My Pentacle, on the Mother Tree in Salem, MA. <3


This past week, we celebrated our first year (and fifth!) wedding anniversary by journeying to New England. That handful of days, the moments of pure, intense magic and the riot of blazing colors nature gave us, in abundance, was a gift I'll cherish my entire life. It was the first time visiting New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont (that I remember--I went to these places when I was a year old, and less, but obviously that's not been kept in my brain ;D), and after a lifelong OBSESSION with them, getting to actually go was a dream come true.

Old Bennington Cemetery in Vermont.


We returned to peak leaves in New York state, too...so everything, for the past eight days, has been a treasure in my eyes. When I blink, I see rich colors, when I dream, I dream of palaces built of trees crowned with gold. My favorite season has unfolded itself in a savoring, beautiful explosion of sacred moments, and I've simply been soaking them up as each new one presents itself to me.

I'm going to post more in detail about everything--I have to go finish wirewrapping the Glamourkins for tomorrow's update--but I just wanted to share my many mixed emotions. I feel loved and held and homesick and sad and happy and just...indescribable, really.

Maddie's Yule gift to me last year was a tattoo that we both had spoken of getting for years and years. A quill. It's taken this long for all of our schedules to come together, but we're finally getting them this Saturday. I've had the design idea in my head forever, and yesterday, after we got home in the wee hours of the morning, I sent everything to my tattoo artist. This morning, I received the sketch and stared at the laptop screen, breathless. My heart stopped beating.

All of my stories come from Her, so I needed the Goddess in the quill. And She's there in ways I never could have imagined. Just like in my life. Just like in my heart.

And, on Saturday in the magic season, She comes out--again--upon my skin forever.

Jenn and I dialogued at Muse Rising: Why Lesbian YA Stories Are Important: A Dialogue on Project Unicorn by Its Authors. <3 Project Unicorn unches tomorrow!

Today we woke up early, finished up all of our chores, made SIGNS OUT OF RAINBOWS, and then we were READY. For today was the ending of the week-long celebration in Rochester, NY: Pride 2012, ending in the culmination of the Pride parade and festival. And we were marching in the parade!

You have a fair understanding of how much we love and are obsessed with our church, Pullman Memorial Universalist. As married lesbians in an extremely rural community, being able to have a place that we can go, once a week, and be completely ourselves without any fear of repercussion or violence--and not only no FEAR, but the joy of knowing that you're loved by a family that embraces you in every aspect, cares about you so deeply, and is so intensely supportive of you? Yeah, it's one of the most amazing, cherished things in our world. So, when we found out that our church was marching with the contingency of Unitarian Universalist churches from Rochester and the surrounding areas, we were so excited to take part. <3 EXCITED MIGHT BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT, ACTUALLY.

Jenn and I wanted to dress as Pride Fairies, so I got my tutu out, our wedding wings, AND AS MANY RAINBOWS AS ONE PERSON CAN FEASIBLY WEAR. AND THEN ONE MORE, JUST TO MAKE IT GAYER. And GLITTER! THERE WAS A LOT OF GLITTER.

LOOK AT US. WE ARE SO HOT. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WE WOULD BECOME HOTTER. PROBABLY WE WOULD NOT BECOME GAYER. WE ARE ALREADY PRETTY GAY.


( MORE RAINBOWS and the CONTINUATION of the Story of PRIDE... )

And lo, afterward, we gotteth Pistachio Rose vegan cupcakes as our PRIDE! TREAT! from our favorite vegan deli, and fainted, verily, upon ingestion of them BECAUSE THEY WERE SO DAMN GOOD, thus bringing a SATISFYING and SPARKLY ENDING to our SATISFYING and SPARKLY day. <3

The End. <3

Today is my twenty-eighth birthday, and I have reached my life-long dream this past year: I am a completely self-employed author. Ever since I was a little girl, I knew this is what I was supposed to do with my life, what I wanted with all of my heart, and I have worked every day, countless hour of every day, to get to this place and time. It was a well-earned dream, but I know that many other authors out there are working just as hard as I am, and the going is hard, so this is the truth of it, as simply as I can put it:

I am where I am today because people believed in my stories--because you believed in my stories.

I write lesbian YA and fairy tale books in a world that told me, repeatedly before I put them out there, that "no one" wanted to read such things. I make my living on the exact opposite of that statement. People have responded to my stories, to my leading ladies, and they have responded resoundingly and brilliantly, and every day I get fan emails and tweets, and there is such a vibrant community behind me, it takes my breath away. I write my stories with my whole heart, because I believe the world needs them, and people respond.

