Minerva Cerridwen's Blog, page 8
February 24, 2021
Lost in Ynys: a crossover story with characters from Ava Kelly’s Havesskadi
Once upon a time in 2017, two befriended authors were writing a story for the same call for submissions. One of the stories was The Dragon of Ynys, which you probably know something about if you’re on this website. The other was Havesskadi, an epic fantasy with a magic castle, an asexual character and of course (since that was in the submission call)… dragons!
Havesskadi got published a few months before my Dragon, in February 2018. When the original publisher closed, it was also re-published. It came out with NineStar Press on February 24, 2020. That’s exactly one year ago!
To celebrate its anniversary, Ava and I have written a short story together. Lost in Ynys finds the two main characters of Havesskadi accidentally ending up in the world of Ynys and calling in Sir Violet’s help. Read it here!
Photo by Ava Kelly
February 15, 2021
Paranatellonta 300
Today, Fie and I have posted the 300th edition of Paranatellonta! A real milestone for our photography-and-storytelling project, which has been going since August 2013.
To celebrate, we have both created a painting for the other to write a ten-sentence story about. You can see the paintings accompanied by their stories by following the links below:
Painting by Fie – story by Minerva: click!
Painting by Minerva – story by Fie: click!
We hope you enjoy this edition and perhaps check out some older Paranatellonta posts!
Have a great week!
February 6, 2021
New review!
Hi!
The Dragon of Ynys got a new review, of which I was alerted in an email, and then I realised I hadn’t blogged since the start of the year and therefore hadn’t linked to the previous review yet either!
So here’s the new review on The Queer Bookish: click!
And here’s the review on Ancillary Review of Books: click!
It is such an honour to know that people are not only reading the book but also enjoying it. And that those readers even agree that it’s important for queer youth to have a fairy tale like this! I could only speak for myself when I said this was something we needed, of course, but to see my feelings on the matter reflected gives me hope. And of course I like being right. 
In other news, I signed a contract to have another short story co-written with L.S. Reinholt published sometime this year, but I can’t say much more about that yet.
Until the next time I remember to blog! 
Minerva
January 1, 2021
Happy 2021!
Happy New Year!!!
I hope you’ll all have a magical, comfortable and healthy 2021.
This turns out to be my 50th post on this blog, which feels quite fitting to celebrate its third birthday.
In spite of all the 2020 weirdness, the year brought me five new publications: the re-publication of my novella The Dragon of Ynys with Atthis Arts, and short stories in anthologies Space Opera Libretti, Community of Magic Pens, Neon Horror, and Innovation.
I’ve also managed to draw and bake (of which you can see more on my Instagram), and I feel grateful for every moment I’ve been able to fill with creativity.
Of course, the first of the month also means that Fie and I have posted a new photo and story on Paranatellonta: you can read it here.
I have many plans and projects for 2021, but after the unpredictability of the past year, I’d rather not say too much about them too soon. It’s probably a good idea to keep checking this blog regularly or subscribe to new posts if you haven’t already. 
November 16, 2020
Minerva Cerridwen’s Awards Eligibility Post 2020
’tis the season…
I haven’t made an awards eligibility post before, but as I see them going around on social media, I thought it couldn’t harm to list my publications of 2020.
Novella (fantasy)
My novella The Dragon of Ynys came out in September 2020 with Atthis Arts. Mind that it is a re-publication after revising the story I published in May 2018 with Less Than Three Press, so it may not be eligible for some awards, as it’s not a first edition. (Both editions were published in the US.) However, aside from many smaller revisions, the 2020 edition has a brand new epilogue and afterword. The new cover was designed by Ulla Thynell.
The Dragon of Ynys is a fairy tale with an aromantic asexual main character, trans and lesbian supporting characters—and, of course, a dragon. The genre is fantasy, and it is suitable for all ages. You can read all about it here.
Also, if you’re looking for an editor to nominate: E.D.E. Bell is the amazing editor of The Dragon of Ynys as well as the anthology Community of Magic Pens (see below).
Short stories (science fiction)
I had 4 short stories published in 2020. There are no reprints among these.
