Well, we've reached another milestone and thought we'd make a "yearly recap" blog post into a tradition! It encourages us, motivates us, and helps renew our focus. So read on for our highlights of 2021. . . .

This post originally appeared in Deborah's blog.

Although I’ve always written and probably always will write, my profession is editing [and now, publishing]. I’m a substantive editor, which means that in addition to doing copy-editing to make flow all nice and pretty, I get to comment on things like characterization and continuity. No book is without flaws (or typos, alas), and being a critic before publishing is in many ways more satisfactory than after, because it gives the author a chance to fix the problem. Since I’ve been editing, I’ve begun to notice a few trends.

​We’re half a month late, but it’s been 30 years since the release of Disney’s animated film Beauty and the Beast. The “tale as old as time” is still one of this book-loving brunette’s absolute favorite movies (I also adore the live-action version), and I have vague, fond memories of seeing it in the theatre when I was barely old enough to sit still for that hour and a half. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it since, but Belle showed me that it’s not uncool to be bookish and smart, and princesses don’t all have to fit the same Cinderella mold.

If you’re an avid Beauty and the Beast fan like I am, and looking for some more written versions of this classic story, here’s a list I compiled of ten retellings that have high ratings:

​Wondering what to get for the nerd(s) in your life? Or what to buy with the gift cards you receive as holiday presents? Well, look no further, because we’ve compiled a massive list covering 13 different popular fandoms!

(By the way, “nerd” isn’t a dirty word—it means an avid fan. We’re proud nerds, and not just the bookish kind. We’re into most of the fandoms listed below!)

This week, we bring you Part 2 of Deborah's "miniseries" (see what we did there? :) on how (not) to write a series of books.

This post and its Part 1 originally appeared in Deborah's blog.

This post originally appeared in Deborah's blog.

​Today, I’m going to be talking a bit about things that ruin (or at least bring down) a book series . . . when I loved the first book. These aren’t absolute rules; but I do think they’re things to consider when writing. Thinking about them has certainly prevented me from doing some things I really dislike in other authors. All of the examples I use below are from real books by good writers.

​For every book we release, we'll be sure to post a review of it right around the time the book comes out. Our latest book, Sand to Glass by Remy Apepp, came out this Monday, November 1st. This review comes from Anna Winslow.

​For every book we release, we typically feature an interview with one of its major characters. This week we were going to sit down and chat with someone from Sand to Glass by Remy Apepp, but something . . . a bit unusual happened. Read below to find out what it was!

Every time we release a book, we’ll post an interview with its author during the month before the book is published. Our next novel, Sand to Glass, comes out on November 1st. Sand to Glass is a dark literary fantasy about a kingdom on the edge of destruction, and we are interviewing Remy Apepp, who loves to explore characters’ psychology and transformations.

​Let me chat about my serial novel Surviving in Horror, because it perfectly demonstrates one method of getting ideas.  (And how you can get them, too.)
 
But let me go back and explain.
 
Last November (2020), I decided to do National Novel Writing Month.  Only, instead of a novel, I would get myself out of my writing slump by writing short stories to prompts.  My prompts went like this: each day, I would go to the alphabetically next part of my bookcase and look at the first three authors.  The first book I owned by each author was my prompt; the author’s name of the third book was the name of my character: