AQUEDUCT PRESS 2020 WORK TO STRETCH THE IMAGINATION AND STIMULATE THOUGHT 1 New Releases Unbecoming The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 12 by Lesley Wheeler’ Boundaries & Bridges (ISBN: 978-1-61976-167-4) edited by Isabel Schechter & Michi Trota What if women gained uncanny power at middle age? (ISBN: 978-1-61976-191-9) In Unbecoming, Cyn’s family is shattering and she is at war with her own body. Then, when her best friend andThis Tiptree/Otherwise collection includes Award-winningessays from first-time authors and glamorous stranger takes her place—Fee Ellis, a Welsh WisCon attendees and former Guests of Honor, fans flies off on a mysterious faculty exchange program, a poet who makes it all look easy. But it may be costly to less well-off, abled and disabled, white and POC, young welcome this charismatic outsider to their little college andeditors, old, cisparents het and and LGBTQ+ child-free, attendees, English affluent speakers and and town. Cyn’s best friend, meanwhile, communicates only Spanish speakers, and hopefully more than just these in ominous fragments. categories can capture. “A middle-aged college professor taps into her magical ability in the midst of personal and professional and thoughts about WisCon. Structural changes in the conventionTheir essays that cover break a wide down range barriers of experiences to attendance with (The Receptionist and Other Tales).… Wheeler’s prose and participation are important, and some of the ischaos gorgeous in this and excellent her characters feminist arefantasy marvelously from Wheeler essays recount the process and struggles of creating detailed.… Readers will be taken with this powerful space and programming for POC attendees, access for and deeply satisfying tale.” (Starred Review) disabled attendees, and affordability for all attendees. The words we use matter, as essays that talk about Publishers Weekly, April 2020 feminist terms, gendered language, and even the name “… Unbecoming is sage, funny, and warm, like a of the Tiptree/Otherwise award (which is almost long conversation with your best friend about all the strange and wonderful things that have been happening to her lately. Lesley Wheeler’s writing is so withininextricably WisCon identified and beyond, with WisCon)as it spills demonstrate. out into the deft and magical that I’m convinced that she must have widerThe definition world—including of “community” online is spaces. also examined, both learned it from the fairies. This smart, beguiling debut fantasy casts a spell that readers won’t want to break.” from Isabel Schechter’s Introduction At WisCon, I’ve seen how both the thoughtful The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic implementation of boundaries and necessary breaking Emily Croy Barker, author of of them, can create space for connections to grow “…a delightful, beautifully written 21st century gothic novel set at a Virginia university and also in the and become bridges to deeper knowledge, greater borderlands between the literal and the metaphorical, understanding, and stronger communities. between the realistic and the fantastic. Like all […] universities, this one is a school for wizards and Running through all of these essays is a common conjurers. Professors offer portals to undiscovered thread of appreciation for WisCon’s community: for countries and enchanted lands. Portals lead to demons the challenges to their perceptions and assumptions, and horror and death too.” for the dedication and effort of WisCon’s volunteers, Will do Magic for the openness and empathy of attendees in for Small Change and The Master of Poisons conversations that aren’t always easy, but often Andrea Hairston, author of necessary..... from Michi Trota’s Introduction FORTHCOMING Raven Nothing by Som Paris (2020) Damned Pretty Things by Holly Wade Matter (2020) Goddess Bandit of the Thousand Arms by Hal Y. Zhang (2020) Disease by Sarah Tolmie (2020) For the Good of the Realm by Nancy Jane Moore (2021) Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin edited by R.B. Lemberg and Lisa M. Bradley (2021) 2 New Conversation Pieces Finalist for a Lambda SF award Vol. 72 — City of a Thousand Feelings by Anya Johanna DeNiro Vol. 69 — The Rampant: A Novella by Julie C. Day (ISBN: 978-1-61976-177-3) (ISBN: 978-1-61976-169-8) “Surreal and lyrical, if opaque, this profound fantasy “Equal parts playful and heartbreaking, this acceptance. An unnamed trans woman narrator apocalyptic novella offers one-of-a-kind answers meetsfrom DeNiro the fellow (Tyrannia) trans woman explores to whomthe struggle the book for is addressed, whose name changes over the course of Bareilles, both 16, have spent most of their lives enduringabout the theend nightmare of the world. of the Gillian never-ending Halkey and rapture. Emelia It’s been a decade since the ancient Sumerian gods the novel from Melody to Mystery to Mercy, when they descended on Indiana, promising that the chosen andboth 15 join years a ragtag of loneliness army of exiledpass before women the intent two women on people would ascend to Nibiru, but the terrifying reunite.storming Together the city thatthey excluded decide to them. sneak The back army into falls the entity called the Rampant—the last of the Evil city to steal the city’s blueprints and use them to build a new, inclusive home of their own.