Scribbles and Bits

March 17th marks the first day of the Trans Rights Readathon. As their carrd explains, “The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual call to action to readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st. We are calling on the reader community to read and uplift books written by and/or featuring trans, non-binary, 2Spirit, and gender-nonconforming authors and characters.”

In the spirit of the Trans Rights Readathon, we wanted to bring your attention to our books that feature trans main characters and/or were written by trans creators. And, we wanted to do something tangible!

Duck Prints Press will donate $50 to the Trevor Project in mid-April to support their crisis intervention and suicide prevention work with queer youth. AND, for every one of the above books you buy from our webpage or itch.io between now and March 31st, we will increase that donation by adding 20% of the net we earn from those sales to the amount we donate!

We hope you’ll consider reading some of our work as part of your Trans Rights Readathon read-a-thoning. Want to know more about them?

Learn about the eligible books!

Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)

Duck Prints Press presents 22 delightfully fluffy, happy, odd, snug, and cozy stories about queer characters pursuing academic excellence! From field research shenanigans to cooking adventures, from space station education departments to eldritch libraries, creators brought their vivid imaginings to life in these charming fantasy and science fiction stories. Settle into your favorite research carrel or prepare to read on the sly under your desk as you join us for Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories.

Lightbringer by boneturtle (non-binary author)

I’ve never heard this story told outside our village, but my friend, it’s about you as well as us. Your life is also forfeit to the Lightbringer who mended the chaos, and the chaos which breathed the Lightbringer to life.

In a lonely valley where darkness laps at the ragged shore of reality, there rests a village where the people are reborn each time they die. Though they’ve forgotten their past lives, they faithfully maintain their ancient festival to coax the light back whenever the darkness takes hold.

In this village where no one visits, a man named Ashe arrives. Beloved, yet cursed to be forgotten by those he holds most dear, he waits in the ever-growing darkness for someone who may never return. The villagers beg him to give up, to play the part of the Lightbringer and marry someone else.

Then a new stranger arrives, one who may hold the key to breaking this cycle of darkness once and for all.

Scrap Metal Angel by Nicola Kapron (trans man main character)

Reality, tiny and fragile, is cut off from the sea of chaos and nightmares that surrounds it by seven Gates. One of them is open—and has been since the Stone Age. Through that opening, strange creatures and energies slip through. Some are malevolent. None are harmless. And all of them must be kept a secret.

Every hidden magical world needs a shadowy clean-up crew. Adrian Somer is a Gatekeeper, sworn to protect the cosmic Gates, to defend reality from the unknown entities that exist beyond them, and to help those whose lives are affected by magic.

When a grieving sorceress starts punching holes in reality to try and resurrect her murdered fiancé, Adrian must turn to a ghost from his past in order to save the city, and perhaps the world—even if that means digging up someone he thought was safely buried: the twin brother he killed eight years ago.

To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh (trans man main character, trans author)

Serendipity, WA is filled with Christmas cheer, beautiful mountain views, and trans man Will’s feminist Wiccan family. Home for the holidays, he avoids their clumsy attempts at support by hiding in the local coffee shop and flirting with Bea, a friend from high school.

The beautiful landscapes can’t make up for the the realities of being queer in a small town, and Bea wants out. Will grabs for a prosperity spell, and finds a new way to connect to the magic he’s become estranged from. New romance and optimism get them through the holidays, ready to face their next problems.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors and artists)

With this third installment in our Queer Fanworks Inspired By… anthology series, we set out to explore the truth by which we at Duck Prints Press live: that a classic work without a single canonically queer character must be in want of a very LGBTQIA+ makeover! “A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,” with 21 short stories and 20 full-page color artworks, is just that. 38 creators have contributed to this project, drawing inspiration from Pride and Prejudice’s characters and story to create delightful, thoughtful, intriguing, and (of course) very queer fanworks and Pride and Prejudice-inspired original works. For this collection, we encouraged our creators to focus on Sapphic/wlw relationships and/or transgender and genderqueer interpretations for their inspiration, though those are definitely not the only types of queer we’ve fit into this diverse collection.

