It’s a Kara Moon takeover!!! Woopwoopwoopwoop ok no seriously, cut the noise. I’ve had to learn the hard way this month that I am not cut out for loud noises. I’m too old. I went to something called the Big Lesbo Boat Party here in Auckland earlier this month and I woke up with a pounding headache and no voice. Maybe next time it’s Big Lesbo Coffee and Cakes for me instead. Much more my speed.

So let’s get into this…

WHAT ARE WE UP TO AT HOOK AND QUILL PRESS?

We are gearing up for a few exciting things, but keeping a bit quiet until we can be certain we have all our ducks in a row. That’s fair, since we’re pretty new to this. But I can hint at what’s to come, so let me just say…

– A physical release? I wonder what it could possibly be… surely, it couldn’t be Bludeye Beach, currently available here but digital only… for now?!

– Something with short-form creative works contained within…? Mysterious…

– Another novel?!?! That’s right, and if you want to be an advanced reader of The Gods of Atalantis by Emily Klotz, sign up here! As someone who has both beta read and proofread it, can I just say… you’re in for a treat!

Want to keep up to date with these things when they become more official? Easy: just follow us on whatever medium you prefer out of Bluesky, Instagram, or Patreon. You can also see some of the exciting fresh stuff we’re coming up with on our regular snippet shares at those first two links, and more *exclusive* stuff on that third platform. 

SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

I’ve been thinking a lot about seeing the forest for the trees this past month. It got revealed starkly to me in one particular incident—one which almost didn’t happen, which makes it all the more special to me that it did. 

During a recent meeting for the Rainbow Stars Unite charity anthology here in my city of Auckland NZ, I suggested offhand to my fellow organisers, maybe we could ask a fellow queer author for a foreword? I didn’t think much about it again, only to find that Jade du Preez ran with that suggestion and reached out to Lil O’Brien, author of Not That I’d Kiss A Girl. 

When Lil’s foreword came back to me, it was a revelation. I had gotten so lost in the day-to-day of my 1/3 share of the organising tasks. As much as I love all the works in the anthology, part of me was like, “yeah yeah, good job, it’ll get forgotten as soon as the launch is over”. But Lil’s foreword lifted me out of that, by couching the importance of what we are doing in the current political context, and reminding me of the reasons why we did this in the first place: to make a safe place for emerging queer writers to learn and share; to create a shared treasure for queer readers, especially those in our city; to raise funds for a vital charity that has helped so many and is struggling in the current financial ecosystem; and to bust past the gatekeepers and make a space for queer stories with no need to mask or censor ourselves (beyond the caveat of needing to make something that’s ok for teens to read).

(Wait, what am I talking about? Hiria Dunning co-organized Rainbow Stars Unite, not me. We’re two different people. Obviously.)

This lesson keeps coming back to me again and again lately. When revising, it’s so easy to get bound up in a single paragraph and lose sight of the shape of the whole chapter, or the whole story. These sorts of things can be even harder to notice when one is in a bad place emotionally.

(Ooh, is she about to get messy? She’s about to get messy.)

The lesson repeats itself on and on without end. I’ve only just recently found my way up to a promontory in my own mental forest, where I can look back down on where I’ve come from and go, “OH DAMN, that’s what was going on this whole time?!” I speak of my recent exit from the comphet world and coming-out as a lesbian. For so many years, I spent my time distracted by trees like: male attention feels kinda nice, I guess; when I have a boyfriend, it raises my social status; gotta get the career, the husband, the house, the kids!… but then what happened?

I found my way to higher ground through writing. I wrote my first romance novel with *gasp* sex scenes *!!* and the accidental side-effect was that it made me confront my unaddressed religious trauma around the topic. I kept writing, and I kept discovering things about myself until finally, I came to the story that would eventually become A Prayer for the Pirate Queen. 

As if I’d laid out a map for myself when I wrote the character of Geni, I’m now a lesbian with two kids, separating from a hapless man who didn’t do much wrong other than being the wrong gender when his wife finally found herself.  

But now that I’ve explored Kallista and Geni in the main book and in a prequel, I can see how in different times, people can get lost in their present concerns, and while they might learn the lesson for that context, they need it taught again when, hydra-like, it rears a slightly different head. Even my misunderstanding for so many years, was me losing sight of myself, my happiness, my desires, because of focussing so hard on certain trees society had told me I was supposed to find. 

To be honest, I’m not sure the lesson can ever be fully learned. I think perhaps we’re always pulling back and drawing in, correcting our vision and faltering in another area in a cyclical fashion. Certainly I can see it unfolding in myself. I can see it unfolding in my characters too. If anyone doubts I can write Kallista and Geni for the next ten, twenty books, well, let me tell you: I can see how their flaws can be corrected within a small context, only to have them need to be addressed at scale, or in different contexts. Because I’m living it.

(Now I just hope that makes for interesting reading!)

I hope you are able to take up the invitation to step back and see the forest instead of the trees just ahead of you for now. Easier said than done, I know. But I maintain that engaging with art, whether consuming or creating, is a gateway to this greater perspective.

WHERE IS QUILLBERT THIS MONTH?

Our lovely Quillbert has escaped the cold of Texas and come to warm his tentacles in the late summer sun down here in sunny(?ish?) Aotearoa. I think we can forgive him where we wouldn’t forgive Ted Cruz for leaving—he’s cold blooded after all. The octopus, I mean. I don’t know about the Zodiac killer senator’s blood (supposing he even has a heart!).

And Quillbert’s just in time for our Pride Month here in Auckland, where I’ll Hiria Dunning will be launching the aforementioned anthology Rainbow Stars Unite, which you can order right here. All proceeds go to OutLine Aotearoa.

Thanks for coming onboard with us. Looking forward to regaling you with many more tales in the years to come!

Arohanui (big love xx), Kara Moon