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Happy Lesbian Visibility Week! 📚📖🏳️‍🌈

This does come with the caveat that I can't quite remember if the characters in How to Find a Princess, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, and Chain-Gang All-Stars identity specifically as lesbians or not, but they are all sapphic. Full titles under the cut!

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

#queer books #queue

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#polls #polls for writers

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T.O.D.A.A.A.A.A.Y!

we'd love to see you there!

Upcoming Event: A Big Gay Market!

This Sunday, April 28th, we’re thrilled to be among the 100+ vendors who will be selling their wares at Albany’s quarterly A Big Gay Market! We’ll be there with our latest books and merch, and all our old favorites, and a few new never-before-seen things too, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Washington Park on the Knox Street Mall in Albany. The forecast is looking gorgeous – high of 73, partial sun, chance of showers in the afternoon and evening. Definitely a day to wear sunscreen!

Even better? 10% of our net profits will be donated to Camp Unirondack!

So, if you’re anywhere near the Capital District of New York and are looking for an awesome opportunity to do some shopping, get some fabulous stuff, and support a great cause, make sure to come say hi (and claim your very own free tiny duck…)!

#self reblog

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So, English-Speaking Danmei Fandom, You Want to Support Authors…

…and so do I, so here’s my dumb white English-more-or-less-only (I speak a small amount of Japanese…it vaguely sort of kind of helps) speaking ass, doing a little homework that hopefully will help others? This is not exhaustive, not complete, not better than resources others have made, but I checked things I personally cared about, and since I’ve done the research, I figure I might as well toss the info out into the wild.

First - as Suika linked, HERE IS AN AMAZING GUIDE TO HELP YOU MAKE A JJWXC ACCOUNT and it teaches you how to use it. It was created by Shoko Translates and it’s incredibly clear and easy to use and you should use it and trust anything they say over literally anything in this post, because I only have the vaguest idea what I’m talking about but they know their shit.

Google translate on Chrome works decently to make the site English…but doesn’t work well in any other respect; overall it functions WAY better on Firefox even if it’s umpteen times harder to figure out what anything says.

Use the guide to make your account; I couldn’t get it to successfully send my phone a text, but I had zero problems when I switched to e-mail. Chrome translate is definitely easier for making the actual account, but then it’s better to switch.

Once you’ve got the account and you log in…

…so, I have no idea what either of those two I’ve circled say (USE THE LINKED GUIDE, IT’LL TELL YOU) but I know that if you click either of them, you get a huge list of authors and book titles, with genre notes, hits, publication date, etc. More importantly, you get a search bar - you can see it right below my silly black circle.

Congratulations, you can now find the things you want to support using search! The first option in the search drop down is book, and it brings up the actual book but also a lot of superfluous stuff. I had way better luck searching by author, which is the second option on the drop down menu.

Now that you know how to search - when I sat down with this today, my goal wasn’t yet to actually pay for anything, I just wanted a sense of how many points things would cost, and I wanted to be able to look that up. So, that’s this post’s goal, and sorry I’m a little disjointed in presenting that out, I got like no sleep last night. Anyway. The point is, based on that link I provided (DID YOU USE IT YET? YOU SHOULD):

10,000 points on JJWXC cost approximately USD 17. Convert as needed for your own currency. Or, one point costs 0.17 cents. (To be clear: that’s about 2 tenths of a cent, not 17 cents.)

With that basic conversion, once you have an account, you can see how many points things cost, and therefore calculate how much they’d cost you in $$$ to support the author. Anyway, I haven’t actually figured out ANY of the money parts of this yet, because I wanted to figure out how many points the books I would want to support were before I even attempted money stuff. My thinking with this post was - if you, like me, were holding back cause you were wondering about expense…well, here, have some answers about expense, and probably in a day or four I’ll sit down and try to figure out the money part, and I’ll do another post then. Or, you can just use that guide I linked. Cause that’s what I’m going to do.

So, what/who do you want to support?

