Lunaside

I have a 6 week break from uni so I thought it’d be a good time to do some commissions. And I felt I needed to update my commission post thingy

more info below:

The Girl Gets the Girl: a torquerepress/Prizm Books Author Roundtable With Two Jews and a Vegan

We are Kayla Bashe kayla-bird, a queer theater student, J. L. Douglas lunasiders, a demisexual lesbian literacy educator, and Shira Glassman (the OP), a bisexual violinist. In our books, the girl gets the girl, women’s relationships are celebrated, and loving your own gender doesn’t doom you to tragedy. We write about lazy summers, dormitory friendships, and riding dragons together. We write about snuggling up to her at a public recital, about hanging out with her on a lonely sand dune, about sending her emails from your missions at the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Here’s Part One!

What’s it like being a queer author on a small press?

Kayla:  I’m always jotting things down in a notebook or on my phone; once, I spent ten hours straight writing and then nearly fainted. On weekends, I sometimes write till it’s 3 AM and I’m barely able to tell the difference between clothes and close. My problem isn’t reminding myself to write- it’s remembering to stop! I like to think I’ve been able to develop a healthy work-life balance, though. Or at least vaguely healthy. J. L.: I’m really proud to be a part of Prizm! I’m Canadian, and small presses are sort of a thing for us. But the queer part makes me feel like I’m part of something special. Since a lot of my favorite books are with small presses, it was always my dream to be part of something like that and produce a book that readers might enjoy as much as I loved reading all those small press classics I randomly found growing up! Shira: TWENTY SEVEN HOURS A DAY MARKETING. And sometimes these moments of oh my god, there are so many people who are looking for books like mine who will never even have a chance to find out they exist… where should I advertise? What else should I do?? But, on the other hand, nobody at Prizm ever told me my characters had to be less Jewish, less fat, less gay, less bi, less whatever. None of that was ever an issue, and I don’t know if a larger house or an agent would allow me to do that. Who are the girls in the picture? What’s that stuff on the table that one of them is eating? Kayla: The Rubenesque redhead in the day dress is Anthea Garlant, the only daughter of England’s most eminent magician-academic. Having spent her entire life placing career and witchcraft over anything else, she’s never courted anyone, despite admitting attraction to men and women alike.I’m bored to tears of one-dimensional bisexual heartbreakers in fiction- sure, some bisexuals live a hedonistic life of threesomes and partying, but more often than not the “barsexual” is just a lazy stereotype thrown around by those who think bi people can’t make up their minds. Therefore, I wanted to challenge stereotypes by having a bisexual character be responsible and hard-working, even to the point of repression. I also wanted to create a queer take on the trope of the ultra-dedicated academic who’s forced to choose between love and convention. Plus, French accents are tres hot! J. L.: The confused-looking girl in the sundress is Moira. She’s the lone Art Camp counselor for Lunaside summer camp, and mostly considers herself an artist otherwise. She’s also vegan, which is why she’s eating halvah, the white stuff on the table (also it’s delicious). Moira is important to me because she’s the mostly sweet, wholesome lesbian I wasn’t seeing in YA. I was lucky enough to start reading YA at a time when lesbians existed at all (the first lesbian book I read was Julie Ann Peters’ Keeping You a Secret), but I couldn’t relate to the tough girls I was reading about, so I wrote one who reflected my reality a bit better. Shira: the brown curvy girl is Aviva. She’s a bi Jew and she’s a working-class chef who managed to become the queen’s girlfriend by being the first, and for a long time the only, person in the palace to believe her about her food allergies. She means a lot to me for several reasons: because one doesn’t often see bisexual characters as caregivers, as responsible, as dependable, as selfless in fiction, and more prosaically, one doesn’t often see bi women with women in fiction, either. I strive for everything in the first list – Aviva is basically my unreachable perfection – and I represent the second. It’s nice having a reminder that it’s possible to be a bi person in a same-sex relationship since fiction seems to have a hard time showing both at once. What do you like to read in your genre? What you read outside of it? Kayla: I read everything. Sarah Diemer in glittery queer binges, the Honor Harrington series (think Mass Effect without the aliens and with more broadside barrages) when I need motivation for badassery. Phrynne Fisher mysteries in silk pajamas while drinking white grape juice out of a wine glass. Every Hugo-nominated novella I can find for free at Clarkesworld or Strange Horizons. Tamora Pierce made me who I am today, but Francesca Lia Block crafted my outfits. Right now I’m obsessed with Nina Kiriki Hoffman, with the way her characters find homes and families and the magic within themselves.And, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, there’s some romance paperback at the bottom of my bag- a scorchingly witty Kresley Cole following an emotionally guarded vampire and a sharp-tounged werewolf, or an emotional Laura Kinsale about an injured Regency nobleman, or an ultra-dramatic Eloisa James centering on a hellion debutante. Romance novels are my toolbox and my port-of-call, my master class and my workshop. I love playing 52-Pickup with their traditional tropes. My motto has always been “Why should the straight people get to have all the fun?” J. L.: My favorite YA romances are ones with girls overcoming realistic self-doubt. I like Queer YA the best, but I will read YA with straight characters too. Some of my favorites are (You) Set Me on Fire by Mariko Tamaki (Canadian lesbian NA); OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu (straight YA romance between two protagonists with anxiety disorders); the Penderwicks series (MG series featuring strong female friendships).Outside my genre, I really like reading stuff from the English Renaissance. There were so many strong female voices emerging then, and I feel like it has a lot in common with our world right now, in terms of how they saw authorship as a collaboration and how there was fanfic and stuff like that. Shira: I don’t read much fantasy, although I should. Most of what I read is vintage mysteries, like Agatha Christie (I own nearly all of her books), Doyle, Sayers, etc. It spills over into my TV time, too; I love Columbo! What inspires you? Kayla: I’m inspired by the desire to remix. Like “What do you mean, these superheroes aren’t hooking up? Their dynamic is amazing. Let me fix that.” or “Why are none of the girls in this classic novel queer?” or “How did Game of Thrones fuck up *this* week? Man, I bet I could write a way better medieval fantasy… one with way less whitewashing, too!” In the case of Graveyard Sparrow, I wanted to write a creepy, elegant mystery with a vulnerable protagonist that didn’t fuck its lesbians over by shoving them into bed with men.

