All kinds of fun stuff coming up this month!

• The Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale kicked off today and most of our books are are on sale!
• Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore is up for preorder! It will be coming out 8/20/21. If you like climate fiction and hopepunk with queer protagonists (or just plain great books), this is one you’ll want to check out!

Events:

• Strong Women, Strange Worlds – July 15th, 5PM EST. Online reading series. Catherine will be reading with several other authors in this new online science fiction and fantasy reading series.
• Madame Askew’s Temporal Entourage Book Club – July 18th, 6:30 CST. An online discussion of Alex Acks’s Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures. Alex will be Guest of Honor!
• Perfectly Queer – July 21, 9-10 PM PST. Queer author reading series currently running remote from Dog-Eared Books Castro in San Francisco, hosted by Richard May and Wayne Goodman. Catherine will be reading with Michael Nava and Vincent Meis.
• Golden Crown Literary Society – July 25th, 12PM EST (online).  Catherine will be on a historical f/f fiction panel with cool writers. Stay tuned.

More coming soon!

We have so much going on this month! In addition to everything going on listed here, we’ll also be unveiling Laya Rose’s amazing cover art for Rem Wigmore’s novel, Foxhunt, which we’ll be releasing later this year. Patreon supporters get to see it first, then newsletter subscribers, then folks coming to our Reddit Fantasy Small Press AMA, then everyone else. Be sure and sign up for one of these so you can see it early too!

• Pride Month StoryBundle – June 2 – July 1st. Our annual event, this year featuring books by Melissa Scott, Matt Bright, A.J. Fitzwater, Andi C. Buchanan, R.B. Lemberg, Eboni Dunbar, Cecilia Tan, dave ring, Leigh Harlen, Anya Deniro, Langley Hyde, Heather Rose Jones, J. Scott Coatsworth and Catherine Lundoff and benefiting Rainbow Railroad, a nonprofit that helps LGBTQ+ refugees get to safer areas.
• r/Fantasy Queen of Swords Press Reddit AMA – June 4th online, 24 hour Q&A featuring A.J. Fitzwater, Alex Acks, Rem Wigmore, Jennie Goloboy and Catherine Lundoff.
• 2021 SFWA Nebula Conference. June 4th-6th, online. Catherine will be a panelist on “Thinking Big, Publishing Small” on Saturday, June 5th at 11AM PST and A.J. will be a panelist on “Hometown Heroes: Working and Writing Globally” on Friday, June 4th at 3:30-4:30PM PST and “Taxes and Finance for Non-U.S. Writers Publishing in the United States” on Saturday, June 5th at 2-3:00PM PST.
• Edelweiss BookFest. June 8-9th, online. Queen of Swords Press title The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater is an Editor’s Pick with a recorded spotlight and associated promo. Catherine will be in attendance.
• Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention 2021. June 11th-13th. Catherine will be on the Writing Horror Games panel on Friday night at 8:30PM CST.
• Behind the Scenes: Nuts and Bolts of Small Press Publishing. June 13th, Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, online 9:30-11:30 AM PST. In which Catherine explains what goes into publishing a book, what she does as a publisher and answers your questions.

So there wasn’t going to be a WisCon this year, but then a bunch of folks decided to put one together with spontaneous online and onsite programming (at the Concourse) and an Otherwise Award auction and vidding. Then we stepped up and asked if we could do something for the vendors and artists and the answer was a resounding “YES!” Starting Friday, we’ll be boosting each other on social media using the #VWisconDealersRoom and #VWisconArtShow hashtags so please follow along. We might have a Discord chat as well, still working out the details on that. Anyway, come do the fun-filled shopping that you would be doing if we were all at the Concourse and enjoy!

We have a sales coupon that is good for this week! Get 15% off all purchases from our site through 6/1 using coupon WisCon21 at check out.

 

Here’s the listing for everyone:

A lot of the dealers and artists who go to to WisCon every year make a solid chunk of their annual income from it, so having it not  be in person (and the economy tanking and all) twice in a row means that everyone is taking a hit, including Queen of Swords Press. Therefore, we’re having a virtual Art Show and Dealer’s Room Show. I expect to be adding more folks to this list, but here’s the initial round. We might get something up at the Queen of Swords Press Discord, but it will be less grand than I originally imagined. But there are deals to be had and cool things to acquire! We’ll be boosting on Twitter and else where using the hashtags #VWisconArtShow and #VWisconDealersRoom. In the meantime, please check these folks out and consider buying a thing or two.

