Only a scientist because I can't figure out how to be a wizard irl | She/her | virology | Masters of Public Health | Author | CHILD OF THE DRAGON Coming 2026!! | 💚🤍🩶🖤demi/demi🖤🩶🤍💜 ♦️| disabled as heck
My (award-winning!!! oh my gosh!) queer YA contemporary fantasy Child of the Dragon is officially out in the world!! It's about a ragtag team of shapeshifting dragons in high school taking fate into their own hands to break a curse, take down an evil dragon government, and still pass calculus.
It's kind of like Percy Jackson but with dragons instead of demigods!
Check it out if you like:
🐉shape-shifting dragons
✨Ancient Curse. Modern Setting.
🐉forehead kisses
✨More sass than self preservation
🐉angst, sarcasm, and high school
✨sword swinging disability rep
🐉queer rep (demiromantic/ace, questioning ace, gay, & bi in the main cast alone!)
You can get it online wherever books are sold! But if you're in the US and want some quick links including directly from my small press or from some of my local, queer-owned indies, you can find those links + Goodreads & Storygraph links here!
And @queerliblib has it in their Libby catalogue!
and if you've already read, I will love you forever if you leave a review on the review platforms of your choice!
Cover art by @jv.arts.2020
(image descriptions in alt and under the cut!)
There are six images! each will be described separately and labeled image 1-6!
[image 1: A smoky blue and red background with fire and ice coming out the sides of the cover for Child of the Dragon (A cover with fire on the left edges and ice on the right edges centering around a girl in shorts and a tank top, raising a sword high and summoning lightning in front of a massive purple-y european dragon inside some sort of arena. The title: Child of the Dragon is written across the center in a curly, silver font, and the author name is in a smaller version of the same and says Ashley N.Y. Sheesley) blue torn paper across the bottom reads "Child of the Dragon as Memes" //end ID]
[Image 2: A smoky blue and red background with the meme of a car skidding onto the exit lane with the sign above the car showing straight ahead is "grieving, putting energy into school and friend, literally anything normal" and to the exit is "becoming a dragon idk" the car is labeled "Kat" //end ID]
[image 3: A smoky blue and red background with text that reads "it's always ily it's never siywaawiayptbwwygtkak" with a picture from a book with the text highlighted in pink that reads "so, if you were an assassin--which I'm assuming you're planning to become--where would you go to kill a king?" //end ID]
[Image 4: The wolverine comic meme of him in costume in bed looking at a photo frame. The second image is a panel of what's in the frame. Across the top is a speech bubble that says "I want a memory of a warm moment with your friend--Jason, right?" Wolverine is labeled as "coleman" The picture frame reads "[a memory of unimaginable horror and violence but it's kinda gay]" //end ID]
[Image 5: A smoky blue and red background with the meme of a guy turning away looking disgusted next to text that reads "fake dating the hot, mysterious new guy" below is the same guy but he looks happy. There's a transparent demiromantic flag over his picture. the text next to him reads "holding out for your best friend bc why in the world would you date a stranger" //end ID]
[Image 6: A smoky blue and red background with the meme of a guy bringing pizzas into a chaotic room on fire. Across the first image it reads "Aaron just wanting to help his best friend and secret crush." on the second image, a guy swings a flaming object around that reads "she's a dragon" on the fire on the ground it reads "a literal dragon war" and next to that is someone lying on the ground with a tag that says "multiple assassination attempts" //end ID]
Apparently some people still need to hear this so: using an 'ai checker' is still using ai. If you are feeding someone's fic to one of these checkers, you will still not be sure their fic is ai because they are not 100% accurate, but you can be 100% sure that you are using ai. For fic. Furthermore you are doing the work of an ai scraper for them. You are, personally, feeding the machine. There is no actual excuse for using an ai checker on fanfic as a hobby. YOU are the problem.
If you think a fic is ai, mute it and move on. That's it. That's all you do.
I’m in another disability anthology coming out on Monday! This one’s by the same editor who did Artifice & Access but it’s a disability in dystopia anthology, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?
Where Artifice & Access was a love letter to disabled people, Why Aren't You Dead Yet? is a hate letter to the systems that want disabled people to disappear.
A big thing to note is this anthology is NOT Artifice & Access. It's much darker, and many of the stories fully lean into grimdark dystopian stories full of disabled rage and warnings of what could be if we don't do anything to stop it now. However, there are also many stories along the way that have hope, community, rebellion, and the promise of a better future even when the present is crappy.
