SeaHeart

(Originally posted at the Sorcery of Love~)

My wife, author Jennifer Diemer's, novella Seven, the third novella of our Sappho's Fables (Lesbian Fairy Tales!) series, is released today! Seven is a lesbian version of Snow White~ <3 (And is BEAUTIFUL. <3)


The strange witch girl Neve has skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and a dark secret. Her father Lexander, an alchemist, harbors an evil obsession, and Catalina, his newest bride, made the grave mistake of becoming his wife. When Catalina finds herself falling in love with his daughter, Neve, instead, the deepening bond between the women sets in motion the final chapter of a story that began long ago, with a desperate longing and a handful of apple seeds. Together, Neve and Catalina must venture into the Huntsman's haunted forest to undo what has been done and set themselves free.

Available for purchase from:
Amazon (Kindle)
Barnes and Noble (Nook) (Coming soon!)
Smashwords (All other eReaders/Online Reading)

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

- So, my award-winning (THAT IS JUST SO SPARKLY, GAH. *JOY FOREVER*) short story, "The Witch Sea," has FINALLY been changed to free on Amazon (after a two month wait!), but it's just in time for the holiday weekend, and I'm glad it's finally done! :) (Don't ask--I had to do technical things to subvert the system and make it free, and technology is not that easy to subvert, lemme tell ya!) It's about a lonely witch, a sea god, and a selkie, and I'd love to see it get pretty high on the free charts, because everyone needs a little lesbian fiction in their lives! If you have a Kindle, please consider downloading the short story, and if you don't have a Kindle, please consider spreading the word--every little bit helps, and is much appreciated! ♥

Download "The Witch Sea" for FREE!


- After an awesome conversation with Rachel last night that energized and FILLED ME WITH SPARKLE, I stayed up until four thirty in the morning finishing the redesign of my author site, Oceanid.org. I wanted it SUPER SIMPLIFIED, while still giving important information, and be a portal for the book links on their various sellers, our blog and my various social media presences. I THINK IT DOES ITS DUTY. AND IS ALSO PINK WHILE DOING IT. I am pleased. (The graphic at the top is actually a stock image I purchased forever and a day ago--it'll be used for a cover, eventually, too, but it looks so happy up there! :) *pets it*)

- I kind of feel like the father of an about-to-be-born child. Jenn has gone into the bedroom with her laptop, to finish the end of her novella, Seven: A Lesbian Snow White, and I'm out here, in the living room, working on my own writing, hoping its going well for her. :D *fret* *chews nail* This is the first piece of writing she'll have finished in...well...a very long time. And it wasn't easy. And she's worked so hard on it, and it is so fucking brilliant, and I'm so proud of her and so nervous for her, and just...gah! :D *paces* *waits to hear imaginary-baby-of-a-novella cry*

- I'm currently working on a short story for an anthology I was invited to! <3 I went past the deadline, and they were awesome and had already granted me wiggle room if I needed it, and I am FINALLY finishing it up today, and am very happy with it~ I'll talk a little more about it after it's absolute in all ways. :D

- SPEAKING of novels, I should be finished-finished-finished with The Bone Girl tomorrow, ready to send it off to the Women of Lovely Feedback, and then the final edits will be flying, and it should definitely hit its tentative release date (which is slowly shaping up to be a definite release date!) of June 26th! I worked very hard on this novel, but it's been super kind to its author (UNLIKE OTHER NOVELS I COULD NAME), so it was kind of a breeze to get everything down. :) I love the main character, Lutese, love her love interest, Mara (she's so awesome and kick ass~ <3), I love Ozz and Roar and Valienne, and I hope that people are going to enjoy it as much as I did. :) <3 It's a strange little novel--Twixt and Ragged are much more edgy in obvious ways, but The Bone Girl has its own kind of edge to it. The whole basis of the book is how far are you going to go to be true to yourself, and if you have no empathy, what will you do to find it? Lu starts out in the story really caring about no one but herself, and--at the end of the novel--we see a marked shift in her perceptions and empathy. She's fallen in love with an outcast, and she (possibly!) is the bone girl of the prophecies, and the world is dying, and people need help, and she always closed to her eyes to every last bit of other people's suffering...until she can't, anymore. There are elemental spirits, shape-shifting Low, Animal Balls of grandeur and beauty, and a one hundred year dead spell where nothing grows, and Skin Peddlers who steal and buy and sell skins, and a Priest of the Church of the Skinned who doesn't necessarily believe that having your original skin means you're pure (blasphemy!) and a fire and, and... courage. And hope. And love. <3 I can't wait to share it with you!