Priest (search for author: priest)

镇魂 (Zhen Hun/Guardian). Point cost: 1,742. In USD: $2.96

天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke/Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor). Point cost: 943. In USD: $1.60

有匪 (You Fei/Legend of Fei). Point cost: 3,031. In USD: $5.15

默读 (Mo Du). Point cost: 3,506. In USD: $5.96

杀破狼 (Sha Po Lang). Point cost: 2,673. In USD: $4.54

七爷 (Qi Ye/Lord Seventh). Point cost: 934. In USD: $1.59

(This is not an exhaustive list, but you can search for others - the Priest Wikipedia page gives a full list of Chinese names, translations, adaptations, etc.)

墨香铜臭 (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, search for author: 墨香铜臭)

天官赐福 (Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing). Point cost: 5,270. In USD: $8.96

If 魔道祖师 (Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed) and 人渣反派自救系统 (Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong/The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System/Scum System/Scum Villain) are on there, I wasn’t able to find them - someone who knows more than I, and has the time to the research right now, will have to explain more to help with those, but for starters, they’re on the publishers website - Scum Villain; MDZS)

肉包不吃肉 (Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou/Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat, search for author: 肉包不吃肉)

二哈和他的白猫师尊 (Er Ha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun/The Husky and His White Cat Shizun/Hao Yixing/Immortality). Point cost: 7,246. In USD: $12.32

余污 (Yu Wu/Remnants of Filth). Point cost: 4,245. In USD: $7.22

梦溪石 (Meng Xi Shi, search for author: 梦溪石)

千秋 (Qianqiu/Thousand Autumns). Point cost: 2,783. In USD: $4.73

(There are many others.)

漫漫何其多 (Man Man He Qi Duo, search for author: 漫漫何其多)

当年万里觅封侯 (Dangnian Wanli Mi Feng Hou/Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine). Point cost: 1,551. In USD: $2.64

(Again, there are many others.)

I could go add titles for years, but, well, it’s my post, and these are the stories I was most interested in supporting personally. Doing ALL this research, AND writing it up for this post, took me less than an hour, and once you’re in the website and have bought points, you can select all chapters with a single click, it’ll tell you the final point cost, and with another click - bam, you’re done, you’ve bought the raws. You’ve supported the original creator. You’ve done what translators have been begging us to do for ages. And, if it’s a story that’s not all out yet - you’ve got the raws! You can mtl them! You can read them before the translators are done! Or, if you’ve got a fave author? You can read their work in progress! You can learn what’s coming next! Even without speaking Chinese (I don’t speak a word of Chinese!!!) there is NO DOWNSIDE HERE.

(also, can I point out how INCREDIBLY SMALL some of these dollar amounts are? Some of ya’ll are acting like this is bank-breaking, I mean seriously, COME ON.)

Google is your friend. Find the carrd for your fave. Copy and paste the author’s name in Chinese. Use the JJWXC search. Find the thing. Support it.

English danmei fandom, this is our chance to do better.

PLEASE, can we do fricken better??? It’s so easy. And so cheap. And these fandoms have brought so many of us so much joy.

Go forth, and do the thing.

I’m doing it.

(edited: I DID do it! Part 2!)

#resources

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#current events #uspol #politics #transphobia tw #queue

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Sapphic / WLW Romance Books (that fit popular tropes!)

#queer fiction #queue

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Most Anticipated Queer Young Adult Fiction: January-June 2024

Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia (January 2nd) Tara just wants to be treated like any other girl at Ainsley Academy. That is, judged on her merits—not on her transness. But there’s no road map for being the first trans girl at an all-girls school. And when she tries to join the Sibyls, an old-fashioned Ainsley sisterhood complete with code names and special privileges, she’s thrust into the…

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#queer fiction

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Coming Soon: May Trope Mayhem 2024!

It’s almost time for May Trope Mayhem!

