This series started, first and foremost, as a joke — What would happen if a vampire and a werewolf became best friends? The vampire just wandering into a room with a blood pack, sipping from it like it’s a Capri Sun, like, “…Sup?”

The story has changed quite a bit since that starting joke. Multiple books, many illustrations, and countless sleepless nights talking about our two main characters later, my best friend Auden Eris-Everen and I present to you… this frickin’ thing. 

Lemon Balm is the first of five books. In it, you will find characters both isolated and yearning for connection. You will find characters who are in situations both advantageous and cruel; Witches who are forced to help Wolves keep the Supernatural world of Shadows quiet and away from human eyes; Vampires hunted to the brink of extinction; mercenaries who do not care for the sentience of the people that they are hunting. Witches are some of the most oppressed in the World of Shadows, and where Acanthus and Cypress are not Witches, they are intertwined with the Covens in the Eastern United States and will stop at nothing to help their friends.  On top of that, Acanthus is one of the founders of The Night Garden — a series of unmarked roads to get Supernaturals in danger to safety. 

An epic series of tales involving losing your place, finding it, feeling as if you’ve failed, fighting wars, losing faith in dreams, being kind to one another, and ultimately realizing a literal village of support is behind you, later — and we still adore these two nerds. Add in a rich and diverse cast of Witches, Werewolves, and Vampires, all fighting to both be free and be their authentic selves, and you have the series. Tales From The Night Garden is an epic exploration of monsters finding out what makes you human.

If LGBTQIA+ (particularly ace-spectrum nonbinary leads) romance, drama, fantasy, dark themes, and humor (sometimes gallows humor) are your thing, perhaps you’ll adore Cypress and Acanthus, as well.

This campaign is to raise money to publish this beast. Each pledge is guaranteed to have a copy of the book included. 

$1,200 Initial Goal

If we can fund the project, then we can finish paying our editor and get the book out on time, and early to all of you wonderful backers! 

Next stretch goal will be revealed if we hit this goal.

PLEASE NOTE: The current political situation in the US makes things very hard to figure out in terms of shipping. Navigating tariffs and Because of this, we have limited the shipping options to USA, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Because of this, we will be charging shipping separately AFTER the campaign during the pledge management. These are rough estimates for how much shipping will be. Keep in mind that if you grab multiple books, then shipping will be more.

If we do not offer shipping to your country you may consider backing at the base $10 tier. This still gives us a boost towards our goals and you'll still get to read the book!

Our expected delivery date for E-Rewards: By the end of August 2025.
Our expected delivery date for physical rewards: By the end of September 2025.

We expect this to go fairly smoothly! That being said, this is our first time crowdfunding something, and we're a small team and very much human! Here's what we can anticipate as potential problems.

Editing: We have been working closely with our editor throughout this project and have had an extremely positive experience so far! That being said, she is a human with other obligations and clients. She needs time to get through the text and, when she's finished, we need time to read her notes, make the edits, and sweep through any final issues in the text before we send it off.

Printing: This is our debut as authors, and it is a big task to find printers. That being said, we have our printers selected and a relationship started. We are hoping to have books in hand by the beginning of September. Our printer prints in the USA, so we shouldn't have too many unexpected delays or issues.

But, printers run into problems all the time; supply shortages, unexpected delays, shipping problems, printing errors, holiday and event delays, etc. We're self-publishing through one of the largest accepted self-publishing platforms out there, and will keep on top of this! We'll update frequently as we go through this process. 

Shipping: Packages can get lost; if this happens, we'll try and send a replacement if possible. Shipping can take longer than expected.

The series is written by two people, and you can find the information below! Artemis is also the illustrator of the series, so all of the artwork is drawn by them.

Artemis Quinn (he/they) is also known as Vamp or VampireAntihero in most of his social media interactions. He is nonbinary, and happily married to his husband. Originally from the city of Poughkeepsie, New York, he currently lives in Wisconsin. Artemis is a fulltime freelance artist, and his work is a comic semi-realistic style and, much like their writing, their personal work is largely focused in dark fantasy, horror, and supernatural elements; shedding light on topics such as mental health, LGBTQIA+ experiences, and isolation. He also acts in a local theatre troupe on a volunteer basis. It is their goal to work on stories that can bring meaningful change to the world.

Auden Eris-Everen (they/them) also known as Lyfe or Lyfeisgr8 in all their social media platforms, is non-binary and living their best life with two cats, a fish tank and a three snakes. They also live in Wisconsin. Currently they are going to school for baking and pastry management, being 7 feral beasts in a war kilt and trench coat, and juggling too many hobbies to count. They mainly work with fiber arts, and sourdough bread. In writing, Auden focuses on hard topics like mental health, and family dysfunction, and how to overcome. Auden's goal in life is to be the change they want to see in the world, and to bring light to those around them.