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Palestinian Own Voices Reading List

If you’re looking for books to read to help support Palestine and Palestinians through this current aggression and genocidal actions, I’ve created a list for you to look through. These books are all available through Bookshop.org, and may be available through your local libraries.

My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story, by Ramzy Baroud

Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape, by Raja Shehadeh

In the Presence of Absence, by Richard Widerkehr

On Zionist Literature, by Ghassan Kanafani

Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands, by Sonia Nimir

Power Born of Dreams: My Story Is Palestine, by Mohammad Sabaaneh

Stories Under Occupation: And Other Plays from Palestine, by Samer Al-Saber

Palestine Is Throwing a Party and the Whole World Is Invited: Capital and State Building in the West Bank, by Kareem Rabie

Rifqa, by Mohammed El-Kurd

Of Noble Origins: A Palestinian Novel, by Sahar Khalifeh

My First and Only Love, by Sahar Khalifeh

Salt Houses, by Hala Alyan

L.J. Stanton

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READERS WANTED

Advance Review Copy Readers Wanted

If you’ve found your way here, you’re a reader. If you read, and you’re willing to review too, then we want you.

what is an arc reader?

Advance Review (or sometimes called Reader) Copies are books released to reviewers ahead of publication. These reviewers then post their honest opinions about the book on release day across multiple platforms (like Amazon and GoodReads). Whether it’s a 5 or a 1 star, an honest review is worth it’s weight in gold—which is one of the reasons ARC editions are free to the reviewer.

i’m interested, but this is a sequel right?

It is! THE PANTHEON PROPHET is the second book in THE GODS CHRONICLE series. But if you haven’t read THE DYING SUN, that’s okay! Reach out today and I’ll have an ebook edition of THE DYING SUN in your inbox ASAP.

when do you need the review by?

Currently, THE PANTHEON PROPHET is at the editor. That means you won’t receive your copy until those edits are input (likely, the end of the year). We’re hoping to release THE PANTHEON PROPHET in March 2024, so you’ll have two full months to read and review it. If you’re not completely through it by the release day, review what you can and update once you’re done!

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Patreon Special Offer & Merchandise Updates

Hello Readers, 

You may have received a number of emails from Patreon this morning, as we've been working hard behind the scenes! First off, we've launched our Spooky Season Special Offer! Both new and current patrons will receive 3 stickers and 1 pin:

The sticker designs are a surprise, but here is your pin! It's a dangerous question, WWMD, but there's a certain entertaining mix of lawful and chaotic to the answer. Current patrons should see their pin and stickers arriving before October 1st. Please update your address to make sure we're shipping to the right place!

There's New Merch

Launching alongside our special offer is a new fulfillment system through Patreon itself! That means Patreon is now handling our stickers, postcards, and t-shirt fulfillment.

In three months, current and new patrons will receive the newest designs for these items. Again, make sure your address is updated and Patreon's emails aren't going to your spam folder.The designs are: the Akhenic Sun Dying Sun sticker, the Holy City of Madiar postcard, and a quote from THE DYING SUN designed by our own Rob Stanton.

So if you have any friends you haven't recommended our Patreon to, now is the time!

L.J.

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Book Club: FOURTH WING by Rebecca Yarros

Hello Readers,

Our first read is FOURTH WING, by Rebecca Yarros! Book club starts today, but if you're seeing this after Sept. 1 2023 don't worry: you have until the end of October to join and finish the book!

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise.  Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

Join us through Fable by clicking here. You don't need to be a patron, but you'll want to be part of our Fable club (it's free)! Fable is an interactive book club app that allows dynamic discussions with your fellow club members in a low pressure environment!

You can hang out with us on Discord too!

L.J.

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Introducing: The Sword & Board Book Club

Hello Readers, 

Life has been a little all over the place for the past couple months. I had surgery, my sister had surgery, my husband was let go from Twitch, and now we're in the middle of moving! So with all that excitement, the newsletter and Book of the Month went to the wayside. 

I want a way to continue Book of the Month, but in a way that lets me get to know you all better, and lets you see what an author looks for when analyzing and learning from a novel. That means, Book Club Time!

