there’s this new magazine called Lavender Rising and they’re literally paying queer writers & artists real money for being chaotic little gremlins with feelings.
✨ a contest every month (with four categories: short stories, poems, essays, artwork)
✨ top 5-10 in each get published
✨ first-place art goes on the cover (!!)
✨ one Grand Prize Winner walks away with $200 and bragging rights for eternity
submissions are due the 15th of every month, which means I have approximately 14 days to stare at my google doc, scream into the void, and then finally submit at 11:59 PM like the responsible writer I am.
if you’re queer and make words or art: do it. send your stuff. let’s take over this magazine together like a pack of glittery raccoons in a lavender field.
The Jinja of Blood: Of Shadows and Lost Souls is the exciting new fantasy novel by Vivian Bell. Photo: Amazon The Jinja of Blood: Of Shadows and Lost Souls (Book 1) By Vivian Bell An ancient jinja …
Ancient shrines. Immortal vampires. A love that bridges eternity and human time. 🌙
My latest book review dives into The Jinja of Blood, a dark urban fantasy set in modern Japan, where yokai lurk and longing never fades.🏯
Thank you for your interest in becoming an ARC reader for Quests & Queries, the first novel in my Spells & Sundry series.
This story follows
Monster girls are easy. Desire is dangerous.
As Query, a half-succubus wizard, begins her freshman year at Dalton Academy for Monsters, she’s got more problems than credits to earn. Between fending off demonic invasions, managing her homesickness for Hell, and suppressing the pulse of her succubus aura that leaves everyone at Dalton dangerously attracted to her, she’s learning that control is the hardest magic of all.
All she wants is a spell powerful enough to fix her body—but the girls around her make it hard to focus. There’s a vampire who likes control, a divine cleric who can’t commit, and classmates who blur the line between friendship and temptation. At Dalton, desire is its own kind of spell, and some lessons can only be learned the hard way.
Even with an adventuring party at her side, the school’s wards are failing, monsters are going missing, and the faculty would rather see students starve than thrive.
Quests & Queries is the first novel in Spells & Sundry, a dark, queer fantasy series set in a world where love, hunger, and power are never cleanly separated. Perfect for readers of A Dowry of Blood, The Scholomance Trilogy, and An Education in Malice or anyone who wishes Buffy the Vampire Slayer happened in college with more queer characters, The Name of the Wind traded its brooding bard for a succubus in Washington, DC., or The L Word: Generation Q crossed over with D&D.
Quests & Queries comes out on December 5th! But you can get access to it today by signing up for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review of the book before it comes out. Or, you can sign up for my Patreon and get it all now, including access to the next three books in the series. Or, you can simply pre-order it!
The King of Dust Audiobook Kickstarter is LIVE!!
Get your exclusive copy and rewards before it’s gone!
A GameLit Vampire novel for lovers of himbos, Dungeons and Dragons, and messy breakups - now in Audiobook format!
(all the art of the four main characters is by me, by the way! It's in progress for my art degree.)
If you love:
Disgraced vampire kings
Dungeons & Dragons-inspired chaos
Found family with a queer twist
Magick, redemption arcs, and just the right amount of disaster energy
Audiobooks with accents, emotion, and DRAMA (narrated by me, the author!)
…then you are 1000% going to love this.
The audiobook is already fully recorded, so this campaign is your one shot to preorder AND grab limited edition rewards like:
🎧 Audibook via Audible
🍵 Custom King of Dust tea blend
📖 Exclusive short story (early access!)
🎙️ Behind-the-scenes audio commentary
💀 Stickers, stretch goals, and more!
This story has meant the world to me as a trans, neurodivergent author—and now I finally get to share it in the format I always imagined: spoken out loud, with all the chaos, heart, and humor intact.
Back the Kickstarter now, and let’s make some audiobook magic together. 💜🖤
He walks the night’s winding paths, searching for lost warmth.
You can meet him in the moon’s shadow, or between an owl’s lashes. Alone—until the darkness turns to love.
Arthemius Holynorth—The Jinja Blood
In my exclusive interview with author Mark Waddell about his contemporary fantasy / dark comedy / queer fantasy novel "Colin Gets Promoted And Dooms The World," says the main character works for the world's oldest and most sinister company. No, not that one.
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-colin-gets-promoted-and-dooms-the-world-author-mark-waddell/
📖🪄🩸
