DragonCon: What a ride!

I am so overwhelmed by DragonCon that I don’t even know how to start writing about this intense experience. I guess I’ll go for the “start at the very beginning” thang…

Firstly, this was going to be Archie’s first flight with me and as a service animal, and possibly his first time in a plane at all. We did as much prep as we could for it, but with my caring for my elderly mother, we weren’t able to do a dry-run at Logan airport beforehand, so while I thought he’d actually be fine, I did have tiny worries in the back of my brain that it might be asking a lot of him.

I shouldn’t have worried. Archie rocked going through security (where he was complimented going both there and back as “obviously a very well-trained service animal” — the ultimate compliment!)

I also was slightly worried that Archie would be afraid during take off and landing. Again, nope! He was fascinated by looking out the window, and watched all through take-off and then looked down on the clouds beneath us until he decided to have a nap. For each flight, the person sitting next to us was delighted to have Archie there, and the gal from the departure flight said it was an honor to have been part of his first flight experience

Not scared. Just fascinated. My brave boy!

So, Archie was doing fine.

I, however, was barely hanging on. I was exhausted before I even left for the airport. By the time we got to ATL and I had taken Arch to the animal relief area and then found where my baggage was, I was barely able to see straight. I managed to find the rideshare pickup area and call a Lyft, but in stepping out of the airport I discovered why they call it “Hotlanta.”

I was not prepared. I was wearing sweatpants and hoodie for the plane, and the sweat started pouring off me. My glasses were sliding off my face and wouldn’t stay in place. I was panting in distress and trying to manage my suitcase, my backpack, and Arch in his travel bag. As I got into the Lyft, carefully setting Archie down, I tried to get my own self into the car and slammed my face into the doorframe.

Pain shot through me. I literally fell into the car. As the driver took off, I tried to put on my seatbelt, make sure Archie was comfortable, and check if my glasses were broken. I am blind as two bats, and if they had been broken I don’t know how I would have made it through the weekend.

My glasses hadn’t broken! However, the skin under them had split from the sudden blow. I, however, am not aware of this. I idly notice how painful it is, but I assume the trickles I feel running down my face are sweat.

Happily, my friend, the fantastic author Tiffany Trent, had already checked into our hotel room, so I marched through the lobby and up to the room with my bloody face, totally unaware of the vision I was presenting. When I got to the room, Tiffany took one look at me and said, “Are you OK?”

This was when I looked in the mirror. Oh.

So she got me ice, and I washed up the blood. But what an entry to DragonCon!

I grabbed this shot after I washed my face, so it’s sadly less dramatic

I have never been to DragonCon before, because I could guess how hard it would be for someone with a chronic illness—and I was right about that! But this year I was invited to attend as a professional, and the panels they offered me were amazing. So despite how concerned I was about how suboptimal this con would be for my health, it seemed worth giving it a try.

It WAS worth giving a try. All the panels I was on were AMAZING. And I met so many fantastic new friends 🤩

Getting from place to place was an ordeal. Everywhere was too crowded and too noisy. I had to be hypervigilant that no one reached out to touch Archie while he was working—despite two large “SERVICE DOG | DO NOT PET” patches and a bright red leash that said the same thing, some people will still just reach out towards him, usually over his head, which is the worst way to touch a dog. (Archie is trained to not respond, but he still shouldn’t have to deal with it.) And then there was the heat, which was a huge factor in and of itself. How all those people in elaborate costumes didn’t expire of heat prostration is beyond me.

But, yet again, entirely worth it. The first panel I had was Vampires: Return of the Monstrous. Wonderful questions, great panelists. It was put out Live on Facebook, so you can watch the whole thing here:

A screen grab of us having too much fun on the vampire panel

The next day I had two panels: Who Could Resist? (What happens when the One Ring lands somewhere far from Middle-earth? Would superheroes, space captains, or Anime icons resist its pull—or fall fast?) and then Same Places, Different Times: Historical Urban Fantasy.

The Who Could Resist Panel was a nerdiferous treat. A delightful conversation with my fellow panelists and the audience, so much fun that it was hard to believe it was my “job” to be there.

Archie has his own opinions about who should get the One Ring

But the Historical Urban Fantasy panel was best of all. All the panelists were so inspiring and it took my own words to the next level. I was so happy with the panel before the final amazing moment…

When we finished, there was a loud round of applause. Archie had conked out on my lap, and the cheering woke him. His little head popped up over the table, and laughing, I explained to the audience that he thought the applause was for him. So they gave him a second ovation, just for him

On Sunday, my final requirement was doing a mentor session: 1 hour, 4 people getting 15 minutes each. I already thought that I’d had the best part of the con, but it turns out that I love doing mentor sessions! Everyone who sat with me had great questions, and it was an honor and a pleasure to get a chance to advise and guide them, trying to make their writing journey just a bit easier. I’m honestly going to be looking forward to doing that again all year long.

DragonCon was not easy for me, but it was still an amazing experience. And also, if Archie can handle DragonCon, he can handle pretty much anything. He’s really graduated top of his class as a service animal now, and that means the world to me.

Portrait of Archie and me by Nicholas Buck — thank you so much!

And now a word from this week’s sponsor. Remember if you merely click on this ad, I get some money regardless of if you buy anything! 🙏

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Hallowe’en Plans 🎃

Well, I had originally put in that so far I only have Pandemonium’s Spooky Geek Faire on October 11th—but unfortunately Pandy just emailed and said they are cancelling the event 😭

No home-mulled cider this year 😭

And that took down my plans thus far. I’m waiting to hear back from two other venues, but honestly, if they fall through, it might not be the worst thing. I did so much last year that I was crashed out for most of November. Having just one event during October is actually a sane plan (not that I am especially known for those 😂) and would actually leave me time to crank out the final 25,000 words of Blood Depths, which really isn’t a bad idea at all, instead of spending all my time on marketing and exhausting myself vending.

The event I loved most last year, that made the the most money I’ve ever made in one event (the Salem Vampire Market) is not happening this year, and I’m feeling quite grumpy about it because that’s the event I really want to be doing. So maybe that’s my sign to just give myself some space to write (and have a spoon or two to deal with my mom’s progressing Althzheimer’s) and just let go of the “It’s Spooky Season and I need every weekend booked!” stress I’ve been feeling.

Enjoy your autumn for the next two weeks, and until then, be good or be good at it! 😘

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Blood Ex Libris

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Getting the final things ready for both DragonCon (and getting everything easy for my sister to care for my mom while I’m away) is very chaotic, so just a short newsletter today

The DragonCon (Sept 3-6) schedule is in the previous newsletter, or you can find it online here:

Instagram post

#Ravenlife — Just a short discussion of nerdy love

Trent and me at the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opening night

I was watching the first episode of Lanterns with my partner Trent (who you all know by now from the pathetic-non-fight-at-the-dog-park story 🙄)

As the show kicks in, Hal Jordan is explaining that in the Green Lantern Corps, Earth is located in Space Sector…

“2814!” Trent says, before Hal can. He tells me to pause the show (he never does this) and says, apologetically, “I knew that. I’m such a big nerd.”