HOW TO JOIN

1. Sign up for a Fable.co Account 2. Join the Sword & Board Discord   3. Click on the Fable Link pinned in #Book-Club 4. Follow the Fable instructions on how to pick up the book. 

It's fairly straight forward and I'm extremely excited to get started with all of you in September. If you follow those instructions presently, you'll see there isn't a link yet for the book club in the discord channel. That's because I want your help choosing our discussion book!

Vote here on Patreon

Let me know which book you're excited to read with me. Multiple choice is allowed, so feel free to vote for your top two.

Your options are: 

 A Poison Steeped in Magic: I used to look at my hands with pride. Now all I can think is, "These are the hands that buried my mother." For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it's her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her—the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu. When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shennong-shi—masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making—she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning's only chance to save her sister's life. But between the backstabbing competitors, bloody court politics, and a mysterious (and handsome) boy with a shocking secret, Ning might actually be the one in more danger.

The Sun and the Void: Two women embark on a unforgettable quest into a world of dark gods and ancient magic in this sweeping fantasy debut inspired by the history and folklore of colonial South America.  Reina is desperate. Stuck on the edges of society, Reina’s only hope lies in an invitation from a grandmother she’s never met. But the journey to her is dangerous, and prayer can’t always avert disaster. Attacked by creatures that stalk the mountains, Reina is on the verge of death until her grandmother, a dark sorceress, intervenes. Now dependent on the Doña’s magic for her life, Reina will do anything to earn—and keep—her favor. Even the bidding of an ancient god who whispers to her at night. Eva Kesaré is unwanted. Illegitimate and of mixed heritage, Eva is her family’s shame. She tries to be the perfect daughter, but Eva is hiding a secret: Magic calls to her.  Eva knows she should fight the temptation. Magic is the sign of the dark god, and using it is punishable by death. Yet it’s hard to ignore power when it has always been denied you. Eva is walking a dangerous path. And in the end, she’ll become something she never imagined. 

Silver Nitrate: Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood. Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.

Fourth Wing: Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise.  Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die. 

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A Day At The Dragon Shelter: An Anthology

Where were you when dragons entered our world? You might remember, you probably thought it was a hoax. But in the time since then, the world has gotten stranger and decidedly more interesting. Especially for those involved with the City of Lakes Dragon Shelter.

Sign up for your own copy of A DAY AT THE DRAGON SHELTER at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wolfinmybeard/a-day-at-the-dragon-shelter

I was thrilled when Steven Brust approached me to be part of this anthology. While normally modern, first-person fantasy isn't my forte, I thoroughly enjoyed stretching my wings out of my comfort zone. I've read several of the shorts involved and know a handful of the authors, and can confirm they're wonderful stories. 

Our goal is already met, so help us hit $10k! Stretch goals are in discussion, so keep an eye out as things update! 

L.J. 

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Expeditionary Force: A Lesson in Inclusivity

Speculative fiction struggles with how to handle disabilities, which is reflective of our society at large. Whether due to age, health, accidents, or other life happenstance, almost everyone will end up struggling with disability at some point in their life (or see it happen in someone they care about). The absence of this within our media only creates stigma around disabilities and chronic illness. Removing disabilities and chronic illness through handwaving, “superior technology” or magic, creates an unrealistic emphasis on wholeness as a moral or correct way of living/existing. Disabilities change as societies evolve, which means they’ll never be gotten rid of. Same with chronic illnesses. DNA will never replicate perfectly. Genetic disorders will always exist without eugenic interference.

Within the universe of the Expeditionary Force series, written by Craig Alanson, genetic superiority is discussed a great deal. Each of the alien races have been genetically modified for war by their patron species, all the way up to the top level races. It’s heavily implied that consent was not a factor in whether or not these races were modified. While these modifications are shown as improvements (better hearing, better vision, faster healing, etc), it’s also shown that these adaptations aren’t inherently morally superior or better. The humans can still keep up with their genetically modified alien counterparts, even if they have to be a little smarter about how they do things. That in and of itself is an important aspect to note: adversity pushes our collective boundaries. When we see problems, we as humans find incredible ways to overcome them.

