Budding Moon Press & Young Adult QUILTBAG Fiction

In the middle of 2012, we at Storm Moon Press sat down to discuss how we wanted to branch out. The logical step for us was young adult. All three of us—the owners—identify as some part of the QUILTBAG spectrum, and the one thing we all agreed on was that, while growing up, there was painful lack of us in the books we read. While the offerings are now a little more varied, there is still a terrible disparity of books with QUILTBAG main characters. In response, we founded Budding Moon, our QUILTBAG young adult imprint.

We debuted the imprint at Necronomicon 2012 in Tampa, Florida. On a panel about what QUILTBAG fiction was, the main direction of the conversation turned to young adult fiction. Along with our other panelists, we discussed the importance of QUILTBAG literature for the youth of our world and how publishers needed to take more chances with main characters that identified as such. Sadly, we know that isn't about to happen any time soon, and so it falls to the smaller publishers to fulfill the need of QUILTBAG youth.

The response at Necronomicon was astounding. In a rather packed panel room, the resounding 'YES!' was stunning to us. We had known there was a need, but we hadn't realized the depth of that need until that panel. As we walked out after the panel, we resolved to do everything we could to produce the quality and varied young adult fiction that this audience was craving. All genres, all flavors of sexual identity and sexual orientation and lifestyle choice (such as monogamy and polyamory). And that's what we've been doing since.

In 2013, we hope to acquire some wonderful works from talent authors to share with both the young audience as well as the older audiences. Right now, we have several anthology calls out (and several more to come out throughout the month of January), as well as a couple of line calls. Some of those upcoming calls are:

* Take a Bite Out of Life is all about vampires geared for young adult readers. QUILTBAG main characters and unique vampires are what we're hoping to see sent our way.

* A Touch of Glim is for awesome steampunk fiction with young adult, QUILTBAG main characters. Give us those gorgeous Victorian settings filled with steam and magic!

* For Long, Long Ago, we're looking to acquire retellings of fairytales, but with QUILTBAG main characters and themes. A genderqueer Rapunzel, or a lesbian slant on The Snow Queen, or a sci-fi twist on Alice's Adventures In Wonderland where Alice works alongside a bisexual Mad Hatter and a trans* Cheshire Cat. The possibilities are endless.

There will be many more calls—both anthology and line—as we move through the year, and we can't wait to work with outstanding authors to bring beautiful QUILTBAG fiction to the young adult audience. It's become an important, driving aspect of Storm Moon Press and its owners, and we hope authors will see and fulfill the growing need within this area of publishing.

S.L. Armstrong is the Managing Editor for Storm Moon Press. She is also the co-author of Making Ends Meet and Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley. S.L. can be found at www.slarmstrong.net or on Twitter @_slarmstrong.

Giveaway Opportunity!

This guest post is part of Storm Moon Press' 3rd Anniversary Blog Tour! Comment on this post or any other post on the blog tour with your e-mail address, and you'll be entered for a chance to win the Grand Prize of receiving 1 FREE e-book each month of 2013 from that month's new releases for a total of 12 free e-books! Runners up will receive a $25 gift certificate to their choice of Amazon or All Romance eBooks. For more details and to find out about our 3rd Anniversary, head over to Storm Moon Press' Official Blog. Thanks for joining us!