He was, in that moment, honestly a bit embarrassed. All I could do was hug him and explain that his nerd-factor was one of the things I loved best about him.

Cut to later in the episode. The (fantastic!) sheriff is talking about identifying aliens and she says something about “Where are the antennas?”

“Antennae!” I correct her, a beat before before Hal does. Because you see, I might not be the deeply knowledgeable comics nerd, but I’ve read a good deal more science fiction than the average bear, and also I’m a Comparative Literature major, so I care about words and their correct plurals. And, through books, I’ve met my fair share of aliens 👽🛸

Once Hal corrected the sheriff, I turned to Trent, now myself embarrassed. “I’m not sure which of us is the bigger nerd,” I confessed to him.

This is all to say, find a partner who is as much of a geek, nerd, or other weirdo as you are. (Or, if aro, find some similar friends! Or, if poly, collect them! 😉) It’s vitally important to have someone who can meet you on that level, just as important as religion/ethics or sexuality or if you want to have kids together.

Two nerds at the Museum of Fine Arts

On that note, I’m gonna go finish packing and get my nerdy ass to DragonCon. Pictures and video coming up in the next newsletter! 🍽️

ASK ME ANYTHING

From feedback I’ve gotten, many of you really love the stories I’ve been telling you of my life, the things that formed this Raven into the weirdo she is today. At Hellmouth, a few of you came up to the table to say how much you’d been enjoying reading those, and it absolutely made my con 🥰

So I’m putting out the request for more questions for me to answer in upcoming newsletters. Ask me literally anything—you (and I!) never know what the question will lead to me sharing. Like the question about me writing gay male sex scenes turned into a whole exploration of my own gender experiences that I wasn’t even planning to write 😂

Just hit “reply” and drop the question in the email, or if you prefer, message me over on Instagram or Threads. Or hell, even Facebook, if you must 😉

See you in two weeks with the stories from DragonCon, and until then, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

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Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Last week I had a wonderful time interviewing fellow vampire author Markus Redmond about his upcoming second-in-series Blood Rising. I have interviewed people a couple times for IG Live, and I wasn’t worried about the talking part, but the whole “getting the app to play nicely so that things run smoothly, the Live begins on time—and I don’t look unprofessional, which is a thing I have nightmares about.

Here it is on YT:

Or watch it on IG

I had a traumatic experience with this when I was with the Bad Old Publisher (henceforward BOP), which I’ve never talked about online before, but I think it’s time to finally tell that story… 💁‍♀️

I had realized by the time the second book (of my three book deal) came out, that BOP was not only going to fail to market my books in any meaningful way, but that too many people at the company did not like or understand my writing. The guy who was in charge of doing the YouTube interviews with each author as their books launched did an interview with me where he told the viewers that “they could just skip the sex scenes if they didn’t like that stuff.”

Here’s my publisher, literally telling the BOP readership that they should just skip reading whole sections of my book 😲😬🤬🤯

This was the same guy who put together the newsletters, and my books were always buried at the bottom, no matter how much great promotional material I sent the company, or what great reviews I was able to get.  

So, for my third book, I asked the company if we could do a Live on launch day, and have actual fans of the series asking questions instead of this sex-negative turnip. They said, that sounds great, and we scheduled everything, and I made lots of fun promo material and begged people to attend.

This poor girl has no idea how badly things are about to go… But at least her lippy is 🔥

They had never done one before, and I also begged the two people involved to do a trial run with me, to make sure that everything was set to work optimally. They refused. “It’ll be fine,” they said, “We’re not worried about it.”

I was worried about it. But there was nothing I could do, as the Live would be going out through the BOP company Meta account.

On the day, I had my interview area cleaned to gleaming perfection. I had my hair done at the salon. I put on my carefully chosen outfit, and did my makeup with growing anticipation.

Half an hour beforehand, I was sitting at the computer, a bundle of nerves. About a hundred people had already RSVPed to the event. I posted the last reminders about it to various places, then waited. About ten minutes beforehand, I suggested to the team we get it up and running and I could chat with people until M-minute.

They tried to set it up. We could see the Live had started, but none of us could login to interact with people who were already there. I started desperately searching for help with the problem. There was nothing to be found online that addressed the issue.

They tried some things. Nothing worked.

M-minute. People started sending me messages that they were in the Live, but I wasn’t there. Don’t worry, I told them, just some technical difficulties, it will be working shortly.

The BOP team was now, all-too-belatedly, trying to problem-solve.

I watched as the people who had joined the Live left, one after another.

At M minus 30, they still hadn’t solved the issue. I told them to just forget it. I was raging mad. Seldom have I been so incandescently angry in my life. All I asked was that we do a quick trial run. We could have avoided this fiasco entirely. A hundred people had kindly turned up because I had asked them to, and all of them had seen me fail completely. (See above fear of not looking professional.)

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Then I remembered there was a punching bag newly installed in the backyard. I changed into gym clothes and took my anger out to the punching bad.

I didn’t yet have gloves to use with said punching bag. But in the moment, that was irrelevant. I punched my anger out and out and out. It took a while to work it all out.

This is what my hands looked like after that.

I Hulk Smashed, but sadly did not have Hulk benefits…

I learned many lessons that day. Probably the most important is that I should always keep fighting gloves on hand in case I need to punch something repeatedly. Second to that is that if you can, you should ALWAYS do a trial run before any important thing involving technology. (I had not needed to learn this lesson in the first place, dammit!) Thirdly was that I needed to leave the publisher, STAT.

So, that’s all to say that even though I did do a wee trial run of Live last week, I was still a very nervy gal in the moments before 6PM 😰 Archie actually did his service animal task—that is, he poked me with his nose to tell me my breathing pattern was concerning to him. But it all went off perfectly, Markus seemed to have as good a time as I did, and hopefully this will go some distance to repairing that stupidly unnecessary wee trauma.

ASK ME ANYTHING

From feedback I’ve gotten, many of you really love the stories I’ve been telling you of my life, the things that formed this Raven into the weirdo she is today. At Hellmouth, a few of you came up to the table to say how much you’d been enjoying reading those, and it absolutely made my con 🥰

So I’m putting out the request for more questions for me to answer in upcoming newslettera. Ask me literally anything—you (and I!) never know what the question will lead to me sharing. Like the question about me writing gay male sex scenes turned into a whole exploration of my own gender experiences that I wasn’t even planning to write 😂

Just hit “reply” and drop the question in the email, or if you prefer, message me over on Instagram or Threads. Or hell, even Facebook, if you must 😉

That’s all for this newsletter. I’m caught up in trying to care for my mom, get everything ready to take Archie on his first flight and then do DragonCon (which is not a small con like his first con, ReaderCon) and keeping up with writing and all the other gazillion author-tasks.

