Hi everyone! I’m pleased to announce that Sea Lover has a brand new, sparkly cover and a release date of June 25th!
Pre-order is available on the NineStar Press website, and if you pre-order, you get it 3 days early!
Here’s the beautiful cover by Natasha Snow, and the blurb:
Ian is happy with his life in a remote Canadian fishing town, where he has only the sea and his fishing crew for company. People say being alone is terrible, but he’s never had any problems with it. Then his peaceful life is thrown into upheaval when he finds an injured merman washed up on the shore. With no idea what else to do, Ian takes the merman home and nurses him back to health. But as he helps S’mika heal, a bond begins to form, and Ian starts to wonder if maybe there is more to life than being alone…
It’s a cute little hurt/comfort story with a language barrier, so if that’s your thing, please consider picking it up! It’s also an #ownvoices project – the main character, Ian, is trans. I also wanted to do something a little different for a Canadian merman – I figured that merfolk from the area probably wouldn’t have dolphin tails, and they definitely wouldn’t be white. So S’mika is half seal, and First Nations. There is some angst here and there, but overall it’s a pretty light, cute story. It was a lot of fun to write, and I hope it will be enjoyed!
Hello all! Got some exciting news to share! Junior Hero Blues has a brand new cover, and a release date of March 29th! PLUS if you pre-order you get it 3 days early! Here’s the new cover:
I love it! It feels like an upgraded version of the old cover. ☺️
I’ve been having fun with artbreeder.com and came up with portraits of the two main characters:
So much fun! Oh and also here’s a moodboard I did a while ago.
What, you want to know what the book is actually about? Okay, fine:
Last year, Javier Medina was your average socially awkward gay high schooler with a chip on his shoulder. This year, he’s…well, pretty much the same, but with bonus superpowers, a costume with an ab window to show off his new goods, and a secret identity as the high-flying, wise-cracking superhero Blue Spark.
But being a Junior Hero means that Javier gets all the responsibility and none of the cool gadgets. It’s hard enough working for the Legion of Liberty and fighting against the evil Organization, all while trying to keep on top of school work and suspicious parents. Add in a hunky boyfriend who’s way out of Javier’s league, and an even hunkier villain who keeps appearing every time said boyfriend mysteriously disappears, and Blue Spark is in for one big dollop of teenage angst. All while engaging in some epic superhero action and, oh yeah, an all-out battle to protect Liberty City from the forces of evil.
Welcome to the 100% true and totally unbiased account of life as a teenage superhero.
Can’t wait to once again share Javier and Rick with you. This book was so much fun to write, and is really special to me. ☺️ I hope you’ll consider checking it out!
Other news!
Ink & Flowers is now available to download as an ebook on Kindle and Kobo! It’s been out of print for a while, except for the Audiobook so it’s great to finally have it available again!
Ink & Flowers is right now the only contemporary novel I have, and it’s full of coming out themes and anxiety, something that I struggled with a lot in my early 20s. It’s a personal book, but it’s also a little escapist. Here’s the blurb:
About to lose his apartment, and desperate to avoid having to move in with his horrendous relatives, shy art student Luke impulsively agrees to a deal from hell: sex with a man he doesn’t know in exchange for a couch to sleep on.
His new “roommate” Cooper is everything that Luke hates: crude, uncouth, and covered in tattoos, not to mention openly gay. Luke has all but resigned himself to a miserable fate when it turns out Cooper might want something a little different than he expected.
I hope you’ll consider checking it out as well! I think that’s all the news I have today, but I have another big announcement coming soon, so stick around!
Thanks for reading and here’s a picture of my cat looking out the window.
Long time, no see! If it wasn’t obvious, I haven’t been doing much of anything publishing related for the last couple of years. To be honest, I was pretty burnt out, and thinking about taking a step back, even before all my books ended up going out of print, so it was a good opportunity for me to just take a break for a while. Sometimes I get too invested in things, and put all my time and energy into them, and the end result is that I end up completely burning out and not wanting anything to do with it for a while.
Life has been good though! I have a new office job, I moved to a new city (only 45 minutes away from the old city though), I’ve discovered a passion for vintage and antique selling (watch me get way too into it and burnout, natch) and I medically transitioned, which has done wonders for my mental health. And I’ve decided that it’s finally time to dip my feet back into publishing.