One of the main characters in ExForce loses his legs. It’s a traumatic experience, as he’s a SpecOps soldier. And this is where Craig Alanson subverted my expectations. The medical technology they have on board their ship allows for limb regrowth/regeneration, and I wholeheartedly expected for this character to simply have his legs regrown. Then undergo physical therapy for a few months, then be back to normal/good as new (more or less). I was absolutely pleasantly surprised when the character pushed back on limb regrowth. He wanted prosthetic legs. He demanded them.

"...seeing myself in a character, whether it’s this person...in ExForce, or the lawyer in My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, proper representation matters."  -- L.J. Stanton

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Sexual Violence in Speculative Fiction

While details of sexual violence are not discussed, this blog post may not be for everyone.

As an author, my mantra is to tell challenging stories and minimize harm. The major failing I see with sexual violence in many media forms is where the point of view and gaze fall. Particularly in western media, that gaze is often heterosexual masculine. That means sexual violence comes from that same perspective, and makes grotesque GoT Sansa scenes where her rape is all about the men (either perpetrator or witness). The violence is there to horrify and titillate the viewer. We should be horrified. We should never be titillated. Respect for the survivor is missing in these situations. I could break down where this failing is in a lot of media, but I don’t think that is the most important conversation to have. I think the more important questions are: 1) should sexual violence be included in stories for shock value, and 2) how can sexual violence be written.

To point 1, let’s define what shock value is. Shock value is the inclusion of something to surprise and upset people. When it comes to story crafting, that means the primary purpose of the shock value event is to be shocking in and of itself (I’m sure you’re all shocked by this revelation). It’s not something where the primary purpose is to serve the story. So shocking events and events that are included for shock value are two different things. With that defined, my answer to “Should sexual violence be included in stories for shock value?” is an unequivocal no.

Violence that causes long term harm, physical and psychological, shouldn’t be placed within a story for shock value. Shock value is an intrinsically short-term effect (ex: a jump scare), and when we see violence added just for shock value it becomes something shrugged off with little character change or long-term story impact. That is extraordinarily unrealistic, and undermines the argument that sexual violence needs to be included for realism…

"Write with intention. Write moments and scenes that serve your characters and your stories. Shock value is the realm of the self-indulgent ego. You can write better than that."  -- L.J. Stanton

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The Best Non-Western Fantasy Books on the Best New Book Site You Should Bookmark

Shepherd.com is the up and coming new book site for excellent book recommendations. I was approached by them at the end of last year with a request: what book list would I like to make? And naturally, the first list that came to mind was The Best Non-Western Fantasy Books. How could I not write it?

" How you find a book is important. That search is the start of a journey, and the process of exploring books should be fun. The online world needs more serendipity so your curiosity can roam free. "  -- Ben Fox, Shepherd.com Founder

It’s my pleasure to share the above list with each of you, and hope that you will share the list too. While you’re there, consider looking up other shelves like magical realism.

Happy Reading!

L.J.

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"Thunder Dog", A Review and Personal Anecdote

The Review

Thunder Dog is the dual story of Michael Hingson and his guide dog, Roselle, surviving the descent from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It is also the biography of Hingson living with a disability in the United States and the challenge of living blind in a world designed for the sighted. It is a moving biography worth reading in and of itself. But perhaps it has come back into greater relevance with today’s discussion of emotional support animals and service dogs in the news.

The book is titled Thunder Dog after Roselle. Roselle, like any service dog, is at her core still a dog. Michael Hingson’s highly trained service dog, off duty, is afraid of thunder. In the wee hours of September 11th, there was a thunderstorm and Hingson woke up to a frightened dog. He left the bed to comfort Roselle. Later that day, harness on, Roselle ignores the sound of explosions and scent of jet fuel to safely guide Hingson down 1400+ stairs and through the chaos that was Ground Zero. Hingson frankly writes about the challenges of being a service dog handler, from the idiosyncrasies of working with animals — often trained to be intelligently disobedient to prevent their handlers from hurting themselves — to the challenges of dealing with able-bodied people. While I cannot place where in the book the comment is from, Hingson states that to him the more interesting story isn’t how he and Roselle got down the stairs. The interesting story is how a blind man became a successful businessman and was on the 78th floor to begin with — a story told interspersed with the descent from the North Tower. I agree with Hingson. It is an incredible story.

