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We are sloooowly creeping up on being 2/3rds funded on the crowdfunding campaign for Aether Beyond the Binary, an anthology of 17 stories by queer authors starring non-binary main characters in aetherpunk settings! It’ll definitely be a relief when we hit that wonderful 100%. Don’t forget to share Aether Beyond the Binary with friends who you think might be interested in the project!
Head on over to our Kickstarter Campaign page NOW to learn waaaay more about this project, and read on to get to know Scarlett Gale, read an interview with her, and check out an excerpt from her contribution!
About Scarlett Gale: Scarlett Gale is the author of His Secret Illuminations and His Sacred Incantations. Long ago, under another name, she was the co-author of Needles and Artifice (Cooperative Press; 2012), featuring a rollicking romantic steampunk adventure novella and associated knitting patterns, of which she also designed several. She writes and produces fringe theatre plays based on B-movies, such as Bodacious Barbarian Babes vs. The Indigo Empress and Showgirls of Beast Island. She is a co-producer of the Alison-Bechdel-approved Bechdel Test Burlesque, which in 2017 was included in the Women and Gender Studies curriculum at the University of Oregon. She lives in Seattle with her wife where she gardens, knits, reads, and drinks warm beverages. Unsurprisingly, she also has cats.
Links: Personal Website | Tumblr | Bluesky
This is Scarlett’s second time contributing to a Duck Prints Press anthology. A short story by her was also included in our debut anthology Add Magic to Taste. Learn more about Scarlett’s other published works.
An Interview with Scarlett Gale
What motivates you to create?
Spite and love in equal measure.
What are your goals as a creator?
To make the world a kinder, hornier place one story at a time.
Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?
I suppose Planster is the best description, though I think that makes me sound more like someone who has a lot of plants (she says, sitting next to a glass cabinet full of houseplants). For my longer works I usually start with a vibe and a general idea of the arc and write with no real outline until I’m about two-thirds through the story, at which point I will sit down and roughly bullet point the scenes I still want to write, arrange them into story order, and use that as a reference to finish the piece. Why when I’m two-thirds through? Because at that point I’ve had enough Shower Ideas that if I don’t document them somewhere, I risk forgetting to put them in, and my Shower Ideas are the most inspired parts of my writing!
What do you consider to be your strengths as a creator?
Wordcount. Good god, wordcount. I am the rare writer who can just sit down at a computer and bang out several hundred words in twenty minutes without second-guessing myself or worrying if the words are good enough. This makes me simultaneously the best and worst person to have in your writering group.
What do you consider to be your weaknesses as a creator?
Also wordcount. I think every story I’ve submitted to the Press has started out two thousand words above the limit, which means we have to do sooooo much editing. Goodbye, my beautiful words!
Do you like having background noise when you create? What do you listen to? Does it vary depending on the project, and if so, how?
Yes! It makes writing feel less lonely, since I do a lot of it only accompanied by my cats. I listen to music at a medium to low volume that either has no lyrics, or lyrics in a language I don’t speak so I don’t get distracted by the words. I actually bought the cheapest Pandora subscription specifically for writing music. My favorite stations are:
- Lofi Chill
- Bonobo*
- Mikel & Gamechops
- Radio Asian Kung-Fu Generation (a recent addition)
*Fun story about the group Bonobo: The morning after our wedding, my whole family crowded into our tiny house to watch us open our wedding gifts. I had given my siblings control over distributing the drink tickets, which meant that after they handed them out to the guests, they used the remaining tickets to get SPECTACULARLY plastered, and were thus deeply hungover. My wife made loads of coffee while everyone grazed on the catering leftovers, and in the interest of creating a calming atmosphere, we put on a Bonobo album. Everyone liked the music, to the point that they repeatedly asked the name of the group, which meant my wife and I kept repeating, with increasing exasperation, “BONOBO!! LIKE THE MONKEY!!!!” It is my primary memory of that morning.
What are your favorite snacks and/or drinks to consume while creating?
Remember to eat? While I’m writing?? You think I’m sensible or something?! (I enjoy a cup of tea, either green, decaf black, or herbal, depending on the time of day.)
Tell us about your pet(s).
We currently have three cats: CeeCee, Matcha, and Gyoza. CeeCee (the Lady Catherine the Purr) is our most recent addition from March of 2023. She’s a fifteen year old scrungly tiny black goblin who knows exactly what she wants out of life: Food, sippies from the bathroom sink, belly rubs, and shoulder rides. If we are not providing any of these at the speed she would prefer, she screams at us. She’s PERFECT.
Matcha is an eight-pound calico brat with the sass of at least four cats crammed into her tiny body. Her favorite things in life are causing trouble and rubbing her face on my hands when I’m trying to write.
Gyoza is a sixteen pound gray tabby with the physical properties of a water balloon full of pudding. He loves to try to “play” with Matcha, which results in her screaming like she’s being murdered. His other favorite thing to do is play in the toilet and then come step on us with his wet toilet feet, because he’s the worst.
Please enjoy this festive photo of the three of them that I had to photoshop from three individual photos, since all of them hate each other.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Always take the opportunity to use the restroom when it’s available to you. Solid life advice applicable to any situation, really!
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?
I had a Jimmy John’s delivery guy tell me I should lie to people and say my fire-engine-red hair was natural, does that count? (I stared him down blankly long enough that he spontaneously apologized.)
If you could give one piece of advice to a new creator who came to you for help, what would that advice be?
Just write it. You can fix the words once they’re on the page, but excessive planning and worrying and worldbuilding won’t help you if you don’t write the words. Just write it! Let it be bad! Fix it in post! Write the damn thing!!!
What’s one thing (style, genre, etc.) that you think you’ll never do, and why not?
Write the type of fantasy book that has a map in the front and a glossary of terms, only because I personally am not motivated to do that level of worldbuilding. I appreciate the people who want to do that, but I guarantee that as a reader I will skip the map and then probably the glossary in order to get to the STORY, which tells you where my priorities lie.
Scarlett’s Contribution to Aether Beyond The Binary
Title: N(ae)ghbours
Tags: attraction at first sight, bisexual, city mouse and country mouse, competence kink, didn’t know they were dating, f/nb, farmer, first kiss, genderfluid, getting together, humor, idiots to lovers, meet cute, misgendering (unintentional), omg they were neighbors, panic attacks (mentions of), present tense, self-esteem issues, third person limited pov
Excerpt:
“But you were going to tell me what you’re researching?”
Ah. Well. “This might be boring and hard to explain.”
Rin waves a fork at the breakfast spread between them. “You have at least five pancakes’ worth of time. Hit me.”
Dahlia takes a steadying sip of tea. She explains about greenhouses and other protected growing areas for delicate crops, and the advantages and disadvantages of using them on a large scale. She explains that her family has a small greenhouse for starts, but most of their land is open-air, which means they get the advantages that come with that, but also the issues—they’re at the mercy of the weather, insects, birds…
Or they would be if not for the aether tunnel.
“It’s like a hoop house,” Dahlia explains, pulling up a photo of a hoop house on her phone to show Rin. “Normally, you cover the frame with mesh, or clear bio-plastic if you’re trying to trap the heat and control the amount of water it gets, but…”
“That’d rip right off in a big storm, right? And how do you get in there when you need to do plant stuff?”