See you in two weeks, and until then, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Wow, this is the first newsletter that I missed my Tuesday deadline since I first moved in with my mom to help her stay at home as her Alzheimer’s progresses. It’s been a crazy period of appointments, and my health has been pretty suboptimal, which is not a fantastic combo…

But there is exciting news! My panel schedule for DragonCon came in AND IT’S SO GOOOOOD

Title: Vampires: Return of the Monstrous
Description: Vampires weren’t always tragic, romantic, or heroic — they began as monsters to be feared. Today’s creators are embracing that legacy, making vampires that are terrifying again. Our panelists dig into the rebirth of the monstrous undead and why audiences are hungry for it.
Panelists: Clay Gilbert, Eric R Vernor, Kevin Grevioux, Lindy Ryan, Raven Belasco, Erika L Lance(M)
Time: Fri 9/4/26 08:30 pm
Location: Peachtree 1-2 Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Who Could Resist?
Description: What happens when the One Ring lands somewhere far from Middle-earth? Would superheroes, space captains, or anime icons resist its pull—or fall fast?
Panelists: Raven Belasco, Jennifer Liang(M), Judy Stephens, Billy Todd, Laura Grabowski
Time: Sat 9/5/26 01:00 pm
Location: L401-L403 Marriott (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Same Places, Different Times: Historical Urban Fantasy
Description: Our panelists explore supernatural beings and magic occurring in historical real-world settings.
Panelists: Clay Griffith, Susan Griffith, Raven Belasco, Wayland Smith, D.B. Jackson, Karen Bembry(M)
Time: Sat 9/5/26 04:00 pm
Location: Chastain F Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: 15 Minute Mentor Sessions
Description: A chance for budding authors to talk one-on-one with a successful industry professional about business, promotion, the writing process, & career advice. Sign up in the Writer’s Track. (Embassy E/F).
Panelists: Raven Belasco, Toni Weisskopf, Paul Barrett, Cathalson
Time: Sun 9/6/26 02:30 pm
Location: Embassy G Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

Please note, these schedules are TENTATIVE. A final schedule will be included in the Guest Information sheet.

Are you going to be at DragonCon? Hit reply to this email and let me know. Maybe we can meet up for a coffee… ☕

Don’t forget, National Book Lovers Day on August 9th harnesses all the excitement bibliophiles feel about books into one celebration and to facilitate that bookish joy, everything on the IIP website ships FREE on that one day: books, audiobooks, and of course our beloved bookmarks 🔖🔖

Here’s the coupon code so mark it in your calendars and use that day to get the book(s) you don’t already have, buy gifts for friends, or swag-up with the leather or gorgeous new stained glass bookmarks!

🥩 The Raw View 🥩 — Unedited Snippets of Raven’s Most Recent Writing

From last’s 5000 word progress in Blood Depths…

We were discussing what to try next when Nthanda’s phone rang. His eyebrows almost shot off his forehead. With this new SIM, only Barqan should have the number, and he flashed us the screen to show it was an unknown number.

He hit the green circle and said, “Hello?”

A female voice. “Why are you trying to find Dr. Aleema Salamé?” He didn’t have to put it on speaker; with our am’r hearing we could listen in just fine.

Nthanda paused and answered carefully, “Dr. Salamé has great knowledge of medicine. I would very much like to learn from her.”

“Take her classes, then.”

“I would, but I am only in Nigeria a short time. And I hope to ask her about some very specialized treatments. She has been recommended to me specially.”

“That is too bad. She is not available.”

“Dr. Salamé was recommended to me by, shall we call her… Madam Canaan.”

There was a pause. “Recommended to you?”

Nthanda stopped, thought about the question, looked sharply at me, and replied, “Recommended to a friend who is traveling with me. By a mutual…acquaintance.” Truly, no one could call Astryiah a friend. She was for herself, first and foremost, and you either were traveling the same path, or you got out of her way.

“Now I hear the truth in your words. Come to Katsina city. She is collecting plants for the herbarium here. This is the address…”

Nthanda wrote it down. I didn’t pay attention because my head was spinning.

When he had thanked the woman and hung up, I stared at him, disbelieving.

“What is it, treasure?”

“Katsina. Is. Where. We. Came. From.”

“Yeah, ironic innit?”

“An eighteen hour drive seems more than just ironic, to me.”

“Ah, you youngers. So impatient. What’s eighteen hours in an am’r life?”

“Once the sun comes up, it’s a nasty fucking headache, is what.”

Viv choked. “She have a point!”

Nthanda chuckled. “We can stop for the day and try to find a place to shelter. But everything will just take that much longer.”

“You can say that because I, as the youngest am’r, will be driving for that shift. You and Viv will be under the sun-protection blankie.”

Nthanda looked pretend-thoughtful. “Huh. It is funny how it always ends up that way.”

And that’s it for today. See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Before we get into the body of the email, let me tell you about a fantastic chance to grab books and bookmarks and not pay a cent for shipping! National Book Lovers Day on August 9th harnesses all the excitement bibliophiles feel about books into one celebration and to facilitate that bookish joy, everything on the IIP website ships FREE on that one day!

Here’s the coupon code so mark it in your calendars and use that day to get the book(s) you don’t already have, buy gifts for friends, or swag-up with the gorgeous new stained glass bookmarks

Snag this fan-favorite with free shipping!

(And no, I didn’t just make this holiday up!)

Readercon was amazing. Here’s a carousel of images and video to prove it:

Instagram post

Gratitude

This past weekend was Archie’s first convention as a service animal. He rocked it like a champ. It’s kinda a big deal…

When I first rescued him, Archie was pretty severely traumatized. I actually took him to an SCA event about a month after he came to me, an indoor event at a hotel with a bunch of people walking around and talking. Archie was terrified. He shook the whole time. Obviously I left early.

Most any trainer would have said he could never be a service animal.

But my trainer worked with me to set up a program to accustom him to being around large groups of people, being noisy and chaotic. We started him with walking in the center of town. He moved up to going to outdoor events. Meanwhile, I put him on CBD to help calm the constant static in his head. And we worked on training at home, and in the woods, and then in town, and then at outdoor events. And then eventually in doctor’s offices and other indoor spaces.

It’s taken two years of consistent work. But Archie made such a good impression at Readercon this past weekend—as usual rising above my expectations and even my hopes.

In the busy vending area, he stayed on his “place” mat like a good boy. He mostly napped. In the busy hallways, he was calmly in his work bag or my arms. No shaking. Totally calm and relaxed, focused on me and his job. He not only did not get in the way of making sales, he actually sold some books by being so damn cute. He impressed everyone who saw him as being well-trained and well-behaved. One of the Readercon conchairs told me that Archie had brought happiness to the whole convention 🥰

If you think I’m patting myself on the back, that’s not it. My amazing trainer and I provided a framework for him to heal and become his full self. But Archie had to choose it. Archie had to put in the work on his end. Archie had to be willing to trust me completely, despite his terrible life before. I give Archie all the credit, because none of the training would have worked if he hadn’t wanted to do it.