It is very difficult for me to articulate how much that means to me, how humbled I am by that, how seriously I take that. I am so grateful for you. Yes, you. The person reading this. The person who might not have heard of me, but is going to try out one of my stories, the person who has been a fan from the inception, reading everything I've put out, the book blogger who has supported me by posting a review, the fellow author who has shared my stuff because s/he believes in it, too. There are so many people who are happy my stories exist, who support my work, and I am honoring you by writing more every single day, by having a publishing schedule that's tight and story-filled, by putting out more and more stories of strong girls who love girls and women who love women.

From the bottom of my heart: thank you. Thank you for thinking lesbian stories are worth reading, that they're equal to other stories. Thank you for treating me like all the other authors who write stories, for not putting me into a "I can't read that, it's lesbian and I'm not" slot. Thank you for giving my stories a chance, for loving them, for supporting them, for spreading the word on them. This, my life-long dream, has come true because you believed in it, in me, enough.

Here, on my birthday, I raise the gratitude again. It's the perfect day to think about gratitude, but I think about it every day. That I am where I am because people believed.

Thank you from my heart.

If you're thinking: "Sarah, it's your birthday, I'd like to celebrate it with you!" first off, thank you. <3 Secondly, the greatest gift in the world that you could give me is simply more of your support. The single happiest thing you could do is talk about my books (and my books as Elora) on your social networks, your blogs--anywhere you felt compelled to share. Maybe buy another copy for a friend, or--if you haven't read anything of mine, yet--give one of my stories a shot. If you've loved something in our Etsy shop, consider treating yourself.

And thank you for being. <3 <3 <3

Home from Pride! <3 Exhausted, but so, so happy—we had such an amazing time—I shall post the sparkly bits later!

But I had to show you guys this now! I got the bestest shirt in the entire UNIVERSE there. FIRSTLY, it is the cutest, cleverest pun EVER. Lez-bo(w)! <3 I am madly in love with it. <3

SECONDLY, it looks like SAILOR MOON TIMES. :D *hearts and rainbow sparkles forever!*

Two days after I told Jenn "I love you" for the first time, a thick envelope arrived in the mail. It was about five or six printed-out, neatly-folded pages of a novel she was working on, entitled White. It was intoxicating. Across the space and divide between us, words spanned and had begun to build a bridge. Through fiction, through poetry and music, two women who were many miles apart shared in a connection that was otherworldly. Our love began with stories, seeds planted from our heads and hearts that grew, invited, entwining across the space and divide to spiral our spirits together verdantly.

I read White laying on my stomach on my bed, the snow outside silent and hushed as I read over and over the pages of a novel that had bewitched me utterly. The tracker girl, Kyle, the mad-man and the castle and the quiet girl in search of a beast, and love growing between the girl who bore secrets and the girl who was skilled in finding them. It was weird. It was intense. It was fucking beautiful.

It was also never finished. And it broke my heart. Every day, I keep my unwavering hope and faith that someday, somehow, I will get to read that novel.

Jenn went to college for writing, and graduated with top honors, with accolades and whispered mentions of how great she had become, how much she would be able to accomplish with her fiction. And, after that, she stopped writing. There are many reasons, and it's heartbreaking, because for years and years, my wife wrote not a word.

Writers can not be forced, begged, cajoled or asked to change their writer's block or writing habits. They must choose when they decide, if they have been blocked, to pick up the pen or the laptop again. But I held the space for her, of how deeply I loved her writing, how it was a crime to humanity that she'd stopped, and how I hoped with every last part of my heart, that she would write again.

And then, Sappho's Fables came along. The only writing she'd done in this time was the old lesbian fairy tales we'd done together, and when we started talking about redoing them as a novella series...she was excited. I was ecstatic.

And so it went.

The first volume, I had two novellas, she had one. "Snow White," one of her favorite fairy tales, was retold. Some moments were painful (as anyone recovering from writer's block can attest), but as the days went by, as she went to the page, day in and out, everything else fell away. And my beautiful, amazing, beloved wife finished her first novella. Seven, a lesbian Snow White, is done, and will be released Thursday. <3 <3 <3

Today, I read the novella for the last time--the fully edited, feature-length motion picture edition, if you will. :) And I was floored.

I've known my whole life what an amazing writer my wife was. But all that I've known before is incomparable to what has come, now, to what has opened up within her, and what has begun. The novella is intoxicating. I have wished forever and forever and forever for a story about magic and beauty and pain and darkness, and for a story about a girl like me, with a love that could consume you, heart and soul. And, in every hope for such a thing, I have been disappointed. Nothing in the world is comparable to Seven, and that is an amazing, wondrous thing, because it is filling a hole that needed to be filled.

