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February News

 

February Events
We have two great events coming up this month, one online and one in person:

  1. In Flagrante Delicto: Writing Effective Sex Scenes – Rambo Academy, online. Sunday, February 12th, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Catherine Lundoff will be teaching this class just in time for Valentine’s Day!
  2. Writing OUT: LGBTQ+ Writers and Publishers on the Importance of Representation and Presence in Media – Saturday, February 25th, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library, Eau Claire, WI. Catherine will be a panelist alongside J.M. Lee and Kat Weaver, with moderator Charles Payseur.

Other Queen of Swords Press News

  1. Acclaimed author Judith Tarr gave a lovely shoutout to Catherine Lundoff’s Wolves of Wolf’s Point series at Tor.com.
  2. We’re expanding! Weightless Books, the ebook distribution platform associated with Small Beer Press, is going to be selling our books soon.
  3. Heather Rose Jone’s terrific novella, The Language of Roses, is on the Longlist for the British Science Fiction Association Awards (short fiction category – members of BSFA can vote for it) and is a World Fantasy Awards nominee. Congratulations, Heather!
  4. We have news about audiobooks coming next month, so stay tuned!
  5. We are hoping to have preorders for Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold available next month.
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January News (2023)

Queen of Swords Press Newsletter – January 2023
Welcome to the new year! May it be a good one for all of you!

New book! We’ve had to overcome a few obstacles and delays along the way, but Rem Wigmore’s Wolfpack is up for preorder direct from Queen of Swords Press (ebook and print) and all major ebook platforms. Preorder for print elsewhere will starting appearing this weekend and the actual book release will be happening on 1/12/23. There’ll be author reading videos and a sale on Foxhunt starting on 1/12 on our website to celebrate! There’s also more stuff in the works, so please stay tuned.

  

News
Something we’re very excited about is happening this month: it’s our 6th birthday! We’ve very excited and we want to thank everyone who’s helped us make this far on our publishing journey! We’ve also got even more great books and events coming this year so we hope you’ll stick with us for those too!

And what are birthdays without friends to help us celebrate? The awesome Jamey Morris of the Fistful of DOOM metal show will be doing a drawing of Alex Acks’s steampunk books, Murder on the Titania and Wireless on the show’s Instagram(comment on the post to enter on Monday 1/9/23) Jamie has been a great supporter of the Press for a couple of years – boosting and reviewing our titles, interviewing Catherine for the Ripple Music Blog (her only heavy metal-related appearance to date!) and plugging us to his friends and fans. Thanks to him, we’ve met some great bands and musicians online and made to feel pretty welcome in a corner of that scene. So check out Jamey’s show and tell him we sent you!

 

January’s fun stuff:

  1. Write On! Radio KFAI  – Did you miss last month’s Write On! Radio interview and reading by Michael Merriam? No worries! It’s online in the archive now! Listen to a great interview and short readings from Mike’s Minneapolis-based urban fantasy, Last Car to Annwn Station!
  2. The German edition of Catherine Lundoff’s werewolf novel, Silver Moon, published by Ylva Publishing, will be going on sale 1/13-1/15 so get a deal on your copy if you read fiction in German!
  3. Big congratulatory shout out to Jennie Goloboy (Obviously, Aliens), whose screenplay, “Thorfinn’s Axe,” is a finalist for the Portland Comedy Film Festival (and go check it out if you’ll be in Portland, Oregon on 2/12!
  4. And big congratulatory shout out to Catherine Lundoff for having one of the top circulating Indie Author Books on Biblioboard. Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories was our first published title, way back in 2017, so it’s really cool to see that 5 years later, it’s still finding its people. It’s also in libraries from Minneapolis to Qatar so it’s seeing a lot of the world!
  5. We’re starting work on our upcoming titles this month, Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Grisworld and Little Nothing by Dee Holloway, Catherine will be appearing at the Eau Claire Library in Wisconsin in February for the launch of a cool new LGBTQ+ nonprofit (more news soon!), and we’re all working on our schedules for readings, conventions, festivals and classes so more on that soon, too!

