Speaker 1 00:00:21 You are listening to right on radio on KFH 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Annie Harvey. Tonight, we are dedicating the entire hour to one of our local publishers queen of swords press, and three of its authors who are with us tonight in studio. One of those authors is the publisher of queen of swords. Catherine Londoff will not only discuss her writing, but also talk shop about the publishing business and her experience with queen of swords. Catherine is joined by novelist, Jennifer gold boy and short story writer, Michael Merriam. We will learn more about them and their work in a moment, all of this and stay more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 3 00:01:28 Welcome back to right on radio. I am Dave Fettig. I will be joined with by savvy Molesky. Hi savvy. Hello. We're very excited. We have a special show tonight, as you just heard one hour with queen of swords press and their writers, some of the writers. So we're going to start at the top with Jennifer Gola boy, and then we're going to talk to Michael and then Catherine, and a lot of other things in between. So Jennifer, Hey. Hey, welcome.
Speaker 2 00:01:53 I'm awfully glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 00:01:56 It's exciting. Obviously aliens is the novel. So before we talk about that, tell us a little bit about you and your background as a writer and how you came to Saifai please.
Speaker 2 00:02:07 So I have kind of a, an unusual background. Um, I've been trying to write Saifai for a very long time. Got serious about 10 years ago. Um, I also work as a literary agent. Um, I represent science fiction and fantasy and have some really fantastic authors.
Speaker 3 00:02:27 So pay attention listeners. We have an agent in the house. Woo. Okay. Obviously aliens, clearly a scifi novel by the title it gave, it gives itself away. Um, I want to begin at the beginning here. What's a question for you. Um, something happens with a soda can, um, which is kind of out there, but that Saifai, uh, tell us about that because that kicks the story off and, um, give us, maybe give us a sense of the story. So, uh, people have a sense for what this story's about, but I want you to focus on this soda can at the beginning. Sure.
Speaker 2 00:02:59 So, um, we start the book with a woman named Dana, Alison, and all she wants to do is, uh, she's a commercial artist. She's come up with a design for the dosages of the month club. She's trying to sell to a major manufacturer. Um, she's waiting at the airport, she's getting ready to give her pitch. She's all psyched up. She's she's planning what it's going to be like when she goes to the meeting the next day and knocks him dead. And she drinks from the, the wrong soda bottle. And, uh, she accidentally becomes the host of a dead person.
Speaker 3 00:03:35 Yeah. So yeah, she swallows those yeah. A dead person. Anyway. Uh, how'd you come up with that idea? Let's start with that. Um,
Speaker 2 00:03:45 You know, I, I'd never questioned whereby ideas come from, I just kind of run with them. Um, I,
Speaker 2 00:03:52 Uh, I think, um, one of the things I wanted to write a road trip novel, and I wanted to write sort of an opposites attract a road trip novel where two people who had no reason to be in the car together were forced to, uh, travel together and work together and find common cause. And, um, so what happens, uh, Dana accidentally becomes, uh, the host of Jay who's Adam's boyfriend and there's, uh, all she wants to do is sell these, these figurines, get back to where she was supposed to be in life. Uh, so she had Adam have to work together and it gets really complicated, really fast.
Speaker 3 00:04:34 Yes, it does in a good way. Um, I want to talk a little bit more about Dana. She's a very appealing character. Where did I ask you these? Where did they come from stories, but, uh, um, uh, and, and, and I'd brought her question wrapped into that is, this is really for me a story about relationships with Saifai, uh, and I mean that as a high, very high compliment. Um, so yeah. Tell us about where these characters came from, these amazing young people,
Speaker 2 00:05:03 You know, um, she, uh, I try to think about, so one of the things I've been told as a writer is there are certain things that you naturally naturally come more easily to you, and you can just kind of run with them. My characters always just sort of show up and it's about planing off the edges that don't quite make sense and refining things rather than consciously. I, you know, I have friends who do all kinds of methods to sort of, uh, summon forth their characters. Uh, I, I've known people to do things like, oh, what's their, uh, what's their sign. Uh, what's their, uh, um, almost like a D and D character miners just show up and they want things. And, uh, so I, uh, as if you could say, where did Dana come from? Um, it was always a matter of just having this really the person who just wants her life to go back to normal again and, and try to find her a goal that was sort of relatable, maybe a little ridiculous, uh, because she's really, really, really serious about these little dog figurines that she wants to sell. Um, but, but relatable and never odd. And, uh, so that's where she came from. Really? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:06:33 Yeah. It, it, it's a peculiar world you've created in the sense that at least as I read it where people just sort of take the presence of aliens and strange means of transportation. And, uh, uh, just as a matter of course, uh, they don't seem too startled by it. Uh, I mean, two things has happened. A lot of things happen, aliens come down on land in Iowa and well, you know, I guess it makes good use of bylaws. I mean,
Speaker 2 00:07:04 Um,
Speaker 3 00:07:06 Is this intentional, I mean, there's this sort of tone of it's light, it's fun, but still serious.