… seems to have missed the memo. Until he shows up, Messengers heralding the destruction of civilization— Publishers Weekly, November 2019 eating people. It’s up to Emelia and Gillian to descend the rapture can’t happen. Meanwhile, bored gods are to the Netherworld, using Gillian’s prophetic dreams Vol. 73 — Ancient Songs of Us as guidance, in hopes of liberating the Rampant so the judging can begin and the suffering can end.… This by Jean LeBlanc clever and surprisingly fun take on the rapture is the The poems in Ancient Songs of Us suggest that no perfect theological horror story.” song is “ancient,” that every story crosses time and transcends place to remind us what it means to be Publishers Weekly, Aug. 2019 human. Love, hatred, fury, longing, ennui, sadness— Finalist for a Bram Stoker Award these states of heart and mind in all their nuanced Vol. 70 — Mary Shelley Makes a Monster by Octavia Cade hueso verflow from these poems. (ISBN: 978-1-61976-173-5) Vol. 74 — The Adventure of the Naked Guide monster—built from her life rather than her pen, born by Cynthia Ward outAll our of biography monsters insteadare mirrors. of blood—outlives And when Mary its Shelley’s mother, The third novella in the Blood Thirsty Agent series. that monster goes looking for a substitute. But all the The earth is hollow—a trackless primordial monster really knows of women is that women write, wilderness. It’s also the new front in the Great daughter—must locate Britain’s missing vampire knowand so what the search mutilated for a things replacement can be madetakes fromit first ink to and slayer—herWar. Here, the own British mother. spy ThenLucy she’sHarker—Dracula’s separated from mirrors….Katherine Mansfield, and then to other women who her lover, the vampire spy Carmilla, and captured by Vol. 71 — Articulation Germany’s most brilliant scientist, the sinister Dr by Cesi Davidson dangerous opponents are on her own side. (ISBN: 978-1-61976-175-9) Krüger. Now, Agent Harker may discover her most “In these fanciful, often hilarious plays you will discover a fantastic variety of characters—familiar Vol. 75 — Sacred Summer by Cassandra Rose Clarke store and bet on horses, bananas and radishes, who In the empty halls of a house on the edge of the woods, discussnursery-rhyme their ill-fated figures destinies, who work birds in a who ninety-nine-cent sing songs a dancer faces the aftermath of a career-ending injury of unrequited love, time travelers who skip about from and subsequent divorce. Caribbean present-day to slavery-era Virginia, bunnies who meet in support groups. Twenty years earlier, on the land where her house would be built, two boys died violently and mysteriously while recording a music video for their band, leaving one survivor. “Many of the plays will have you laughing out loud. But they also explore serious issues and wrenching Something sleeps in the woods beyond the house, and troubles. Little Bo Peep finds her marriage destroyed son/daughter.by the gambling A habitsyoung ofman Big dreams Man Blue. of different A bunny wake.… when the dancer finds the last musician, it will start to incarnationsmother struggles of his to drug-addicted accept her gender-fluid mother, hoping for maternal love to conquer his pain. A traumatized African-American woman seeks to wash away the obsessionFrom Rhysling told entirelyAward finalist in verse. Cassandra Rose Clarke bloody stains of a racially motivated violent assault.” comes a visceral examination of dance, music, and from the Foreword by Zachary Sklar 3 Trapped in the R.A.W. by Kate Boyes (ISBN: 978-1-61976-159-9) A young woman working alone in a small special collections library is trapped in the building when invaders overrun her town. She barricades the doors, peeks through a window, and watches in horror as people are murdered outside. The invaders wear uniforms that cover them completely, making it impossible for her to see their faces. intend to annihilate it. “AHowever, very promising she realizes debut, at with once both that realistic they doand not fantastic intend elements to subjugate deployed the to population. build a convincing They future world and characters whose fate it’s easy to care about.” Peter Heck, Asimov’s, February 2020 in the face of uncertainty. Kaylee is a special collections librarian who’s trapped in the university’s“Boyes’s metafictional rare books SF library debut when convincingly aliens invade depicts Earth….