 

 

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December News

News
More of a request, really. The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is eligible for the Nebula and Hugo Awards in the Novella category, so if you’re a SFWA or Worldcon voting member, please consider nominating it. It’s a terrific retelling/reinterpretation of Beauty and the Beast and we’d love to see it get more buzz!

Coming up in December:

  1. Word Salad: Winter – December 3rd, 3 -4:30PM, Eat My Words Bookstore, Minneapolis. Join Michael Merriam and other storytellers for a tribute to our local climate.
  2. Write On! Radio KFAI FM – December 6th, 7-8 PM. Michael Merriam will be interivewed about Last Car to Annwn Station (you can listen online and there ill be an archived version available, too).
  3. Minnesota Women’s Art Festival – December 10th, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM. St. Mary’s University, Minneapolis. We’ll have a booth with Catherine’s books, our tea and artwork by artist Jana Pullman.
  4. 4th AZ Gallery Pop-Up Bookstore – December 10th, 2-6 PM.  AZ Gallery, St. Paul, MN. Michael Merriam will have a table at where he’ll be selling some of his Weird West tales, Last Car and some of our other titles.
  5. Smashwords End of Year Sale – 12/15/22-1/1/23! Get some great deals on our titles to wrap up 2022!
  6. End of Year IHeartSapphFic Sale – and look for Emily L. Byrne’s book on sale at Amazon for the last sale of the year 12/26-12/30!
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Award Eligibility Post for 2022 – books and authors

Our award-eligible book for this year is The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones (Last Car is a new edition resissue). Roses is eligible at the novella level for the Nebulas, the Hugos, World Fantasy and any other fantasy awards that have a category for Novellas. It is 40 K words long and we published it in April. It is a queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast, is currently under consideration for the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards and there is a reading copy of it available in the SFWA forums (it is also on the Reading List). If you loved this novella, shoutouts are much appreciated! It’s very hard for small press books to get big award traction so boosts, reviews, recommendations and so forth help a LOT!

Otherwise, Catherine Lundoff’s queer weird west tale “Grimwood” is eligible for short story. It appeared in Queer Weird West Tales, edited by Julie Bozza (LIBRATiger 2022). Alex Acks has a short story in the gaming tie-in collection Starcraft Warchest: Nature of the Beast. We’ll add more as we hear about them – lotta re-issues this year (Rem and Michael) and other stuff going on!

 

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November News!

 

News
Some catchup events from October!
The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is a Barbara Gittings Literature Award nominee for the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards! And big thank you to the librarian(s) who nominated it!
Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff is out in a new German edition from Ylva Publishing this month and getting some nice reviews!
Catherine was also interviewed by Canvas Rebel Magazine for their series on diverse entrepreneurs.
And you can listen to Jennie Goloboy’s terrific reading and interview from Space Cowboy Books on their Youtube channel here.
And finally, Rem Wigmore has a great new essay up at the Climate Fiction Writers League.

Coming in November:

  1. Strong Women Strange Worlds – November 4th, 12 Noon EDT. Jennie Goloboy is one of the featured reader’s at this month’s virtual reading. 
  2. Twin Cities Con – November 11th-13th, Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis. Queen of Swords Press will have a table and our local authors plan on stopping by to sign books. 
  3. Publishing Basics for Genre Fiction – November 15th, Springboard for the Arts. Online, 6-7:30 PM CST. Catherine will be teaching this free online workshop that provides an overview of genre fiction for new writers. 
  4. Speculations Reading Series – November 16th, 6.30 – 7:45 PM. DreamHaven Books, Minneapolis. Catherine will be reading from some of her recent fiction.
  5. I Heart SapphFic Mega Sale – November 25th-29th. Our lesbian titles with romantic plots or subplots will be on sale on Amazon for Thanksgiving weekend!

Finally, some upcoming cool news!

Want to talk to Catherine about your book idea? She’ll be taking pitches at our Discord channel on 11/20 from 2-4PM CST. We’re going to try this out and see how it goes so please stay tuned.