Over the past months, I’ve been making sure he knows he has a choice. He can stay home and chill with his buddies Sebastian and Mo, comfy and safe, no stress or pressure. Or he can come with me and be working, actively called upon to stretch his limits and put under the pressure of being a Good Boy in a noisy and chaotic world. Every time, he makes it very clear: “I am your service animal and I choose to be doing the work.”

I am honored by his choice. I do everything I can to make it doable for him, to set him up for success, but the fact of the matter is that he is the one doing the hard part, and he’s doing it out of love for me 🥹

This is the second service animal I’ve had who has defied conventional wisdom that their breed type, size, or background would make them “inferior” service animals. Both Cairngorm and now Archie have risen above all of that to be the best companions and helpers to me, absolutely 100% the dogs I needed them to be. By their own choice (and in Cairngorm’s case, having done things very much his own way 🙄) they could proudly stand beside any German Shepard or Golden Retriever, any dog trained at a fancy service animal organization, and say, “I take the best care of my human and I am a Good Canine Citizen.”

I am beyond lucky. Despite having a lot of hard stuff in my life now and in the past years, the one thing I can say for certain is that I am blessed by my dogs and honored that two of the finest creatures to ever put paw on this planet decided to love me that much.

THIS BOY 💝

Besides my overwhelming gratitude to my beautiful boy, I’d like to shout out a few more people:

My partner Trent, who not only helped with load-in and tear down, but came over on Saturday evening so a very tired Archie could just snuggle with him in the hotel room instead of joining me in my evening networking rounds, which would have been asking a bit much after ten hours of being A Very Good Boy. I know what a great partner I have…but sometimes it still amazes me. 💘

As we fuck around with selfies and ignore the customers 😂

My bestie Lauren of Eclipse Costumes, who gave me three days of her life and worked her fantastic derriere off helping me meet our sales goals, to the point of zombie-like exhaustion for us both by Day Three. Not many friends show up like this, and I am so impossibly lucky! 💖

Meg, of Copper Dog Books, who was the best vending neighbor one could hope for. My Readercon was significantly enhanced by having her to chat with when everyone was in panels and not buying books. What a fantastic way to make a new friend 🥰

I have the month of August off: no conventions, no nothin’! I am planning to finally get a chance to crank forward with Blood Depths with less other stuff getting in my way (so that means less videos and stuff from me on IG and YouTube) and actually reading some books for pleasure!

Yes, we were in Lagos back at the beginning of the month, and we are spending a lot more time in that impressive city because the plot took a turn I wasn’t expecting, and Noosh and Nthanda and Viv are not heading right away to fight the vampire pirates out at sea, but on a Very Important Side Quest (Which Has Really Been The Main Quest All Along). Sound exciting? Honestly, I’m really curious how things are going to work out—and I’m writing the damned thing!

Anyway, that’s all I have to report. I shall be writing and reading all month, and loving every minute of it!

Don’t forget to hit the sale on August 9th (I still have plenty of stock left over from Readercon, because I always buy too much “just in case”) so help me get the books out of my mom’s basement and give me excuses to go chat with the nice USPS staff 😁

See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

As you probably recall, I’ve been posting up interviews with Amber and myself for the past six weeks, and today is the final one—and of course the spiciest! It turns out that Amber got a bit slap-happy during the recording of one of the sex scenes in Blood Eternal, and starting singing a song about that infamous threesome-in-a-doorway…

While you recover from that, let me drop in a reminder that I’ll be at Readercon this coming weekend, and it’s not too late for you to drop everything and plan to go to one of the very best conventions in the multiverse 🌌🗓️

As promised, That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story is now fully listed on every single available audiobook platform you could want. But I suggest you get it on Libro.FM so that you support independent bookstores, or request it at your local library 🏴‍☠️

I re-released the reel about how the ships in that story were named. If you missed it before, here you go!

Next up, I am now stocked with signable copies of Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas. And just in time for Xmas in July! 🎁 So order your copy on the IIP website and I’ll sign it special and throw in a nice bit of swag. (Or come buy it from me in the vendor’s room at Readercon!) ✒️📖

Summertime in RavenLife 😎

I actually took a day off this past weekend! My Best Witch and her partner were throwing a shindig, and I don’t see enough of them, so Trent and Archie and I drove down and met their friends, and it was absolutely perfect. I really enjoyed talking to everyone at the party (this is a rare event!) and the music was fantastic and the food was delicious.

Here’s a shot of me relaxing and not working at all, with my Bestie and with Trent photobombing us! (Do not ask why there is a tentacle dildo in the shot. Some things are better left a mystery. But I assure you that the whole thing was hilarious and watching a piñata get whacked open by a huge silicone dong is deeply entertaining. coff Anyway, if you want to know what it looks like when I find “my people” random dildos could be a part of that at any moment 😂)

Just living in the moment, Raven-style

🥩 The Raw View 🥩 

Your favorite section is BACK! Here’s a snippet for you from Blood Demands of Noosh talking with Nthanda as they are going about the next part of the journey. This comes right after Noosh has had to confront Nthanda about A Really Big Deal. They are in Lagos, Nigeria for this conversation. If you can’t remember why Noosh is off with Nthanda, grab your copy of Blood Triad, or buy one…

⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Nthanda laughed out loud. “Luv, no one is as pig-headed as Sandu. Or his patar, for all his sunny smiles. You picked the most obdurate am’r in the world to love.”

It was such a relief to hear someone validate my experiences of the past few years. I sometimes felt like I must be insane, trying to deal with them.

Many am’r had been jealous of me, even back when I was am’r-nafsh, because I was the frithaputhra of two of the most rockstar am’r of all: Dracula Himself, and the aojysht-of-aojyshtaish, the eldest of all the am’r, Bagamil. They would give anything for that intimacy—and the vhoon that came with it.

But of all the am’r I could have had a connection with, Sandu was known throughout history for his stubborn refusal to back down in the face of overwhelming armies of Turks—and he brought that same attitude to interpersonal disagreements. And Bagamil. He’d been alive since pottery was a brand new technology, and that was plenty of time to get entirely set in one’s ways. He had seemed like the most easygoing and chill of all the am’r, when I first was getting to know him. But the core of him was a solid block of will, as unyielding as granite.

I realized with a shock of relief that the fact that I had managed to deal with these impossible beings meant that maybe I was not just the baby, the most neophyte of the am’r. Maybe I had some survival skills I had not fully appreciated. Maybe I was set up for a success in the am’r world, and I wasn’t one hundred percent headed to certain tokhmarenc.