What is May Trope Mayhem? It’s Duck Prints Press’s annual multi-fandom/original work creation event! Our creators have shared their favorite tropes, and we’ve picked 30 (+1 free day!), one per day of May to make an awesome, fun, diverse list of prompts to inspire your creativity. Come May 1st, we invite everyone to create a ficlet, artwork, gif set, photo montage, or whatever else they feel like, inspired by the trope of the day. We’re open to any fandom or no fandom at all, original characters and old faves, any ship (yes even that one) or no ship or reader inserts or, or, or… basically, if you can imagine it, we can accommodate it!

This year marks our fourth-annual May Trope Mayhem. Curious about the event? You can learn some by checking out our previous three years!

the 2021 May Trope Mayhem list and rules

the 2022 May Trope Mayhem list and rules

the 2023 May Trope Mayhem list and rules

the AO3 Parent Collection

The rules for 2024 will be about the same as in the past, so the only big change will be in the tropes – some are repeats, some are not. And of course day 31 is still a free day – we’d love to know YOUR favorite trope, especially if it it doesn’t end up our list for this year!

The 2024 list goes public on May 1st. Mark your calendars, tell yours friends, and get ready to create with us! And follow us on social media to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Backers on Patreon can see the list early! It’s up now – become a backer and check it out.

#time zone reblog

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do you love the color of trans visibility?

(click on the link below each picture to view a list of titles, authors, and brief summaries for each book!)

#queer fiction #queue

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Made a little ducky out of Polymer clay! 💛

#duck prints press loves ducks #ducks #duck art #queue

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TOMORROW!

Upcoming Event: A Big Gay Market!

This Sunday, April 28th, we’re thrilled to be among the 100+ vendors who will be selling their wares at Albany’s quarterly A Big Gay Market! We’ll be there with our latest books and merch, and all our old favorites, and a few new never-before-seen things too, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Washington Park on the Knox Street Mall in Albany. The forecast is looking gorgeous – high of 73, partial sun, chance of showers in the afternoon and evening. Definitely a day to wear sunscreen!

Even better? 10% of our net profits will be donated to Camp Unirondack!

So, if you’re anywhere near the Capital District of New York and are looking for an awesome opportunity to do some shopping, get some fabulous stuff, and support a great cause, make sure to come say hi (and claim your very own free tiny duck…)!

#self reblog

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🩷 Lesbian Visibility Week is April 22 to 28 this year. Use this week to celebrate lesbian role models and to show solidarity with women in this beautiful community. Last year, LVW highlighted trans-inclusivity alongside achievements within the sapphic community. To extend that celebration, here are a few stunning sapphic stories I've read in the past year!

🩷 Stars Collide - Rachel Lacey 💕 The Last Love Song - Kalie Holford 💖 Late Bloomer - Mazey Eddings 🩷 Imogen, Obviously - Becky Albertalli 💕 Girls of Paper and Fire - Natasha Ngan 💖 The Fiancee Farce - Alexandria Bellefleur 🩷 How You Get the Girl - Anita Kelly 💕 This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone 💖 Read Between the Lines - Rachel Lacey 🩷 One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston 💕 Moon Cakes - Suzanne Walker 💖 Fly With Me - Andie Burke 🩷 Going Bicoastal - Dahlia Adler 💕 Godslayers - Zoe Hana Mikuta 💖 Cover Story - Rachel Lacey

#queer fiction #queue

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Fandom Lexicon: H

Moving right along on sharing the Fandom Lexicon, this week we present entries that start with H! And note that we’ve continued to add to the previous letters A through G, incorporating suggestions received from readers of these posts (such as Fujin) and terms we’ve encountered ourselves for the first time since we started posting (such as CCOF). Fandom is a huge world with a lot of specialized, unique vocabulary, so if you’ve got something we haven’t included, we’d love to hear from you!

You can view the whole lexicon posted thus far here!

Lexicon Terms Beginning with H: (read more)

H/C: Abbreviation for “hurt/comfort.”

H/NC: Abbreviation for “hurt/no comfort.”

