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Tag: Reprise
From the BumblePuppy’s nest #002
Of pride and poetry
(TD/DR:)
- Our most recent release, Skipping Stones, was published on May 27th, 2024, and is now available through most of your favourite online vendors in both paper and electronic editions, as well as the behemoth, Amazon. Of course, you can also order it, and all our books, directly from our store;
- The Bumble Puppy Press is proud of our queer-related novels, Cascade and Reprise, both of which are now on sale at a 25% discount in all formats;
- I discuss my own longstanding relationships (or lack thereof?) with Pride and some of the LGBTQ communities;
- For Ottawa folks, we have a table at the upcoming Ottawa Small Press Book Fair on Saturday, June 22, 2024, at the Tom Brown Arena between noon and 5:00 PM;
- Marie-Andrée and Adrienne were interviewed on the Meter&Mayhem videolog on the 15th of June. You can see it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ucYRKvaQM;
- And a reminder about the Skipping Stones virtual book launch on June 26!
Proud of our queer books!
June 19, 2024 — It seems as if June is Pride Month everywhere but here in Ottawa, where for some reason it is celebrated in August. Which goes some way towards explaining why The BumblePuppy Press is only now taking note of this year’s festivities.
But only some way. Other reasons include the fact that BPPress is a small operation, and that I am juggling a lot of plates (while riding a metaphorical unicycle). And also (full disclosure, as the kids put it these days): I am a cis, white, almost completely straight, male who is approaching 60 with alarming rapidity (February 2025 is in — what? — less that eight months, isn’t it? Dear god …) — but I digress.
As said old(ish), cis, straight, white guy, what does Pride mean to me anyway? After all, I’ve hated parades at least as far back as the early 1970s, when my parents took me to the Santa Claus Parade in Montreal and I was bored silly.
Could it be that I am just cynically using Pride to try to sell a few books, with no more genuine concern for the problems facing “the gayz” than, say, Scotiabank or Loblaws has for any of the “social justice” causes they put their publicity machines behind?
Well, no.
In fact I do have some skin in the proverbial game, even though I am not, myself, a member of the queer community.
I have gay and bisexual friends and relatives; I have at least one trans acquaintance (that I know of); and many years ago, a dyke friend of mine made me very (yes) proud by declaring me an Honorary Queer (along with gifting me a subscription to Diane DiMassa’s marvellous zine, Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist — thanks, Erin!).
(I realize (and realized) that “the gayz” don’t actually have a formal system of handing out such accolades; I still took it seriously.)
The most important reason, of course, is that human rights are (or damned well should be!) human rights. The sex or gender of the people we are attracted to are nobody’s business but our own (provided, of course, that we act on those attractions only with people able to consent; pedophiles remain beyond the proverbial pale).
And so it is that (yes, again) I am proud to have published both Rachel Rosen’s Cascade and Zilla Novikov’s Reprise, novels that are not about being queer, but both of whichtreat queerness as a normal aspect of the human condition.
So, halfway through Pride month, I’ve found the time to put on my marketing hat and do something about it: both Cascade and Reprise are available on sale at 25% percent off through our shop! The sale will continue until the end of June, so get ’em while they’re cheap!
The Ottawa Small Press Book Fair
Local folks, all of our books will be available this coming Saturday, June 22, at The Ottawa Small Press Book Fair, once again taking place at the spacious and airy Tom Brown Arena, 141 Bayview Station Road.
Of course, it won’t just be The BumblePuppy Press holding court, but the cream of Ottawa’s small press crop. If you love books and zines, you owe it to yourself to come out and browse (and buy).
Reminder: Online book-launch for Skipping Stones
If you missed the announcement the first time, our most recent (chap)book, Skipping Stones is getting a virtual launch, even as I work at getting its authors out into the three dimensional world as well.
Adrienne Stevenson and Marie-Andrée Auclair will host that online event via Zoom at 7:00 PM eastern time on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. Each of them will read from Skipping Stones, and that will be followed by an interview with the authors.
The event is free, but registration is needed to take part. Please visit https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/chapbook-launch-skipping-stones-tickets-914917481817 to register; it’s going to be a lot of fun!
Marie-Andrée and Adrienne also appeared on the Meter&Mayhem podcast, first posted on June 15th. It’s on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ucYRKvaQM.
From the BumblePuppy’s nest #001
Monday, June 11, 2024 — Not to complain, but being a one-man operation (while also being a full-time papa) isn’t easy. Priorities clash with priorities and all too often they cancel one another out.
One thing I have been intending to do for a long time, is to write a regular (weekly? monthly? Time will tell) update about what is going on at The BumblePuppy Press. And this, at last, is my first (published) attempt.
