Contemplating the S&S Call for Submissions

The official word is that Sword and Sorceress 22 sold well enough to warrant a #23. (I'm not sure I would have predicted that outcome, given that I have yet to see a copy on a bookstore shelf, but maybe my sales model is hopelessly behind the times.) I'll be giving it a pass this year. I'm still of the same mind regarding my continuing S&S characters: the next part of their story is too long for the S&S market, and there's too much built-up backstory now for them to work as stand-alones. I don't have any other relevant shorts begging to be written at the moment. And the only female-centered fantasy short stories in the filing cabinet that I really want to find a market for some day are from a little experiment I did in writing Medieval Welsh style short romances with lesbian protagonists. ("Medieval Welsh style" both in terms of plot/setting and in writing style.) I'd actually sold the first one to Jinx Beers for Lesbian Short Fiction but the magazine folded before it appeared. Some day I do want to send them out into the world, but I think they're better suited to an audience looking for lesbian fiction who might like the medieval fantasy elements, rather than an audience interested in medieval fantasy elements who might not be too distracted by the lesbian elements. Of course, this is more likely to happen if I get off my butt and start researching potential markets some day.

Too delicious

I was doing some food pre-prep for coronet this evening and came this close to snarfing up the Small Bryddes Y-Stewyd because they smelled so delicious. (And, of course, I had to keep tasting the sauce as I adjusted the seasoning.) Part of my goal to do more at-event cooking is to actually do at event cooking, which I'm bypassing this time. (Saturday's dinner is all reheat or, for the more complicated, add thickener and reheat.) My excuse is that, having decided to reprise the Small Byrddes in order to fiddle with the recipe a little, I noticed that the Silver Spoon competition is for non-chicken poultry dishes, and since I've been hearing a lot of "not enough cooking entries" stories lately, I figured I'd toss my spoon in the ring. But since I'm not quite sure when the competition will be called for (and likely mid-day in any event), I pretty much had to give up on doing the dish at the event. Just for fun, I may try to scrounge up a couple of henchpeople to help me "present" the dish to the judges.

I'm once again planning to bring enough dinner for guests -- I have a tentative invitation out with a great deal of uncertainty whether it will come off, so I may be stalking potential dinner guests at the last minute again. The menu, once again, is from Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks: Cabboges, the aforesaid Small Birdys, Brawn in Peverade, and Wardens in Composte. (I also did up another batch of Strawberye to fiddle some more with the recipe. So there could even be two fruit dishes.)

And I even succeeded in getting the clothes packed, although it meant I didn't sit down to dinner and e-mail until 10pm.