Hammerspace: An imaginary storage space that exists outside of our current dimension and is instantly accessible any time an item is needed. Originates from the way that cartoon characters can produce items (such as hammers) from thin air. May be called other things depending on the object produced, such as referring it as tablespace if the characters produce a table. Read more about hammerspace.

Handle: A user’s displayed name on a communications platform. Not always the same as a username.

HC: Abbreviation for “head canon” or “hurt/comfort.”

HEA: Abbreviation for “happily ever after.” A term used to indicate that a story has a happy ending. See also: HFN.

Head Canon: Something an individual believes is true about a piece of media, regardless of whether it is supported by the media itself. A given individual’s head canons do not need to be internally consistent and can be outright contradictory. See also: canon, fanon. Read more about head canons.

Hellsite: Moniker for Tumblr. Often paired with (affectionate) or (derogatory) depending on how the person using it is feeling about the platform.

Hentai: Pornographic cartoons/anime from Japan. Read more about hentai.

HFN: Abbreviation for “happy for now.” A term used to indicate that a story has a happy ending that doesn’t necessarily guarantee “ever after” levels of happiness but is still satisfactory. See also: HEA.

Himbo: A conventionally attractive man who is well-intentioned and kind of soft, but lacking in foresight / intelligence. The classic example is the character Kronk from the Emperor’s New Groove. See also: thembo (pending). Read more about the term “himbo.”

Hold My Flower: Quote from a popular meme where an unspecified character offers to hold their significant other’s flower while the significant other gets into a physical altercation. Read more about the “Hold My Flower” meme.

Horny on Main: Behaving in an overtly sexual manner on one’s primary social media account (presumably as opposed to using a side account designed for that purpose or not posting it at all).

Horse Plinko: A rough animation of a horse falling through a plinko board and bouncing off the pegs. It’s a popular meme/reference on Tumblr in particular. What exactly it means is open to interpretation. Read more about horse plinko.

Hurt/No Comfort: Refers to a trope where the major characters experience significant pain (physical or emotional) and receives no comfort. Often paired with Angst. Sometimes called “Hurt/Hurt” instead. See also: whump (pending).

Hurt/Comfort: Refers to a trope where the major characters experience significant pain (physical or emotional) and then receives comfort in kind. “Emotional Hurt/Comfort” is an oft-used tag if the pain is specifically emotional. Read more about the hurt/comfort trope in fandom.

#duck prints press #fandom lexicon

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If you are watching a TV show, it can be live action or animated.

But not when you're reading a book. Much to think about.

#polls #polls for readers #somewhere between the second and third options

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FINAL DAY!

people are always saying that folks on Tumblr think 30 is old, and I started to wonder if that's true, do people on Tumblr really think that relatively young ages are old? so. poll. reblog to do the thing where you've reblogged.

#signal boost

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Solicited Brilliance

Hey everyone! This is Aria, one of the resident fandom olds here to bring you a guest blog post this week. The topic is near and dear to my heart, so let’s dive straight into talking about that ever-ominous thundercloud - Writing Advice! 

Writing advice is a tricky subject for many authors - what works for one clearly doesn’t work for another, and what’s essential for one genre might not even apply to another genre . (Certain authors can pry adverbs from my cold, dead hands.) It doesn't matter who is offering it, where, or when: it is an industry truism that writing advice is as varied as writers themselves. 

With that in mind, I asked ten different authors for writing advice, in the hope to highlight just how different we all are, even when approaching the same question.

The question I posed to everyone individually (so no one would get worried if they gave the same answer), was as follows: What is one piece of writing/writerly advice you hold as a Universal Constant? That no matter what you are writing or what you are working on still holds true?

As I hoped, the advice is as varied as the authors are!

-

@nottesilhouette:

Hmm I think for me, the Universal Constant is that [my writing has] got to make me feel good. Not necessarily happy, because I've definitely written through tears before, but it's got to make me feel...satisfied, or give me catharsis, or lead me towards a goal I'm passionate about (looking at you, med school essays!). 