1: Stars from the Stars in the anthology Space Opera Libretti, edited by Jennifer Lee Rossman and Brian McNett. (Published in the US.)
Simon is a siren who lives alone on a rock in space, until he’s picked up by the Stars from the Stars ship to compete in the universally beloved talent show. Even though he’s completely confident in his abilities, he might learn a thing or two on the way…
This story is inspired by shows like America’s Got Talent… in space!
2: Memory Malfunction in the anthology Community of Magic Pens, published by Atthis Arts and edited by E.D.E. Bell. (Published in the US.)
“Memory Malfuction” is about an android applying for a job as an intergalactic antiques salesman. The company bosses, however, have their doubts…
3: The Lost, co-written with L.S. Reinholt, in the anthology Neon Horror, published by The Haunted Bouncy Castle. (Published in the UK.)
The Lost is a science fiction horror story about two travellers in space whose logs and maps have been erased. When they encounter another ship, they hope they’ve found a solution, but instead lose even more.
4: The Emperor’s New Helmet, in the anthology Innovation, published by Other Worlds Ink. This flash piece of 300 words received an honourable mention in the 2020 Queer Sci Fi Contest. (Published in the US.)
Paranatellonta
Ever since August 2013, I write ten-sentence stories based on photos made by my friend Fie. This project is called Paranatellonta. Every edition (294 at the moment of writing this post!) is published online on Tumblr and available for free, so even though I’m not sure this would fit into any awards, feel free to take a look at the newest stories or find yourself a random story from sometime in the past 7+ years. The stories from 2020 are editions 273 to 296.
Paranatellonta updates on the 1st and 15th of every month. Fie and I celebrate every tenth edition by switching roles: in those editions I take a picture and Fie writes a story.
We first discovered this concept when we enjoyed Erin Morgenstern and Carey Farrell’s Flax-golden Tales and became inspired.
October 22, 2020
Interviewed by Jennifer Lee Rossman!
Hello!
I hope you’re all well. The world is once again looking a little scarier, but at least stories are always there to give us a relaxing means of escape.
It’s been a month and a week since my story The Dragon of Ynys came out, so of course I’ll be talking a little more about it in this blog post. I was interviewed about it by the one and only Jennifer Lee Rossman, who’s an awesome author herself and the co-editor of anthologies Love & Bubbles and Space Opera Libretti. You can read the interview here (and see a cute photo of The Dragon of Ynys with some dragon friends!).
I also saw a wonderful review accompanied by a beautiful photo on theboyandhisbookshelf’s Instagram yesterday, which I’d love to share: you can see it here. And while you’re wandering around on Instagram, you can also check out some of my baking, inspired by Ynys’ baker Juniper: for example the cinnamon rolls Sir Violet is so fond of. (They make a great breakfast indeed!)
If that made you hungry for more but you’re not able to buy the book right now, I’d like to inform you that I’m currently doing a giveaway, to celebrate one month since the release as well as the upcoming Ace Week.
Ace Week, formerly Asexual Awareness Week, is an event that will take place from October 25 until October 31, all over the world. It celebrates the asexual community and the progress we see in the awareness that asexuality exists, both in society and in media representation. You can read more about it on the Ace Week website and the organisation is also present on social media.
Sir Violet, like myself, is asexual as well as aromantic, so I felt that starting giveaways on three platforms and announcing the winners on the last day of Ace Week (October 31) would be a good way of participating in the celebrations. If you’d like to enter the contest, these are the links: Twitter – Tumblr – Pillowfort.
You simply retweet or reblog the post until October 30, 2020 at 23:59 EST. The winner will be chosen randomly on October 31; one winner per platform. That means you have one chance per platform; 3 chances if you reblog all three! (On every platform, only your first reblog will count as an entry, so while you are most welcome to keep spreading the word afterwards, this will not increase your chances.) You can also share the posts without entering the competition; simply leave a line like “not entering the giveaway but signal boosting”.