And that’s it for today. See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

This newsletter, your usual #IndieLife and #RavenLife sections are being taken over by news and a write-up of my experiences at the Hellmouth Convention. I don’t think any of you will be terribly upset about this, but if you have ideas for what I should write about in the future for either of those sections, just hit “reply” to this email and tell me what you wanna read from me!

🎉Today That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story audiobook drops! 🎉

As with Blood Triad, this audiobook invites some new voices into the world of the am’r: Carmen Seantel as a perfectly sharp-witted Sadie the Goat and Hel roaring Gallus Mag into life. I couldn’t have made a better choice for either of these characters, and here is a clip proving it:

And the first review of the audiobook has also just come in! 💃

Not all the platforms have listed the audiobook, yet. They all take their own time in reviewing and publishing it, since IIP is a small publisher. For a Big Five, they would jump through flaming hoops to ensure a pub date set by the publisher. But since we are small fish, “when we get around to it” is our lot. 🙄 While by the next newsletter the audiobook should be wide across all platforms, here is the list of places to grab your copy of the audiobook right now:

Last minute update: Libro.FM has just added the audiobook! 🎉

Get Ready for Readercon!

I’m so excited to be back at Readercon this year!

For those of you who don’t already have their tickets, it’s July 9 – 12, 2026 at the Boston Marriott Burlington in Burlington, MA. The Guests of Honor are P. Djèlí Clark and David Gerrold, both of whom are particular favorites of mine! And of course, one of the authors who influenced me most in this world, Samuel R. Delany, said “Readercon is my favorite convention.”

Me setting up for Readercon last year

We had printed 100 copies of Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas for Hellmouth and THEY ARE ALL GONE. 🎉 I’ve ordered more for Readercon, but if you want signed copies in the meantime, hit reply get on the waitlist. Or order them online and bring them next month to Readercon or in September at Dragoncon for me to sign for you…

Hellmouth 2026 Reflections

Few things go by so fast as a Hellmouth Convention. It’s incredibly jam-packed with Buffy goodness—often to the heartbreaking dilemma of desperately wanting to do two things at the same time and having to choose.

In my case, since I’m working, that makes my life easier because I have things I have to be doing at specific times at specific places, and the decision is already made. But even with that simplification, my head is still spinning with the memories.

Saturday was my first panel of the weekend: Amber Benson and me talking about making the Blood Eternal audiobook and talking about things like the difference between the Buffy universe monsters and the am’r of the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series—and which she would rather fight 🤺😁

(That panel was recorded in full and will be posted on YouTube as soon as the processing is done. You know I’ll post it here when it’s ready.)

The rest of that Saturday there were some long signing periods and I got to greet some friends from last year, and meet some amazing new readers. I didn’t quite get a sore hand from signing…but if things tend in this direction, that’s in my future! I can’t wait to get a sore hand from having to sign so many books! That’s the kind of problems I want in my life!

Sunday was a second panel, “Turning Your Passion into a Paying Gig.” It was the amazing artist Keaghlan Ashley and myself, being interviewed by Ray, very much a Host with the Most. It was a fantastic conversation—although Keaghlan got pulled out to do Clem’s prosthetics halfway through. I had wanted to hear more of what she had to say, but Ray and I kept things lively in her absence.

The rest of the day had me mostly chained to the table (they put me beside Amber, since our audience overlaps, and I stuck around for her insanely long lines, because sometimes people wanted signatures from both of us. I don’t know how she does it—no matter how long the line, she has warmth and kindness for everyone. Truly a wonderful human, and example for me to live up to.) But that was fine, and meant I got to chat with not just new readers, but with the wonderful Hellmouth volunteers as well.

The people who attend the Hellmouth convention, in whatever capacity, are uniformly fantastic people. All huge geeks. A high percentage of queerness. Imaginative, passionate, creative, warm, and welcoming. These are my people. I love many franchises (Star Trek, Dr Who, etc.) but I’m not sure there is a better fandom in all of fandoming.

To all of you who are reading this newsletter because you signed up at Hellmouth: I had an amazing time and can’t wait for next year! To the rest of you: it’s absolutely worth going to this convention! You have all year to watch/rewatch Buffy and book your tickets for next year!

Special thanks to Meglet, Lore, and Kayleigh, who are the bestest support team and friends an author could hope for! 🥰

Reunited on the Hellmouth! That’s true friendship 🥰

Ad time! I’m kinda excited that the cool supplement marketing people have found my newsletter and want to put ads in it. This company looks good. I will have to try something from them! And remember, if you click on this ad, even if you don’t buy something, I will get paid! So thanks if you have the time to help 🙂

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See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Huge news first! I’ll be at the Hellmouth Convention in Torrance CA June 12-13.

I will be doing a panel with Amber Benson on Saturday the 12th at 10AM. (I’ll be doing a second panel on Sunday, and there will be some book signing times, too, but those details haven’t made their way to me, yet.)

This is how much fun I had last year, making a new friend in the process:

I love how serious Anthony is. Totally slaying it! 😁

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love this convention. It has the friendliest, most open-hearted people. And they are basically all queer (or very queer-friendly) freaks, geeks, and weirdos. They run the full range of ages, from “I saw this show when it first aired” to “my parents watched this show when it first aired,” and are otherwise a fantastically diverse group of my kind of people.

If you can get to this convention, DO IT. You won’t regret it. (Check that tickets aren’t sold out, however!)

Here’s the two videos of Amber Benson and me in conversation since the last newsletter:

You know, I simply never will fully accept the fact that I just get to hang out with Amber Benson like it’s no big thing. And it’s not because she acts like a Big Star. She’s actually the sweetest, most down-to-earth person you ever met. I’m honestly the luckiest author in the world, because I couldn’t hope for a kinder person or more talented actor to be working with me on the audiobooks. And that’s what I mean about not being able to accept it: her talent is so fantastic, I can barely handle it. Have you listened to the audiobooks? The way she handles all the accents and all the different voices in conversation with each other is just Next Level. I’m an audiobook snob and had really high expectations, and she still rocked my world.

Blood Eternal | Audible.com

The highly anticipated third installment of the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, with Amber Benson returning to bring the story to life as only she can.

www.audible.com/pd/Blood-Eternal-Audiobook/B0GKHPHZQC

RAVENLIFE: Raven’s Coming Out Story ✨🏳️‍🌈✨

I’ve been out as Bi+ for so long that I don’t really think about it. But it’s occurred to me that probably no one reading this knows my coming out history, so it seems a good time to turn back the pages to a 16 year old Raven…

I was a hyper-sexual teenager, as many neurospicy people are, but it had all just been in a het direction. It honestly had never occurred to me that “both and” was an option, and I knew I liked 🍆 so it never occurred to me that 🐈 was something I could also have.

That’s the thing about living in a world where diversity is limited. People as they are growing up don’t realize the glorious array of options that are available for them for living and loving. I mean, I know that’s the whole point, but still, my world was limiting me without even trying particularly hard.

