Lesbian Vampire Pirate Audiobook Takes Sail 🏴‍☠️⛵

This newsletter, your usual #IndieLife and #RavenLife sections are being taken over by news and a write-up of my experiences at the Hellmouth Convention. I don’t think any of you will be terribly upset about this, but if you have ideas for what I should write about in the future for either of those sections, just hit “reply” to this email and tell me what you wanna read from me!

🎉Today That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story audiobook drops! 🎉

As with Blood Triad, this audiobook invites some new voices into the world of the am’r: Carmen Seantel as a perfectly sharp-witted Sadie the Goat and Hel roaring Gallus Mag into life. I couldn’t have made a better choice for either of these characters, and here is a clip proving it:

And the first review of the audiobook has also just come in! 💃

Not all the platforms have listed the audiobook, yet. They all take their own time in reviewing and publishing it, since IIP is a small publisher. For a Big Five, they would jump through flaming hoops to ensure a pub date set by the publisher. But since we are small fish, “when we get around to it” is our lot. 🙄 While by the next newsletter the audiobook should be wide across all platforms, here is the list of places to grab your copy of the audiobook right now:

Last minute update: Libro.FM has just added the audiobook! 🎉

Get Ready for Readercon!

I’m so excited to be back at Readercon this year!

For those of you who don’t already have their tickets, it’s July 9 – 12, 2026 at the Boston Marriott Burlington in Burlington, MA. The Guests of Honor are P. Djèlí Clark and David Gerrold, both of whom are particular favorites of mine! And of course, one of the authors who influenced me most in this world, Samuel R. Delany, said “Readercon is my favorite convention.”

We had printed 100 copies of Dracula's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas for Hellmouth and THEY ARE ALL GONE. 🎉 I’ve ordered more for Readercon, but if you want signed copies in the meantime, hit reply get on the waitlist. Or order them online and bring them next month to Readercon or in September at Dragoncon for me to sign for you…

Hellmouth 2026 Reflections

Few things go by so fast as a Hellmouth Convention. It’s incredibly jam-packed with Buffy goodness—often to the heartbreaking dilemma of desperately wanting to do two things at the same time and having to choose.

In my case, since I’m working, that makes my life easier because I have things I have to be doing at specific times at specific places, and the decision is already made. But even with that simplification, my head is still spinning with the memories.

Saturday was my first panel of the weekend: Amber Benson and me talking about making the Blood Eternal audiobook and talking about things like the difference between the Buffy universe monsters and the am’r of the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series—and which she would rather fight 🤺😁

(That panel was recorded in full and will be posted on YouTube as soon as the processing is done. You know I’ll post it here when it’s ready.)

The rest of that Saturday there were some long signing periods and I got to greet some friends from last year, and meet some amazing new readers. I didn’t quite get a sore hand from signing…but if things tend in this direction, that’s in my future! I can’t wait to get a sore hand from having to sign so many books! That’s the kind of problems I want in my life!

Sunday was a second panel, “Turning Your Passion into a Paying Gig.” It was the amazing artist Keaghlan Ashley and myself, being interviewed by Ray, very much a Host with the Most. It was a fantastic conversation—although Keaghlan got pulled out to do Clem’s prosthetics halfway through. I had wanted to hear more of what she had to say, but Ray and I kept things lively in her absence.

The rest of the day had me mostly chained to the table (they put me beside Amber, since our audience overlaps, and I stuck around for her insanely long lines, because sometimes people wanted signatures from both of us. I don’t know how she does it—no matter how long the line, she has warmth and kindness for everyone. Truly a wonderful human, and example for me to live up to.) But that was fine, and meant I got to chat with not just new readers, but with the wonderful Hellmouth volunteers as well.

The people who attend the Hellmouth convention, in whatever capacity, are uniformly fantastic people. All huge geeks. A high percentage of queerness. Imaginative, passionate, creative, warm, and welcoming. These are my people. I love many franchises (Star Trek, Dr Who, etc.) but I’m not sure there is a better fandom in all of fandoming.

To all of you who are reading this newsletter because you signed up at Hellmouth: I had an amazing time and can’t wait for next year! To the rest of you: it’s absolutely worth going to this convention! You have all year to watch/rewatch Buffy and book your tickets for next year!

Special thanks to Meglet, Lore, and Kayleigh, who are the bestest support team and friends an author could hope for! 🥰

Ad time! I’m kinda excited that the cool supplement marketing people have found my newsletter and want to put ads in it. This company looks good. I will have to try something from them! And remember, if you click on this ad, even if you don’t buy something, I will get paid! So thanks if you have the time to help 🙂

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See you in two weeks…and as always, be good or be good at it! 😘

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