Do definitely pay attention to the content warnings. Some of these stories are almost more horror and some have elements of body horror that I ended up having to skip through because I am wimpy baby.
My short story is called Cat and Mouse and it’s a hopepunk/cyber punk heist with a sassy, all-disabled heist crew and sky high stakes (that’s a pun come back on Monday and tell me I’m funny 😆) I’m really proud of it and I hope others like it as much as I do!
❤️ Red: The First Bright Thing — by J.R. Dawson
🧡 Orange: Sir Callie and the Dragon's Roost — by Esme Symes-Smith
💛 Yellow: A Language of Dragons — by S.F. Williamson
💚 Green: The Sunbearer Trials — by Aiden Thomas
💙 Blue: Ellen Outside the Lines — by A. J. Sass
💜 Purple: The Chase Begins — by Aimee Donnellan
Do you have any advice for authors who can’t decide between self pub and trad?
This is a difficult decision—one that can make writers spiral. (Even I’m guilty of it.) I know many want to say it boils down to just money, and while money plays an important part, there are more points to consider.
Seeing both sides of it—and knowing the ends and outs—is important. But before you do, rank these in order of what’s most important to you:
money (how much you spend)
money (how much you earn)
AI reading your work
popular trends
time
marketing
creative control
Write down the order of what’s most important to least important. Don’t think about the publishing paths. Just answer and write down what’s honest to yourself.
Now, for these next sections, we’re going to go over each of those concepts, and you’ll decide which publishing path you like with each option. Which one sounds better for you? And at the end, we’ll see which way you lean.
money (how much you spend)
traditional publishing — $0. It doesn’t mean people spend zero—because I’ve seen an uptick in writers who are getting either developmental editing and/or copyediting from a professional editor before submitting to a literary agents—but you do not have to spend money.
self-publishing — You are the publisher, so you have to spend all the money. There are smart ways around it. Like I’ve seen some writers have very seasoned beta readers and then skip developmental edits. Many fund their books on Kickstarter or BackerKit. Etc.
money (how much you earn)
traditional publishing — You get an advance. Usually, for first-time authors, it’s about $5,000 over four payments spread out over three to four years. You then have to earn that $5,000 back in books sales (which you make about $1 per book sold) before you get royalties every six months.
self-publishing — On average—cause it will vary by who you go with—it’s at most 70% of ebook cost and 60% of pbooks. So, you’re making a lot more per book. (And it's been shown that self-published authors have been making more on average.)
AI reading your work
traditional publishing — You do not have a choice. There have been reports of editors using AI to get summaries of what the book is about (instead of reading it) from the slush piles. Publishers have their own in-house AI systems. In their contracts, publishers say authors cannot use AI but will have clauses that say they can feed authors’ books to AI.
There’s no way to know who will and who will not put your manuscript through AI.
self-publishing — You have a choice. You can pick a human cover artist. You can pick an editor who has a strong stance against AI. (I do highly recommend making sure you ask your editor about this.) You can use tools coming out like Octolore, which is a platform for AI to stay out of ARCs. You have more protection.
time
traditional publishing — Three to four years. For example, I know someone who had gotten acquired by a publisher in 2025, and her book is expected to publish in 2028.
self-publishing — You can do it today! Now, that doesn’t mean it’ll be done well, so I do recommend taking your time. With authors I’ve worked with, most are published within a year after editing. Some months later. Some have a longer marketing plan. It’s up to them and how they structure it.
popular trends
traditional publishing — Loves them but also establishes them. It’s very much a business model of this-has-worked-before-so-let’s-do-it-again. (I’ve also heard of them changing books during the developmental stage to fit a trend they prefer. Ex: Adding in a second character, so the YA female lead can “choose” between two boys.)
Now, this does not allow space for all types of diversity. They do believe more in the single story (that sells) than in telling everyone’s story. My friends have been told their disabilities are not marketable enough. I’ve seen someone be told that bisexuality is not marketable enough. It’s still a fight to be seen.
self-publishing — Trends exist. You can follow them. Or not. Because of this, there are a lot of queer and disabled and BIPOC books here that create a space for the stories traditional publishing won’t tell.
marketing
traditional publishing — You’re going to have to do most of it. Traditional publishers have a lot of marketing power, but they give most of it to their popular books they know will sell well. A lot of debuts have to do a lot of their own marketing.
self-publishing — It’s all on you—unless you hire a marketing team. Some marketing teams do really well, and some don’t.
creative control
traditional publishing — Not a lot. Publishers have the ability to change characters, your book’s title, your cover art, and more. They may change your book if they believe there’s a way to market it more.
self-publishing — You have 1,000% complete creative control. You can do whatever you want.
