing this from a lot of other folks too. Going to see a lot of cons give up the ghost soon, I expect, as con coms age out, finances become more untenable, etc. Tackling the “same old, same old” now makes it more unlikely that your event will survive, just saying.

• First: I’m being given an award that combines writing (body of work) and service to my lit community. I’m very excited about this! It’s an award that is juried primarily by a jury of readers and writers. They have to select you, you can’t apply for it. So I’m very honored too! I can’t announce officially yet because they’re contacting one of the other winners, but soon. :-D
• Second: I’ve been working with the University of Minnesota Libraries Upper Midwest Archives for the last year and a half to set up a Queen of Swords Press archive and the finding guide has just gone live!
• And a third, just for funsies: the Backerkit for a new year of New Edge Swords & Sorcery Magazine has funded! You can still pledge to get the authors, like me, and artists get a pay raise for a few more days! 

Hope to see some of you at MarsCon Minneapolis this weekend!

What else am I doing? Reviewing 26 arts grant proposals for a local organization for a small stipend. So far, so good. Currently completing my favs and then going through my other yeses, maybes and nos. Some amazing BIPOC and queer art projects in the hopper! I’m also working on a new pirate/spy in the 17th century Caribbean story and making good progress. 

Other than that, I made an appointment for a free energy audit to look for more ways to make the house a tad less drafty. We had one about 20 years ago, so it’s time. I sold some more of Jana’s tools and supplies to a local artist. I’m looking at upgrading my convection oven to a new model that will further reduce my reliance on the gas stove. Next up, looking at a single induction burner for same. I’d love to replace the stove but all the repiping and changes were super spendy when last I checked it out, not to mention the cost of the stove so baby steps. I’m also reorganizing my finances to make it easier to access funds and to organize my estate planning. And adding events for this year! Stay tuned on that. I’m also trying to do 1 or 2 things every day to support queer folks, women who didn’t vote for this hellscape, BIPOC and immigrants folks in the same bucket. Everything is very budget-dependent so a healthy chunk is things like spending my money at better places, renewing memberships and upping monthly pledges a bit, but doing what I can at the moment. More to come!