Speaker 2 00:07:12 I, uh, so I would say that the thing that, that really motivates it is what I really like doing is taking a situation that normally would be a tragedy or a disaster movie. And can you make a comedy out of this thing? Can you, um, oh, no. Aliens are headed towards earth. I mean, how many scary movies have there been about aliens headed towards her, what a failure and showed up. And it was basically okay. Right. Um, and I think, uh, I think the fun thing, the fun thing about writing comedy is that you can sort of take it as the, the insistence. This is not going to be a tragic story that this is going to be, um, that, you know, things might happen and we're just going to deal with it and it's going to be okay. And I, you know, I started writing this, um, I started seriously writing this in 2017 and I, uh, it was a rough year and I, and I liked the idea of writing a story where everything was going to basically be okay.
Speaker 3 00:08:21 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, I thank you for that. It was really experience, um, I've lost my train of thought now, so I'm going to go to no, no, no. That's a quote from one page on page 1 22, which you won't, you don't have your book memorized. I'm sure. But it's a Jonathan Franzen reference and I have to ask you what the heck's going on there, Jennifer. All right.
Speaker 2 00:08:43 I'm sorry. I just have to make that
Speaker 3 00:08:47 I want to read it to the, for the folks here. So she just, this is Dana referring to here. I believe she'd Dana just gotten to the worst sex scene. She'd ever read that wasn't by Jonathan Franzen. When the door opened now I've read Jonathan Franzen. Freedom, I believe is the name of the book, the one with the bird on the cover. It was quite good. I was impressed. So tell us what's going on here. I got to go back and open that book again, but what's up, what's drawn is ransom.
Speaker 2 00:09:13 I was shocked. Catherine, let me keep that joke in there. There, there are certain shows. Um, I really hated the corrections and, uh, I had part of it was, it's so huge, you know, you you've kept this thing and it's like, I'm going to consume some literature. And then you're, you're, you're, it's just the libretto Turpin of literature you're in and you're never getting out again. And, um, I, uh, you know, he could take it. I am convinced that if I, if I, if he ever read this, he, he, he,
Speaker 3 00:09:47 He left out. Yeah, he laughed. That was nice. I appreciate that. That's a word up to the listeners that there's a lot of fun writing in this book and you'll enjoy it. Um, so I am not a science fiction Maven, and I enjoyed this and I'm trying to explore the genre even more, but I understand it to be the case that often science fiction writers use their worlds as a proxy for the real world. If you will, to tell us, make us think about something going on in our own lives. So, uh, uh, is that true of this book? And if so, what were you after?
Speaker 2 00:10:18 Oh, that's a good question. Thank you. Um, you know, part of it, um, I, I can say this on KFA. I, I was, uh, I was very unhappy with the Trump presidency
Speaker 2 00:10:33 And, uh, one of the reasons I was very unhappy with the Trump presidency is, uh, the treatment of immigration. And I thought, you know, there's, there is something troubling about the idea that every time we have an alien invasion, so story they're scary aliens. They're, they're not, you know, just people like us trying to figure out how we're, how they're going to live other lives. So there was this political edge to it, honestly, but, uh, I, I, I also wanted to, to rise and fall as a story between people who maybe didn't have a lot of in common having to work together, having to, uh, um, having to find a way to understand each other.
Speaker 3 00:11:25 Well, you did that beautifully because the danger of trying to do something like that, of course it can work, can become very didactic, right. Uh, and not so much fun then. But, uh, you pulled that off. Uh, did you start with that idea or did it come to you?
Speaker 2 00:11:41 It, I am one of those writers and you'll have to ask the other two, if they're the same way, who always has to sort of back in slowly into the thesis. Um, and, uh, it always starts with the people, um, putting them in a situation that's tricky for them getting them in, in and out of trouble. And then you stand back and you think, oh, that's what was really going on here the whole time.
Speaker 3 00:12:06 Great. We're going to segue soon to Michael, uh, believe it or not time flies on these shows. Um, we have our own science fiction world in here. And anyway, I got nice try Dave. So here, here, I have a question for all three of you. We'll treat it as a panel question. Okay. And I'm going to ask for help from savvy to make this question make sense, which is science fiction writers create a world right from whole cloth, and that's gotta be difficult. Do you want to help me out here savvy?
Speaker 5 00:12:36 Um, I'm really interested in, uh, how you put the world together. Where are you get inspired to, um, create things that don't necessarily exist in our world? Uh, how you find consistency in the things that you put in your world, and basically how it just kind of all comes together when it, none of it really exists in real life.
Speaker 3 00:13:00 Yeah. I love that question. So we're going to go in order, Jennifer, and then Michael, and then Katherine, same question. Go ahead, Jennifer.
Speaker 2 00:13:07 Well, I will say that one of the fun things about this book is researching stories about aliens and there were some, uh, there's, uh, there is a secret, uh, government committee that meets under Denver airport. And there was a reason for that. There is that there are stories over the years of something really weird going on at Denver airport. I am only sad. There are certain things I couldn't get in there. Like there's a terrifying horse outside Denver airport, it's bright blue. It has glowing red eyes. And, and, um, if there had only been some way I could get that into the book, it just didn't work. It was sad. Um, I did try to get some real world things and just make them funny. Uh, we go to, uh, Mia, the art Institute, uh, and there's, uh, um, I ruined a statue there, which as far as I know is still there. It's still just fine. Um, it was, but it always looked kind of unstable to me. So yeah, I, uh, for me, in this particular book, it was more about taking the real world and heightening it a bit and, um, maybe, uh, blowing up some stories that I'd heard and playing with them.