J. L.: I observe situations around me, then I try to figure out how they’ll resolve.  Sometimes that leads to a story; sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it leads to a story LATER, which is a sign never to throw out any writing ever.The other thing that inspires me is listening to people who are huge fans of a thing. One of my favorite things is reading (and writing!) characters with really specific hobbies. So if someone is really into something, I try to listen to them, learn everything I can, and sometimes that leads to a character who is really into tea art or superheroes or bugs or really anything. Shira: I adore German and French opera, but naturally, it’s often sexist and sometimes even anti-Semitic. It inspires me greatly to take what I love about these great works of art and then make Jewish-woman-safe universes inspired by them. I’m also inspired by my day to day life; I write about things that are really happening to me and those around me, only I add dragons and magic potions to it. Do you write to music? If yes, songs please! Kayla: I have a tendency to find a song or playlist that matches the feel of a project… and then play it ad infinitum. I can write entire novellas to a single jam.For example, I created all of To Stand In The Light while bopping along to D.A.N.C.E by Justice and the O-Key Radio mix of Calvin Harris’s Bounce- plus Comicsriot’s Radical Queer Mutant Dance Party playlist. J. L.: I find it really hard to write to individual songs while I’m writing, because I’m pretty easily distracted, but I still end up gathering music that relates to my current project anyway. I listen to that while I’m riding the bus, or walking, or while at the gym—just anywhere that I’m not actually writing.Lunaside’s playlist has a lot of indie rock with shouty choruses and uplifting lyrics. “Me and My Friends” by Tim Myers was sort of its overarching, unofficial theme, and “This Light” by Grand and Noble definitely played over and over in my head while I wrote the final scene.Of course, there were also lots of lesbian love songs on there.“Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring” by Antigone Rising is my favorite, though. Shira: It really depends on the scene. If I have to write something tense, I put on tense music. If I have to write something romantic and m/m, I probably have Tschaikovsky on. Once I do that, the scene actually writes itself. It’s like I’m just transcribing. (Nearly always classical, and nothing with English words because that would distract me from typing.)

✰ PRIDE MONTH SALE ✰  Get LGBTQ+ positive novels for only $2-$4 the entire month of June!

This is a scene from A Harvest of Ripe Figs, where Queen Shulamit and her girlfriend are enjoying the marketplace with their baby and bodyguard-family. Watch her solve the mystery of the stolen violin for only $3.37!

