In this episode, we talk to Portland author Jasmine Gower, who has the amazingly good fortune to play auntie to not one but three sweet cats. Jasmine has exuded authorial authority since she was FIVE YEARS OLD and decided to make her own books—we're talking covers made of cereal boxes and the whole shebang! Jasmine discusses her recent graduation with a degree in book publishing and her take on why marketing their own work terrifies so many authors (and how to make it less scary). She also shares her unusual path to landing an agent (Jasmine’s is the inimitable Laura Zats of Red Sofa Literary and the Print Run Podcast). We also talk about queer and disabled representation in her fantasy novel, Moonshine—as well as in the book world at large—and why it matters so much.

Please rate and review us on whatever podcast platform you happen to use. And follow us on:

Our website: hybridpubscout.com/episode-27-fantasy-author-jasmine-gower

Our newsletter: eepurl.com/gfajR9

In my first several hours of unemployment,

some of the thoughts I had were, I'm going to learn to twerk

Okay, I'm going to learn to juggle knives. Oh, wow, nice,

big and a lot. Yeah, I know that's just a couple of them.

You welcome to the hybrid hub Scout podcast with me. Emily

Einolander and me. Corrine kolasky, Hello, we are mapping

the frontier between traditional and indie publishing, and today

we have Jasmine. Gower on with us. Thanks for coming, Jasmine.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Corrine, will you please tell us

what Jasmine's deal is, Oh,

I sure will do it. Okay. Jasmine Gower, author of

moonshine and other queer fantasy works, hails from

Portland, Oregon. Jasmine received a Bachelor of Arts in

English and a Master of Arts in book publishing from Portland

State University, inspired to write by a childhood filled with

fantasy novels, 90s videos, game video games and the curious

experience of growing up in the rural Willamette Valley. Jasmine

has a passion for exploring themes of gender, sexuality and

disability through the conventions of speculative

fiction, mythology and fantasy world building. Jasmine is

represented by Laura Zatz at red sofa literary, yeah, that's a

great bio. Did you write that? Too? I did write that? Yeah.

That is great. Yeah, perfect amount of information. It's also

like, not, not a lot of people are able to

represent themselves that well in a bio, because either

they're, like, too shy, or they overdo

it. Yeah, it's very hard that, yeah, like, three

sentences probably took me about four hours to write.

It's harder to just like, slash things, isn't

it? Well, we are going to talk with you about your publishing

experience and your writing experience and everything that

you've gone through. But first, we have obligations we do, and

thank Christ, somebody actually pulled through and gave us

another review. We are desperate. Please review it,

please on iTunes. You know, here's the thing, I don't think

a lot of people use iTunes anymore, but for some reason

that's like the standard of review, like true. I don't know

why that is, but it's, it's hierarchies, it's capitalism. It

is who controls your phone.

Yes, it's apple, it's apple.

But we got another review from the dreaming

1979 I wonder if that is a Kate Bush reference. I wonder too. I

hope so. The best Kate Bush album, truly, definitely the

agreed. So shall I try to read this? Yes.

Can you do? Let's make it sort of easy. Can you just do

like a New York accent? No, no. What start like, what, what

accents Are

you a person? Do it, but do an impressive do.

Let's do an impersonation. Maybe okay, I could do, who has a who

has a New York accent?

Leah Remini, yes,

but see that comes from your cult knowledge.

That's true. That comes from you, like watching go and clear.

And I just read a book that's true.

Who else has a New York accent? Oh, God, let's see. Why

can't I think? Why is she the only person

like a queen's accent? Yeah, yeah. This is

gonna be I. I used to think I was gonna be an actor. I know

you still could be the world's wide open.

That's true. Yeah, I am now unemployed

everybody.

Yeah, the world is my oyster. It's true. Oyster, it's

true. You're

full of pearls.

That's right, that's right,

or just delicious, briny meat, yes,

either way, perhaps both.

I can't do it. I can't do you can't do it.

What I don't know. Ken, what's

another actually? Joel, what's it? What

about insightful in depth interviews with folks from every

part of the industry? Nope.

What about a southern accent? Can you do that? You can

do a better one than me? Well, do you want me to do it? Yes, I

do. Okay. Can I what do I. Videos all of

I promised I would do it and do it. That's

okay. I'm it's like, I'm the man.

It is like you're the man. Oh God, this takes me back

to Catholic school. All right. Um, very worried about you

tipping your story. I am too. Okay, hold on. All right. Here

we go. All right. Insightful and funny look at the publishing

industry, interesting in depth interviews with folks from every

part of the industry, editors, publicists, librarians,

booksellers and authors, both self published and traditional.

The hosts have a wonderful rapport, and their passion for

the industry come through loud and clear. Yay. That ending

wasn't great, but whatever. Loud, loud, sorry, guys. Who are

we? I don't know what's

happening. We have to work on our branding.

Yeah, I think so too.

I'm so sorry, Jasmine.