And more cool news! We just signed the contracts for the gay Victorian supernatural duology Death by Silver and Death at the Dionysis Club by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold! Silver will be a 2023 title and Dionysis a 2024 one.

We have also signed a new novella from author Dee Holloway. Little Nothing is an alternate history with fantastical elements set in Florida during the Civil War. It features a young interracial lesbian couple who have to find a way to stop the Confederacy from using magical creatures from the swamps against the Union forces. Good Stuff! More news coming soon!

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September Events

I just realized that I forgot to post August’s – there was a lot! See our Event’s page for info on that.

Meanwhile, here’s this month’s adventures!

September:

  • Chicon 8/Worldcon – September 1-5th. Catherine Lundoff , Alex Acks, Heather Rose Jones and Jennie Goloboy will be on programming.
  • Pagan Pride Fall Festival – September 10th. Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis. Look for our book table in the park.
  • Queer Neurodiverse Found Families in Speculative Fiction – Thursday, September 15th, 7-9PM. Virtual panel at the Argo Bookshop, Montreal, Quebec featuring Rem Wigmore, Andi C. Buchanan, R.B. Lemberg and more.
  • St. Cloud Pride in the Park – Saturday, September 17th, 11-3PM. St. Cloud, MN. Queen of Swords Press will be back!
  • Crypticon on September 16th- 18th in Plymouth, MN. Look for Michael Merriam in the Dealer’s Room with copies of Last Car.
  • Sunday Market at Dancing Bear Chocolate – September 25th, 9-2PM. Minneapolis. Catherine Lundoff will be there with our books and lovely handmade journals and boxes made by book artist Jana Pullman.
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July News and Events

All the news for this month!

  • Preorders for Last Car to Annwn Station by Michael Merriam are available direct from us, on Kobo and Amazon and Bookshop.org, B&N and beyond! Release date 7/7! 
  • BayCon 2022 – July 1st-4th. San Francisco. Look for Heather Rose Jones on programming and selling The Language of Roses at the Liminal Fiction Authors table. She’ll also have the tie-in coloring book featuring her art and some of our other books.
  • West St. Paul Pride – 11-4PM, July 9th. Queen of Swords Press will have a booth, books and deal!
  • r/Fantasy Small Press AMA – July 15th. Queen of Swords Press will once again have a Small Press AMA on Reddit Fantasy. All our authors will be there!
  • Book Release/Birthday Party at DreamHaven Books! July 21st 6:30-8:00PM. Queen of Swords Press is doing a re-release/first time in print edition of Michael Merriam’s homage to 2000s Minneapolis with a queer romance and the ghosts of the old streetcar line, Last Car to Annwn Station, and Jennie Goloboy and Catherine Lundoff never got in person releases for their books last year so we’re going to make up for lost time!
  • Sunday Market at Dancing Bear Chocolate – July 24th, 9-2PM. Minneapolis. Publisher Catherine Lundoff will be there with our books and lovely handmade journals and boxes made by her wife, Jana.
  • Book sales for July! Most of our titles will be on sale at Smashwords from July 1st-July31st and Catherine Lundoff’s Silver Moon and Blood Moon and Emily L. Byrne’s Medusa’s Touch will be on sale on Amazon 7/22-7/26 for I Heart SapphFic’s Christmas in July sale.

Hope to see you at one of our online or in person events!

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Queen of Swords Press News – June, 2022

We’ll be releasing a new edition of Minnesota author Michael Merriam’s terrific f/f urban fantasy set in Minneapolis, Last Car to Annwn Station,on 7/7/22! And we love Nathalie Gray of Kanaxa’s design for the cover! Preorders will be up very soon.