As a formerly able-bodied person coming to terms with limitations, it’s poignant to see how Hingson handles the challenges placed in front of him from both the well meaning and the ignorant. It is a book that I believe would encourage a little more understanding from both sides of the able/disabled spectrum.

"Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA."  -- Americans with Disabilities Act, https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

A Different Handler’s Story

“Are you training him for someone?”

“Yes, me.”

Chekov and I are not a normal team. He is a glorious rescue mutt. We think he’s a shepherd/husky/cattle dog mix. I am thin, young, and look perfectly healthy on the average day — if you don’t realize my shoulder dimples are in fact, shoulder subluxations. We’re working with an unconventional company to train him. Most of the time, people are quite pleasant when they speak to me about Chekov. Perhaps it’s the “resting bitch face”, or the decade training horses, that has given me a stronger no-nonsense vibe. Most skeptics seem to avoid confrontation with us, preferring to shoot dirty looks our way. But talk to anyone who has been a handler for long enough and you’ll find horror stories. I’m waiting for ours, because it will come.

Intelligent disobedience is the animal’s act of disobeying a command that will cause a handler harm. Chekov is a medical alert dog, trained to let me know when my body is about to throw me a curve ball. As a stubborn horsewoman, I rarely listen. Chekov knows it’s his job to make me stop and listen to him. He’s discovered the most effective way to do so: inform the world that he has husky vocal chords and husky lungs. Chekov will start with a light “tweety” sound before all out shrieking at me. He does this both at home, and in public. His last song was in the wine section of our grocery store — hardly the place I wanted to sit down on the floor!

"A person with a disability cannot be asked to remove his service animal from the premises unless: (1) the dog is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it or (2) the dog is not housebroken. "  -- Americans with Disabilities Act, https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

A singing husky is not out of control, and we cannot be asked to leave due to Chekov performing a task. But I’m quite certain it is what will run us into access issues in the future. There are plenty of reasons why a service dog might bark or make noise. Most of the time, it means a handler could very well be in distress within a few minutes or few hours and needs the time to react. Please give handlers space if you hear their dog bark.

But how do i spot a fake?

You don’t!

There are no registries for service dogs in the United States (other countries have different regulations). No companies that a person must go through. Service dogs have bad days. They’re not robots, and sometimes they’re just tired/sore/woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Hassling a handler — who likely is having a bad day too — is simply cruel.

If you see a dog that is misbehaving and the handler is doing nothing to stop it, the best action to take is alerting the management in charge of the facility you’re in and let them handle it.

"When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task."  -- Americans with Disabilities Act, https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

Lastly, please remember that these dogs are not robots. When someone brings a pet into a service dog only area, it is an unfair distraction to the service dog. Even if your dog is well behaved, it needs to stay at home. If your dog has health issues, then it should go to a dog day care with attached vet — not with you everywhere. Chekov has been charged several times by off leash or uncontrolled dogs. While we are working on desensitizing him to the sudden appearance of dogs in places they shouldn’t be, it is an unfair double standard to expect no reaction from a service dog if a pet is barking aggressively at them. There is an understandable higher expectation of training and behaviour of a service dog. But every pet owner should train their dog and expect excellence. Our dogs, after all, only know what we teach them.

— L.J & Chekov

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Write What You Don't Know

Patrons received this post 1 week early.

I don’t write what I know. 

At least, I don’t exclusively write what I was taught in school or by my community. My parents did their very best to broaden my horizons, but there is only so much a parent can teach. While it is hard to know what you don’t know, probing at the boundaries of your ignorance is of the utmost importance to the writer’s soul and candid introspection. 