It was a 2AM phone call with my friend M. At that hour, things get confessional. She nervously professed that she liked women as well as men. Pause.

“OK, that’s cool,” I said.

I don’t remember the rest of our conversation, but when we got off the phone, I thought to myself, “M is my friend. I have to be OK with her liking women.”

But how to be OK with it? Being a teenager, with teenage logic, I decided that if I could imagine two women having sex and not be repulsed by it, that was what was needed. (I know, I know. But I was young, OK?)

The first night, I tried to imagine going down on a woman. It seemed kinda gross.

But I was dedicated to my goal. The next night I imagined two women kissing. Their nipples rubbed against each other.

PING! In that moment, my desire for women turned from OFF to ON FULL TAP 🚿

It didn’t take much to get me there 🤣

The first person I told was my friend Jake. I knew he was bi, so that was an easy baby step. I hung out with him after school, at his house. I told him, and he said, “Welcome to the family!”

The second was my little sister. For some reason, I remember that I was taking a bath and she was sitting on the toilet talking to me. It seems an oddly vulnerable place to do it, but maybe it was just to be in a private space our parents wouldn’t walk into? Anyway, she started crying and said, “You’re gonna get beaten up and killed!”

I had to talk her down, explaining that as a bisexual woman I really wasn’t going to get the same level of prejudice and hatred that gay man and trans people face. Two years later, when she got to high school, she joined the LGBT+ group (which of course had formed after I graduated) as an ally.

Me on the ferry to P-town (a gay mecca), senior year of high school. I really miss that peacoat! And look at my Sony Walkman! I was listening to Jane’s Addiction 🎧

Obviously, the next thing was to do something about it. And that was a journey of years…

I immediately had a crush on M, of course. But I was too shy to bring it up to her. And, I found out later, she felt the same but was too shy to mention it to me. There is an amusing memory I have of M being over for a sleepover, us both in the same bed, me wanting her and her not knowing, her wanting me but me not knowing, and us just lying there unable to sleep or actually communicate effectively. In other words, the stereotypical lesbian conundrum.

I headed off to college with the goal of sleeping with women being just as much a focus as studying literature and photography. Annoyingly, I found it much easier to find males who wanted to smash than figure out who the women who were into women were, and negotiate doing something about it.

I joined the Bradford College LGBT group the first week I was there. And in the process, began to find out how much some lesbians despise bisexuals.

At the very first meeting I attended, Mel, the lesbian in charge, said she wanted to change the name of the group to BAGL—Bradford Association of Gays and Lesbians—because she liked bagels.

“But what about bisexuals?” another member asked.

“They don’t really belong here anyway,” Mel announced. “They aren’t really gay.”

(In an amusing aside, a year later Mel started dating a guy. The guy was rumored to have the biggest 🍆 on campus—I’ve always felt that added a profound irony to the situation. When asked if Mel was now a gasp bisexual, she said, “No! I’m a bisexual lesbian!” Basically, she hated bisexuals so much that even when she was getting’ a good deep dickin’, she didn’t want to associate with us. It’s really telling.)

Me & my bisexual roommate freshman year of college, in front of our dorm room. We were VERY OUT on campus 🤣

Besides that incident, there was this: I was eagerly looking in the Women-Seeking-Women section of the classifieds ads in local papers. Which is how I found something that has never left me: at the end of a sapphic ad, there would be the final line: “No drugs, no head games, no bis.”

Fan-fucking-tastic. I was rated in with drugs and mind games. I had expected the queer community to welcome me with open arms, and instead, I was clearly being told I was not welcome.

But this was the ‘90s. Lesbians had consolidated into “womyns-only” bubbles, and bis and trans-women were very much not invited. Bis were seen as “disease-carriers” who brought HIV and other STIs into the lesbian community (because apparently women are so pure and rose-scented that they cannot pass STIs to each other, even when eschewing safer sex precautions altogether…) Bis brought drama into community which would definitely would never have had drama without them cough choke by getting poor innocent lesbians to fall in love with them, and then up and leave those poor lesbians for a man.

I made it all the harder for myself by being hardcore goth at this point. At this point in time, the lesbians who went to Lilith Fair or went on women-only cruises all dressed the same. It was a type of soft-butch: short hair, chinos, plaid shirts. Minimal or no makeup! Someone who was dressed in all black, with heavy eyeliner and black lipstick, wearing fetish fabrics and velvet skirts was definitely not someone to be trusted or welcomed.

I threw myself against the lesbian community like against a brick wall for years. Eventually I figured out that a high percentage of my fellow goth girls were bi+, and anyone who dressed outside the mainstream was a potential partner. Lesbians didn’t want me, and I didn’t have particularly much to talk about with them.

Now many of these problems were mitigated by me finding Michelle my senior year of college and being handfasted with her for the next eight years. But Michelle and I were poly (and thus looking to date others). We longed to be in queer women’s spaces, so we dealt with the prejudice against us together.

Our handfasting. Yes, we were very geeky gals 🤓🤓

Spilling the 🫖: Astryiah’s physical description is based on the first gal at college I got to fool around with: Belle. She was perfect in every way, one of the most gorgeous women I’ve had the pleasure of being intimate with. She wasn’t really sure if she was bi, but she was willing to give it a try with me, and I will be eternally honored. I’ve lost touch with her. I wonder where she is now—and who she is with now…

Happy Pride to all of my dear Alphabet Soup Community. I welcome and cherish you no matter what letters describe you or what colors grace your flag!

OK, I’m out of reader questions now! Hit reply to this email and tell me what to write about next in the RavenLife segment!

See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

To celebrate World Dracula Day 2026 a series of interview segments will be posted to YouTube starting today and running for the next seven Tuesdays. The interview was recorded after Amber and I finished recording Blood Eternal in the studio, and covers such topics as Amber’s favorite character in the series, her favorite scene to narrate, how she relates to Noosh’s journey, and that one sex scene that got her spontaneously singing in the studio. (I talk, too, but we all know that’s of secondary interest at best… 😉)

Amber’s thoughts on the series are fascinating and we also laugh a lot about silly behind-the-scenes stuff, and I am really excited about sharing these. The videos will go live at noon each Tuesday through the first week of July. Shorter clips will be posted to IG/Threads/FB, but the full gloriousness of Amber’s and my discussion is only up on YouTube. So follow me there and turn the settings to let you know when my videos go live, so you don’t miss any.

For IndieLife this week, let me talk a bit about making videos…

Because my fame as an author has not hit the point where I can pay others to do this, so I make all these videos myself.

I try to do the most professional job I can with this, and so that means I have learned a lot of esoterism and the arcane arts (sometimes outright thaumaturgy!) of Adobe Premiere Pro.

