Come down to DreamHaven Books to see the team of artists from The Subverted Fairy Project working on new fairies for their next book! This is a great opportunity to preview what they’re doing and get to know them better. They’ll be drawing, painting, and socializing all afternoon.

Who are The Subverted Fairy Project and what do they do? This is from their website:

The Subverted Fairy Project has little interest in fairies as they’ve evolved in popular Western imagination over the last 200 years. Fairies also have a deeper history as elemental forces, capturing the brutal innocence of nature. Their dark, delicious folk mythology is a rich tradition. However, our Project is not directly concerned with with the historical roles of fairies, either. Instead, we abandon both those traditions of the fairy concept and forge ahead into contemporary territory.

To create our fairies, The Subverted Fairy project pairs artists and writers together around uncommon, naturalistic words. The first phase of the Project centers around words from Mr. McFarlane’s lexicons. The artist illustrates (in any media) a fairy in response to a specific word (like blinter, or feorrain, or cairrag). The illustration is informed by the word and its meaning. That word becomes the fairy’s name. The artist is encouraged to pull from their own personal background as much as from the word. That’s the crucial part of the project. The intersection of the personal drawing, the uncommon word, and the fairy cliche. Once the drawing is done, a writer creates a one-page poem or short story in response to the word, its meaning, and the artwork. Taken together, the word, art, and writing define a new kind of fairy born through collaboration and naturalist language. We have built dozens of fairies like this, each a unique creature. Look for more coming in 2019 as we expand our horizons to words from SE Asia, the US state of Kansas, and scientific jargon.

On Wednesday, March 6, S.N. ARLY reads from her work. S.N. Arly writes adult and young adult fantasy, science fiction, and dark fiction from her basement in St. Paul, MN. She has had several short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. She is currently working on novels, with the exception of the occasional short story her brain foists upon her.

Speculations is a coproduction of DreamHaven and SF MINNESOTA, a multicultural organization that also sponsors a mid-summer speculative fiction convention, DIVERSICON, the 27th edition of which will be held in the Twin Cities on July 26-28, 2019, with Guest of Honor NISI SHAWL and Special Guest BEN HUSET.

Catherine Lundoff, publisher at Queen of Swords Press, joined us back in November of 2017 for a first presentation on the topic of running a small publishing company. (If you missed it, the video can be found here.) Now she’s back with another year of experience under her belt to tell us how things are going.

Queen of Swords Press is a Minneapolis-based small publisher of genre fiction, with 7 titles out
so far and more on the way. Catherine will be talking about how she got started in independent
publishing, what she’s learned so far and what’s next. Q&A to follow. Queen of Swords Press titles
will be available for sale and light refreshments will be served.

On Wednesday, April 3, ROB CALLAHAN reads from his work. Rob Callahan is a former journalist and author now working in language and culture revitalization with Ojibwe and Dakota youth in Minneapolis. His journalism career garnered awards and recognition from the Associated Press, the Hearst Foundation, and the NAB Marconi Radio Awards. Currently, he produces the weekly radio program ‘Indigenous Roots’ and in his spare time he programs Ojibwe language video games for children. His 2018 novel ‘The Hidden City Volume I: The Devil’s Descent’ tells the heartwarming story of an underachieving young professional temping in the Devil’s call center, who is accidentally promoted to Acting Vice President of the Impending Apocalypse.

Speculations is a coproduction of DreamHaven and SF MINNESOTA, a multicultural organization that also sponsors a mid-summer speculative fiction convention, DIVERSICON, the 27th edition of which will be held in the Twin Cities on July 26-28, 2019, with Guest of Honor NISI SHAWL and Special Guest BEN HUSET.

On Wednesday, May 15, PATRICK W. MARSH reads from his work from 6:30-7:45 p.m. Patrick W. Marsh is an author, blogger, and screenwriter from Minneapolis. His work has appeared in multiple literary magazines, which include Calliope, The Quail Bell Quarterly, Under Construction, and Realities. His fiction has been featured on the podcast Bob’s Short Story Hour and his short film “The Smell” won best use of line in the 48 Hour Film Festival in 2018. Patrick is best known for his apocalyptic book series The Greenland Diaries, a journal of an unskilled bank teller trying to survive apocalyptic Minnesota. Since an early age, Patrick has been consumed with the suspense and mysteries of monsters.

Speculations is a coproduction of DreamHaven and SF MINNESOTA, a multicultural organization that also sponsors a mid-summer speculative fiction convention, DIVERSICON, the 27th edition of which will be held at the Best Western Plus—Como Park, St Paul, on July 26-28, 2019, with Guest of Honor NISI SHAWL and Special Guest BEN HUSET.

It’s time for another BAG SALE! Remember how cool the last one was? Remember the feeling of bringing home a big bag packed full of some of the best science fiction authors out there? Or maybe you were a comic book person. Tell me, just how many comics *can* you fit into a grocery bag? Or perhaps you picked up a little bit of everything. Mysteries, DIY guides, children’s books…if it shows up and we don’t have a spot for it in the store, it eventually ends up in the garage.