To be able to overcome something so serious as a writer's block that has lasted almost a decade, and to debut with something so incredibly beautiful, is an accomplishment that is deep and lovely. I am so proud of my wife, so proud to be her wife, so proud and humbled to work on these projects with her. <3

Seven was only the beginning. Now, the novel A Currency of Roses begins...a novel written by my wife that is going to forever shift the face of Gay YA. And who knows? Maybe Currency will, eventually, someday, lead to White.

I know I'm her wife. I know I'm supposed to be her biggest fan. I know you're probably thinking, "Sarah, that's sweet, but your opinion doesn't count and can't possibly be valid, as you're so close to her." But when you read Seven, you're going to understand. You'll see. <3

Until Thursday. <3

Jenn and I arrived home very late Wednesday night--home from the 21st annual Spoutwood Fairie Festival, and a few day visit afterwards with the amazing Kat and Corey. <3 We returned home rejuvenated, brimming with magic, and just so happy and grateful to be alive~ (Hint: spending time with some of your favorite people in the world, in one of the most magical places on earth tends to do that to you. <3)

This was one of the oddest festival experiences we've had yet, with a lot of mirth from the Universe folded into the cavorting. Nothing turned out as we planned it, and in a lot of ways, that was a good thing, because of all of the festival experiences in recent years, this may have been the oddest, but--for me--it was also the most surprisingly magic-filled, in ways I could never have expected.

So, let me tell you a story...it begins, as all good stories do, with faeries...


( Chapter One: Friday... )

( Chapter Two: Saturday... )

( Chapter Three: Sunday... )

Our visit to Kat and Corey (including pictures of my nose piercing that I FINALLY have that I have waited for since I was SIXTEEN, the Universe MAY implode since it has finally happened, DEAR GODS XD) will be regaled in another post! <3 Thanks for reading and sharing in the sparkle~

<3 <3 <3

*All of the photos in this post were taken by either us, or Shel and Ryan. <3

Everything I type is too little or too small, and I keep backspacing and trying again. I'm exhausted, but I have to put it down into words, because if I don't, the sharp piercing quality of this day will fade, and I want to remember that feeling of complete and utter hopelessness, and exactly what it felt like to hold the thrill of ultimate jubilation and joy and euphoria and love in my heart when I saw my little lost boy.

Because we found Link. WE FOUND HIM. <33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

Moments after finding him--it was almost pitch black out, so a crappy camera phone picture is all that I have. There's a whole hell of a lot of love in this picture. <333333333


I woke up at dawn. Obviously, from the tenor of last night's entry, I'd passed a sleepless night, and I cried oceans. I slept over at my parents' house, in my old bedroom, and I listened to the wind in the trees, what has always been my ultimate comfort sound, but I felt nothing but despair.

I believed I would never see my precious, beloved boy ever again.

Link is a very special dog, and he requires a lot of love and kindness, because of how terribly he was abused before the shelter saved him. He panics very quickly and easily, and I honestly could not imagine how he could survive a night without getting run over by a car. I couldn't. I tried, Goddess knows I tried to pick up the scraps of hope, but it was impossible for me in those moments. I've lived and loved and worked with Link for almost his entire life, years, and I know his reactions, and I knew how terrified and alone and just...gah, starting to cry writing this, so gotta reel it back. I knew how afraid he was feeling, and I know his levels of panic, and all I could do was sob and ask the Goddess to help him. And me.

(I lost my first soul-mate-Collie, Luke, when he was young, in an incredibly tragic, instantaneous-horror way. Link's disappearance was OH FUCKING GODS TRIGGER-TASTIC. Most of the following despair was brought on by that triggering.)

At dawn, my Mum and I set out to try and find him again, now aided with sunshine. It was bitterly cold, and we bundled up, riding my parents' six wheeler through the many, many trails in the miles surrounding their house (they live waaaaaaaay out in the country, and it's pretty wild out there). We went forever, and by the time we decided to take a break (about noon-ish, if I remember?), I didn't have a voice anymore from calling Link so many times. Jenn had gone home that night because we'd just left everything, and the animals needed to be taken care of (and she had a transcription assignment), so she'd stayed up until FOUR IN THE MORNING working on the assignment, and then came right over, having had THREE HOURS OF SLEEP to start to look everywhere with me for Shwinky. ;-; <3333333

We went more miles. And more. Jenn had had the brilliant idea to bring Poesy. Link is OBSESSED with Poesy, and she'd reasoned that if everything but the most base instincts had fled Link, maybe he'd sniff out Poesy and come looking for us. Miles. And miles. And more miles. Hopelessness. Calling Link's name until either of us could hardly squeak. More hopelessness. Jenn pillowing my head on her shoulder as I cried. Hopelessness.