I have bitched here before about Adobe InDesign. (And I will do so again! It’s a horrible monstrosity of a program!) And I am glad to say that Premiere Pro is more intuitive (although it would be honestly difficult to be less intuitive than InDesign!) But there is a lot of learning you need to do to make best use of the program, and unlike Photoshop, I’ve never had formal classes in it. And, of course, everything I do is always on a “you have a billion other vital things you need to be doing right now, so this must take the least amount of time from those” deadline. This means that all of my video editing has been learned by dropping the clips into Premiere, trying to figure it out myself, failing, looking up a tutorial online, watching enough to sort it out, doing that, and then rinse-and-repeat for the rest of the video.

It would be tedious as fuck to recount all the stuff I’ve had to figure out and then implement on the go for my marketing and promotional videos…but that’s actually the point I’m making. Being an indie author means learning a whole lot of shit that might not be in your natural wheelhouse, and almost always under time-pressure. So when you see marketing from indie authors, take a moment to appreciate the work they put into it. They have not paid someone to make that graphic or video. They have taught themselves how to do it, tried to create stuff at a standard that rivals the paid professionals, and put it out into the world with a quiet desperation that it will move the dial on sales. You should respect that as much as you respect the books they write.

Blood Eternal | Audible.com

The highly anticipated third installment of the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, with Amber Benson returning to bring the story to life as only she can. Get 3 months Audible membership for only $6.95 a month!

www.audible.com/pd/Blood-Eternal-Audiobook/B0GKHPHZQC

More exciting news: Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas has finally got its real cover and is available in both ebook and for the first time, paperback!

Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas: A Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series Holiday Story

He just wanted to taste love again. Now he’s in bondage to an unknown adversary, being tortured by Christmas carols…

www.amazon.com/dp/1960942182

If you didn’t grab your copy over the holidays, well, Xmas in May seems like a good idea!

I will be at Hellmouth again this year!

Amber and I will be talking about the making of Blood Eternal, and sharing some treats with the audience. (And those treats will include some free copies of the paperback of Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas!) I love this convention so much. If you can be there, you should be! It’s June 13-14 in Torrence, CA.

Today’s RavenLife is a question from Patrick Califia, who is interested in women who write about M-M spice ♂️♂️🌶️

Since my am’r are bi+ (a term I love so much more than “pan”!) it gives me the opportunity to explore passion between all combinations of genders, which is a “perfect world” scenario for me 🎉

As for my own sexuality and what my attraction to all genders means, I like to think of myself as “purely queer.” When I am with a woman, no one questions the queerness of that. When I’m with a guy, the world perceives me as suddenly het. Nobody asks how I feel about it, but the answer is: I really feel like a gay man, when I am with a man. I might not have all the required equipment (not that I couldn’t strap it on!) but I really identify with gay male sexuality in a way I just don’t with actual heterosexuality. When I suck a dick, I have more in common with a twink in a bathhouse than a wifey behind a white picket fence. (Which I think means I’m probably better at it! 😉)

I think if having the option of being non-binary had been around when I was a kid, I would have grabbed it with both hands and never let go. When I was a little kid, I was a complete tomboy. I refused to wear pink and demanded to wear brown or blue. In nursery school, I rang a gang of boys I called “The Jaguars.” I had formed this gang, and I was the only girl allowed in it.

I made brown cool before steampunk did! 😉

In fact, one of my earliest memories is being at the top of the jungle gym, and my gang members were climbing up behind me. I found them somewhat annoying, so I said, “Go off and catch a girl.”

They ran off, happy to do this task that was very much in their wheelhouse, and I was in glorious solitude. Eventually they returned, dragging a little girl by limbs and pigtails. She was protesting in a vigorous high pitch. I knew this would bring a teacher over, and I didn’t want that.

“OK, I guess you can let her go,” I told them. She ran off, and they started climbing back up the jungle gym, and I realized I was back where I started. That frustration with how the world works is my main part of the memory.

(I was such a little egoist as a small child. At that point, I didn’t want to be a girl, and I didn’t think very highly of boys, so if asked my gender, I would have said, “Something better than either of those!”)

Even as I headed into my teens, doing femininity has always felt performative. Not in a bad way, I just came to it with the same attitude as doing drag (and I’ve done male drag as well—with delight!) I loved make-up because it was art, and because it let me control how I presented myself to the world. But in college I regularly wore men’s clothing and felt perfectly comfortable in it, having idolized Marlene Dietrich and seeing the combination of menswear and make-up as a way to signal my bisexuality to the world.

Me as Annie Lennox for Halloween, probably 2001

It never occurred to me along the way that being bisexual didn’t have something to do with my own gender. I’m sure there are plenty of bi+ people out there who are happily a single gender, and nothing wrong with that. But for me, loving all the genders meant that I had all the genders inside me: I contained multitudes and could love multitudes.

So going back to the original question: I have absolutely no trouble writing queer male sex scenes because I have a man who loves men inside me. You may not see “Chaz” (the name I picked when I was exploring male drag) on the daily, but he is here, he is queer, and he is ready to tell you all about what he’d love to do to that guy over there! (If I’d had the spoons to perform as a Drag King, my full drag name would have been Chaz Ties and I would have be the most adorable little leather daddy you ever did see!)

I was able to explore that part of myself so fully because I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 years after graduating college. My then-wife Michelle and I drove as fast as we could across the country, to the magical land of rainbow flags and queer people holding hands openly as they walked around the Castro.

And the reason I knew to “fly home,” as it were, was actually the person who started this whole topic up. Patrick Califia is one of the biggest names in queer erotic and other writing, and I had gotten my hands on Macho Sluts and his other gorgeous works in college, and those words in those books one billion percent changed my life.

Macho Sluts showed me a world I wanted to go live in immediately. Patrick’s books affected my life more directly than Samuel Delany and Robert Heinlein (who made me realize that I could and should be a writer) because it took me years of fucking around with essays and articles and short stories and stuff before I ever wrote my first novel, but basically, from the moment of opening the cover of Macho Sluts, my life was set in the direction of living the queerest life in SF that I could. It didn’t matter that I had a chronic illness, no job prospects, and a huge college debt. I just packed up the car after graduation and went. When we first got together, I quoted David Bowie to Michelle: “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise I won’t bore you.” Implicit in that was moving to San Francisco for the queerest life possible.

Michelle and me in our girlfriend’s loft bed in a very dubious “apartment” in SF. We are smiling because we have achieved the queerest life possible 🏳️‍🌈

The other gift from Patrick was the absolute confidence that I could write gay male sex scenes. When I first read his works, Patrick was “Pat,” and my ideal of what being a lesbian was. Since he didn’t come out as trans until years later, what I experienced was a lesbian writing about queer male desire. The story “The Spoiler” made a big impression, but then, all his stories made a huge impression—I should honestly be paying Patrick royalties because the concepts in his “The Vampire” shaped my ideas of the am’r/am’r-nafsh relationship, which is core to how the am’r work as a species.