Well, it’s time to do it again. On June 8th, we’re opening up the garage and spilling out to the sidewalk (weather permitting) with lots of stuff that needs to go home with YOU! The garage has had a constant influx of new items, and there will be yet more things coming up from the basement. $5 gets you a small bag and it’s $15 for a grocery bag. Fill it as full as you can, and take it away.

As a bonus, there are a lot of other things going on nearby. The area is having their neighborhood-wide garage sales, and you can stop by and see us at Print Matters at the Hook & Ladder Theater on Minnehaha from 10-4 as well.

On Wednesday, June 12 ABRA STAFFIN-WIEB reads from her work from 6:30-7:45 p.m. Abra Staffin-Wiebe loves optimistic science fiction, cheerful horror, and dark fantasy. Dozens of her short stories have appeared at publications including Tor.com, F&SF, Escape Pod, and Odyssey Magazine. She lives in Minneapolis, where she wrangles her children, pets, and the mad scientist she keeps in the attic. When not writing or wrangling, she collects folk tales and photographs whatever stands still long enough to allow it. Her most recent book, The Unkindness of Ravens, is an epic fantasy coming-of-age novella about trickster gods and favors owed. Enjoy an excerpt here: HTTP://WWW.ASWIEBE.COM/MOREUNKINDNESS.HTML

Speculations is a coproduction of DreamHaven and SF MINNESOTA, a multicultural organization that also sponsors a mid-summer speculative fiction convention, DIVERSICON, the 27th edition of which will be held at the Best Western Plus—Como Park, St Paul, on July 26-28, 2019, with Guest of Honor NISI SHAWL and Special Guest BEN HUSET.

On Thursday, July 25 NISI SHAWL reads from her work from 6:30-7:45 p.m. Nisi Shawl is co-author (With Cynthia Ward) of Writing the Other: A Practical Guide (2005); the story collection Filter House (2008); the utopian alternative history novel Everfair (2012); over 70 stories in such markets as Analog, Asimov’s SF, Tor.com, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (Nalo Hopkinson and Uppender Miha, co-eds),  and dozens of articles, essays, and reviews, including regular writings about books for the Seattle Times. She lives in the Seattle area.

Speculations is a coproduction of DreamHaven and SF MINNESOTA, a multicultural organization that also sponsors a mid-summer speculative fiction convention, DIVERSICON, the 27th edition of which will be held at the Best Western Plus—Como Park, St Paul, on July 26-28, 2019, with Guest of Honor NISI SHAWL and Special Guest BEN HUSET.

On Wednesday, August 7 at 6:30 CAROLE ASHMORE and HANK LEDERER
read from their work. Carole writes, “I’m a retired computer programmer who’s
been reading SF since age 12. I like the hard stuff over fantasy. Did some
writing 15 years ago as part of Lyda Morehouse’s writing group at The Loft.
Most of my stuff has a feminist bent. These days I contribute religiously to
Eric’s Flash Fiction contest held at Diversicon.”

Hank writes, “Retired from a Control Data marketing support group in
1992. Like technology, computers & Albert Einstein; whom I worship. In 1989
signed up to be cryogenically frozen. I’ve written many SF style essays
for the MN Futurists. Favorite SF stories: Sturgeon’s “Microcosmic God”
and Clarke’s RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA.”

Speculations is a co-production of DreamHaven Books and SF MINNESOTA, a
multicultural, multimedia speculative fiction organization that also
sponsors DIVERSICON, a mid-summer convention, the 28th edition of which
will be held August 7-9, 2020, with Guest of Honor TBA and Special Guest
Abra Staffin-Wiebe.

DreamHaven Books, in association with the dark fantasy convention, Arcana, is proud to present S.T. Joshi in a talk about his work and interest in “The Dark Fantastic”.

S. T. Joshi is an author, editor and one of the foremost authorities on H.P. Lovecraft and other authors of Weird Fiction.  From Mr. Joshi’s website  – “S. T. Joshi (b. 1958) is a leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, and other writers, mostly in the realms of supernatural and fantasy fiction. He has edited corrected editions of the works of Lovecraft, several annotated editions of Bierce and Mencken, and has written such critical studies as The Weird Tale (1990) and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). His award-winning biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), has already become a collector’s item. An expanded and updated version, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, was published in 2 volumes in 2010. But critical, biographical, and editorial work on weird fiction is only one aspect of Joshi’s multifaceted output. A prominent atheist, Joshi has published the anthology Atheism: A Reader (2000) and the anti-religious polemic, God’s Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003). He has also compiled an important anthology on race relations, Documents of American Prejudice (1999).

Joshi has compiled bibliographies of H. P. Lovecraft (1981; revised 2009), Lord Dunsany (1993), Ramsey Campbell (1995), Ambrose Bierce (1999), Gore Vidal (2007), and H. L. Mencken (2009). He has edited Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia (2005), Icons of Horror and the Supernatural (2006), and Icons of Unbelief (2008). His recent monographs include The Angry Right (2006), Junk Fiction: America’s Obsession with Bestsellers (2009), and The Unbelievers: The Evolution of Modern Atheism (2011). He has also published two works of detective fiction and has written a supernatural novel centering around H. P. Lovecraft, The Assaults of Chaos.”