Year: 2013

Last week, I was on YouTube and found myself watching the new music video for Kelly Clarkson’s People Like Us. I’m rather fond of both the song and the video, but what I found really interesting about the whole thing was the comments. People seem to universally find the song inspirational, but their reasons for finding it so varies from person to person. Some people were lonely. Some people were bullied. Some people had gotten out of a bad relationship. Some people just liked the idea that there were people out there who were like them, somewhere. It’s why music–and art–endures.

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One of our favourite things here at Turtleduck Press is the oddball, the unusual, the out-of-the-ordinary. Give us an arcane fact or something cool about the universe, and we’re happy. (Which is why we’re looking for oddball novels. But I digress.) I’ve just come back from a road trip through Western Canada. We poked into lots of wonderful shops that I wanted to buy in their entirety — yarn shops, indie designer clothing stores, art and photography stores, independent bookstores — but the best one by far was the rocks and gems store in Banff, Alberta.

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  Following on this wonderful essay about cannibalistic llamas (I told you! …right?) Chuck Wendig wrote about the underserved. I used to work at the public library. Libraries are of course where the books live but that’s only a part of what they do and one of the things they do is a very important function called: serving the underserved population. (Note: underserved, not undeserved.) I specifically worked with a department whose goal was to find the folks the library Just Plain Wasn’t Talking To and then Talk To Them. Are we helping blind people? We’re helping children, but are we helping seniors? What about African-Americans? Or people trapped in low-income brackets? And so on. I am lucky enough to live in an area with an exceptional public library system. I’ve seen that they do this too. I count myself blessed to have many librarians as friends, both here and around the country. They also do this. It’s not just a directive from on high for librarians, it’s a life choice. It’s one part of what makes librarians super-heroes in my book. You know I’m going to tie this in to what TDP is doing, right?

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  So, after almost 3 months of not writing, I finally started writing last week.  I wanted to go slow, no pressure, just to start getting in the daily routine again.  Not writing for so long made me lose that spark that got me in front of the screen every single day.  And it’s a scary thing when you have come to rely on something so much and suddenly, it’s gone.  Suddenly, my moods were trending toward bad (on good days) and downright homicidal (on bad days).  Everyone noticed this.  And there was work stress I couldn’t handle without writing, so I was a bag of nerves for awhile.  So I said, enough’s enough.  I gotta start somehow.  Even if it’s just 100 words.  Something.

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  After all, we’ve shown you some of ours. It’s been nearly three years since our intrepid quartet launched Turtleduck Press with Knight Errant, Hidden Worlds, and Life as a Moving Target. In the seven books, many free stories, and lots of blog posts since, we at Turtleduck Press have learned much and had a great time doing it. Now we’re looking to take the next step: TDP is looking for new members. As Kit Campbell mentioned in her blog post, we’re excited! We’re a publishing co-op and we’re good friends. If you’d like to join our merry band, please have a look at our Call For Submissions. Good luck, and may the best manuscript win! Return with your keyboard, or on it! Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire? And other moving and inspirational speeches!

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I love to read. I love to curl up in an armchair with a mug of cocoa and an enjoyable book and while away the afternoon in the middle of someone else’s adventure. I’m pretty sure most writers (and bibliophiles of all sorts) do as well. (“I hate books, so I’m going to be a writer,” said no one ever.) That’s why I’m so excited that we’re opening up for submissions tomorrow!

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Are you the “ooh, shiny!” type? The sort who picks up a new hobby or fascination, runs with it for a while and possibly learns everything there is to know about it, and then drops it for the next new thing? I am. My latest obsession? Vegetable gardening. Now, I know this isn’t an earth-shattering hobby. But I own land for the first time, or more precisely a house with a big backyard that was a vegetable garden for years. The soil is great; there’s no grass, and it seems a shame to put in new grass and cover up even some of that rich earth. So I’m gardening. We actually moved in last spring, but we were a little busy with other life stuff, so we had a minimal garden. Our next-door neighbour, a very kind and very Italian grandmother, planted tomatoes and basil for us, and her mint crept under the fence to join them. All of it grew like crazy. And I have to tell you…the satisfaction of picking and eating food out of our own yard was amazing. We didn’t have to buy any tomatoes for weeks…and we eat a lot of tomatoes. We were hooked.

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Instead of a blog post today, we bring you some exciting news: Turtleduck Press is expanding, and we want YOU! Starting in May, we will be looking for new members. If you’re a writer of science fiction, fantasy, or speculative fiction, you have a polished novel manuscript, and you’re interested in joining a publishing co-op, we’d love to hear from you. We’ll be opening to submissions shortly — stay tuned for details!

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Hi, folks! It’s your international correspondent here…except I’m not so international anymore. My big trip is over and I’m back in my own North American urban life. More or less, anyway. Travel changes the traveler. I’m not quite the same person I was when I left, and that means my sense of home isn’t quite the same, either. Everything’s just slightly off-kilter. For example, I no longer take for granted: electricity that works all the time — in Kerala, India, power outages were common, and in Kathmandu, Nepal, the power was turned off for eight hours a day sidewalks and sane traffic — throughout Asia, sidewalks were sketchy and traffic operated by no natural laws that I was familiar with equality of women — on a more serious note, in a lot of India we saw very few women driving vehicles, working with the public, or walking around after dark

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Due to some health issues, I’ve been forced to take a hiatus from writing.  To most people, that wouldn’t sound like a bad thing.  It could be a chance to recharge and rest after working so hard for a year to release my debut novel, Fey Touched.  But for me, it is huge.  Ginormous.  Life-altering. Because apart from illness, surgery, and vacations, I have written every day for 9 years.  It is so ingrained in me that I couldn’t imagine how I’d manage it.  It was beyond me.  I have, but not without bumps and a bit of muse-fueled insanity thrown in.

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