I like to pretend that I’m totally chill with the fact that Patrick is now my friend, and I try not to bother him with my hero-worship of him as a writer, but the fact of the matter is that there is still a 20-year-old Raven inside me bouncing up and down and squeeing whenever I interact with him. I have been so lucky that meeting my heroes has never let me down: Patrick Califia and Samuel Delany and Jim Caroll were all a true pleasure to meet and interact with.

This has gone a bit longer than I meant it to, but that simple question was in no way simple! I still could write pages and pages more about all of this! But to wrap it up: I have no trouble wrapping my head around male-male desire because I feel I understand it within my own body and soul. And you all should go read Patrick Califia’s writing and have your own lives changed by it.

See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

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Last week IIP sent out the press release with the exciting news that voice actors Carmen Seantel and Hel will be doing a duet narration of (many of) your favorite book in the series: That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

Here’s the official press release:

IndieLife: let’s talk about press releases…

Since IIP is still such a small company, I am still doing things that I can’t wait to someday farm out to people who have gotten degrees (or at least a lot of practice) in how to do them.

Press releases are one of those things. My degree in Comparative Literature basically trained me in how to look at what the parameters of the writing assignment is, quickly study up on how to do them, and then, with some sweat and occasionally tears, write something that fits that style and has the required content. (This may not be precisely what the professors were trying to teach me, but it got me graduated cum laude, so… 🤷‍♀️)

Press Releases are what I consider technical writing. You have a word count and precise layout, you have information you must get across to the reader in the most optimal way for them to intake it, and you have a tone you have to hit. It’s no different than a white paper or a manual. (Both things I have been paid to edit, btw, so I know!)

If you are intent on doing that #indielife, you will be writing your own press releases (unless you have a particularly awesome friend) so a search on “how to write a press release” and some concentrate learning is in your future. My suggestion is to look at other author’s press releases and then shamelessly steal the layout and style.

It’s some of the least fun writing you’ll ever do…but somebody has to do it! Until, and I personally as an author and human being cannot wait for this, you can pay someone else to do it! 🫰🫰🫰

 Anyway, now that I come to think of it, I honestly don’t know what your favorite story in the series is! So please tell me!

RavenLife: How I got into photography

(This RavenLife was set in motion by Andrija Popovic. Thank you so much for asking, Andrija! If you want to suggest a future RavenLife section, just hit reply to this newsletter and tell me what you want!)

Growing up, I knew I was an artist. I had these pictures in my head that I wanted to bring out into the world. I took drawing classes, painting classes, pottery classes, you name it. I spent my childhood trying pencils, oils, watercolors, crayons, everything—but I never felt like I’d found my medium, my way of expressing myself.

When I was in freshman year, I was dating a sophomore named Kevin. Kevin was doing photography. Since I was dating him, I was obviously a free model. I was a competitive ice skater at the time, so Kevin asked if he could tag along to the rink. I said yes, and he got me stretching, doing my warm-up, and then running through my competitive routine.

Some nice images came out of this, but so much more important, I asked myself: “Why haven’t I tried photography?!”

It was too late for that semester, so I stole my mother’s Konica Autoreflex TC 35mm SLR and basically taught myself a lot of what NOT to do over the summer. I also got some great shots because it turns out that photography was MY medium, and even with no knowledge of how a camera works (beyond what the tiny Konica manual taught me) I was able to start realizing my artistic vision in a way that felt more “this is it!” than a pencil or paintbrush ever did.

The next September I was enrolled in photography class, and ended up having a Photography Major in high school. I adored the teacher, Mr. David Prifti, beyond words. He was the perfect combination of teaching vital technical skills and at the same time challenging your artistic self. I remember him looking at one project I turned in and saying, with evident approval in his voice, “You’re a real weirdo, Raven!”

Me being me, I immediately set out to “shock the school” with the most scandalous images I was allowed to make. (Pushing up against limits being a core part of my personality, which I’m sure comes as no surprise!) They would not allow me to do nudes, which I fumed about, feeling very censored and held down.

My very first self-portrait. I wasn’t an over-dramatic proto-goth or anything…

Prifti (all of his more serious students just called him that) started something I kept up for a long time: an annual self-portrait. Back when I was working with film, this was not the same thing as selfies are today. I at one point hung the camera from a tall pole and posed directly beneath it! But mostly, I figured out that I could use another person as a living selfie-stick by posing where I would be so that I could get focus and composition right, then trading spots with me and hitting the shutter for me. I did an annual self-portrait until I got a mobile phone, and now there’s selfies all the time. Less artistic ones, though. But I do have my own visual exploration of myself for each year before I got a mobile.

When I tell people I’m a photographer, they say, “What kind?” I hate that question! I started photography wandering around taking pictures of whatever I wanted to take pictures of: people, still lives, nature, event photography, political statements, all the things. The right image of anything is art, and I have absolutely zero intent to be boxed in to just one subject. I am a photographer of all the things I want to photograph, that’s what kind of photographer I am 💪

Shooting nature in the UK, 2016

Sadly, being a writer has pulled me away from being the semi-pro photographer that I was for years. I can’t put in the time on both building my career as a writer AND as a photographer, since both a very time-consuming if you’re not just doing them as a hobby. But I do a lot of my own product shots, and obviously all the promotional selfie stuff, so my photographer side is not totally abandoned 📸

My best photography story is when a friend and I snuck into the chapel on our college campus, and she climbed up on the alter and put the gaudily bejeweled cross between her befishnetted legs. I was doing long-exposure, multi-flash photography that night, and so I had to set up my camera on a tripod, with the shutter on “B” and held open with a rubber band, and then run around hitting my flash in various areas around the shot—and get it all done before the campus police found us! 👀

“Multi-Flash Sacrilege” 1996, Bradford College Chapel

No, wait, there’s a better story! In my first year of college, I was very excited that I could now work with nudes (this had been frowned upon in high school, for some reason) and apparently my enthusiasm was a bit intense for some. “Don’t let Raven approach you—she’ll ask you to pose nude!” became what was being said behind my back on campus. The upshot of that was that anyone who didn’t run away from me was the kind of person who was willing to do nudes 😁

“Classic Nude Pile-up” 1996, Bradford College Theatre

After transferring to U/Mass from the teeny Bradford College, I didn’t have the option of a Photography Major anymore, so I just did my own shoots and used the rentable school darkroom, lugging my own trays and stuff around with me. Eventually I made the switch to digital photography (although always missing the real darkroom and hoping for my very own someday), learning and loving Photoshop to point of attending annual “Photoshop for photographers” conventions 🤓, shooting three weddings, one pregnancy, and myriad fetish events around the world. I’ve had two shows, both in local coffeeshops—I love the idea of bringing art out into the world for people to interact with it while going about daily life. I would love to have my work in hospitals and other places it could bring comfort through art.

“Man of the Mind” 2026 (part of an ongoing project)

OK, I’ve got a novel to get back to writing! ✒️ See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff