Hi there!

We wouldn't blame anybody for asking "What's happening with Beating Hearts & Battle-Axes?". We've asked that a few times ourselves.

It's not my place to violate the privacy of our editor or contributors by giving details of the serious medical issues I alluded to above, so I'll just to have to ask you to have faith I'm not kidding when I say I read specific words in the emails making me aware of these issues which you would never want to hear a doctor say to you.

As publisher I had to decide whether or not to replace contributors, perhaps even take over as editor, and in the end I decided to stick with our team. They are the people whose names were on the tin when you chose to back this project, and they're people I strongly believe in, who I want to stand by in their trying time.

I invoked our other projects above because I do understand that some of you have perhaps backed crowdfunding projects in the past which may have vanished for long periods or failed entirely to materialize, and want to reassure you this is not that. However this last stretch goes precisely, it will result in you getting your book.

Thankfully there are some fun items I can share with you now! First up, the bookmarks are in:

Secondly, we'd like to share with you one of the six original illustrations Trevor Ngwenya is creating for the anthology:

Sometimes when fleeing angry people, you lose your pants! It happens to the best of us.

And now some behind-the-scenes insights as written by our editor:

Hello everyone!

This summer/autumn/early winter has been a busy one fraught with peril—some real, some hypothetical, some yet lingering over our collective heads. Editing the stories for this anthology has been one of the things keeping me going through it all, and I am glad to say we are onto revisions.

As a developmental editor, one of my great joys is in finding the core of the story—the reason that story must exist, the thread which binds it all together. Most of the time, I’m not the final boss; I’m simply tasked with fishing out that core of the story and helping the author thread it through more thoroughly (say that five times fast!) before it moves on to its venue and final editors. It’s quite fulfilling to be the executive editor in this scenario.

For an anthology like this one, I read each story independently as it arrives: the discovery phase. As they accumulate, I check the stories against each other—not for comparisons’ sake but for theme, topicality, tone, flavor, and other unquantifiable elements. How do each of these stories go together? How do they fit the theme and the trappings of the subgenres I’m actively blending for this project? In this instance, our stories must balance the elements of two subgenres with specific expectations while also breaking new ground and being delightful reads.

For my methodology and purposes, I need to know the voice of each one, to unify them, aiming for a set of stories in conversation with each other. As I read, I make notes for all the things editors make notes for, but I also write an edit letter alongside it that sets out a more cohesive vision. This is, in part, because I know with my unique brain maladies that I’m more likely to cover everything I have in mind for a particular story if there are two different places to put my ideas and revisions forward and I’m less likely to lose them.

The biggest surprise for me in editing these stories was how lovely and varied the romances in them—and how little, overall, I had to do in initial edits for that romance to shine through. A significant reason “romantasy,” a buzzy catchword, stays in the zeitgeist is at least in part because it’s a powerful tool for character depth. Here we have two subgenres with a lot of codified expectations and tropes, both with limitless grounds for subversion and growth, and six stories that I think exemplify both Sword & Sorcery and Romantic Fantasy, with gritty adventures and unique relationships at their collective cores. 

Hello, publisher speaking again.

So yes, in short we are aiming for May with the possibility of June as the release month.

We'll update more frequently and narrow that down to a more specific date as the release grows closer.

We are grateful for your patience, and look forward to bringing you sunnier news in our next update!

Sincerely,