Other books on sale:

Climbing the Date Palm worker’s rights, bisexuality, and shapeshifters The Second Mango tiny lesbian becomes queen, makes friends, goes on quest The short stories bi woman outwits aliens, warrior woman rescues aro-ace damsel in distress J. L. Douglas’s Lunaside lesbian love triangle between teenaged counselors at summer camp Foxglove Lee’s Tiffany and Tiger’s Eye creepy doll gets jealous when teenaged butch lesbian gets her first real human girlfriend

The Girl Gets the Girl: a torquerepress/Prizm Books Author Roundtable With Two Jews and a Vegan

We are Kayla Bashe, a queer theater student, J. L. Douglas, a demisexual lesbian literacy educator, and Shira Glassman, a bisexual violinist. In our books, the girl gets the girl, women’s relationships are celebrated, and loving your own gender doesn’t doom you to tragedy. We write about lazy summers, dormitory friendships, and riding dragons together. We write about snuggling up to her at a public recital, about hanging out with her on a lonely sand dune, about sending her emails from your missions at the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

But it means I get halvah.

The Girl Gets the Girl: a torquerepress/Prizm Books Author Roundtable With Two Jews and a Vegan

We are Kayla Bashe, a queer theater student, J. L. Douglas, a demisexual lesbian literacy educator, and Shira Glassman, a bisexual violinist. In our books, the girl gets the girl, women’s relationships are celebrated, and loving your own gender doesn’t doom you to tragedy. We write about lazy summers, dormitory friendships, and riding dragons together. We write about snuggling up to her at a public recital, about hanging out with her on a lonely sand dune, about sending her emails from your missions at the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

A) Questions, such as “What do vegans even eat?”

B) Comments, like “Hey! Vegans are so cool!”

C) Vegan recipes???

Lunaside by Canadian lesbian J. L. Douglas (also available from Amazon but that first link will earn the author twice the royalties for an identical purchase price) goes on my list of YA novels about girls loving girls that except for some brief background storytelling, isn’t going to put you face to face with your fears about coming out, acceptance, and homophobia/lesbophobia. In other words, the books I wish there had been piles of when I was the main characters’ age.

Instead, the main conflicts are leading lady Moira’s awkwardness with expressing emotions and affection and Moira’s sudden unwanted attraction to someone other than her girlfriend. Will she choose the pint-sized geeky butch she’s been with for four months or the pale-eyed beauty who shares her own shyness?

While the main characters are all lesbians, the experience of reading books where women love other women is something important to many bi/pan women, too, so I’ll note that 1. this is a bi-safe book with literally no biphobia either from the author or any character and 2. one of Moira’s camp buddies, quickly introduced as asexual, turns out to be biromantic asexual.

YES

A Girl Like Me

With more publishing options out there than ever before, and many stories of success and failure on every front, how do you know which path is right for you? Traditional, indie, and self-publishing all have their pros and cons. It’s important to know what to expect with each one, but it’s even more important to know yourself and your project.

Know your strengths, your limitations, and your…

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This is worth reading for all LGBTQ authors out there. Publishing with a Big Five press can seem glamourous (because as writers we’re sort of trained to think it’s the only authentic option sometimes), but if it’s not a good fit for you it really can be a disaster. The same goes with any option though. 

For Lunaside, I only looked into small queer publishers because that’s mostly what I read. For me, these presses were telling my story so that’s where I wanted my book to go. And since I was selling a lesbian summer camp romance that doesn’t cater to straight audiences at all, I think I made the right choice.

Being known as a queer indie author is something I’m proud of, and I’m glad I chose to start my career this way.

It’s not for everyone obviously, but I think it’s good for those writers who are scared to publish to realize that there are many paths.

Maybe your commerical dystopia with an all-queer cast will be the next super-successful Big Five contract, or maybe your story about gay treasure hunters might be a self-published success story.

All our stories are valid.

(I’ve seen this twice in a couple of weeks, and not just to me.)

Write your own is only half the point, anyway. If straight white people from a Christian background continue writing stories populated only by straight white people from a Christian background, straight white people from a Christian background can continue to spend their free time in fictional worlds where we aren’t relevant and it says something about how we’ll get treated in real life.

You know what? This stuff IS out there. There is trans lit and gay lit and Jewish lit and and and. But we don’t have the mass media behind us, so our target audience doesn’t even get to hear about it. Mango has been out for a year and a half and there are still people first finding out about it, people who want it. What am I doing wrong, besides not having fifty million dollars to spend on advertising?

The books are there.

"When someone loves a remarkable woman… her feats should captivate him, just as her eyes do."

This is Micah, the AFAB trans street kid who may or may not know what happened to Esther’s stolen violin in A Harvest of Ripe Figs. He has no reason to cooperate with the authorities—for now, anyway! (Note for people looking for non-tragic trans representation: his subplot has a happy ending.)