What is going on, you ask? Quite a lot, actually. So I think it’s best to work from the future into the (recent) past for this opening effort.
June 26: Save the date! Online book-launch for Skipping Stones
First, our most recent (chap)book, Skipping Stones (which you can buy here, along with the usual online options) is getting a virtual launch, even as I work at getting its authors out into the three dimensional world as well.
Adrienne Stevenson and Marie-Andrée Auclair will host that online event via Zoom at 7:00 PM eastern time on June 26, 2024. A reading from Skipping Stones by each will be followed by an interview with the authors.
The event is free, but registration is needed to take part. Please visit https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/chapbook-launch-skipping-stones-tickets-914917481817 to register; it’s going to be a lot of fun!
• • •
Zilla Novikov talks Cascade
On May 21st of this year, Reprise author Zilla Novikov made an appearance on This Book I Read … THE PODCAST, in which she discusses (among many other things), Rachel Rosen’s Cascade. Needless to say, this too is worth your time (as are both those novels!).
That interview is available from your favourite podcast source or directly from Beyond Cataclysm.
• • •
Wizards and Spaceships podcast hosts David Clink and Rachel A. Rosen. And speaking of podcasts, Rachel started co-hosting one of her own in April. With poet David Clink, Wizards and Spaceships “… cast[s] spells and cast[s] off on brave new voyages while pondering life, the universe, and everything all at once. And the deep questions – Are we alone? Does magic exist? Tights – yes or no? And why are there no ugly people in space?”
• • •
That’s it for now. Our books are available from the usual online vendors and, of course, directly from our shop. I know I am biased, but it’s true: when you’re a small press like this one, all of our books are good books.
Happy reading!
Geoffrey Dow, publisher
No picture, because it happened
A father’s love, a publisher’s distaster
Well, there is a picture — a repeat, no less — but no un-boxing photo or video. Monday, June 26, 2023 — Friday saw two things of note happen to your obedient servant.
First, I took my nearly four-year old daughter to a nearby wading pool, where she for the first time ventured into the deep end (nearly neck-high on her) for the first time. I of course, stayed close, while the water lapped at my thighs. Such was my enthusiasm for her pleasure in exploring the waters, that at one point I decided to give her a lesson in basic kicking techniques.
I brought her back to the steps and stretched out, placing my hands on the top steps and kicking up a storm with my legs and feet. And yes, completely forgetting that I was still wearing my phone in that o! so sexy belt holster at my side.
By the time I realized my mistake, the damage was done, and when I returned home to find a box of paper copies of Zilla Novikov’s Reprise on my doorstep, there could be no unboxing video or photo.
Do we now really have paper copies available for sale? You bet we do! But for the moment, you’ll need to order one to see it. Our store is right here: bppress.ca/shop/, and if you’re within cycling distance of downtown Ottawa, contact me first to arrange delivery for only $5.00 (or nothing at all, if you can come to me.
And so, the continue the adventures of a (very) small press. (I can only thank all the gods in which I do not believe that my old phone was already past the point of its planned obsolescence, though that is still small comfort.)
Geoff
Reprise is published!
Reprise is now available from your favourite online vendor, or right here at the BPPress store! June 19, 2023 — It has been, as the song says, a long and winding road, but Zilla Novikov‘s remarkable, and remarkably funny, debut novel, Reprise has been published.
Called “a breakneck journey, a loveletter to being a nerd, and a good time” by the Independent Book Review, Novikov’s post-modern gothic is the novel that might have resulted had Jane Austen and Douglas Adams managed to transcend time and space and produce a child.
To quote Cascade‘s Rachel A. Rosen, “If you like your pop culture nerdy, your queers messy, and your time travel criminally clever, this book is for you.”
Electronic versions of Reprise are available from The BumblePuppy Press Store now, and we expect paperback copies to arrive within the week. If you can’t wait, click here to buy from the online vendor of your choice!
Happy reading, and please remember: if you like this, or any of our books, leave a review! Especially for a small press, reviews are the best way convince a writer you like they should create another book!
Reprise Kickstarter is off
June 19, 2023: UPDATE — Sadly, this Kickstarter was not a success. No one who backed it will be charged. However, Reprise has now been published, and is available from the usual online vendors as well as in our own store (we expect to have paper copies available by Sunday, June 25th, but ebooks can be had now).
She’s got a doctorate and nothing to lose
He’s got a time machine and a hot wife
Which is deadlier, love or science?May 21, 2023 — It’s been a long time coming, but the Kickstarter campaign for Zilla Novikov’s singular debut novel, Reprise: A Post-Modern Comedy of Manners, is here at last!
