courage is reborn.

QUEER SUMMER BINGO 2026 | July-August!

It's Pride! And it's summer! So if you're looking for a reading challenge this year, look no further than Queer Summer Bingo!

This year, I'm actually really excited because we have a Grand Prize! If you get a bingo, you get put in a drawing for a $25(USD) gift card to Bookshop.org (if you live outside the US/UK and you win, we can work something else out!)

All submissions must be entered before September 1st (EST) in this Google Form. If you cannot access the Google Form for whatever reason, please DM me!

Here are the rules if you are submitting for the prize:

Get any Bingo in any direction

One book counts for only one square (i.e. if you read a classic novel by a lesbian author, you cannot mark both the lesbian square and the classic square. You must choose one.)

One card is good for one entry only. If you get bingo three different ways, your name is only placed in the drawing once.

Free Space means you can read a queer book of your choosing

All books you read must be queer

Only books finished between June 1st-August 31st may count

This is based on an honor system and your own interpretation of what these categories mean. You do not have to provide titles of the books that you read (though, if you'd like to share, I would love to see it!)

project name | Summer With the Silverwood Wolves

genre | werewolf romantasy, young adult urban fantasy

logline | an ordinary teen girl is thrust into a world of politics, wealth, and curses as she falls for two boys from the same werewolf clan

story | The Silverwoods have built an American dynasty on their wealth, good looks, and charming silver tongues. Little does anyone know that their wealth and power comes at a price--their werewolf curse.

After a teen girl stumbles upon the sons of the family in middle of their transformation, she is taken into the family's East Coast summer compound and sworn to secrecy. As she and the boys grow closer, she discovers more secrets than just the lupine, and might just be the key to breaking their curse.

themes | wealth & power corrupts, family curses

WIP INTRO | NATASIA & THE GLADEKING

"knowledge is nothing to me, if not from your lips."

✦ gothic romance, fantasy ✦ novella ✦ 18+ ✦ drafting stage ✦ super self-indulgent so i'm basically writing whatever i want and letting the themes find me later, but so far it's looking like themes of female autonomy, dominance, and the age-old gothic idea of looking a monster in the eye and seeing yourself reflected there <3 ✦ associated aesthetics: midnight fever dreams / dirt everywhere, all over / you will never be fully clean / drowning in green / hidden truths / sex for the sake of it / love as a contract ✦ comps + inspirations: the starving saints by caitlin starling / labyrinth (1986)

SYNOPSIS

when natasia, a chambermaid of the timeworn castle pernskel, falls pregnant out of wedlock, life as she knows it is already slipping through her fingers. in her desperation, she inadvertantly summons a creature known to her only as the gladeking, a deity of the forest with a penchant for abducting children. what begins as a simple bargain with the gladeking quickly spirals into a much more complex game of manipulation, obsession, and if they aren't careful, devotion. (also known as "medieval maiden gets a magical elfbortion")

CHARACTERS

natasia | ( 24 ) the protagonist; striving for a standard she cannot reach. not who she believes herself to be, and braver than she thinks. the gladeking | ( ? ) a love interest of sorts; dangerous and wants to be even more so. understands much of others and little of himself.

CURSED BODIES.

a paranormal mystery.

STATUS: drafting. POV: third person limited between four characters, present tense. WARNINGS: human experimentation, homophobia, sexism, death and murder, suicide and suicidal thoughts + more.

SUMMARY.

damian sakamoto died and had it not been for his ghost walking around the streets of london, being able to stumble upon someone that in his life he had once called a friend, no one would've noticed. his life would've just become a statistic to be studied and an unsolved mystery. but with this second chance, he'll do everything that he can to ensure that he's given justice. but it's hard when one's memory isn't all that it could be. it's just a good thing that he has friends who hide away in dark corners, those who are able to unearth the secrets of his death. even if it means burning a family's legacy in the process.

LINKS.

We're starting today with the first week in June. Yay!

🏖️

In this challenge you set your own goal and I would love for you to announce it publicly.

Your goal can be whatever you want to get done over the summer, and you can change it from week to week. It can be a wordcount, or edited pages, or a set of time spent on a project. This is up to you, depending on what you feel comfortable with and what you need to do.

🦩

Track your process however you like. You can use sites like trackbear or mywriteclub to track your process, or a spreadsheet, or just write it into a notebook, a graphic, a document.

I have a weekly calendar for you and @mareebrittenford made a cool spreadsheet to track your process (a how-to is coming up). I've put everything into this folder:

That's the first calendar. Set your own goal and fill in what you would like to use as a prompt (optional) and then track what you've accomplished every day.

My prompt for you for this week is: bracing

Flexible feather armor

Here are some travel writing advice to set your story up as accurately as possible. These can be useful across a variety of genres and of course if using fictional creatues, can be used to approximate how long travel would take.

Travel by foot in a day – Flat roads: ~30-40km; forests/hills ~20-25km (can’t do from never being active); mountains/snow ~10-15km; drop those numbers a lot if injured or are carrying things

Travel by horse in a day – walking pace: ~30-40 km/day; with gallops: max 50-60 km/day with breaks; overuse can cause lameness or death