It is sorely limiting to write only what you know. If we all did that, autobiography would be the only category at the bookshop. All speculative fiction demands both authors and readers step outside what is real, and what is known, into the unknown. As Ursula K. LeGuin said, ‘Write what you know, but you may know dragons.” The advice of ‘write what you know’ is imagination limiting self censorship if taken too literally. It can kill creativity, stifle stories, and leave an author a bumbling mess trying not to step on too many toes. 

Better advice is to write what you take the time to know. Curiosity should drive creativity, and pursuit of artistic excellence should drive us to create stories that ring true. If you’re willing to go down the wikipedia rabbit hole for a day to find out the origins of an obscure flower for one scene, then you have no excuse not to use the same sort of dedication when including BIPOC, LGBTQA, and/or disabled characters. While I know many writers are solitary creatures, the beauty of the internet means it’s easier than ever to email someone with the expertise on the topic you want to write about. No phone calls required! While social media can often be a hazardous, if not outright toxic place to be, there are also opportunities to speak to, interact with, and learn from those outside of your religion, culture, race, or county. When used correctly, it is an excellent social research tool.

Your story impacts the reader, and it impacts other authors. If you are writing a story of a minority, consider the impact your story has on the minority you’re inspired by. Importantly, consider whether or not your story gives back to that community. Does it help showcase the humanity of those groups? Does it fairly represent their struggles, even if doing so clashes with your preconceived notions? Are you as the author helping support these groups in some way? While it might be difficult to offer monetary support (given that author royalties are fairly paltry on average), showcasing and promoting minorities within the industry is an excellent way to show support. If you owe some of your success to a minority group, you should be doing what you can to uplift them. 

I wholeheartedly believe that authors should write with intention. The words you place on paper matter, and can change the world. Make sure that change doesn’t cause real world harm. Be an Ursula K. LeGuin, not a J. K. Rowling. Don’t write only what you know now. Become more, learn more, and write that. 

Happy Writing, 

L.J. 

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December Edition: The Household

Check your inboxes for your monthly update from L.J.! Sign up today!

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Introducing THE STUMBLING BLOCK Volume 1

I’ve dipped my toes into the zine world only a teeny handful of times, and certainly hadn’t considered making one of my own. But with a newsletter, an ongoing blog, and the twitterverse, it was easy for Gideon Marcus to convince me to do so. All it needed was a name, and that too was something they easily convinced me of. 

“You could call it ‘The Stumbling Block’” he said, and while I’m not sure he was being completely serious about it, I honestly can’t think of a better name. I want to point out stumbling blocks in fantasy, both in published works and pre-published drafts. I want this to both create stumbling blocks in authors, and show them how to clear away those blocks. Without further ado, let’s create some discomfort. 

We are writers. We live with vast imaginations. Yet ‌in worlds where we imagine FTL engines or dragons, science-as-magic or magic-as-science, it seems we cannot imagine disabled or chronically ill people existing alongside it. Disability affects 15% of the world population, yet certainly does not appear among 15% of the characters we write about. 

I maintain that writing is not a comfortable act. We delve into hard parts of ourselves and our societies to drive not just plots, but social change. We give fictional commentaries on past events to give hope for the future, regardless of how we veil the events we steal from. Even if all you write are cozy stories, you can’t write something cozy without knowing what you’re shielding the reader from. And that always bleeds through‌. 

I spoke with a fellow writer who stated, “Well, there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of disabled characters in an action book.” Yes, there is. 

Ableism. Often internalized. 

There is a good chance that you, or someone you know, wear glasses. Visual impairments and their accommodations have become normalized, if not fashionable, in North American society. It doesn’t appear strange to go to work wearing glasses. Nor is it odd for your protagonist to wear them, if time period appropriate. It’s time to do the same for other assistive devices (self-propelled wheelchairs were invented in 1655, so no excuses for fantasy writers), as well as the disabilities that go with them. 