At around five, we drove to the nearest town and their Office Max to print out copies of a "missing dog" flier I'd thrown together. We got the copies printed, and then began to go door to door in all of the area businesses, asking if we could put them up. Again with the vast helpless feelings...I had to do something. We put up tons of fliers, and I talked to so many people...nothing.

At this point, it was seven o'clock. We'd gone miles, we'd covered several counties, we'd talked to so many people...no one had seen any sign of Link, we had seen no sign of Link...hopeless. I thought he was gone.

On the way back to my parents' house, we stopped at a row of little shops on the drag of the TINY town near where my parents live. I put a flier in the little music shop, and the pizzeria, and then we were just going to go back to their house, but I randomly stopped at the hardware store. Seriously, there was no reason to stop, and I was just so devastated and hopeless feeling, I have no idea why I did. "I'll just run in real quick," I told Jenn and grabbed a flier.

Inside, there was no cork board. The man at the counter was helping a customer, and the woman behind the counter was on the phone. It was the last place we were going to flier that night, and I was exhausted, so I was going to go, but I walked up to the counter instead.

The woman on the phone cocked her head at me, and I mouthed the word "cork board?" holding up the flier. Her eyes widened, and she hung up on the person she was on the phone with.

"I SAW THAT DOG THIS MORNING," she said, waving her hands. "Where is he missing?!"

I told her my parents' road, breathlessly. "YES!" she crowed, "I live on that road! He was at the corner this morning, around 11:50/noon-ish."

We'd covered that area TEN TIMES that day, but it was the ONLY lead I had, and it was a good one. I thanked her profusely, ran back to the car, and we gunned it to that corner.

Poesy, at this point, was like YOU HAVE DRAGGED ME ALL OVER CREATION, WHAT THE HELL, THIS DETECTIVE WORK IS CRAP. It was sunset, the sun sinking through the trees ominously. Soon, it would be pitch black, and we would have to give up again.

We called Link's name another eighty bazmillion times, going back and forth and baaaaaack and forth around that corner, in the meadow, in the woods, and in the startlingly beautiful ravine (with SEVERAL ACCOMPANYING CLIFF FACES, JUST FOR FUN).

I heard Jenn gasp. I turned, adrenaline rushing through my body. There had been so many times today that I thought I heard his bark, or thought I saw a flash of white, and every single time, this rush of joy would go through me followed by the worst fucking despair in the world when it wasn't him. "I saw him," Jenn told me, and I was like: "honey, are you SURE?" and she was like "YES, IT WAS HIM!!!! ON THE TOP OF THE HILL!"

I RAN.

I got to the top of the hill, and the despair gobbled me up. "He's not here, baby," I cried down to her, and she said, "go right!" I ran deeper into the woods, down to the stream. Nothing.

"Shwinky! Shwinkums! Baby!" I cried out, and I began to follow the stream.

Cliff faces rose on either side, towering over me as I followed the shallow stream bed. Jenn and Poesy came behind me. "He could climb these," I told Jenn, pointing to the cliffs. "I know he could," and she agreed, and we were just like...I think we lost him. But I said: "let's go further. Just a little further."

And we rounded the corner.

In the middle of the wide stream bed stood Link. Water rushed around him as he stood in the flow of it, staring.

And then two things happened.

I crumpled to my knees and cried out: "come here, baby!"

And this look of pure recognition streamed over his face. He went from IAMAWILDANIMAL to OMGTHOSEAREMYMOMS in a HEARTBEAT. And then the recognition was replaced with a look of such pure joy, that I swear to you--if I live to be one hundred, I will never forget that look of radiant love and joy and ILOVEYOUSOMUCHWHEREHAVEYOUBEEN in my entire life.

And he ran to us, tail wagging so hard, I thought it'd fall off.

He kissed us so many times, I was covered in them, and he pressed his little body to mine and Jenn's as we sobbed, completely unable to breathe, telling him over and over and over and over and over how much we loved him.

