Queenslander is out now!

Hi Friends,

Queenslander has been born! She came out April 21st and the launch party is this Saturday in Haverhill, MA with Good & Golden Books. I’ll be doing a reading this Sunday afternoon at Jabberwocky Books in Newburyport, MA. If you are local you should come!

I have book events lined up further south in the metro Boston area in May and July.

There were some minor technical snafus during release week, with Amazon and Ingram, but luckily nothing major.

Surprisingly good things that happened:

1. The book became a #3 bestseller over on Ingramspark in the Fiction / LGBT / Lesbian category (how? I don’t know.)

2. ARC readers loved it

3. The book is really pretty

4. The hardcover is especially pretty

5. People were kind and supportive

6. Someone called Queenslander a “noir”

I can’t thank my ARC readers enough. You guys are wonderful!

I’m not actively writing anything right now, and am planning to decompress after the weekend. The next project when I dive in again will be revising book two, tweaking plot points to better set up the events in book three.

I’m reading The Dry (2016) by Jane Harper. I’m six chapters in and am liking it so far. Google says it “launched a wave of Outback noir fiction.” It reminds me of a book I absolutely love, The Broken Shore (2005) by Peter Temple, which is Australian Noir. “A literary novel that happens to focus on crime.”

This week the weather has been fantastic. (As Miss Congeniality says, the perfect date is April 25th because “It’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket.”)

We’ve been planting dahlias in the garden closest to the house where we put the new varieties. The tubers overwintered very well, perhaps an 85-90% survival rate. We plant the maybes in big box trays to give them another chance, and every year several of the supposed duds with no eyes sprout leaves and get planted out.

We don’t label the dahlia varieties because we like a little surprise. Based on what we had last fall, I know we have too many dark purple dahlia tubers. Next year we’ll do something about that. They must be an exceptionally hardy variety.

We’ve been splitting tuber root balls (stars?) with a knife, making sure each clump has an eye or two.

The shearer is coming in a few days! He comes all the way out from Western MA. The NH Sheep and Wool Festival is May 9th-10th. I’ll sell the fleeces there. I love the sheep dog demonstrations. It feels like the movie Babe.

We had fun at NEFFA, the New England Folk Festival (Substack autocorrects that to Golf Festival, lol).

“The New England Folk Festival Association is a non-profit educational and cultural organization promoting folk arts and traditions in New England and elsewhere.”

“The flagship event for NEFFA is the annual Festival, which takes place over the course of three days in the spring and involves roughly 3000 participants. 2024 marked the 80th anniversary of the New England Folk Festival.” (link)

We go to NEFFA for the sea chanteys, but all of the singing and dancing is lovely. There are so many dying arts to maintain and pass along to the next generation. The kids learned how to use a drop spindle this week at the local history museum.

We did quite a lot of history field trips last week as it was school vacation and Patriot’s Day. The 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War.

“Leatherwing Bat” or “The Birds’ Courting Song”:

Howdy-dow and a diddle-um-day
Howdy-dow and diddle-um-day
Howdy-dow and a diddle-um-day
Hay hay hay, lee lie-dee-o

“Aye” said the little leatherwing bat
“I’ll tell you the reason that
The reason that I fly by night
It’s ‘cause I lost my heart’s delight”

“Aye” said the owl with head so white
“A lonely day and a lonely night
Thought I heard a pretty girl say
You court all night and sleep all day”

“Aye” said the little birds circling round

Making their circles above the ground

The circles grow smaller each year

Bye and bye we’ll disappear.

Howdy-dow and a diddle-um-day
Howdy-dow and diddle-um-day
Howdy-dow and a diddle-um-day
Hay hay hay, lee lie-dee-o