Even if [my writing is] for school, getting things done feels good, and for creative writing, I want to feel like I've stretched my writing brain or accomplished something cool -- if I'm not getting that feeling, it's time for a break and maybe a new plan of attack.

-

Hermit:

"You can't think your way out of a writer's block. Most of the time you need to write yourself out of a thinking block.” - John Rogers

When a story is fighting me this is often the solution. Either the scene is going against the characterization, the characters are lacking agency/being too passive, or I went wrong three sentences back; the answer to getting the story flowing is to write it differently and see how that feels. Rather than try to force an existing scene by coming up with better justification for an OOC (Out of Character) passage or diving into a new research rabbit hole.

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Shadaras:

I don't know where this advice first came from (it's one of those things that just gets passed around until it's from the general writer mindscape, especially in fandom spaces), but this is the advice I tend to ground myself in: "Write what you want to read." What that means can vary depending on context, of course, but it gives a guiding point to return to when I'm stuck. 

The thing I want to read could be a specific character dynamic, or leaning into descriptions of the environment, or a plot beat I really want to hit, or even (in a nonfiction context) just the clearest explanation of an event/rule I know how to give. Writing what I want to read means that I'm going to enjoy myself more, and that means that I'm going to be able to write much more easily, and that makes it more likely I'll finish stories and be able to share them with other people - and then I can find people who like the same things in stories I do, and we all win!

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Annabeth Lynch:

The most constant advice that I really try to keep in mind is that sure, someone else may have written it, but not you. Everyone has unique experiences, and that makes your writing unique. No one can write something the exact way you would. It's my favorite advice I've ever gotten, and I feel that it's always relevant.

-

@ts-knight:

Writing by habit is often easier than waiting for the muse. When I feel out of practice in my writing, I find that starting again is an uphill climb, but setting a daily goal helps me get back into the flow. That goal could be just writing at all or a certain (achievable) number of words. That way, I know I've reached the goal not when I've hit a certain quality of writing, but when I sat down at the keys. Exercising my writing muscles (even when I'm afraid to) makes the creativity flow so much better than avoiding the ominous blank page!

-

@mad-madam-m:

[My writing advice is] that you have to finish. And I don't mean that you have to finish everything that you write; I've got easily a dozen stories or more that are either unfinished or never made it past the first draft. But if you're writing with the goal of sharing your stories with an audience, be that via fanfic or original fiction or what have you, I really think one of the best things you can do is learn to finish them. This quote about it in particular is one that I've held close to my heart for years:

“Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don’t talk about doing it. Do it. Finish.” — E. L. Konigsburg 

-

Sanne Burg:

I think my universal constant is that I write because I want to write, and I create for myself. That means not caring what other people think of the topics I write [about], as long as I'm behind whatever it is I'm writing. (It also means that I know when I'm forcing it and that I need to stop when writing becomes a chore rather than something for fun or a hobby.)

-

@theleakypen:

I think the one [piece of writing advice] that has been truest for me, regardless of what I'm working on, is that if something isn't working [I should] step away from it for a bit and go work on something else. Usually if there's a problem, I need to let it percolate in the back of my head instead of banging my head against a wall.

-

ThePornFairy:

Focus on the feeling. If you can write the feeling so that it's filling you from the tips of your toes to the hair on your head, then you're on the right track. People don't care half as much about the setting and wording as they do about the feeling. 

When people say "step inside your character", I think what they mean is "let your character feel and feel along with them until feelings come out on your page and stab your reader's eyeballs until they're feeling right along with you." Everything else can be edited later, as long as you capture and express the emotions.

-

@tryslora:

Fall in love with your characters. If you don't love them, no one else will. And yes, this includes the antagonists and every single side character. And while you're doing that, remember that every single character thinks they are the star of their own narrative, so let them tell you what it is, even if it's not the main storyline. Let them come alive.