So with that, I’m happy to announce that I’ve signed contracts with Ninestar Press to re-publish Witch, Cat and Cobb and Junior Hero Blues! They’ll both be getting makeovers, and full re-edits. WC&C will be out in December, and JHB sometime next year! I’ll continue to post updates here and on my Twitter as I get more news. I also intend to work on re-publishing Ink & Flowers, To Summon Nightmares, and Sea Lover, and I’ll be sure to update when I have more news for those!
As for the future… I’m not sure. I would like to write more, but I’m not going to push it. I’d like to rediscover the joy I took in writing, but for that I have to let go of the pressure of deadlines, expectations, reviews and all the drama that comes with the publishing world. When I look back on myself from a few years ago, I see someone who was passionate about publishing, educating and changing the world (that was actually in my first author bio – that I wanted to change the world one queer book at a time) but who gave too much of themself, and left themself exposed to too many potentially traumatic situations. I don’t think I can still be that person and protect myself at the same time. So I have to be a little more reserved, I think, and a little more cautious. Maybe just my existence as a non-binary queer person writing the books I want is enough. Well, it’s going to have to be.
Anyway, lets end this post on a classic note. In case you were wondering about my cat, she is doing just fine! Here she is in all her glory:
Hello everyone! Long time, no blog! I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful holiday season! I was actually down with a bad cold for most of the holidays, so I didn’t get much celebrating done. I did go and see The Shape of Water, which was excellent and filled the fishman-romance-shaped hole in my heart.
This blog post is just to share a couple different pieces of exciting news! First up, The Fairy Gift has been picked up for re-release by Less Than Three Press! A new, lightly polished second edition will be available for purchase on January 24th, and is has a new cover!
It’s so pretty! @.@ If you haven’t read The Fairy Gift, it was my first published book, and it’s a fun, sexy fairy tale about a plain young man who receives seductive powers from a fairy and is dragged into a world of magic and romance. And brothels. If you’re up for a light, tropey read, check it out! Pre-order here.
The other exciting news is that the trans memoir anthology I contributed to, #Trans did really well at this year’s Rainbow Awards! It tied for first place in the LGBT Memoir/Anthology category, and got second place in Best Transgender Book. Here’s what they had to say about it:
1) Trans was somewhat painful to read – not by any fault of the author but as a collection of difficult and heartfelt stories it was heart wrenching, but I felt it was a book that needed to be written and will be loved by many.
2) I rather like that each piece was allowed to create it’s own setting. The diversity of the pieces was part of the power of the book. The voice of each essay allowed me to glimpse into different worlds and gave me a clearer understanding of many things.
3) #Trans brings use collection of genuine stories from transgender and non-binary writers who share their heartfelt experiences and insightful thoughts on identity formation and how it has been impacted by technology, film, literature, social media, and music. Well written and edited, this is a must read for youth and adults.
4) #Trans is by turns academic, thoughtful, and provocative, providing insights and deconstruction of what it means to occupy a body in space and time… and how the internet has made it more possible than ever to find the others asking those same questions.
5) Thought provoking and informative, well written and edited, I really loved this book. It sparked quite a few family discussions!
This was a total departure for me, but I’m really happy with how the anthology came out, and super proud of how well-received it’s been. Evelyn did an amazing job with it!
Well, I think that’s everything. I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year, and gets to read lots of excellent books. As usual, here is a picture of my cat being cute this Christmas:
Hello, everyone! Long time, no blog! I’ve been taking it easy, enjoying my new place, intermittently battling the great depression beast, as you do. I haven’t been writing at all, something I hope will change soon, but I have been editing and preparing for a couple of new releases, as well as preparing for GRNW in September! So, to that end, I have a bunch of stuff to share with you guys! Hold on, lemme get my camera.
Okay, so first off, these babies arrived:
They are gorgeous, and I wish I could bring them with me to GRNW, but they don’t come out until November! *pout* But I think I’m going to see about maybe doing an advance giveaway possibly maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, next up is these!
Please ignore the typo on the back. Oh great, now you can’t because I drew attention to it. Go me. I seriously can’t believe I didn’t notice that but… ah well, what can you do? Nobody’s perfect. They are still glorious and rainbow, and I’ll probably be handing them out at GRNW (with candy bribes attached!)
ALSO, I’m going to be on a panel at GRNW! It’ll be Trans Authors on Characters, Stories and Industry. We have an amazing line-up of trans authors, and it should be a pretty great panel! I’ll also be at the book fair selling books and just hanging out, if you want to come and talk to me!
So JUNIOR HERO BLUES is coming out November 7th (go pre-order!) but I also have another romance novella coming out sometime after that! No blurb or release date yet, but I just got the cover, so I have to show it off! It’s by the wonderful Aisha Akeju who like, takes images directly out of my brain and turns them into covers (she is obviously a witch) and this one is no different!