Speaker 3 00:14:31 Nice.
Speaker 6 00:14:32 So, so I, I fully admit that a lot of times I cheat, I read a lot of what's called urban fantasy. And so I use a real world setting and I just kind of do adjacent stuff to it. You know, I just add a fantastical element. Um, so I, I do that mostly, you know, with urban fantasy. Uh, I write a lot of steam punk where again, I'm using kind of a more or less real world setting, but I'm adding a fantastical technology element, maybe fantastical creatures, um, with what we're going to talk about later and read from today that that was a little more whole cloth, cause that was a little more space opera, a little more science fiction. So I really had to decide what I wanted that universe to look like and what I wanted the people in it to look like. And, uh,
Speaker 3 00:15:17 And
Speaker 6 00:15:17 So it was just a fair amount of just thinking, just sitting around and thinking and going, Hmm. So if then, then this, and, and if I did this, then this
Speaker 3 00:15:27 Right, right, great Catherine.
Speaker 7 00:15:30 Well, I write in a bunch of different genres and so there's a lot of crossover into things. So some of my work is much further out from reality than others. Um, in the case of the menopausal werewolf books, which is silver moon and blood moon, and eventually blue moon, which I'm working on now should be the third one. Um, I started with the jumping off point, um, on one of those medical sites that was talking about the symptoms of menopause. And I wanted to write about older women as protagonists, but then science fiction, fantasy and horror. And because there were not a ton at the time when I went to the original, um, edition of silver moon came out in 2012 and I reissued it with queen of swords. So it came out in 2017 and this is blood moon is out now as of last year. And I wanted to kind of play with that idea. So I was looking at this medical site and it was, you know, symptoms, you know, unexplained, hair growth, swaying, longer teeth, your gums recede, you know, and I was like, you know what? That sounds like.
Speaker 7 00:16:37 And we went from there. So it's, it's, it's still very much set in, you know, it's set in a small town in the west, think, you know, New Mexico, Colorado border a few years ago. Um, it's dealing with people who have, you know, real-world problems. Um, one of the, one of the werewolves is a recovering alcoholic, for example. So they're dealing with a lot of, you know, real world issues. They're just werewolves. So, so they, you know, th th there's the things that they're dealing with on a supernatural plane, as well as the things that they're dealing in, their dealing with in their mundane lives. So,
Speaker 2 00:17:10 Absolutely
Speaker 3 00:17:11 Jenny, I was so excited to get this conversation going. I forgot to ask you to do your reading for us to have
Speaker 7 00:17:17 Something
Speaker 2 00:17:18 I
Speaker 3 00:17:18 Do, please, please.
Speaker 2 00:17:20 All right. Well, this is, uh, pretty far into the book. This is Dana at the desert home. She, and one of her siblings, uh, who's named, uh, Sierra, um, are staying at, at the moment. Uh, they have inherited from their father. Um, the other character we're going to see is a Sadie. Who's a spy who happens to look exactly like a Cordy.
Speaker 3 00:17:46 Awesome.
Speaker 2 00:17:47 Dana woke up at six the next morning to barking outside her window, vigorous barking, not a coyote or a Wolf, the sort of noise that would come from a small dog, say a corgi sized dog, Sandy. She whispered out the window. Yes. Sadie said, I need to speak with you. It's urgent. Move said data and rolled over, pulling the stale saggy pillow over her head. Could she sleep through Sadie's barking? She wasn't sure, but she was tired enough to try. Dana said, Sadie, Dana. She waited a moment and then started to bark again. She was amazingly loud for such a small animal. Dana heard the front door open, and then Sierra's voice. Look at you. Hello you sweet girl. Are you lost? There was a tiny bark as Sadie obviously got caught. I've got, you said Sierra. Let's take you inside. How about some water?
Speaker 2 00:18:46 Hey, good girl. And I might even have a nice Cana dog food for you. Dana considered staying in bed and letting Sierra deal with spy dog. If CD arrived alone, the OD, she was planning to arrest Anna. We're pretty small. So there must be something else Sadie wanted. As far as Dana was concerned, Sadie had blown her off when she needed help. And she was perfectly all right. About returning the favor, but then again, what would Sadie do to Sierra grumbling and yanking down her brother, ACEs, ZZ top t-shirt over her sister. Mina's university of Arizona, sweat pants, Dana trudged, angrily to the kitchen. Sadie was slurping water out of the dish, but raised her lip. When Sierra offered her a can of Valpo. I don't recognize this dog said Sierra. And she's obviously someone's pet her for looks really soft and fluffy Sadie preened.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 Do you think one of our family left her behind continued Sierra? No said Dana. I'm pretty sure she's my neighbor's dog back in Albuquerque. So how'd you get out here, Sierra bent down and scratch Sadie behind the ears. Despite herself, Sadie looked pleased. I wish you could tell us. Yes. That would be interesting thought, Dana, but then Dana realized she could hear something sort of high-pitch whistling noise, Sadie, whimpered, and ducked under the kitchen table. Dana followed her. And so did Sierra. What is that said, Dana? I don't know, said Sierra, but I've heard that dogs can detect all kinds of suddenly there was a gigantic crash outside barking excitedly, Sadie ran towards the front door. She scratched the door with her paws, leaving marks on the wood. Dana opened the door and Sadie bolted out, followed by Dana and Sierra stopping only to pull on the sneaker.
