Meet the “Scholarly Pursuits” Authors: Bettina Juszak and Rhosyn Goodfellow

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Our Kickstarter campaign to fund publishing our next anthology, Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories, has 10 days left, and we’re less than $700 from our goal!!!

Sounds like a perfect time to share excerpts from two more of our contributors…


 

Author: Bettina Juszak (she/her)
Biography: Originally from Germany, Bettina has (so far) spent time in the US, the UK, and Canada. She is particularly interested in exploring questions of music and language in imaginary worlds, aided by degrees in linguistics and literature. When not writing, she loses herself in hobbies such as archery, cross-stitch, attempting to learn yet another language, and complaining about the amount of space her book and notebook collection takes up. Her first published work appeared in the Upon a Twice Time anthology published by Air and Nothingness Press, followed by Duck Prints Press’s Aether Beyond the Binary anthology.

Story Title: The Cat in the Library

Excerpt: 

Despite the size of the library of the University of Forestedge, remarkably few students venture past the first floor of study nooks and general reference tomes. On the quiet upper floors, its age becomes an almost physical sensation pressing on Chief Librarian Galivan’s shoulders. He loves the accumulated weight of centuries of history and the atmosphere created by the interplay of age and size and purpose in the vast collection. When he’s feeling restless, there are the special collections to comfort him, some noisy with the fluttering of magic-drenched pages, some redolent with scents courtesy of past book-perfuming trends, some kept bright to confine the shadows in forbidden tomes.

His work only requires Galivan to be in the library from the first teaching bell in the morning to the last one in the afternoon, and he does usually go home for dinner, but he could happily spend every moment here and never become bored.

All of which to say that Galivan has developed a bit of a sixth sense for the building and its inhabitants, and so it only takes a brief search for him to locate the intruding cat on the third floor, in the meteorology section. 

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Author: Rhosyn Goodfellow (xe/xir)
Biography: Rhosyn Goodfellow is an author of queer speculative fiction and romance living with xir spouse and two dogs in the Pacific Northwest, where xe is sad to report that xe has not yet mysteriously disappeared nor encountered any cryptids. Xir hobbies include spoiling the aforementioned dogs, drinking inadvisable amounts of coffee, and running unreasonably long distances very slowly. Xe’s secretly just a collection of loosely related stories dressed up in a meat suit.

Story Title: Some Strange Alchemy

Excerpt: 

The man’s head snaps up, tears streaming from too-wide eyes. “The shadows have eyes!” He holds out his hands beseechingly. “So many eyes, and they’re all opening.”

Wilde stops in their tracks, well outside reach of the man’s grasping hands.

“Do you know how much the shadows can hear with that many eyes?” the man asks plaintively. “How much they can taste?”

“I don’t,” Wilde says calmly, sinking down into a crouch so they’re nearly eye-level with the man. “But why don’t you tell me about it while my friend calls someone to help you? Do you have someone you want us to call? A friend or a family member?”

“No!” the man shouts, scuttling backward. “No, they have to stay away! Keep my family away from the eyes!”

“Okay.” Wilde holds out a placating hand, and Zinnia slips her phone out of her pocket. “Okay, we won’t ask any of your friends or family to come.”

Zinnia opens her phone, intending to call the King County mental health emergency line, but she’s interrupted by another shout.

“Over here! I hear another one!”

A few seconds later, two figures dressed in the unmistakable uniform of the Arcane Protection Agency round the corner.

This, Zinnia thinks, can’t be good.