Perfect, right? Sea Lover is a fairly low-key, sweet romance between a seal-merman and a reclusive fisherman who finds him on the beach. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I can’t wait to share more!
And finally, in personal matters, I finally got a new tattoo!
Taking pictures of your right arm with your left hand: surprisingly difficult. Anyway, it’s based off of the designs at Newgrange, and I couldn’t be more in love with how it came out. The placement, the size, even the fact that it looks like it was drawn by a human, and not a machine, are all exactly what I wanted. I actually didn’t know the exact placement I wanted going in, so I let the artist (Deborah at Unicus Studios) decide how it would look best, and she came up with this kind of off-centre position that I think looks so great and organic.
This one hurt like a mother-fucker too. Inside arm, and she had to start with a thin line and then go over it multiple times to thicken them. Ouch. It’s still quite tender and sore today, but it seems to be healing well. You can tell in the picture it’s still at that awkward healing, slightly swollen stage, but I’ll post photo updates on my twitter to show how it comes out!
Thanks everyone for reading! 2016 has been an awesome year so far, and I hope it continues that way. Stay tuned for more info about Sea Lover, and a Junior Hero Blues giveaway.
Oh, and one more thing. No blog post is complete without this face:
So around this time last year, I was staring at this manuscript I had written, having no idea what I was going to do with it.
I had originally put off even writing it. I’d loved the story idea, had the whole thing planned out on paper, and was totally in love with the character and world. But it was YA. I wrote adult romance. What was I even going to do with it if I did write it? But the story and the characters wouldn’t leave me alone, so eventually, and after a few false starts, I settled down to write it. It was probably the easiest time and most fun I’ve ever had writing a book. I wrote steadily for about three months, and at the end of it, I had a manuscript that I was sure was the best book I’d ever written. And it was absolutely and definitely a YA.
And then, kind of like fate, a press I’d been wanting to publish with for ages, Riptide Publishing announced the release of their new YA line, Triton. A line of books about queer kids, for queer kids. How could I pass that up?
I read a lot growing up, but for whatever reason, the books I remember reading the most, the ones that really stuck with me, were about lgbt characters. So maybe I’ve always wanted to add to that collection of books, and maybe help a young person come to accept themselves, even subconsciously, the way those books helped me.
I’m still going to keep writing romance, of course. But I’m excited about this new direction as well. And I don’t think JUNIOR HERO BLUES will be my last queer YA.
So, with no further rambling, I present:
Last year, Javier Medina was your average socially awkward gay high schooler with a chip on his shoulder. This year, he’s . . . well, pretty much the same, but with bonus superpowers, a costume with an ab window to show off his new goods, and a secret identity as the high-flying, wise-cracking superhero Blue Spark.
But being a Junior Hero means that Javier gets all the responsibility and none of the cool gadgets. It’s hard enough working for the Legion of Liberty and fighting against the evil Organization, all while trying to keep on top of school work and suspicious parents. Add in a hunky boyfriend who’s way out of Javier’s league, and an even hunkier villain who keeps appearing every time said boyfriend mysteriously disappears, and Blue Spark is in for one big dollop of teenage angst. All while engaging in some epic superhero action and, oh yeah, an all-out battle to protect Liberty City from the forces of evil.
Welcome to the 100% true and totally unbiased account of life as a teenage superhero.
Hello everyone! Welcome to my giveaway to celebrate the release of my new f/f fantasy novella Witch, Cat and Cobbwhich comes out October 14th! I’m going to be giving away a collection of fun Halloween-themed goodies plus a free copy of the Witch, Cat and Cobb ebook!
To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment with your email address on this post. You can also get multiple entries by sharing (or reblogging, retweeting etc.) this post on any social media platform you like! Just leave a comment with a link to the place(s) where you shared it (your twitter, tumblr page, facebook etc.) and your username on that platform so that I can see and add your entries.
Have a look at the photos and list of giveaway items below and please leave a comment and share!
Giveaway Includes:
-One free copy of the Witch, Cat and Cobb ebook, any format -Spiced Elixer ‘Liquorice and Snake Weed’ mason jar candle
-Wood Craft ‘Cracklin’ Fire’ candle
-Halloween-themed mug with adorable owls
-Set of handmade aluminum earrings
-Light up paper lantern
-Orange glass candle holder
-Witch’s hat with headband
-Ceramic witch’s hut figurine
-Halloween socks. They are very cute and have pumpkins on them.