So, overall, how did you do? Look back at your list. Do you lean a certain way more than the other?
For example, here is mine:
creative control — self-pub
AI reading your work — self-pub
marketing — either, kinda traditional?
popular trends — self-pub
time — self-pub
money (how much you spend) — either
money (how much you earn) — either
So, you can see that with my list, AI and creative control are the most important to me, and for both, I lean more toward self-pub. I do have one answer that leans traditional, but other than that, I lean more self-pub.
I’d say that if you are in the middle, I recommend trying traditional publishing first before self-publishing because trying to traditionally publish a book you’ve already self-published is messy, and many agents do not take those. (You also could try a small press since those answers land more in the middle.)
I hope this list helps make a decision. I know it’s hard, and it can be a lot of back-and-forth. Take your time. You don’t need to decide today.
it's Disability Pride Month and ironically I'm virtually out of spoons just over a week before book launch, but anyway once again I did a thing (but with a focus just on the book that's coming out because I am. so very tired)
lest I once again get yelled at by an anon in my inbox, here's the shitpost pitch I like to use which my editor probably wishes I would stop using since we're a week out from release
a 43-year-old undiagnosed autistic guy has a gay/lowkey monsterfucker awakening after getting lost in an enchanted forest, while his 36-year-old disabled deeply closeted sapphic sister goes after him with the most annoying woman she’s ever met
or for the real pitch, here’s just one of many places you can find the back-of-book blurb: link to The Lord of the Wood on E.M. Anderson’s website
if a game is making you so angry that you have to scream, dusturbing the whole house and distressing your teammates maybe close the game and go cool your head and i mean this in the nicest most literal way possible
SURPRISE!! I get to write more Child of the Dragon books!!
Since the very inception of Child of the Dragon, I knew it would be a series, and I can't believe I not only get to actually write the rest of that series, now officially named Pact of the Ancients, I finally get to talk about it! I cannot WAIT for everyone to return to this world with our familiar cast and a lot of new faces and magics! I've turned in the first draft of the sequel and am hard at work on drafting the prequel. More details under the cut, and official announcement here
learned a stitch called the crocodile stitch to crochet scaled patterns. im making myself a pair of mittens/hand warmers with scales, and once im finished with those ill make a shawl to mimic the sensation of wings on my back. maybe ill make a headband too, if i can find a cool pattern for it. making your own gear is awesome :D
Online spaces have almost always been where asexual and aromantic people meet each other and organize. This is why the major online campaigns against us around ten years ago were so destructive.
It’s easy to say that cyber bullying doesn’t matter in the real world or whatever but targeted online bullying campaigns have the power to wreck entire communities and support networks.
It’s difficult to just turn off your computer when all the people who relate to this aspect of your life are in there.
I’ve definitely met other asexual and arospec people irl but it’s quite rare. And real life queer spaces are in fact often bars or kink spaces. And like bully for you if you like kink or alcohol or romance but when your entire identity is based around not feeling the feelings often associated with romance and/or sex that’s not always super fun.
And people got relentlessly mocked for bringing up this issue. Shut down. Called childish. Like okay. Fuck us for wanting a sober non sexual spot to meet other queers, right? So childish for wanting options.
I’ve been involved in the online asexual community and doing education about asexuality and aromanticism in both irl and online queer spaces for almost fourteen years now and that short period of time around 2016-2018 took a wrecking ball to my people that I feel like we’ve still barely recovered from and I’m still angry about it.
I think asexual pirates should come back. This time they’re here for your ass. And not sexually.
They killed our dragon and cake memes. The aro and ace dragon hoards are dead. But you know what? I survived and I’m the online version of a cockroach after a nuclear blast. I never forget.
happy disability pride month! As a challenge for artists this month, try writing image descriptions for your art! It will make it more accessible, which means more people will be able to enjoy it (and as a consequence you will probably get more interaction with it, so it will be good for BOTH you AND for art appreciators who need IDs)
Other people might not know what's important to you in the image, so while some people might decide to reblog your undescribed art with a description they've written, it might not quite fit your intentions- but when you describe your own art, you're in full control of what you highlight! It's your art, so you know what details matter to the piece!