If you’re interested in the book but would rather bypass the competition altogether, these are the buy links:
Publisher’s website – Smashwords – Amazon.com – Amazon.de – iBooks – Barnes & Noble – Kobo – Bookshop – Vrolijk.nu (NL)
Add the book to your shelves: Goodreads – The StoryGraph
And one more thing I’d like to call attention to: my publisher, Atthis Arts, is currently doing a Kickstarter for a project called In This Moment. I am not directly involved with this, but they have put together a mindblowing team of people who’ll be working on this collection of short works, both fiction and non-fiction, documenting this moment that will be described in history books as the time of the Black Lives Matter movement and the global pandemic. As they focus on important marginalised voices, I think it’s incredibly important that this book can be made – but the Kickstarter still has quite a way to go before the funding will be complete. Take a look at it here if you can find the time, and please consider contributing.
That’s all for now!
I hope you’ll have a great Ace Week, and please stay safe!
Love,
Minerva
October 5, 2020
Guest Post on LGBTQ Reads
Hello!
Tomorrow it’s been three weeks since the release of The Dragon of Ynys. A joyful three weeks indeed! It’s been amazing to see people pick up the book, post pictures of it, and write reviews. Please keep them coming (and remember how helpful it is to post about the book on different platforms)!
To give you an idea of the beautiful photos I’ve seen around on Instagram, here’s a selection: check out The Urban Reader’s review, Paddy_Pikala’s photo, the cute origami in the background of Owlsbooksandtea’s picture, and the cosiness that Howtobeabooknerd_ has set up around the book! For more, check my Instagram highlight.
A big thank you to everyone who has made posts and will do so in the future – you’re making this book release into a wonderful online party.
For my part, I celebrated release day with a video and baking Juniper’s delicious cinnamon rolls.
And last week something happened that feels like a real milestone: I saw the first fanart of my characters!!! *heart eyes*
Today, I have the honour of getting a guest post published on LGBTQ Reads. I’m talking about why the label “all ages” is so important to me when I’m talking about a fairy tale with a clear message of acceptance and aromantic, asexual, trans, and lesbian representation. You can read it here – feel free to leave a comment!
Thank you for reading my blog!
Remember you can pick up The Dragon of Ynys here:
Publisher’s website – Smashwords – Amazon.com – Amazon.de – iBooks – Barnes & Noble – Kobo – Bookshop
and add it to your shelves on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.
Lots of love,
Minerva
September 15, 2020
The Return of the Dragon
In November 2011, I spent a weekend in a forest with my friends from a Dutch online forum. Those weekends, or camps, had been a tradition since 2005. These days, we no longer manage to organise them strictly every year, as having jobs and families has made it more difficult to find weekends in which a good number of us can get together, but we do still meet up (at least in pandemic-less times). The most recent camps mostly consisted of hanging out, taking walks, and playing boardgames, but the camp in 2011 still had some planned activities, organised by some of the other forum members. And the specific activity that I’m getting to here was an open mic night.
In the month before, someone posted a call to our forum for those of us who wanted to prepare an act. We’re a creative bunch in general; some wanted to sing or play an instrument, some wanted to re-enact a sketch, and I did what I thought I do best: write a fairy tale to read out loud. It had become (yet another) tradition that I would read to a group of people at those camps anyway, so now I might as well have everyone listen to it. I wrote about Knight Violet-blue, an introverted knight who was hired to slay a dragon, but who, upon finding the dragon, realised he liked the creature more than he liked his employer, and went after the princess instead.
The story was far from perfect. I’m not fond of the idea that “well, then the princess must be evil”, or of the way I’d presented her. But I did like the knight and the dragon and the interactions between them, and even though I forgot most of the story for a long time, these two characters stuck with me.
Fast-forward: I graduated from university, started writing more (and in English!), had my first story published in Unburied Fables in 2016, and with that (and the help of my friend Ether) finally figured out how to look for calls for submissions and get more stories published.
One of the first calls I discovered that way, at the end of 2016, was the “For the Hoard” call for a collection that would be published by Less Than Three Press. It asked for novella- and novel-length stories about dragons and LGBTQIA characters. I brainstormed, I plotted, and then I wrote the first draft of The Dragon of Ynys in January 2017, just before the deadline.
