Author: Mare Griffen (she/her)
Biography: Mare is a writer from the US. When not begrudgingly being employed in a 9–to–5, she spends her time meandering, overthinking, doting on her beloved cat, and writing fanfic. She survives on coffee and distraction.

Story Title: beautiful and true

Excerpt: 

“How did you get interested in unicorns, anyway? I never asked.”

“I don’t know.” Presumably, at one point, she must have heard the first story. Read the first book, or seen the first film that made her wonder. But passions so old became part of one’s very being. “I guess every child must read some fantasy book with unicorns in it at some point? They have them in kids’ movies.”

“My Little Pony?” Aly asked with a quirk of a smile. “Barbie?”

“God, no.” The unicorn stories Vee liked had been more… eerie. More about going into the deep woods and finding something strange and redefining one’s purpose around it. “No,” she continued, thinking it through, “I think I liked the idea that they could be dangerous. Mysterious and untameable.”

Author: Mina Kramek (she/her)
Biography: Mina has been looking through archways and in tree hollows for a portal to another world since she was six years old, and discovered along the way that she loves exploring this world almost as much. The first stories she ever told were fairy tale retellings, and she still has a soft spot for them. She’s been writing fanfiction since long before she knew what it was, but finished a story for the first time in 2020 after watching the Untamed three times in a row. Since then, she’s posted about 750k worth of stories on AO3 and modded a Big Bang. She would always rather be sipping wine by a river and learning the history of somewhere she’s never been before, but staying home with her cats, a book, or the occasional crochet project is pretty good too.

Story Title: C8H10N4O2

Excerpt:

Adriana sat down at her desk, intending to look through the data her bioinformatics student, Ximena, had sent. Her fingers brushed over an object resting on her console. She looked down to find a shell balanced there.

It was of medium size, partially rolled on one side, with a rough black exterior. She flipped it over to see the smooth, obsidian interior, flecked with slivers of an iridescent pink.

She unlocked a drawer in her desk and stared at the shells of varied shapes and sizes within, all sorted into categories based on their physical characteristics. Since a small, mottled-purple shell had been placed on her tray in the canteen when she was distracted by Seyel exclaiming over their very first bubble tea, not long after her arrival, she had accumulated over fifty, each one appearing after an equally confusing conversation with Seyel, who never said a word to acknowledge them.

These are excerpts from two of the twenty-two stories in our upcoming anthology Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories. Learn about the entire project by visiting our Kickstarter campaign – and become a backer before the campaign ends on August 12!

We’re about halfway to our first stretch goal for our Kickstarter campaign to fund publishing Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories! At $16,000 in backing, all backers will receive the cover art as a digital file for personal use – and we’ll be able to afford to double the amount we’re paying our authors!

We’re in the homestretch for introducing our contributing authors – only 7 left. Today, meet two of those, both writing with Duck Prints Press for the first time: Robin S. Blackwood and Shannon Lippert!


 

Author: Robin S. Blackwood (they/them)
Biography: Robin S. Blackwood has been writing stories since they were a child and has always loved fantasy and science fiction. It didn’t take long for them to get into fanfiction in a variety of fandoms, but they’ve also had various ideas for original stories that they’re now aiming to start sharing with the world for the first time. While their fandoms, and their original fiction, range from lighthearted fantasy to space opera to horror, favourite themes will always include non-human perspectives on the world, queerness, and queer non-humans. When they’re not writing they enjoy reading, watching (usually old) films, fencing, and playing the guitar. They live in the UK.

Story Title: The Case of the Lost Grimoire

Excerpt: 

“Enter!” the deep voice of Caedmon Fell—first High Archmage of the University—rang out, and the door swung open with a familiar creak. The smell of old books greeted Griffin as he stepped into the small, warmly lit room crammed with towering bookshelves.

In the centre of the room stood a wooden lectern.

It was empty.

Griffin stared for a moment. When he spoke, he could only whisper the obvious: “It’s gone.”

Locke, eyebrows lowered in a frown, stalked over to the lectern and slammed their hand down where the book should have been, hitting the wood of the lectern with a thud and a click of claws.

Griffin raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Thought it might have turned itself invisible. Stranger things have happened in this place.”

Griffin took a deep breath. “We have to tell the High Archmage.”

Author: Shannon Lippert (she/her, they/them)
Biography: Shannon is a writer of poetry, plays, and prose, a performing artist, a director, and a troublemaker. Hailing from Boston, her/their creative work is joyfully transformative, weaving icons of popular culture and found language into new narratives which challenge the limitations of their original sources. Shannon’s transformative works include: My Immortal, a karaoke-style performance art piece; The Harrys, a web series; and their stage plays inspired by Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, and Cymbeline. You can find their recent poetry in What Rough Beast by Indolent Books and All Shall Be Well, an anthology by Amethyst Review.

Story Title: Family Meal

Excerpt: 

“On the right is the library. Do you want to take a peek inside?”

Meena didn’t much care—until she saw the room.

The library was vast and illuminated by starlight. Automated electrics hummed to life when they sensed Meena’s approach, casting a warm glow on shelves of books two stories tall. Physical books. Meena had expected capacity on Station 17 to be limited, for everything to be digital, but this library was all analog and brimming with books—thousands of them! Neat stacks of dense, glorious books, and Meena could smell the pages and soft leather bindings. That wasn’t all; the room itself was beautiful, with delicate lights glowing to life above an airy, open space with beautifully carved wooden desks. It looked so… old-fashioned, in the best way.

But what really took her breath away was the planet. Venus was bright, vivid and beautiful through the wall of windows. The segmented glass sprung from the floor and arched overhead in a dome, giving Meena the sense that she was standing not in a starbase but in airless space, floating outside the planet’s atmosphere as it shone, golden light reflecting off its surface.

“It’s…”

“Something else, right? This was a meteorological observation room during the first stage of terraforming, then repurposed when the Stations were converted to intellectual hubs.” Niamh was smiling. “Surprised me, too. And not just because I was terrified the window was going to crack and kill us all.”

Meena blinked. Caught up in the sight, she had forgotten she was on a station. “It… won’t, right?”