Speaker 2 00:20:27 She left by the front door. Dana chased seedy across the sand sand Sierra pounding behind the three followed along burdened streak across the desert. Sadie stopped suddenly and Dana did the same catching her breath. As she realized, they'd come to a halt near the edge of a charred looking crater, half buried at the bottom of the crater was small silver egg-shaped craft. It looked like an escape pod from a spaceship data thought as Sierra caught up to her and Sadie, this isn't safe said, Dana, maybe we should get back to the house. The dogs not afraid said Sierra animals are very wise about this kind of thing. What to dogs knew about alien spaceships asked Dana. And I think I'll stop there.
Speaker 3 00:21:10 Thank you, Jenny. That was Jenny Gola, boy reading from obviously aliens, a book out from queen of swords, press our very own queen of sorts press. And the corgi is on the cover. Ladies and gentlemen, you want the book for the really
Speaker 2 00:21:22 Cover a spine?
Speaker 3 00:21:24 Yes. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. It's all. It's all wonderful. Okay. We're going to turn now to Michael Miriam, uh, Michael, uh, to begin, just give us a little bit about your writing history and um, and then we're going to start talking about your short story to NARI.
Speaker 6 00:21:39 Sure. Um, I I've been doing this off and on for an awfully, awfully long time. I realized recently, um, I actually came up originally through like lit poetry and lit FIC back in the eighties and then I stopped writing and then I came back into science fiction about 20 years ago or so. Um, that's what I read primarily. So that ended up being, you know, what I was gonna write primarily. So awesome. That's basically how I got,
Speaker 3 00:22:06 We're going to get to your reading on this, but since we just had a reading, we'll buffer it with a little bit of conversation first and, uh, I'm going to turn it over to savvy for a question.
Speaker 5 00:22:14 Um, you mentioned reading mainly Spotify. So since this is one of you sounds like you don't write a whole lot of Saifai, um, from what you said earlier, that this was kind of like a newer product, newer idea for you. Uh, do you have any specific class Saifai classics that really inspired you to give it a shot of your own or what, um, what inspired you to take on scifi,
Speaker 6 00:22:36 You know, for the, uh, for the, the space opera science fiction stuff, as opposed to the urban fantasy and whatnot? Um, I, I got into it because I, I always liked the more fantastical science fiction that the, really what we call space opera. I like star wars space, opera, or science fantasy, uh, as, as it were. Um, and so that I've always kind of enjoyed. Um, I'm trying to, you know, you, you asked me for specific authors and I'm like, I don't know. I read books with, There was words in them, words are hard and, and there were books. Um, I mean, I, I grew up, I'm old enough that I grew up with all the golden age science fiction. So, so you're, as I'm off your hind lends your Clarks, your, uh, and, and then later on the, the new wave, uh, guys, your last knees and, um, uh, what's his name? The little short. Got it. I mean, Harlan Ellison, Um, purlins dad. He can't punch me now.
Speaker 5 00:23:43 Johnson.
Speaker 3 00:23:44 He's not dead. Which just going to say,
Speaker 6 00:23:47 For instance, still alive.
Speaker 3 00:23:52 So you mentioned space opera. Tell us about because it has that feel and not only about this story, but it feels like it's a part of something bigger, maybe.
Speaker 6 00:24:00 Yeah, it is there, there was, there was a moment when I was writing for whatever reason, uh, a lot of space opera. And so I was kind of building this, this space opera universe, which I have not gone back to now in quite a while. Um, unfortunately I've been thinking about it, Catherine and I have talked a little bit about it. Um, and I'm still kinda like back burnering it. I've got some other projects ahead of it. Um, this story really started with the opening line. Um, and, and I don't even remember how I ended up with the opening line, but, but I, I had set out to write a space, opera, pilot story, like purposely that's what I was going to do. And I was like, okay, but what's, what's my angle. What's my angle. What's my angle. And then I just got that opening line that, you know, we'll, we'll read and we'll get, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's my angle. And so it was, it was more about, these are not your super bloodthirsty pirates. They're not a bad bunch of people. They're just kind of caught by circumstance. And so that's why they do what they do.
Speaker 3 00:24:56 It's a great first line, Michael, it tells us a lot about the story and the character, especially. Yeah, it's really nice. Boy, we've talked about savvy. You have another question? Uh,
Speaker 5 00:25:05 Not lined up at the moment. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:25:07 Well,
Speaker 5 00:25:08 I bought a bumper more before the reading. It seems like a, it would be a good time to jump into the reading, mentioning the opening line and everything.
Speaker 3 00:25:15 A great segue for our reading, Michael. Sure.
Speaker 6 00:25:18 I can get the light here. So I walked out of my house and forgot my reading glasses. And as y'all might not have guessed, I'm actually, uh, legally blind. So, oh, there's going to be extra light though.