Here are a few more pictures of the goods:
Finally, here’s the cover and blurb for Witch, Cat and Cobb:
Witch, Cat and Cobb Available: October 14th, 2015 Wordcount: 20,000 Price: $3.39 Genre: Fairy Tale, Lesbian, Trans
Destined for an arranged marriage she wants nothing to do with, Princess Breanwynne decides that the only option for escape is to run away. Upon the announcement of this plan, her trusted pet cat reveals he can talk by asking that she take him along. Listening to his suggestion to venture into the lair of the Swamp Witch proves to be a very bad idea, but Breanwynne would rather face a witch any day than be forced to marry a prince.
Limit one comment entry per person, but you can share as many times and in as many places as you like! The draw ends October 14th, which is when WC&C comes out, and that’ll give me time to ship it to you hopefully in time for Halloween! You must be willing to provide me with a mailing address by email to enter obviously, too.
I know, I should probably wait until I have a release date and a blurb and all that jazz, but I just couldn’t wait to show this off!
Check it out!
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Tada!
Isn’t it amazing?? It’s by Aisha Akeju, who also did the covers for Ink & Flowers, Geek Out and Double Take. I’m so consistently impressed by her skills, especially her uncanny ability to create covers that fit the stories so perfectly. This one is no exception!
With a cover like this, I don’t even feel like I need to explain the story too much. Suffice it to say, there’s magic, elves, a talking cat, and a princess and a witch who fall in love. I’m just so excited for this story, and thrilled with the cover! ^-^
To celebrate, I’m giving away a $15 gift card for LT3’s book market! Leave a comment with your email address by the end of May to win!
Update: Giveaway has ended. Congrats Lore Graham!
Thanks for reading! Oh, I almost forgot, this month I’m Less Than Three Press’s featured author! You can save 20% off all my ebooks using the code PENDRAGON in LT3’s book market! Check out my books here!
Cheers, and don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered!
(Trigger warning on this post for mention of rape and incest.)
I meant to write this blog post ages ago, but the release date for Double Take totally snuck (sneaked?) up on me, so here I am writing it now! I did want to talk about this before release day, because I think it’s a fairly important topic.
Double Take – coming January 28th from LT3 Press
So I’m of the opinion that there’s no such thing as a “bad” kink. The way I see it, kinks are natural, and no one should have to feel bad about something they can’t control. In fact, I think kinks are a great way to explore your sexuality and make your life more exciting! The thing is, some people have kinks that are inappropriate, immoral and/or illegal to act on. That’s why things like erotica and roleplay are important. They exist as safe and consensual ways to act out out a kink without actually hurting anyone.
But there are some people who feel that erotica that includes those kinds of kinks shouldn’t be published. Some people feel that by encouraging people who say, get turned on by reading about or roleplaying rape scenes, you’re encouraging those people to actually go out and rape someone. I don’t personally agree with that opinion, but that’s not what I want to discuss here. I want to discuss the opinion that books about certain kinks shouldn’t be published because they might trigger or upset someone who has experienced something horrible in a similar situation to the one that the book presents as sexy.
Which is a legitimate concern. I would absolutely hate to accidentally trigger or upset someone who has had a negative experience in the past, because they read my book without realising that it had sensitive content in it. But the answer is not to never publish anything that might trigger someone.
The answer, my friends, is content warnings.
Geek Out – A collection of trans and genderqueer romance from LT3 Press.
Some people really don’t like the idea of content warnings. They think they’re a form of censorship, or an insult to the reader, who should apparently be able to handle anything the book throws at them, without any prior warning of the fact. Obviously, I don’t agree with that, and I’m luckily enough to write for a publisher who has a similar stance (and even has a nifty option to toggle content notes on and off on their website, so people can choose whether or not they want to be warned about potentially triggering or upsetting content.) I see content warnings as a common courtesy, a way to help potential readers make an informed choice, and maybe even get some new potential buyers, who like that particular kink that I’m “warning” them about.
In my opinion, it is absolutely acceptable for me to write about whatever kinks I want, and publish it for whoever wants to read it. But it’s also my responsibility as an author to do everything I can to keep someone from accidentally reading and being triggered by something I wrote. And one of the best ways I can accomplish that is to offer content warnings for my books.