Good Versus Evil: Scars, Disfigurements, and Moral JudgEments

Evil often comes in two forms: the hideously ugly and disfigured (consider characters like The Hound from A Song of Ice and Fire, or the entire race of orcs from The Lord of the Rings), or hauntingly beautiful (The Empress in The Poppy War, or Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty). Most protagonists, even if they state how plain they are (Bella from Twilight), they rarely actually are anything less than whole and hale, often still classically pretty or handsome. They are rarely ugly. After all, reading is escapism. It’s easy to enjoy a book where the reader is in the perspective of a beautiful character healthy in both mind and body. We can feel good when they do good, uncomfortable when they’re mistreated, and heroic when they defeat injustices. It’s easier to focus on the plot when we use the shorthand of ‘wholeness’ and ‘able bodied’ in our character creation. It’s uncomfortable to have a protagonist that forces us to examine our biases on abilities while they’re on their quest to destroy the evil corporation/empire/dragon. It takes more creativity to solve the solution of ‘How does an ambulatory wheelchair-user slay the dragon?’ than ‘How does my able-bodied character do it?’

Examination of what makes us uncomfortable breeds introspection and empathy in the reader. It’s our subconscious biases through social conditioning that lead to issues of entire races being coded as evil. Consider that while we may expect beauty to betray us (Melkor in the Silmarillion), it’s a far greater surprise for hideousness to be heroic (I don’t imagine we’ll see the first good orc in Rings of Power, for example). When our biases are deeply ingrained in our tropes and societies, how do we avoid them while still authentically telling the story we wish to tell? After all, I’m not here to tell you that you can’t write certain stories. But we can broaden our horizons to minimize real harm, and create those warm fuzzies of being seen.

Disability is the one minority group you can join at any point in your life, and likely will the older you get. That fact should be kept in mind with your world-building and character creation, and will help you divest disability from moral judgments. It’s fine to have a villain with facial scarring–only if they’re not the only character with a facial deformity. How your protagonists react to these deformities is huge. Statements like ‘now their internal and external match’ regarding a villain’s new deformity is harmful and that harm can be called out through your author voice. If the plot armor is too thick around your protagonists but not your antagonists, if disabling issues are quickly healed away for your heroes, and traumas leave no psychological impact, then you run the risk of placing moral judgments on the injuries and long lasting disabilities granted to the villains. 

Bad things don’t just happen to bad people. Life is, thankfully, not fair (after all, if it were it would mean you deserved anything terrible that happened to you, which isn’t true). Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Disability can happen to anyone, and adding disabilities to your characters and accommodations to your worlds only makes it richer. And perhaps it will leave both you and your readers with a greater empathy and understanding for the struggles disabled people face in the real world every day.

The Author Disability Checklist:

Am I afraid to put in disabled characters? Why?

Do only my antagonist characters have long lasting physical disabilities?

Are traumas that should leave long lasting chronic effects (such as chronic pain or PTSD) glossed over after they occur? 

Are disabilities used for inspiration-porn (ie: I can overcome this issue and lead a comfortable life, so therefore anyone can with enough positive thinking and gumption)?

Do you think that disabilities will distract from your plot or make it harder to write? 

If your answer was ‘yes’ to any of these, there is a good possibility that you have internalized, ableist biases that could benefit from a discussion with a disability advocate or sensitivity reader. 

An important point to keep in mind: what is ‘disabling’ will change depending on your setting and cultures. A sci-fi novel set on a spaceship in zero gravity might mean that mobility issues are non-disabling. Sight in a society designed for the blind, or a physical inability to communicate (vocal communication in a society of only skin color changing communication, for example), would create new and different disabilities for you to tackle. 

The Disabled Character Test

Inspired by the famous Bechdel Test (Does a movie have at least two women, who talk to each other, about something besides a man), I present The Disabled Character Test: Is there a disabled character, and no moral judgment attached to their disability? Like the Bechdel test, the Disabled Character Test is simple on the surface, yet frustratingly few shows, books, or video games pass this low bar. Keep in mind that, like the Bechdel test, this isn’t a test to say whether or not a given piece of media is good. Simply whether or not there is representation. 

For our inaugural edition, I present Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Is there a disabled character: Geordi LaForge, a blind engineer who uses a visor and optic implant combination to see a greater range than the regular human eye is able to. 