Speaker 3 00:25:29 Well, the light switches, so we'll keep talking while this happens.
Speaker 6 00:25:35 I'm just looking for a light.
Speaker 3 00:25:36 There we are. We're getting semester later week. Oh
Speaker 6 00:25:38 Wow. Thank you so very much. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:25:41 The thing that surprised cath captain Kathleen read the most about commanding a pirate ship was the amount of paperwork involved. She said her data pad on the gray metal desk and closed her eyes. Pain was starting to sit in behind him, between her eyes, the kind of pain that only the master of a marauding space specialists knew too much paperwork, not enough plunder. That was the problem. If only she'd stayed sober, she would have never gotten into this mess. The ship's Intercom buzzed on her desk. She barely recognized the voice over the static. She thought it might be her executive officer. And he might've said captain to the bridge, which was reason enough for her to leave the ships accounts. Unfinished captain reads stiff from her ready room to the bridge of her ship. The black manta, she looked at her executive offer officer Roger Baldry.
Speaker 6 00:26:32 He was well into his seventies. Most thought him too old for this life. And he did have grandchildren back on Pegasus, but she knew Roger Baudrey could outfight out-think and out drink any two her crew. What have we got? She asked civilian bulk or Baldry said an old Savarice probably a second series, model three. She raised an eyebrow all the way out here and alone. A throat cleared captain returned to her chief of gunnery and ex-wife yes, Janet. It's a trap captain. That's a male Palm mini cruiser disguises a freighter. There's no other explanation. Read not it. Jen. It's a Brisky thought everything was a trap up to and including the food served in the mess. The annoying thing was sometimes Janet was right orders. Captain Baldry asked, we looked out her window with the freighter fire, laser burst and transmit in order to cut their engines and prepare to be boarded.
Speaker 6 00:27:25 Tell them if they could walk rate, no one gets hurt. Imam. Janet said we'd felt the low hum of her ships can empower, ring up the lights on the bridge down. And the ship gave a slight shutter as the weapon discharged the engines on the big Frieder glowed white blue and the ship turned starboard in down there running Baldry said. So it seems read side match their speed and course stay with them. Home Imam. Her helmsmen said they won't get away. Captain Reed was not worried about her quarry escaping old her ship might be, but there was no way afraid or we be able to best the black man, his speed and maneuverability exhale. Get the boarding party together and down at the airlock. I'll join you. After we dock in Roger, tell everyone we're going to be extra careful over there. They might be smugglers this far from the normal shipping lanes Baldry and audit. Yes ma'am. He said we turned her a gunner target. Their engines use a missile. I want them to know. We mean business. There was a metallic clank from deepen the ship and the black man have rocked missile the way Janet report it read, watch the chemically propelled weapon closed rapidly on the target. She was surprised at the lack of any countermeasures by the freighter, the warhead on the missile exploded before impact sending the shockwave in the back of the ship, the old freighters engines, dimmed helm. Take us in.
Speaker 3 00:28:44 Thank you, Michael. That was Michael Merriam reading from short story. Wonderful. So how can people get ahold of this story
Speaker 6 00:28:52 In the queen of swords press anthology? Uh,
Speaker 6 00:28:59 Sees of time and space
Speaker 3 00:29:01 Of the sea
Speaker 6 00:29:02 Scourge of the seas of time and space.
Speaker 3 00:29:04 There it is. Folks. You heard it live on cafe. I radio right on radio and listeners are used to at this time hearing the rain taxi calendar of book events, whatever we call that. So let's do that. Annie, would you like to proceed guys?
Speaker 3 00:29:48 And we are back with Jenny gold boy, Michael Merriam and Catherine Londoff, um, writers from queen of sorts press. I'm going to turn things over to savvy now to talk to Katherine about her book.
Speaker 5 00:30:00 Thank you so much, David. All right, Catherine. So great to have you here. Um, I will have the pleasure of reading your newest publication called blood moon. Um, it is the second and the wolves of Wolf point novels. Uh, do you want to go ahead and give us a little bit of a rundown on it?
Speaker 7 00:30:17 Sure. Um, so wolves of Wolf's point is of my menopausal werewolf series and it's a silver moon starts out with a woman named Becca Thorton who discovers that shortly after her 50th birthday. She turns into a werewolf and she then goes on to discover that a number of the other women in town of a certain age are part of the local werewolf pack. And I'm using a lot of things like place-based magic. So they're there they're protective rather than necessarily going out and, you know, just sort of running a block on the full moon and you know, all Lon Chaney or something. Um, you know, but it's not that they absolutely don't do that. They just, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're limited in place to where, to where they roam and to the role that they're supposed to be playing, which is the protection of their community.
Speaker 7 00:31:09 And so the first book is about, uh, Becca sorta finding her new self and developing a big crush on her next door neighbor, who was also a werewolf. And so it's about found family and coming out at midlife and being a menopausal werewolf, and the things that go with that and book two picks up where book one leaves off. So I do recommend reading them in order if that's a possibility and it's, it has more murder, mystery elements to it. Um, it has more supernatural elements to it and builds on a lot of the ground that I laid in the first book. And there will, there will be a third book working on it.