A caustically funny time-travel romance that blends dark academia with with timey-wimey complexity, D&D with S&M, and leaves the reader wondering if the protagonist is a murderer or victim — or both — Reprise is the novel that would have been written by the love-child of Jane Austen and the Marquis de Sade, had she been raised by Douglas Adams.
Reprise will make you laugh, gasp, and maybe, cheer.
Most people play ‘F**k, Marry, Kill’ as a game of hypotheticals, but Eddy Courant’s life takes an unconventional path when Dr. François Gagnon offers Eddy a postdoc position studying time loops. This unexpected chance to revive her career pulls Eddy from a deep depression. She loses herself to the thrill of science, and to the simpler pleasures in life – like flirting with her boss, seducing his wife, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with their son.
That is, until the men funding the research demand ever-more ground-breaking data to justify keeping her on board – after all, they have a war to start.
Eddy is plunged into ever darker and more violent acts to appease the funders. So long as she’s employed, she doesn’t have to face the consequences of replaying countless deaths – including her own. But keeping track of shifting timelines while her own mental state deteriorates means losing the ability to tell real life from its shadow.
If you like your pop culture nerdy, your queers messy, and your time travel criminally clever, this book is for you.
Please click here to support the campaign, and feel free to share the link with anyone you know who loves time-travel, romance, or any kinky combination of the two: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bppress/reprise-hardcover!
Geoffrey Dow, publisher
Cover Reveal: Reprise, by Zilla Novikov
The wild imagination of Douglas Adams,
The acerbic wit of Jane Austen,
The surreal vision of Emily Brontë …Reprise
In a caustically funny post-modern Gothic, Dr. François Gagnon offers Eddy Courant a postdoc position studying time loops. The chance to revive her stalling research career pulls Eddy from a deep depression. She loses herself to the thrill of science, and to the simpler pleasures in life – like flirting with her boss and seducing his wife. Until the men funding the research demand more ground-breaking data to justify keeping her on board – after all, they have a war to start.
Eddy is plunged into ever darker and more violent acts to appease the funders. So long as she’s employed, she doesn’t have to face the consequences of replaying countless deaths – including her own. But keeping track of shifting timelines while her own mental state deteriorates means losing the ability to tell real life from its shadow.
Can Eddy find loves, stop the arms dealer, and save her sanity – or even one out of three?
Scroll down to see the cover (and find out more)!
Cover created by Rachel A. Rosen. Zilla Novikov’s Reprise, coming April 15, 2023
January 13, 2023 – I am excited and proud to present the cover of The BumblePuppy Press’ next book, Zilla Novikov’s singular time travel romance (and brilliant debut novel), Reprise.
Already available for pre-order as an ebook on Amazon, this coming week will see the launch of a Kickstarter campaign with all sorts of extra goodies available, but for now I just want to share the wonderful cover created by our own Rachel A. Rosen.
And don’t forget to subscribe our newsletter to keep abreast of Reprise news, and news of all of our upcoming books (because there is a lot more to come in 2023).
Another month, another signing!
Reprise by Zilla Novikov
I feel as if someone needs to force-feed me a thesaurus, but there it is: I am once again thrilled to formally announce that The BumblePuppy Press has purchased the rights to another debut novel.
Reprise, by the remarkable Zilla Novikov, is a story the author has been shopping around for some time and I can only be grateful that no one else has been smart enough to say “Yes! Yes, I want this!” before I did.
Granted, Reprise is not an easy book to sum up — and I’m not going to do it now. A relatively short novel by word-count, Zilla manages to pack a lot into it: inter-dimensional travel, a very funny Dungeons and Dragons adventure, romance, and a hearty kick in academia’s shins, all woven into an extraordinarily tightly-woven plot. Zilla herself described it as a “… toxic romance, slow-burn plot, #darkacademia #specfic …” which is incomplete, but certainly not wrong.
Needless to say, you’ll be hearing a great deal more about Reprise in the weeks and months ahead, as we aim to publish it in the fall of 2022.
You can follow Zilla Novikov on Twitter (@zillanovikov), and don’t forget to subscribe to the BumblePuppy’s newsletter using the form below to keep abreast of what’s happening here. (There is more good news coming this year!)
And don’t forget, our Kickstarter campaign for Rachel A. Rosen’s forthcoming novel, Cascade has been a great success; with 20 days to go, it is already nearly 250% funded!
If you want to support a brilliant new writer (and get in on some fantastic extras) please click here. Alternately, the ebook is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
That’s it for now.
Thanks and looking forward,
Geoffrey Dow, Publisher