Is there a moral judgment attached to his disability: No! Geordi is not presented as a better person (inspiration-porn) or disabled-as-punishment (bad things only happen to bad people). 

Geordi’s visor is shown to be both a solution to problems as well as a discomfort. The visor and implants need to be maintained or else he has chronic migraines (something many people with glasses can empathize with). The visor technology can often be used to solve issues that the crew of the Enterprise encounters, but the visor isn’t the only valuable aspect of Geordi. It is part of him, but it’s not the most important part of him. It doesn’t define him. Instead, Geordi is a brilliant engineer, best friends with Data, has a terrible love life, and just happens to need accommodation for his disability. It is part of him, but it isn’t what solely defines him. 

Geordi LaForge is the first character I remember recognizing as disabled. It felt normal that of course Geordi couldn’t see without his visor as my mother has glasses. It wasn’t strange for me that, in a future with spaceships and transporters, of course there was an upgrade for glasses. Visual issues wouldn’t simply cease to exist, there would just be cool new tech to deal with it! I was a kid watching TNG, and when I saw Geordi for the first time I didn’t know about issues like eugenics. Or that eugenics and gene editing were solutions many authors and screenwriters would choose to explain away disabled people in their creative works.

About the Author

L.J. Stanton grew up in Calgary, Alberta. She attended the University of Guelph and is a former horse trainer and riding instructor. 

After immigrating to the U.S., Stanton was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. With her husband, they started the media company SWORD & BOARD LLC. Stanton’s debut novel, THE DYING SUN, THE GODS CHRONICLE: BOOK 1, won the NYC Big Book Fan Favorite in Fantasy and was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award. Stanton is a founding member of SCRIBE’S JOURNEY Podcast and AFTER THE... talk show on Twitch.

Stanton now lives in Orange County, California.

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Writing Advice: How to Write Death & A Personal Anecdote

Content Warning: Death & dying of cancer are written out in detail, with the hope of helping others both write through such experiences, and to help prepare family and friends of those fighting cancer to know what may come in the end. As such, this may be a good post to skip or read while cuddling a cat/dog/pet.

Death is messy and inconsistent. If you read any books on death (I recommend Stiff by Mary Roach, and Unnatural Causes by Dr. Richard Shepherd) what you’ll come to learn quickly is that sometimes it’s smelly, sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s quick and sometimes it’s excruciatingly slow.

As a fantasy author, death is a recurring theme. I write necromancers, after all, and death comes with the territory. While I don’t believe that every detail in a book must be accurate in fiction, some things should be close to reality. There are many myths and mysteries about death. I think that in the U.S. and Canada in particular, we hide from it too much. It is inevitable, and we should be prepared for it. Fiction can help us do just that.

Writing Death 

Regardless of what time period you’re writing in, or the world building required, there are a handful of staples regarding death. An end-of-life death doula may be an excellent pocket professional to interview (by pocket professional, I mean a professional you can keep on your phone and call/text/email with questions as they come up in your writing). These people deal with death and the rituals surrounding it intimately, making them the perfect people to reach out to. Be respectful of their time–you as a writer will be the lowest on their priority list, understandably! But if you write fantasy or science fiction, they are excellent resources for helping with your world building. If you are unable to speak with a death doula, research different cultural rituals surrounding death (both ancient and modern). That research is especially helpful when you’re considering whether there are different rituals for different types of deaths (accidental, murder, disease, war, etc). 

Small details are meaningful, more so than giving a lot of grizzly descriptions. Dehydration is common in disease deaths, which means extremely chapped lips, rough/dry skin, and bad breath happen. Modern solutions for this are dry mouth swabs (such as biotene), which can be extrapolated upon for science fiction. A damp cloth would be the closest for fantasy writers, to be applied to lips and the tongue. Cups of water are to be avoided, as the digestive tract can be in organ failure earlier than other systems, creating the hazard of accidentally drowning the person. 