He was favoring his back right leg, and I want to make certain he's okay anyway, so tomorrow morning, he's going in for a check up, but--save for the EXTREME MUDDINESS--he seems to be perfectly okay. <333333333333333333333333333333333333

I have never felt more relieved, more fucking grateful, in my entire life. My beautiful baby boy is home. <33333333333

I am so happy, so content, so joy-full and filled, I have no words. <3333333333333333

He's currently fast asleep on my feet. <3333333


I am perfectly serious that when I say "I don't think we could have found him without you guys," I absolutely mean it. I was hopeless and upset beyond reaching and feeling so helpless, and knowing that you believed we could find him when I did not was, I think, the magic that brought him back to us. It was such an unexpected horror, a horror that I pray I will never have to experience again. I died today. My babies are my world, and I almost lost one of my kids today in the worst way possible. Thank you for your good energy, for your magic and good thoughts. I needed them so immensely, and they saved him. I believe it.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. <3 Thank you.

Now, I am going to sleep the sleep of exhaustion, the sleep of contentment...the sleep of a seventy-pound-Collie-baby-on-my-legs-squashing-my-circulation.

And it's going to be the best sleep I've ever had. <33333333333333333333333333333333333

As Jenn's actual birthday (yesterday) was spent in celebration, this is the morning where I post the birthday post--I hope you'll indulge a lot of joy and love here. <3 <3 <3

Though this is from Rachel's photo stream, I took this picture. I'll never forget when Rachel laughed, handed the camera over to me and pointed to it: "it's so obvious you took this one," she said with a grin, "Jenn only ever looks at you like that." <33333333333333


On Friday night, Jenn and I curled up with some pressies and tea, cuddling together, listening to the roaring of the wind outside. Eight years to the moment before that, a nervous young woman packed her old suitcase, staring out the window at the glittering stars, wondering what the next day would hold. That young woman was me. And though I'd professed undying love to Jenn three months before, I had never met her--and, until two days previous--had not even seen a picture of her.

Here's the big spoiler alert: the next day, I rode an old Greyhound bus down to Pittsburgh, fell into Jenn's arms and found true love. And though ten million things had to happen, five thousand stars had to align and the world had to spin in a certain, almost impossible way for us to meet and fall in love, it did. And I have spent every day of my life from that one trying to articulate my gratitude, living to love her.

So, you must know that Jenn's birthday is my favorite day in the world. My beautiful bride was born on that day, and there's no better span of hours I can think of to celebrate. My life was made complete, my joy made physical in her presence and her love.

I love this woman more than anything.


As we looked through some of the letters we'd sent to each other in the beginnings, the books we made for each other, the poems and stories we'd written for each other, the countless, countless cards, I had one of those moments where you look at your life and the place you've ended up, and you can't believe it actually happened, and maybe you have this totally bizarre and improbable fear that there is some other Sarah in some other place without her Jenn, and how lonely and sad and small she is without knowing true love.

But then, of course, since it's a blustery night, and you have tea and your sweetheart, you push such a very silly, dramatic thought from your head and kiss your wife for good measure. Because she's real, and she's here, and it happened. The big, beautiful "it" of finding your soul mate, of about-to-be-stepping-into-a-birthday-weekend-of-bliss, of being side by side with the most important person in the world. And just being grateful.

I have these random moments sometimes, where I "wake up." It'll be a perfectly normal day, we'll be having this ridiculous conversation, and I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe, and I wake up. And I look at her, and I get this thudding in my heart, and I KNOW in that moment how precious things are, how precious she is, how precious what we have is, and I just gather her into my arms, press her head to my heart and kiss her. I don't know why the Universe gave me this gift, I can't understand how the ten million things that had to go right did in order for us to be together.

But, as always, I spend the rest of my life in awe of the beauty of love. And living to love her.

Happy birthday, beautiful, my baby, my everything. I. Love. You.

So, we've been in Florida for over a week! We just got home yesterday. :) Right before we left, I got horrific food poisoning (about five hours after I finished the Fable Tribe's first update--at least it let me finish it! ;D), so I feel like I have eighty bazmillion things to catch up on/emails to respond to, AND I DO, along with eleven thousand posts of Sparkle! to make. But, until then, have a picture of pink and purple ladies, taken in Florida. <333333333333

I finally got my pink hair. <3333333333 I feel so not-like-myself without it.



At the airport on the way to Florida!! <3333333


(Notes: I left the dye on for MUCH less time than you're supposed to, because I needed to dye it back to blonde yesterday (basically, I was only pink haired for eight days), so when I'm finally ETERNALLY a pink-haired-sparkle-princess, it will be much more vibrant than what you see here. I used N'Rage's Bubblegum Pink, and loved the coloration [I also love that you can get it at Sally's Beauty Supply, which is where we get Jenn's purple], so will probably keep that when I can be eternally pink~ <3)