Speaker 5 00:31:52 So in the foreword for the book and you go into detail a little bit about there being a lapse in between being able to put out the first in the second book. Um, and it became really obvious to me that you are very connected to your characters in this book. And it seems like you are also a part of this Woolpack am I on, like in the way I read it? So how, how long have they been with you? Do you feel like you have kind of always been a part of this Wolf pack in some way shape or form? Or is it something that just kind of came to you as we wrote the book?
Speaker 7 00:32:27 Um, I started working on it in the original, the first book th there was an, there was a novella before there was a novel and I started working on that and I think 2010. Um, so yes, I've been kind of playing around with it for awhile and I, you know, wrote the first book. It came out into the world and people's immediate reaction was where is book two and I'm like in the back of my brain. So, um, a lot of life happened before I got a chance to rerelease book one and then, you know, really dig into book two. Um, I parted ways with my previous publisher wacky hi-jinks ensued and there was a great deal of life, very much life. And, um, but I, so I've been kind of, you know, working on blend wound sporadically for a couple of years in the intervening times between 2017 and 2021, I started a publishing company, put out another novel, put out several collections of short stories and published a bunch of other people's books. So in my defense, Ben, there were things.
Speaker 5 00:33:35 All right. Um, well let's go ahead and give the listeners a little bit of taste of blood moon. Shall we go ahead and do a reading?
Speaker 7 00:33:42 All right. I'm going to read a little bit of the first half of chapter one. Aaron Adams looked out at the mountains and tried not to think about what was in the trunk of her car. At least in the mountains around Wolf's point. We're still as beautiful as ever. She wondered if she'd get the chance to run through them again, feel the wind in her for the ground flying by under her pause the pack at her side, that thought was enough to make her look back at her car. Aaron rubbed her aching far head with one hand and closed her eyes. This was without question, the worst thing she'd ever done, even if she couldn't remember doing it, but, but maybe there was still time to call Shelly and get her help to figure a way out of this mess that she'd blended into. That was what PAC alphas did or so Shelly kept reminding her, but that might make Shelley an accessory if they got caught or rather when she got caught, herein closed her eyes for an instant, lying was never a thing she'd been good at her wanted to get good at anyone.
Speaker 7 00:34:42 She called it almost certainly go down with her. That thought hit her like a truck. The pack couldn't afford to be without its alpha. So soon after they got her back, not to mention what it would do to pee and the kids, there was no way she could drag Shelly into this. Her thoughts turned to Becca waded through a jumbled mess of emotions and came back with a single realization. They'd suspect her first Becca was her friend, her housemate, her something. They still hadn't defined, but which felt more like girlfriend every day. Her stomach did a slow leisurely flip when she thought about that. And she almost smiled, but this wasn't the time to think about Becca. She couldn't afford to be distracted to be vulnerable. Not now, maybe there was another solution, a way to hide what had happened, but then what she'd still know, and she'd have to carry the burden of what she'd done alone.
Speaker 7 00:35:35 And she knew where that road led falling off the wagon to cope with their guilt. Wasn't an option either. Besides the, she ditched the body out here and it was found the regular wolves would certainly get blamed for it. The new governor was already pushing for a Wolf hunting season and that would put things right over the edge. She didn't want that on her conscience either the wild wolves are kin as much as they recover for the pack. Erin ran her fingers through her short cropped brown hair. Wondering if there was anyone else she could turn to, but she couldn't think of any other pack member. Who'd be able to do anything about the situation no more than she could do herself. Anyway, certainly wasn't the sort of thing that our AA sponsored sign up for or any of her friends for that matter. So she was on her own. There was nothing for it, but to lie on the bed she'd made for herself, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and selected a contact. Hi, it's Erin. I've done something I need. Can you come up to spruce point? Yes. It's important. I want you to see it before sheriff Henderson. Does she clicked the phone off and glanced toward the road? Nothing to do now, but wait, and I'll stop there.
Speaker 5 00:36:43 Wonderful. Thank you so much. Um, let's see. Earlier you talked a little bit about pulling from the real world and just kind of adding extra ordinary elements to it. Um, as far as like place magic werewolves, obviously, uh, do you find it challenging to sort of balance human treats with extra ordinary characteristics? Like how, where do you find that those two things merge?
Speaker 7 00:37:11 Hmm. Well,
Speaker 5 00:37:14 I think you did a really wonderful job with it. There was a moment, um, where one of the characters was, uh, thinking about the time and she was, there's a paragraph talking about how she was relying on a clock as opposed to his, her internal clock of knowing when the moon was going to rise and reverting back to her human habits of like continuously checking the clock. And so, uh, I don't know, you just brought a lot of humanness to the characters, so I want to know where the balance was for you.
Speaker 7 00:37:46 Hmm. Um, I mean, I think of it kind of holistically. I mean, I think that, you know, in part, because of how this particular pack of werewolves is created, um, I think of them as being closer to human than, than those monsters
Speaker 5 00:38:02 Definitely.
Speaker 7 00:38:03 And so that's definitely part of the, you know, the group that I created and how I view them behaving within that context. Um, cause you know, it's, it's, you know, what really want to take up, you know, group of middle-aged ladies and suddenly go and then they go nuts and run them up. Can either faces operate in the left. You know, it's, it's not the book that a lot of readers have signed on.