After death care is important, such as cleaning the body. While not every person will evacuate their bowels upon death, depending on how they die there may be other fluids to clean up to help manage the smell. Dried drool, sweat, black bile, putrefaction, and rot all have unpleasant smells that can be carefully washed off (for writing reference: those give off different smells. Black bile, in my experience, smells like sickly sweet vomit). Posing a body should happen relatively quickly to help with both rigor and blood pooling. As gravity is the only force acting on the fluids in a body post-death, blood pools in the lowest points. That means skin will appear bruised in the lowest areas.

THE ANECDOTE: 3:00AM

She’s convulsing. When the brain dies from dehydration and malnourishment a lot of signals misfire. I left the room to grab more gauze to clean both the discharge from the constantly leaking biliary tube and the black bile coming from her mouth. When I came back, there was wailing and sobbing. My sister was on the phone with the rather useless hospice nurse, “Yes I’m sure, she’s dead, she has no pulse!” Three service dogs trying to do whatever they could to help—clearly understanding that one of the humans, one of their humans, was dead. 

My service dog, who hates cuddling, sat and accepted cuddles and gave kisses to whoever needed them. He stayed at arms-length from me, kept back as I and three other mourners attended to cleaning the body. 

Brittani died at about 3:00AM from stomach cancer, surrounded by people and animals who loved her.

It took a while for the hospice nurse to show up. It meant there was time for my sister to call the funeral home. For my friend to make sure that Brittani’s husband was outside the apartment and had a shoulder to sob on while myself and three others made Brittani look less like a corpse. Smell less like a corpse. Clean the bile from her lips and face, clean and cover the biliary tube, wash her down as best as possible and remove the pillows and blankets stained by death. Someone replaced the blankets. Someone else brushed out Brittani’s hair. We straightened her limbs, I closed her mouth and closed her eyes.  She didn’t look like she was sleeping. But the suffering was gone, and when the funeral home arrived they could move her to the gurney without having to break any limbs to fit in the body bag. Rigor doesn’t set in right away, but we weren’t sure how long they would take to get to the apartment. The funeral home was gentle and respectful, a welcome contrast from the hospice nurse. The nurse arrived before the funeral home and then had the audacity to comment on how quiet everyone was. I know there were more than a few people tempted to respond with “Yeah, it’s like someone died.”

Brittani was a woman of stories and struggles. She documented every step of her chronic illness long before cancer came on the horizon. Once diagnosed, she called the cancer ‘Hei Hei’ and refused to let it be mysterious or powerful. She was a teacher, her greatest gift was her passion for learning. She taught many about how to enjoy life. And I don’t imagine she’d mind teaching about the realities of death. Brittani never wanted disability, disease, or death to be frightening to those around her. With utmost care, she always promoted education.

Thank you, Brittani. I’ll never mix up “bison” and “buffalo” ever again. 

https://www.forevermissed.com/brittani-marinsky/about

Support Independent Creativity! Become a Patron Patrons receive early access, workshops, bookmarks and exclusive merchandise, their names in book acknowledgments, and more!

L.J. Stanton’s novel, THE DYING SUN, THE GODS CHRONICLE: BOOK 1, debuted in June 2020. It won Fan Favorite in Fantasy at the NYC Big Book Awards. Stanton is a founding member of SCRIBE’S JOURNEY podcast, AFTER THE… talk show, and a co-owner of Sword & Board LLC.

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November Edition: The Household

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October Edition: The Household

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After The Night: Castlevania Season 2

First, we brought you After the Weave, which discussed each episode of The Wheel of Time. Next came After the Roll, which analyzed each episode of The Legend of Vox Machina. Now comes After the Night, which discusses Castlevania! Based on the Konami Japanese video game series Castlevania, this animated dark fantasy television series is made for the Netflix streaming service and is produced by Frederator Studios' Kevin Kolde and Fred Seibert. Join hosts Travis J. Croken and L.J. Stanton as they discuss each episode and break down the series' writing, dialogue, storylines, and various arcs. Due to host Billy J. MacPherson being on a side quest, look for special guests to join in the fun.

Follow The Calm Scribe on social media for more information as we roll out our latest "After the..." series. The official launch date of After the Night is Sept 23th at 8PM EST live on Twitch.tv/thecalmscribe.