STORY TIME!
Yesterday this kid came up to our booth at @gen_con with rainbow colors in her braids and I was like, “Oh that’s cool!” She’d bought our books last year.
She said, “Thanks. I have a surprise for you tomorrow.”
She came by the booth today to reveal what the surprise was: RADICAL RAINBOW COSPLAY 🥹🥹🥹
She told me she’d been planning it since May. She also got her hair done with rainbow colors and everything. I can’t believe this. I just… oh my god 😭😭😭
(Note: yes I did get permission to post this from her parents, thank you so much for letting me share one of the biggest compliments you can ever give an author!)
As some of you may know, I started working on my magical girl series “magnifiqueNOIR” back in 2016. Since then, I’ve self-published two books, and I am super thankful for all of the support it has gotten. But I know some folks are wondering, where’s the third book?
A lot of things happened that stalled the process, but one thing I’ve been doing behind the scenes that I haven’t said much about is... trying to release “magnifiqueNOIR” as a graphic novel! With the help of my agent and the amazing artist @aepoyi we’re going to start pitching “magnifiqueNOIR” to different publishers!
Whether you’re a longtime fan who’s been supporting since day one, or someone new who’s into Black, queer magical girls who throw exploding cupcakes at bodyshaming monsters, I feel that our work is worth checking out.
(And of course, if you’re an editor who just saw this and went “Whoa, what do you mean exploding cupcakes???” then let me or my agent @jannaco.co know!)
It wouldn’t be summer if I wasn’t booked and busy, here we go!
1. Guesting at @fargocorecon with my @snowstoryteller (yay!) Will have all our books available and be doing panels (stay tuned for more info)
2. Queer Manga Book Club at @redballoonbookshop which is perfect for Pride Month.
3. The Growing Demand for Kid-Friendly Manga: A Guide for Librarians at @americanlibraryassociation (on 6/28 at 11 AM). May sneak some book store events in between, stay tuned!
4. Anime Expo during July 4th weekend. Will be doing stuff for Crunchyroll News, feel free to let me know cool things to check out!
Shout out to @brichibi ! An incredible, magical author and an inspiration for me (Jacque). I’m so ecstatic for the support she got during our fair—please keep supporting! She has been working so hard, she is so kind and she deserves ✨ Thank you Bri for taking part!
My wife @snowstoryteller finished her latest sewing project. This #silksong cloak with the characters on it via #embroidery is my new favorite thing 🥰🥰🥰
My wife and I went on a library/mall/pizza date and it was way too much fun 🥰🥰🥰 (the mall in question was @mallofamerica where we got blind boxes and @squishables to add to our growing collection)
The @blackgirlbookfair was simply incredible. Thank you to everyone who attended. Thank you to everyone who support all of us authors and creatives. Thank you to @jacqueaye for putting the virtual event together. Just… thank you, everyone 🥹
I actually am pretty hard on myself about magnifiqueNOIR sometimes. I came up with the idea 10 years ago and I want to take it so far, so sometimes I’m like, “You only have two books, what have you been doing this whole time?”
But events like the @blackgirlbookfair really help reinvigorate me and remind me that hey, I released two books, am working on a third, and I put girls who look like me front and center.
That matters a lot.
The Short Story Showdown at the @blackgirlbookfair was way too much fun! Here’s a snippet of what I came up with, don’t ask me how my brain did it lol 😅
Still in awe over the support from the @blackgirlbookfair before I even had my coffee this morning 🥹 to celebrate, here’s a quick introduction to the magical girls of magnifiqueNOIR with adorable chibi art by MuseTap Studios 🥰🥰🥰