-

Wonderfully said, everyone! I’m going to add my answer to the question as well, because sometimes, I’ve needed this reminder far more than I’ll admit! 

@arialerendeair:

Don’t be afraid to write badly. Or poorly, or lazily. (Take that, Mr. Adverb-Hater.) There is a freedom I never realized before in allowing myself to write “badly:” to overuse certain words, phrases, and even styles as I write my rough draft. When I remember not to focus on the minutiae of a story, I can focus on the bigger problems, and fix the small ones later. Once the words are on the page, they can be fixed, but they have to be put on the page first. Write badly, edit, learn, get better, and write again. 

Writing advice as a topic is a mix of controversial and contradictory; all advice should be applied in moderation rather than treated as an endless stream of syrup being poured over a stack of pancakes. (And now I want pancakes…) It’s always all right if advice doesn’t apply to you - but understanding why the advice is given is important. There are other authors out there who might need the advice that isn’t right for you.

When I set out to write this blog post, I had two goals. The first was I wanted to highlight how varied writing advice and tips can be. The second one was for everyone reading it to walk away with one piece of advice that they could hold to heart because it fit them. I accomplished the first, but the second is entirely up to every author reading this. 

The one consistent theme through all of this advice comes down to two words: Keep Writing. Whether that’s daydreaming about your story or putting the words down on the page, write. 

Keep writing. 

Last, but not least, I’ll leave you all with the same question, because I know there are more answers out there that we all would love to hear:

What is one piece of writing/writerly advice you hold as a Universal Constant? That no matter what you are writing, what you are working on, still holds true.

Stay sassy, everyone!

#writing advice #publishing advice

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♾️ Books for World Autism Month + Neurodiversity Celebration Week

♾️ The last week of March was Neurodiversity Celebration Week. My post is (obviously) late, but April is also World Autism Month (beginning with World Autism Awareness Day on April 2). To generate additional awareness, here are a few books by autistic authors and/or about autistic characters. On the last slide, you'll also find books with additional neurodiversity rep (including characters with ADHD, dyslexia, and OCD).

✨ The Bride Test - Helen Hoang ✨ Daniel, Deconstructed - James Ramos ✨ Tonight We Rule the World - Zack Smedley ✨ Paige Not Found - Jen Wilde ✨ Something More - Jackie Khalilieh ✨ Uncomfortable Labels - Laura Kate Dale ✨ The Luis Ortega Survival Club - Sonora Reyes ✨ Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl - Brianna R. Shrum and Sara Waxelbaum ✨ The Spirit Bares Its Teeth - Andrew Joseph White ✨ The Brightsiders - Jen Wilde ✨ The Boys in the Back Row - Mike Jung ✨ Hating Jesse Harmon - Robin Mimna

✨ Queens of Geek - Jen Wilde ✨ The Maid - Nita Prose ✨ The Heart Principle - Helen Hoang ✨ The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson ✨ Even If We Break - Marieke Nijkamp ✨ The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon ✨ Unseelie - Ivelisse Housman ✨ This Could Be Us - Kennedy Ryan ✨ Act Your Age, Eve Brown - Talia Hibbert ✨ The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang ✨ On the Edge of Gone - Corinne Duyvis ✨ Against the Stars - Christopher Hartland

✨ Tell Me How It Ends - Quinton Li ✨ Izzy at the End of the World - K.A. Reynolds ✨ Late Bloomer - Mazey Eddings ✨ Fake It Till You Bake It - Jamie Wesley ✨ Whatever Happens - Micalea Smeltzer ✨ Gimmicks and Glamour - Lauren Melissa Ellzey ✨ Last Call at the Local - Sarah Grunder Ruiz ✨ Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling - Elise Bryant ✨ The Charm Offensive - Alison Cochrun ✨ A Prayer for Vengeance - Leanne Schwartz ✨ Tilly in Technicolor - Mazey Eddings ✨ If Only You - Chloe Liese

#read diverse #queue