In May 2018, LT3 Press published The Dragon of Ynys.
In July 2019, LT3 Press went out of business, and The Dragon of Ynys was unpublished again.
From September 2019 until July 2020, I worked on revising the novella. First on my own, changing the parts that had started bugging me and those I had learned could be read differently than I had intended. Then I reached out to E.D.E. Bell, because I had had a great experience working with Atthis Arts when they included the short story I’d co-written with L.S. Reinholt in Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove. The more I thought about it, the more Atthis Arts seemed to be the right publisher for the revised Dragon. Fortunately, the Atthis team agreed and we started on revision rounds, beta rounds, sensitivity rounds, final edit rounds… And finally we were happy with the result. With a new cover by Ulla Thynell, the 2020 edition of The Dragon of Ynys was ready to be out in the world.
Today is September 15, 2020. It’s release day. The Dragon is back!!!
Every time something goes missing from the village, Sir Violet, the local knight, makes his way to the dragon’s cave and negotiates the item’s return. It’s annoying, but at least the dragon is polite.
But when the dragon hoards a person, that’s a step too far. Sir Violet storms off to the mountainside to escort the baker home, only to find a more complex mystery—a quest that leads him far beyond the cave. Accompanied by the missing baker’s wife and the dragon himself, the dutiful village knight embarks on his greatest adventure yet.
The Dragon of Ynys is an inclusive fairy tale for all ages.
Out now, both as paperback and ebook!
Buy links: Publisher’s website – Smashwords – Amazon.com – Amazon.de – iBooks – Barnes & Noble – Kobo – Bookshop
Add the book to your shelves: The StoryGraph – Goodreads
It’s been quite a journey. A quest of its own. I’m so happy that this story can once again make its way to readers who may need to hear just the messages that I wrote because I’d needed them myself.
A big thank you to everyone who encouraged me to write, who supported me, who helped this story grow into what it is now, and of course to everyone who bought or will buy it, who writes a review and/or tells their friends or followers about this. Thank you for giving the Dragon wings and making the spiders’ job a little easier.
Lots of love,
Minerva
August 18, 2020
Preorder THE DRAGON OF YNYS now!
In my latest post, I announced that The Dragon of Ynys will release on September 15, BUT… If you can’t wait to read it, I have good news!
The book is now up for preorder in the Atthis Arts webshop (click!). If you pre-order the paperback, you will receive a copy of the ebook to read right away!
The webshop page contains more info about the book and also links to retailers where The Dragon of Ynys is up for pre-order. Tip: the best way to support both authors and publishers is to buy directly from the publisher. And posting reviews on different platforms is the best way to let others discover the books you love!
For a summary and more info about The Dragon of Ynys, read my latest blog post or check out the book’s page on my website.
Love,
Minerva
August 14, 2020
Release Announcement: THE DRAGON OF YNYS
So, I did promise big news last week…
The Dragon of Ynys will be published by Atthis Arts on September 15, 2020!!!
The 2020 edition has been thoroughly revised and contains a brand new epilogue and afterword.
I’m very proud to reveal the new cover, created by none other than the magical Ulla Thynell (website – Instagram). I encourage you to check out her art, as it’s all beautiful.
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Every time something goes missing from the village, Sir Violet, the local knight, makes his way to the dragon’s cave and negotiates the item’s return. It’s annoying, but at least the dragon is polite.
But when the dragon hoards a person, that’s a step too far. Sir Violet storms off to the mountainside to escort the baker home, only to find a more complex mystery—a quest that leads him far beyond the cave. Accompanied by the missing baker’s wife and the dragon himself, the dutiful village knight embarks on his greatest adventure yet.
The Dragon of Ynys is an inclusive fairy tale for all ages.
Pre-order links will start going up soon and should be available on most retailers by this Tuesday (August 18). And starting on that same August 18, you will get a downloadable copy of the e-book to read early if you pre-order the paperback directly from Atthis Arts. I will publish another blog post on Tuesday to keep you informed and to share the available links.
I’m so excited that the Dragon will be out in the world again—and better than ever, thanks to the great work of Atthis Arts.
Have a good weekend!
Minerva