Here is post compiling various guides for how to get started writing IDs! You can also use the “#accessible art” tag to find examples of other artists’ descriptions of their own art to help you along :)
YOU THERE! Do you like cursed, disabled, gay dragons? Of course you do! Child of the Dragon has an all queer central cast of cursed shapeshifting dragons and one of the POVs is a gay chronically ill ex-assassin 👀 seeing as it's disability pride month and I am a disabled author with a disabled MC....👀 so 👀
the character in question is a part-time mobility aid user like I am and experiences symptoms based off my own experiences with POTS, migraine, and chronic pain! He's undiagnosed because I was undiagnosed when I was first writing him and it didn't feel right to add a diagnosis in later, and in world, the cause is magical in nature, so it makes sense why he hasn't seen a doctor about it yet.
There's also another POV character who is questioning-aspec and kinda sort of ended up with my anxiety. It's not as prevalent or obvious, but once you see it, you can't UNsee it.
Anyway, I think it's pretty good and think that tumblr might think it's neat, so... if anyone is interested, here are a bunch of links (US store links because that what I have easiest access to, but I know for a fact it's available internationally!)
ah! That’s MY POST! Reblogged by someone I follow who doesn’t follow me! Passed along through the grapevine until it got back to me!
Or
ah! I WROTE that ID! And it really is circulating past just the people who reblogged directly from me! It really is getting to be useful for more than just my followers!
“june is over so now it’s gay wrath month” blah blah reminder that july is disability pride month and is often ignored and disregarded!! funnel that wrath into advocating for your disabled peers and amplifying their voices
this ot3 is putting the "romance" back in "necromancers." yes it is a canon ot3. this is queer gothic horror with sexy cannibalism, sexy blood magic, and sexy body horror bugs. and an HEA if you like that sort of thing
yes. sexy body horror bugs. i said what i said.
what's up i worked 12 hours today but still gotta market my preorder campaign!!!!!
if you preorder The Halls of The Dead (from anywhere you want to preorder!) you can get instant access to the first chapter with proof of receipt. yes! before the book even comes out! and not just any first chapter! but an annotated first chapter! with color-coded, handwritten notes, by me!!!!
AND,
if you preorder from Well Worn Books, you will also get a signed first edition! yes! it will arrive signed! by me! so you could preorder here and get a signed copy AND an instant download of the annotated first chapter!!
to get your annotated chapter, CLICK HERE for instructions!
need convincing???? synopsis under the cut. but imagine if The Locked Tomb happened in Victorian London and also Penny Dreadful was a gay revenge love story
A queer, gothic horror romance set in a necromancy-tinged London, sure to entrance fans of The Death of Jane Lawrence and Mexican Gothic. [[and also The Locked Tomb. seriously, we should have put The Locked Tomb in the marketing. can't think of everything, guys]]
London, December 1849-
Irene Shallcross Haley has dedicated her life to necromancy, a forbidden, reviled art that is passed along through sentient grimoires bound in human skin. With her undead husband St. John--a marriage of kindred spirits and platonic convenience--she has been protecting the knowledge of generations of witches that came before her. Like any magic, it has come at a cost: her reputation, her relationship with her sister, and her soul. But when Irene's love, Agnes, is hanged for witchcraft, Irene refuses to let Agnes be one more thing that is taken from her.
A true resurrection has not been achieved in two thousand years, but Irene is determined. With the help of St. John, Irene bangs on the doors of the Halls of the Dead, demanding the third part of their triumverate back...or did she? Because the Agnes that awakens comes with both a hunger for raw flesh and a malignant ghost tied to her soul.
Necromancy is the art of saying no--no, I won't let you go; no, I won't let you be destroyed--and Irene's work is not yet done. She must find a way to bring Agnes back to her true self, she must navigate her feelings for her resurrected lover as well as St. John, and she must do all of this without catching the attention of Sir Silas Underhill, the man who sentenced Agnes to death.
Death is not the end of love. But Irene may realize it can actually be the beginning.
before we start posting that july is gay wrath month let’s consider that july is disability pride month first and foremost. the “be gay do crimes” memes can wait
before this post breaches containment and people start going “why not both hehehe” i want you to seriously consider the very long history of disabled people’s existence being pushed aside and/or seen as secondary. i promise you it’s not going to hurt to hold onto the memes and give disabled people space for visibility and celebration.
i say this as a disabled trans person whose trans identity is made front-and-center to the (mainly cis) people who know i’m trans but my identity as a disabled person is brushed off by the very same people.
