This week is Self-Published Authors Appreciation Week, an entire week dedicated to appreciating self-published authors! This special week is taking place between July 21st to July 27th and was started by Jodie over at the Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub blog. You can find out more about SPAAW on Jodie’s blog, as well as ways to take part.
Naturally, at Read Indie Fantasy, we’re big fans of self-published authors and so we couldn’t help but get involved! Every day this week, Nils and Trudie will be making a spotlight post (like this one!) to highlight a classic self-published author’s book as well as a new author or book we think needs the spotlight across SFF genres and book types.
Want to take part? You can support self-published authors by leaving a book review or shouting about your favourite self-published books on social media. Don’t forget these hashtags: SPAAW #SelfPublishedAuthorsAppreciationWeek
Here are Tru’s picks for our last themed spotlight on anthologies and story collections:
A Classic Book Spotlight for… Common Bonds
An Aromantic Speculative Anthology
Common Bonds is an anthology of speculative short stories and poetry featuring aromantic characters. At the heart of this collection are the bonds that impact our lives from beginning to end: platonic relationships. Within this anthology, a cursed seamstress finds comfort in the presence of a witch, teams of demon hunters work with their rival to save one of their own, a peculiar scholar gets attached to those he was meant to study, and queerplatonic shopkeepers guide their pupil as they explore their relationship needs and desires. Through nineteen stories and poems, Common Bonds explores the ways platonic relationships enrich our lives.
Common Bonds is a speculative anthology focussed on aromatic characters and stories by a variety of authors. It was released in 2021 and edited by Claudie Arseneault, C. T. Callahan, B. R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver. The follow up, Common Bonds 2, recently got funded on Kickstarter and is open for preorders and submissions!
About the Author
Claudie Arseneault is an easily-enthused aromantic and asexual writer with a never-ending cycle of obsessions but an enduring love for all things cephalopod and fantasy (together or not!). She writes stories that centre platonic relationships and loves large casts and single-city settings, the most notable of which are the City of Spires series (2017-2023) and Baker Thief (2018).
In addition to her own fiction, Claudie has co-edited Common Bonds (2021), an anthology of aromantic speculative short stories. She is a founding member of The Kraken Collective, an alliance of self-publishing SFF authors, and the creator of the Aromantic and Asexual Characters Database.
- Website: ClaudieArseneault.com
- Instagram: claudiearseneault
- Bluesky: clh2oars.bsky.social
- Goodreads
A New Book Spotlight for… The Carnelian King and Other Stories
A collection of fifteen short fantasy stories introducing dazzling new worlds.
From a magical second-hand shop hidden between dimensions to rolling emerald hills dotted with ancient ruins, through carnivorous winter woods and across the war-torn steppes of a crumbling empire, this collection spans beloved fantasy genres from classic to cozy, action and adventure to sword and sorcery, and gothic horror to romance. Some of these many star-crossed worlds
A dashing knight nostalgic for the lost myth and glory of the Golden Age, and a reclusive sorcerer who is more than he seems.
Gentlemen dragons, sapphic dragons, dragons as small as hummingbirds and as vast as rivers.
The first installments in a new sword & sorcery series, featuring a mercenary knight who cannot be killed and a horde of witches, lich-kings, and curses.
Trading tales of survival in the god-wrecked scrublands of the old west.
An eldritch house hungering for fresh meat.
A disgraced prophet, his flirtatious rival, and a foal whose birth foretells great changes for their land.
The Carnelian King and Other Stories by Arden Powell is a collection of fantasy stories by the author of the Flos Magicae series of queer fantasy, starting with The Bachelor’s Valet.
About the Author
Arden Powell (they/them) is a Canadian author and illustrator with stories in Lightspeed Magazine, Baffling Magazine, and Haunt Publishing, and whose books include The Faerie Hounds of York, The Bayou, the Flos Magicae series, and their short story collection, The Carnelian King and Other Stories. A nebulous entity, they live with a senior rescue hound and an exorbitant number of houseplants, and enjoy the company of both.
Join their newsletter for news about new releases, sales, cover reveals, and more:
https://subscribepage.io/ardenpowell
Read their exclusive Flos Magicae epilogues for free on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/collection/83…
- Website: ArdenPowell.mailerpage.io
- Bluesky: @ardenpowell.bsky.social