Speaker 5 00:38:30 Um, uh, next I kind of want to get into the main characters being middle-aged women, uh, senior women, and also, uh, coming out as queer and coming out later in life. Uh, just, uh, a lot of changes for these women at a point where they, most of society just kind of Puts them in the corner, you know, and it doesn't shine the light on them as main characters. And what does it mean to you to re bring that representation in your stories?
Speaker 7 00:39:02 Oh, it's pretty huge. So in 2012, when the first book came out, silver moon came out, I started a bibliography of, and I set the bar kind of low. It was female protagonists, 40 and over in science fiction and fantasy and horror who were heroes of their own lives. That was like the baseline one
Speaker 5 00:39:23 Hand, you can name them all at one
Speaker 7 00:39:25 Time, we got to 20. Um, and you know, and it was really interesting what happened after that because it started really picking up and there were more and more books and stories. And in some cases they were things that were getting rediscovered. And in other cases, they were new. And, you know, I do a lot of panels on aging and representation in the genre. And one of the things that we started seeing more and more of was that as, as some of the writers in the field who were more established, got older, they started writing older characters, which is something they hadn't been doing before. And so there's, there's a lot more stuff. So a nice fan spun up a good reads list. So now there's like a couple of hundred things out there and there's a few more added, you know, every month. And so it's been expanding pretty quickly, which has been really nice to see still a small, small subset in the genre. And some people don't know what a protagonist is, but that's another story.
Speaker 5 00:40:20 Oh dear. Um, so I was so jazzed to learn about queen of swords press and that just, just that it existed. It seems to be very heavily represent, um, under represented demographics, queer people, uh, older people, minorities, the like, uh, do you think the lack of inclusion is something that inspired you to start your own publishing press to get more of a wave in there and everything
Speaker 7 00:40:50 In a matter of speaking? Yes. Um, so representation by queer authors tends to kind of come and go in the field. So you get sort of waves of things, but it will only be short fiction and it will only be a certain kind of thing sort of like, just be a subset of Y a and then nothing. And, or it'll just be mainstream science fiction and just science fiction, not fantasy, and then nothing, you know? So th th there's a lot of, I've been in the field, you know, both as a fan and as a writer before I became a publisher for a long time. So I've been around long enough to watch this kind of, you know, Hey, we have a fad. Um, so I started queen of swords Perez for a variety of reasons. It was, it was something I'd been wanting to try.
Speaker 7 00:41:35 I used to be a book seller back in the day before I was a writer. Um, I'd spent years as a writer I've edited and it was kind of the next logical thing to tackle. So I wanted to try that. Um, and I wasn't entirely sure what kind, I mean, I had a vision for how this was going to work. There was a business plan. I spent a couple of years prepping for it. Um, I started the press in 2017. We just celebrated our fifth birthday. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. And, um, you know, I started out with a specific kind of vision of the sort of work that I expected to be publishing and then submission started showing up. Um, so our first couple of authors, I started with my own backlist. So the first year was my backlist. And then after that, we started bringing in more authors.
Speaker 7 00:42:21 Um, there became a, we, I have a part-time assistant. I have a book designer who works in white bear lake, who, you know, makes all of our books really pretty, um, you know, cover artists. I have interns. Um, so we've really been kind of growing. We are about to release our 14th title, which I'm really excited about. That'll come out next month and that's a retelling of beauty and the beast, whole language of roses by an author named Heather Rose Jones is out on the west coast. Um, but one of the things that I wanted to do was, well, I started out with Alex ax was our first, our first other author, or first not me author. Um, and Alex is a trans author from Colorado who does just some amazing work with steam punk adventures. They're, they're very class conscious. They're, you know, they, they, the world, the creation of the world is very intense and very exciting. Um, so there were a lot of fun. So we, we released a couple of those. Um, I did the anthology that Michael mentioned, um, of the seas of time and space, where we ended up with authors from 12 different countries. Oh wow. And exotic Hopkins.
Speaker 7 00:43:29 And one of the authors who came in with a story for that was, uh, an author from New Zealand and AGA Fitzwater. And I knew AGA socially from previous things, and we'd be traveled to New Zealand for a convention a few years ago. And I fell madly in love with his character who is a dapper lesbian capybara pirate. And Ajay is also a trans author and is, you know, somebody who's done, you know, they, they went to Clarion, they do a lot of literary workshops in the context of New Zealand. They do, you know, a lot of their literary festivals. And, um, so I approached AJ and asked them to pull together a collection of stories about this character. So that, that was our pandemic books. So that came out in April of 2020, and then stuff happened. Um, uh, the really good news about that one though, was it was after he had to cancel and rearrange everything and scramble to get everything online and all the stuff we went through, um, uh, the voyages of Cinderella, dapper one, a new search Julius Vogel award for best collection last year. And that's like new Zealand's you go awards. They're the national awards for the best science fiction out in a given year. So
Speaker 5 00:44:44 That's amazing.
