So I just found out that there’s a distribution problem with the e-book version of Banished Sons of Poseidon. That version is available at the publisher Bold Strokes Books, but unfortunately, it will not be for sale at most retailers until October 19th.
Oops! I spoke a little too soon.
Paperbacks are indeed available everywhere. My apologies for the confusion.
October 14th, 2015: Today is the day! Banished Sons of Poseidon, the follow up to The Seventh Pleiade, hits stores, spreading some high fantasy, Atlantean queerness around the world.
Early reviews have been a bit slow to come in, but I was thrilled that BSoP was picked out by All Our Worlds Diverse Fantasy Fiction.
” ★★★★1/2. Monsters, magic and vibrant characters. A lot of fun.”
You can read the full review here.
Here’s the cover and the story blurb:
After escaping from a flood that buried the aboveground in seawater, a fractured group of boys contend with the way ahead and their trust of an underground race of men who gives them shelter. For sixteen-year-old Dam, it’s a strange, new second chance. There are wonders in the underworld and a foreign warrior Hanhau who is eager for friendship despite Dam’s dishonorable past.
But a rift between his countrymen threatens to send their settlement into chaos. Peace between the evacuees and Hanhau’s tribe depends on sharing a precious relic that glows with arcane energy. When danger emerges from the shadowed backcountry, Dam must undertake a desperate mission. It’s the only hope for the Atlanteans to make it home to the surface. It’s the only way to save Hanhau and his people.
Buy it now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or through Indiebound if you prefer.
From October 1st to October 7th, head over to my Facebook page where every day, I’ll be posting images, links, videos, and extras related to my upcoming release Banished Sons of Poseidon. Like, comment, or share something on that page, and you’ll create a virtual ticket stub to be churned around in my virtual raffle drum. You can also enter, if I may be so bold as to recommend, by suggesting to your friends that they like my page!
The raffle prize is the winner’s choice of The Seventh Pleiade or an advance copy of Banished Sons of Poseidon, which hits stores October 14th. The winner will be chosen 12:00 AM EST October 9th.
Come over to like my page and make my day! 🙂
L to R: Nancy Agabian, Tim Fredrick, Shelley Ettinger, Andrew J. Peters and Rigoberto Gonzalez
Just in case you missed last week’s 2015 LGBT Queens Book Night, here’s a recap.
Sponsored by Newtown Literary Journal and Poets & Writers, the event brought together four local authors to discuss and read from their 2015 releases. The program was moderated by Nancy Agabian, and a nice Q&A took place at the end, ranging from questions about the status of LGBT characters in fantasy to the importance of LGBT-specific (or queer) literary events. More about that later.
As it happened, three of the four of us had participated in Lambda Literary Foundation’s Fellows program. Rigoberto Gonzalez was one of its first faculty. Shelley Ettinger was a fellow at its second annual program, and I was a fellow in 2011. We reminisced and tried to explain to the audience what the experience had meant to us. We each felt that it was one of those rare life-changing moments from which we emerged wiser and stronger. For me, it was an affirmation of my identity not only as a writer but as a queer writer. It gave me the push to get my work out in print.
Queens Pride House hosted the event, which was wonderfully appropriate for a program celebrating the work of local authors. Kew Gardens has been my home since 2001. My husband and I moved into an apartment together in the neighborhood right after our wedding, and we bought the place in 2009.
One thing that we Queens residents are proud of is the tremendous cultural diversity of our borough–the most diverse borough in New York City. Just walking around the block, you have exposure to cultures from around the world. Queens doesn’t have the glam of Manhattan or the hipster vibe of Brooklyn’s trendy neighborhoods. But it has a comfy, down-to-earth feel, and it’s truly a microcosm of the world.
Nancy asked each of us about our take on queer spaces for writers. I can’t say verbatim what my response was, but I know it was enthusiastic. There’s an age-old debate over whether creating queer spaces provides needed validation and support or keeps us segregated from the mainstream. I’ve heard non-queer people say that by closing ourselves off, we deprive them of our experience and point-of-view. That’s something I understand to an extent when I think about the parallel process in other minority communities.
But I don’t think it’s a sufficient argument against creating queer spaces, or spaces just for women or just for other minority groups. It’s based on a false dichotomy. We’re not either in our own community or in the broader community. We’re continuously in that broader community from the time we leave out for work in the morning to the time we come home.
I believe we need our own spaces. For many of us, our lives are full of social, family and professional circles where we exchange and interact with non-queer people, and naturally we grow and change through those experiences. But something special happens when we get together, just as us, unchallenged by real or potential non-queer disapproval. I don’t mean that it’s necessarily more valuable or profound than other spaces that we share with non-queer writers. But it’s a different way of nourishing our souls.
I’ll be out and about for a reading event this month. Tim Fredrick of Newtown Literary Journal was nice enough to invite me to participate in LGBT Queens Book Night. The event features four Queens-based authors who have new releases in 2015.
Here’s some information about the line-up.
Andrew J. Peters is the author of the Werecat series, The Seventh Pleiade and its forthcoming follow-up Banished Sons of Poseidon. He grew up in Buffalo, New York, studied psychology at Cornell University, and has spent most of his career as a social worker and an advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. A lifelong writer, Andrew has been a contributing writer at The Good Men Project, YA Highway, Reading Teen, Dear Teen Me, La Bloga, and Layers of Thought among other media. Andrew lives in New York City with his partner Genaro and their cat Chloë.
Shelley Ettinger is a longtime activist in the LGBTQ movement, and in anti-racist, anti-war and union struggles. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in many literary journals, including *Nimrod*, *Stone Canoe*, *Mississippi Review*, *Cream City Review*, *Blithe House Quarterly*, and *Lodestar Quarterly*. *Library Journal *called her recently published first novel, *Vera’s Will*, “powerful, superbly written,” and “a breathtaking achievement.”
Tim Fredrick is a short story writer and author of the collection We Regret to Inform You: Stories. His stories have been published in Burningword, Pif Magazine, Wilde Magazine, Em Dash Literary Magazine, and Circa. He is also the founding editor of Newtown Literary, a semiannual literary journal focused on publishing the work of writers from and living in Queens, NY.
Rigoberto González is the author 17 books and the recipient of numerous awards including Guggenheim, NEA and USA Rolón fellowships, and a Lambda Literary Award. He is professor of English at Rutgers-Newark and the recipient of the 2015 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle.
Host: Nancy Agabian is the author of Princess Freak (Beyond Baroque Books, 2000), a mixed genre collection of poems, short prose, and performance texts on young women’s sexuality and rage, and Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter (Aunt Lute Books, 2008) a memoir about the influence of her Armenian family’s history on her coming-of-age. Me as her again was honored as a Lambda Literary Award finalist for LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize. Nancy has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She teaches creative writing at Queens College, where she was awarded for excellence in teaching in 2012, and in the Writing Program at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. In 2012, she founded Heightening Stories, a series of community-based writing workshops for the personally brave and socially conscious, online and in Jackson Heights, Queens.
The reading will take place at Queens Pride House, a local LGBT community center with programs for teenagers who are coming out, which I think is especially cool. I’ll be reading from Banished Sons of Poseidon and signing copies.
Check out the Facebook event page and join by clicking here.