So anyway, the point of all this is that my short story Double Take includes incest in it. The way it’s written, from the POV of a character who doesn’t realise at first that the person they’re seeing is actually twins, you don’t find that out right away. But I’m absolutely willing to sacrifice the “twist” element to make sure that no one goes into it unawares. Because while twincest is something that I enjoy reading and writing, there are people out there who have experienced incestuous abuse, and have to live with that, and I do not, in any way, feel that it’s acceptable to let my kink cross over and interfere in their real life recovery and happiness.
Anyway, I know this is all a bit heavy, considering Double Take is a cute, 14K smut fest, but I did feel it had to be said, and it applies to other stuff I might write in the future too. I hope that if Double Take is your thing, you’ll check it out, and if not, I hope you’ll check out the other stories in the Geek Out collection, as they’re all very different. A lovely testament to the diversity in the trans community and the geek community, I think. Thanks for reading! Have a picture of my cat!
This is just a housekeeping blog post, since I’ve been busy lately, and have a bunch of little thoughts that I wanted to gather together into a post. It’s been a pretty crazy week, with To Summon Nightmares being released, and working lots, and dealing with a particularly severe, if short-lived, bout of depression. I think it may have partially been brought on by book release nerves, which is a pain. Something that will hopefully lessen the more books I release. Anyway, onward!
So, if you received an ARC copy of To Summon Nightmares from NetGalley, and were really confused by the ending, it’s probably because you received an early copy that had a glitch in which part of chapter one was pasted onto the end. A few people misunderstood and thought that I had pulled a Stephen King style eternal time loop ending on them, which – really, I’m not that evil! Although, interestingly at least one person said they liked it that way. So there’s an example of artistic value in interpretation for you or … something. Anyway, if you have the glitchy copy and would like the proper, final version, just let me know and I’ll send it to you.
Secondly, if you read To Summon Nightmares and liked Cohen, do your self a favour and listen to this excellent song. It’s Cohen’s favourite, and he can often be heard singing it in the early mornings when Niall is trying to sleep.
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So, what’s next? Well, Christmas is coming, and I’m super pleased to have been able to write a short story for a Christmas anthology, especially since it meant getting into the Christmas spirit back in June. x) The Anthology is called A Touch of Mistletoe and … well, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, because I’m waiting to get the paperback so I can sit and read it in front of the Christmas tree with a mug of hot chocolate, but it includes some of LT3’s best authors (and me! <–good save) so I’m thinking it’s gonna be excellent. So that comes out December 16th.
Then on January 27th we have Double Take (this is what happens when you decide to write a few short stories in a row) which is part of LT3’s Trans Geek Out Collection. I’m going to share the cover again, because holy crap, I love it so much. If you’re not a fan of incest or menages, then this story is not for you. If you are a fan of misunderstandings, cute genderqueer characters with blue hair and smut, then this story is definitely for you.
As for upcoming projects, I am still knocking away at Skylark Tower. Still. I may die first, in which case, go ahead and publish the unedited draft posthumously, I’ll be dead, so I won’t care. That’s … pretty much how work on this story is going. No, honesty, I really love this story a lot, and I feel really strongly that it’s a story that needs to be told, which is why I’m working so hard on it. It’s sitting at about 53K right now, and I think I might have another 10K or more in me for it, which is good, because I have a problem with my stories being too short. I’m also eventually going to be looking for some more betas, particularly ones who are of Southeast Asian descent, identify as transgender, or who have some academic knowledge of class struggles and revolutions. Yeah, it’s that kind of story. Also, steampunk, if that interests you.
I do have ten days off work coming up (yay!), and I’m going to try to either finish Skylark, or else Witch, Cat and Cobb, which really only needs another 5K that I’ve just been putting off. It’s a fun, light f/f fairytale. I try to contrast my dark, longer works with shorter fluffier stories, to keep myself upbeat.
And after that, I’m not sure! I have quite a few ideas knocking around in my head, but nothing’s really grabbed me super hard yet. I’m thinking of another m/m contemporary because $.$ … ahem, because I’m trying to save up for a down payment, and I’d really appreciate another paycheck like the one I got for Ink & Flowers. But I also want to write more trans characters – I need to write more trans characters. I keep trying to come up with cis characters but they keep ending up trans. Sort of like when I try to think up a contemporary setting and my brain is like “wait, but have you considered vampires? OR they could be on a SPACE STATION. Yeah!” So we’ll see if I manage.
And I have rambled for long enough, I think. I will sign off with a picture of my cat, of course, and wish you all a very lovely week! Bye!
Edit: Oh, I almost forgot! I’m going to be doing some reading on my days off, so if you’ve read any particularly good books lately, please rec them in the comments! (I’m partial to queer romance, of course.)
J.K. Pendragon 