Speaker 7 00:44:46 Um, and then after that, um, I was, uh, I ended up getting introduced via Aja and my webmaster, who is also in New Zealand, uh, to another trans New Zealand author named Ram Wigmore and Reb sent in this amazing solar punk novel Holt Fox hunt and Fox hunt has said in the distant future of earth, you know, humans have just barely survived the ecological apocalypse and it's about rebuilding and the things that go wrong when you rebuild and you don't think some stuff through. Um, and it's, it's just, it's a great novel, uh, tor.com is called at one of the five essential solar punk books. You should be reading, got a glowing review and the in publishers weekly, all that good stuff. Um, so really excited about that. We're going to put up the sequel to that one in December then, um, along the way I, you know, had opened up for submissions and Jenny who is not trans and not from New Zealand, not even from Hopkins,
Speaker 3 00:45:48 Um, sent
Speaker 7 00:45:49 Me this terrific story, which is how we got to two obviously aliens. And one of the things I'd been wanting to do was that I didn't want to, I wanted to publish a wide range of authors from different backgrounds.
Speaker 5 00:46:02 So
Speaker 7 00:46:02 I wasn't setting out specifically to only publish LGBTQ plus authors. Um, I also wanted to include, you know, other authors, um, you know, I like to keep building on the success we've gotten so far. Um, so yeah, so JD sent him this great novel. So we put that out in, um, last year it came out in November and yeah, and then the next thing that's coming up and this, we just signed the contract a couple of days ago. Um, Michael Miriam, we're going to be public releasing Michael Miriam's really great urban fantasy, which has set in Minneapolis. It said Minneapolis in the two thousands among other things. It features the ghost of the streetcar line. Oh, and it's going to, we're going to put that out this summer. Um, in its previous incarnation, it was only released an ebook. It's never had a print edition before, so we're going to have a print edition and we'll have an ebook edition and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 00:46:56 And tell us the name, tell us the name.
Speaker 7 00:46:58 It was called last car to an when station
Speaker 3 00:47:00 Last car
Speaker 7 00:47:01 To and wins
Speaker 3 00:47:02 And wind station by Michael Merriam coming up this summer. Wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 5 00:47:06 It sounds like you got a lot of them a lot in the works, but this coming year
Speaker 7 00:47:10 Pilot at all,
Speaker 3 00:47:11 We've heard a lot of terms. If I may jump in here, steam, punk. And so on, you said solar punk
Speaker 5 00:47:16 I'm
Speaker 3 00:47:16 Familiar with, it's also about what the normal
Speaker 7 00:47:19 Similar to punk has comparatively new it's, um, a science fiction and science fiction, mostly sub genre that, um, posits a more positive future. So, you know, humans have for whatever reason either because they have, they haven't, they have barely survived the ecological apocalypse for B or because they took a different path and everted it completely, um, to have turned to clean energy. So a lot of things in the books are literally solar powered. So that's part of where it comes from. It's also called climate fiction and there's another take on its whole hope punk and it's science fiction and fantasy has, has its own little, you know, enclaves of things. Uh, so there's been a longstanding tradition called grim dark, which kind of speaks for itself. Um, so hope punk is kind of the flip side, the flip side of the coin from grim dark it's, you know, a more optimistic view of the future. It's here are suggestions. Here are things that we can do differently that will make this better,
Speaker 5 00:48:22 Trying to step away from the dystopian future. Wonderful. That's neat. I'll have to check that out.
Speaker 3 00:48:28 Fascinating. We are getting close. Give me the, no, one more question, boy. So many
Speaker 5 00:48:34 Questions. Any questions about queen of swords?
Speaker 3 00:48:37 Uh, well, I'm just amazed at it's. Someone would just say the natural progression was to start a publishing house. , You know, Amazon books, eBooks and everything else. Why does it make sense to start a publishing company and sell paper?
Speaker 7 00:48:58 Um, well we do eBooks too, of course. And eventually we'll do audio books working
Speaker 3 00:49:01 On that. Oh, that's awesome. Um, You know, people still read the
Speaker 7 00:49:06 Thing about, you know, publishing books is that you can get to publish voices that might not otherwise be heard or might not be heard the same way. And you know, certainly indie publishing as an option, but what you get when you come to a publisher like me, for example, who's been around for awhile is that I've spent decades building up networks of reviewers and websites and events and all of that stuff. So you get my expertise and you get my ability to go out and market things, which is something I'm decently good at, as it turns out fortunately. Um, so it's, you know, and for me, from my standpoint, it's the opportunity to put out books I genuinely enjoy and to get readers, to check them out. You know, I, I love, love turning readers onto new books, you know, and at this point there, you know, there's events, we do pretty much every year. And so it'll show up, we'll set up a table and inevitably somebody will come over and go, oh, what's new this year. So, and that's, that's just, you know, it's terrific just to turn people onto these things, new voices, you know, new stories, all of that good stuff. So that's, that's a big part of why I wanted to do this
Speaker 3 00:50:19 Fantastic, fantastic queen of sorts press here in Minneapolis. That's wonderful. We have had a special show. I am Dave, that is savvy. You are savvy. And we were with Catherine and Jenny and Michael writers for a queen of swords press. Catherine Londoff is also the publisher you have been listening to right on radio. And now thank you all for coming. Why don't you say and now this