- After finishing The Bone Girl, I'm turning right back around and finishing The Dream Queen (The graphic novel/web comic of the lesbian Midsummer Night's Dream!), and then I have to typeset the first volume of Sappho's Fables, which so many people are excited about! <3 <3 <3 I'm excited about it, too~ :) Tentative release dates on Seven are THIS WEDNESDAY, OMG!, and then next week Wednesday for the first volume. :D

- Also, this Wednesday, the next Fable Tribe update! <3

- If you haven't noticed, I wanted this to be a post of other! Exciting! Things!, but we don't really have much going on right now besides WRITING FOREVER AND EVER HOORAY. There are a lot of looming deadlines, but we're very excited about all of them, because once the novels and novellas and volumes are out, things can slow down a tiny bit. As you know, we make all of our moolahs from our novels, novellas and short stories and the Fable Tribe, and we work very, very hard to be able to do this. Inhumanly hard, honestly. :) We never take breaks, we put in nineteen hour days OFTEN. NORMALLY. Mortal humans can't live at that speed. Soon, though, we're going to make almost ALL of our monthly budget from books, freeing us up from having to put out a Fable Tribe update every two weeks AND write, AND edit AND... :) And then our lives will ALSO be my FAVORITE WORD: SUSTAINABLE. When all I want to do is write, THAT IS WHAT I SHALL DO. When all I want to do is glue glitter to things, THAT IS WHAT I SHALL DO. And SOME DAYS? SOME DAYS I AM GOING TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO SLEEP IN. :D OH, GLORIOUS SLEEP. *writes an Ode to it* I want so very little from life, and I have everything I need--now, I just need to order it so that I can occasionally take breaks and be a little gentler with myself. :) We're almost there, baby!!! <--PSYCHED

- I got a fan letter that made me cry yesterday. :) It was so heartfelt and vulnerable and beautiful, and I felt so humbled after reading it. I know that some people think that when someone pours out their heart to an author, explaining what their books meant to them, an author might not pay attention or be touched by it, but I promise you: that's not true. We are changed by the love given to our stories, as the stories themselves are changed when they are read with that much love. <3 I had a moment of deep, boundless gratitude for that letter, and I'm never going to forget it.

- ...And that is all the sparkle that is fit to print. <3 <3 <3

My novella Braided, the second novella of our Sappho's Fables (Lesbian Fairy Tales!) series, is released today! Braided is a lesbian version of Rapunzel~ <3

Braided, at its very core, is about overcoming impossible odds, finding the courage to change your world, your fate...even your curses, with love. "Rapunzel" has always been a favorite of mine, and retelling this story has been an absolute joy to me. <3 I hope you enjoy~



Zelda is cursed to spend her days on a platform in an ancient, holy tree, growing her hair long enough to touch the ground. But it wasn’t her curse to bear: Gray, the witch’s daughter, was meant for that lonely fate. Gray visits Zelda each day, mourning their switched fates, and falling deeper in love with the cursed girl, until one night, at the Not-There Fair, an extraordinary creature outlines a magical plan that could set both of them free. Will Gray’s love for Zelda be strong enough to survive the strange dream world of Chimera, or will Zelda remain a prisoner of the curse forever?

Available for purchase from:
Amazon (Kindle)
Barnes and Noble (Nook)
Smashwords (All other eReaders/Online Reading)

(Originally posted at the Sorcery of Love~)

Our novella series, Sapppho's Fables, takes the most well-known, beloved fairy tales and retells them from a lesbian perspective. Crumbs, a lesbian Hansel and Gretel is out now. Braided, a lesbian Rapunzel, is coming next week...

What comes after that? Shimmer, the lesbian Rumpelstiltskin~ And tonight, beautiful people, I reveal the cover~ <3 Shimmer should be out within the next few weeks--I'll update when I have a definite date! <3


The cover for Shimmer, a lesbian Rumpelstiltskin, part of the Sappho's Fables series, lesbian fairy tales retold~

My novella Crumbs, the first novella of our Sappho's Fables (Lesbian Fairy Tales!) series, is released today! Crumbs is a lesbian version of Hansel and Gretel~ <3



Greta's never ventured beyond the refuge of the Heap. Outside, the Ragers lurk, ever hungry and hunting. But Greta and her brother, half-starved and now alone, must risk death for the dream of safety they hope to find within the metal forest. Once there, nothing is as it seems: in the confines of a crumbling old candy factory, the woman who rescues them with sweet words and sweeter treats harbors a dangerous secret.

Available for purchase from:
Amazon (Kindle)
Barnes and Noble (Nook)
Smashwords (All other eReaders/Online Reading)

(Originally posted at The Sorcery of Love~)