And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors and artists)

In “And Seek (Not) to Alter Me,” 16 authors and 15 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing.” We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twists on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique artworks and stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.

Add Magic to Taste Second Edition (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)

For this gorgeous re-issue of Duck Prints Press’s debut anthology “Add Magic to Taste,” 18 authors have come together to produce new, original short stories uniting four of our absolute favorite themes: queer relationships, fluff, magic, and coffee shops! Our diverse writers have created an even more diverse collection of stories guaranteed to sweeten your coffee and warm your tart. This edition also includes the 16 microfics originally written for our Kickstarter extra Mini-Morsels!

Aether Beyond the Binary (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)

How would Earth look if the very atoms around us were suffused with magical aether? How would our lives be different if this aether was discovered last year, or last century, or last millennia? How might the people who lived with this magic explore their gender identities? These are the questions we posed to the 17 authors who contributed to “Aether Beyond the Binary.” Their inventive answers comprise this must-not-miss collection about magical realms, adventures and mysteries, new chances and well-earned endings, and characters as gender-diverse as the worlds they inhabit.

Many Hands: An Anthology of Polyamorous Erotica (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)

For those who love their short stories spicy, welcome to Duck Prints Press’s debut explicit anthology. In this collection of brand-new stories, we celebrate many flavors of polyamory. Orgy? Yes please! Ménage à trois? C’est magnifique! Foursomes and moresomes? Delighted to attend! We asked our 15 contributors to blow our minds with their fun combinations, unusual settings, favorite trope usage, and (of course) super sexy smut—and they didn’t disappoint. From a vampire free-for-all to a heartfelt reunion, from surprise soulmates to enemies-to-lovers, this collection has polyamory in lots of scrumptious varieties that lovers of erotica won’t want to miss!

Aim For The Heart: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s “The Three Musketeers” (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors and artists)

“Aim For The Heart” features 20 stories, each up to 5,000 words long, 19 full-page art pieces rendered in black-and-white or grayscale, and a 12-page comic. Our contributors have delved into their imaginations and the intricacies of Dumas’s novels to tell new stories and create new images. They take us from the depths of deep space to the streets of 17th century France to the modern day, with a healthy dose of fluff and feels along the way. Every creator has shared their vision of these beloved characters, some with fanfiction and fanart, others with original pieces, and all with a heaping dose of inspiration.

She Wears the Midnight Crown (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)

“She Wears the Midnight Crown” is one of our two paired masquerade-themed anthologies. It features 17 stories exploring wlw relationships developing, growing, and changing while the characters attend or participate in masquerades!

Our contributors stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.

“He Bears the Cape of Stars” is the companion to this anthology, featuring 17 mlmstories.

He Bears the Cape of Stars (trans characters, trans and non-binary authors)

“He Bears the Cape of Stars” is one of our two paired masquerade-themed anthologies. It features 17 stories exploring mlm relationships developing, growing, and changing while the characters attend or participate in masquerades!

Our contributors stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.

“She Wears the Midnight Crown” is the companion to this anthology, featuring 17 wlw stories.

Note: only books purchased from duckprintspress.com and itch.io will count toward the donation!

In mid-April, I will post an accountability update with our total donation amount and proof of donation! (Same as I’ve done for our Pride Bundles every year.)

(video ID: a video of a white person with short hair and glasses sitting in front of a bookcase, talking. /end ID)

Transcript: My next question is what about being an indie press is the most rewarding?