Art Show:

• Sam Haney of Samhain Press – Jewelry and other fun things! Free shipping from the 27th-1st on orders of $25+ with the coupon code WISCON2021
• Tahlia Day – cards, notecards and illustrations.
• Rhea Ewing – prints, stickers, coloring books and more!
• Jana Pullman of Western Slope Press – writing journals, handmade boxes, photo boxes and more!
• Mary Anne Mohanraj – books, including Sri Lankan cookbooks and recipes, textiles, jewelry, masks and more!
• Kendra Tornheim of Silver Owl Creations – jewelry!
• Katie Clapham – photography! Contact through Contact Me form on website.
• Dealer’s Room:
• Elise Matthesen/LionessElise – Jewelry and other fun things! Discounts will start appear on the shop by 5/27. Stay tuned!
• Barb Moermond of Silly Lilly Bird. Different kinds of jewelry and other fun things! Use sale code:  WISCON2021 to get 40% off purchases of $25 or more!
• Lauren Jankowski – Author of the Shapeshifter Chronicles (fantasy series)!
• Queen of Swords Press – Books by A.J. Fitzwater, Alex Acks, Catherine Lundoff and Emily L. Byrne – get 15% off all purchases over $3 by using code WisCon21 at check out!
• Shauna Aura Knight – Jewelry, tiaras, boxes, shrines and more!
• A Room of One’s Own Bookstore – Bookses, precious! And an interview!
• Shawna Brown of Dragon Abbey Jewelry – Jewelry! 15% site wide!
• DreamHaven Books – Books, comics and art!
• Aqueduct Press – More books!
• Rosarium Books – Even more books and comics!

Lots of cool stuff to look at and be sure to check out the WisCon feed and blog for other fun things as they get added!

Lots of stuff coming up, particularly as we get closer to June, but I wanted to shout out a few things.

• “What is Book Coaching” – May 11th 1-2:30 PM CST. nline panel with the Professional Editor’s Network, Minneapolis. You can register here.
• StokerCon – May 20th-23rd. Online from Denver, CO. Catherine will be doing a reading and participating in a cool editorial project and maybe more!
• Big congrats to A.J. for becoming the new Artist in Residence at The Christchurch Arts Centre starting in August (this will give them time and funding to work full time on their new novel!).
• Blood Moon got a nice new review at Library Journal! (Queen of Swords Press titles are available for library purchase via OverDrive and IngramSpark so if you have a library card, you can request our books at your local library).
• Alex Acks is a member of the Skiffy and Fanty Podcast crew and we’re delighted to congratulate them all on once again being Hugo Award Finalists!
• We’re welcoming our first intern in June! Shannon Hofer-Pottala is a student in the Publishing Certificate program at the University of Minnesota, as well as doing some small press publishing of her own, and she’ll be working with Catherine and Alexa this summer on various projects.
• We are opening for submissions for book queries on 6/15 and staying open until 8/15.  We’ll be collaborating with publisher Jacob Haddon of Lamplight Magazine to use their Submittable portal this time around so please follow us on Twitter or Facebook for earliest details (they’ll be in the June newsletter too!)
• The annual Pride Month StoryBundle will be launching on June 2 and running through July 1st; we’ve got an amazing lineup of books this year, including Silver Moon and Blood Moon by Catherine Lundoff and several books that are in the running for the Nebula Awards and the IGNYTE Awards.
• We’ll be doing our first Small Press Reddit AMA on June 4th. This is a 24 hour online Q&A, made possible by  the fact that we’re in different time zones. Featuring A.J. Fitzwater, Alex Acks, Rem Wigmore, Jennie Goloboy and Catherine Lundoff.
• And last, but certainly not least, we want to thank Hamline University Women’s Resource Center for once again featuring Queen of Swords Press in their annual FemFair event celebrating feminist artists and small businesses.