  1. Pride Month StoryBundle – June 1st-July 1st. Our annual event, this year featuring books by Melissa Scott, Heather Rose Jones, Rem Wigmore, Andi C. Buchanan, Jerry Wheeler, C.L. Clark and more! It will once again benefit Rainbow Railroad, an international nonprofit working with LGBTQ+ refugees and others fleeing persecution. 
  2. Finding Your Path: An Agent and a Publisher Spill the Tea on Agenting and Small Press Publishing – Clarion West Writers Workshop – June 5th, 11AM-12PM PST. Online. Jennie Goloboy and Catherine Lundoff will be teaching this workshop where you can get a lot of your questions answered about agents and publishers and what we do. And it’s free!
  3. Library of Congress on 6/21! Pretty excited about this! Catherine Lundoff will be on “Queering Small Publishing,” a lunch and learn panel for LoC staff, including  publishers from Neon Hemlock, Stelliform Press and Black Lesbian Feminist Press.
  4. Catherine was on the If This Goes On Podcast on 4/30 – https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/if-this-goes-on-dont-panic-alan-bailey-Qx_fTWkwl2d/
  5.  “Creating New Worlds” – Geek Girl Con Twitch, June 14th, 7PM PST. Catherine will be on a panel about world building in science fiction and fantasy.
  6. 4th Street Fantasy – June 17-19th, Minneapolis. Catherine Lundoff, Jenny Goloboy and Michael Merriam will all be in attendance and around.
  7. Alex Acks has a new story out in StarcraftWar Chest (Blizzard Entertainment, 2022).
  8. The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones continues to get terrific reviews, including these two: Out in Print and The Lesbian Review. Heather just created a free tie-in coloring book, which you can get when you buy a copy of the book from her or us, while supplies last!
  9. We’ve added a TikTok! Check out short videos and watch Catherine figure out how it works!
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Queen of Swords Press May News!

We’ve got all sorts of things coming up!

Currently, that includes the SFWA Auction. Bid on signed copies of Blood Moon by Catherine Lundoff, Obviously, Aliens by Jennie Goloboy and Wireless by Alex Acks and help support SFWA scholarships and programming!

Other fun things coming up:

  1. Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore is a Sir Julius Vogel Award finalist for Best Novel! And Laya Rose is nominated for her cover art for it too! Congratulations to both of them and to our webmaster, Andi, who’s a finalist in another category!
  2. The Language of Roses is getting some great reviews, like this one from the Runalong the Shelves Book Blog and this one from James Nicoll Reviews.
  3. Heather Rose Jones was a guest reader at FOGCon on 4/30 and will be reading at the fab online reading series, Strong Women, Strange Worlds, on 5/19.
  4. Catherine Lundoff was on the If This Goes On Podcast on 4/30, along with author Matthew Kressel, talking about hopepunk, climate fiction, running a green business, and more.
  5. Rochester Pride – May 21st, 12-5pm. Rochester, MN. We’ll have a booth at this new-to-us event.
  6. WisCon – May 27th-30th. Madison, WI. We’ll have a table in the Dealer’s Room and Heather Rose Jones and Catherine will both be on programming.

Things coming up in June

  1. Pride Month StoryBundle – June 1st – July 1st. Our annual event, this year featuring books by Melissa Scott, Heather Rose Jones, Rem Wigmore, and others to be announced. It will once again benefit Rainbow Railroad, an international nonprofit working with LGBTQ refugees!
  2. Finding Your Path: An Agent and a Publisher Spill the Tea on Agenting and Small Press Publishing – Clarion West Writers Workshop – June 5th, 11AM-12:30PM PST. Online and free. Jennie Goloboy and Catherine will be teaching this workshop where you can get your questions answered and learn cool and nifty things about what agents do, what publishers do and what to consider doing with your books.
  3. Queering Small Press Publishing – June 21, 12-1PM. Library of Congress. Catherine Lundoff will be on a panel for Library of Congress staff with publishers from Neon Hemlock, Stelliform Press and BLF Press. Not open to the public, alas, but very cool anyway.

More coming soon!

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The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is here!

We’re very excited to announce our 14th title – The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is a novella-length queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a twist and it is out everywhere today! You can buy direct from us  or at these fine outlets. It’s getting some lovely early reviews on Goodreads!

A Beauty. A Beast. A Curse. This is not the story you know…