The people. Yeah, hands down. I mean, I’m an introvert, I sometimes find all of the peopling involved in this job to be rather exhausting, but the community of authors and artists with whom we work is amazing and helps keep me going every single day. The community of people who I’ve met who are doing similar things, whether they’re other indie press people or self-published authors, and how hard we all work and how much we all want to lift each other up – it’s not a competition, it’s “how do we grow the pie for everybody.” And the readers and even just the supportive non-customers, just everybody, like, you know, “I don’t have any money, but what you’re doing is really cool.” Or, “this isn’t the one I’m interested in but I can’t wait to see what else you do.” And of course, the people who are like, “I read the book and it’s awesome” or “this piece of art is amazing, I need the sticker. Obviously, you know, every version of that is the best part.

I do this for the people. I do this because I wanted to be a writer but I didn’t want to do it alone. And, I don’t have to it alone and that’s really great. Thank you, everyone. You make this awesome every day.

I’m Claire. I’m doing an Ask Me Anything. Uhhh…hit me up if you’ve got anything you wanna ask me! Bye!

Happy Pi Day!!!

I’m having a fun one, doin’ some math while reading and eatin’ some pie.

Want to join in? Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories and Add Magic to Taste: A Spellbinding (and Scrumptious) Collection of Heartwarming Queer Stories fit right in on both vibes!

(Video ID: a white person with short reddish hair and gold-rimmed glasses sits before a bookshelf and speaks. /end ID)

Transcript: How do you feel, given Duck Prints Press’s mission statement and origin, about publishing books that are proudly “serial number filed off” fanfiction?

So, for people who aren’t familiar with that term, it just means somebody took a fanfic and, like, used find-and-replace to change the characters names and now are marketing it as original fiction. So if it was, I don’t know, Castiel and Dean – to use my own example – not that I’ve filed off serial numbers but I have written a lot of Destiel – then, you know, maybe Dean becomes some guy named Mitch, and Cas becomes, you know, Richard, and Mitch and Richard have their romance for the ages.

In this “original work,” how do I feel about it? I think it depends. I think it can be well done. I certainly – I don’t wanna name names, but I’ve been in fandom long enough that I know of major published works that were fanfic that are not widely known to have been fanfic and are very popular and are not getting, the, “oh, it’s got the serial numbers filed off, it’s bad.”

I think, just like most kinds of writings, it can be well done, it can be poorly done. I know as an author, at a point when I was having trouble making words on original work, I would write – I mostly write alternative universes, often very very far from the founding material. And part of the reason I did that was with the expectation that someday I would file the serial numbers off my own work. And it’s relatively easy to do when it’s very far from canon. That said, I think needs to be more than just a find-and-replace.

There’s things that work in fanfiction that won’t make sense if it’s an original fiction. If it’s poorly done, if those things aren’t changed, then it’s gonna read like fanfiction even if – you know – every will know, if I – I used Dean and Castiel as an example. If Dean – I mean if Mitch is still a monster hunter, and Richard is still an angel of the lord, it’s going to be pretty damn obvious that it was Supernatural fanfic, and that’s not necessarily gonna be that entertaining for people to read if they’re not interested in the fandom.

On the other hand, you know, I know of a Dean/Cas work that got remade as femslash – as sapphic – and completely rewritten. It’s a completely different book now even tho it has the same basic story and that’s bad in and of itself. So, what I think about it is – it really depends.

I think when they lean-in on that part for the marketing, though, that’s a little awkward. I feel like if any fan author did what tradpub is doing with “it’s actually Dramione” which is the ship for Draco Malfoy and Hermione. Or, you know, this was very clearly Reylo – which is Kylo Ren and Rey from Star Wars. Like… if any of us did that, we’d get our butts sued off. And it’s a little obnoxious to see places that are bigger than us taking advantage of that part of fandom culture in a way that fans never actually could. And that’s quite aside from whether or not they’re good books or bad books, because I think trying to say it’s okay when they’re good and it’s bad when they’re bad is actually not maybe the best framework for it.

But, yeah, sorry, I could keep going. I have strong opinions about fandom stuff. Basically, I think it can be done well. I think it can be done poorly. I don’t love the way it’s being marketed.

This is an Ask Me Anything. I’m Claire, the owner of Duck Prints Press. Hit me up if you have any questions!