I think that was the first time I heard the word editors.

Editors. They gotta have editor, editors. They

sure do have editors down there in Tennessee. Tennessee, they

got editors. Yeah, Tennessee, yep. Somebody's got to do it.

That's true in Tennessee.

Books ain't gonna add it themselves.

Like bless your heart. Yeah, there you go.

That's right. All right. Well, let's, let's get into this job.

All right. Thank you for enduring our silliness, our

tomfoolery, our tomfoolery.

So obviously, question, obviously. All right, so our

icebreaker question is the same as it has been for many, many

other guests. Please tell us about

your cats. So I've got, I guess I told you earlier that I have,

that's why you told me. Is what you have three so you go into

details, technically a lie. I technically have zero cats. Oh,

three roommates who each have one cat, gotcha. So I get all

the benefits of having a cat without paying the vet bills.

That's the best. You're the cat auntie. I am.

I am, yeah, that's awesome. Yes. So we've got the three tally,

Meryl and Nisha, who are all named after video game

characters, and they're all spoiled princesses, sure, who

love to scream, and they love to steal my food.

Oh, wow. I used to be a dog Auntie in

college, and I had two roommates, one, you know, wasn't

in college, and the other one was like a PhD candidate. And so

one had a deaf boxer, like albino boxer, the coolest dog.

His name was patch, and then a chihuahua terrier mix named

rosebud, yes, after the Citizen Kane, because she was a

journalist at one time, sure. So after my roommate would go to

work in the morning at like 7am I'd hear on the door, and then

Rosebud would come and get into the bed with me. And it was

college, so I didn't get up to like 930 Yeah. So it's just

like, hello, cuddly dog. I don't even let Connor do that, wow,

except when JT is out of town, yeah? Like, it was special,

yeah, what? What do your what do your and your niece and nephew

cats look like?

Yeah, um, they're all, they've all got like, brown

stripes. They're all a little bit Tabby, I think, not super

sure, but we've got tally is kind of like a normal sized cat.

And then Meryl is the small, scrappy one. And then Nisha is

just huge, yes, and not like just chubby. She's huge in every

dimension. But the great thing about her is that her meow is

very tiny. Oh, my gosh, she's the giant. She's She just went

to the vet and was weighed, and she's almost 15 pounds right

now, damn. But when she meows, she's, like,

very tiny. Oh, she's a gentle giant. Yeah, no,

she's very

impressive. Quiet.

What is it? Speak softly and carry a big

stack, yeah, as a giant can be developed, yeah? Well, it sounds

like you got it going on.

Yeah, I have a good cat situation, yeah, I would say so,

all right, so you grew up near Portland in the

country, rural Willamette Valley. Yeah. So were you you,

if you were close to Portland, did the literary scene there

affect you at all, or was it something that didn't really

have any bearing on. Your bookish younger years.

I think that really didn't have much bearing on me,

because my dad is a huge book nerd, and that's really where I

get 90% of my book habits, I guess, on Yeah, he, he was

super, still is super into, like, 90s doorstopper fantasies.

So that's what I grew up reading. What's a 90s

doorstopper fantasy, like Wheel of Time. Have you heard of that

series? I've heard of it. I guess Song of Fire. Nice would

be an example, too. He doesn't like that back from, back from

that kind of 90s. Yeah, that kind of series. Did they come

out in the 90s? Yeah, that's where he started, in the

90s, long time ago.

That's how long we have to wait for each book.

As JT would say, you're never gonna get that

book. Yeah, that's

true. Okay, yeah, books

in that vein, just the huge, like, 800 page long. Did he

ever read any of them to you?

He not those big ones. He tried to read The Hobbit to

me when I was little, and I wasn't super into it, like when

I was eight. And then when I was 11, I read it on my own. And

that was kind of the point when I was like, I could do this,

like writing these. Yeah, when you were 11, I was 11, yeah,

wow, that's confidence. It was, it was a lot of unearned.

Confidence is almost never earned. That's very

true. Yeah, yes, yeah. There are plenty of people who, like, I

would say most of the people who have confidence just have it and

that's and then they earn it later,

yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's kind of the my

writing situation

too awesome. So when you were living out

there, did you just have a lot of time to read and write and

like,

yeah, there's not a lot to do out in small town, Oregon.

So what kinds of stories were you writing?

Like, when did you start scribbling them down?

Um, I guess I was pretty young. I guess, like my

parents, I have horrible memory, but my parents talk about when I

was, like, in kindergarten and first grade, writing and, like,

binding my own books, wow, like broken up pieces of cereal boxes

and things like that, like, as covers Yeah, because they were

heavier Yeah, and then, like, just drawing, like pictures and

comics and

but that's also like pointing, but yeah,

pointing toward a publishing career as well, recognizing the

different weights of paper and

covers formats and trim sizes and all stock has

been fantastic. So you've been a

writer since, apparently, kindergarten. When? When do you

remember writing?

Well, when, like, when I mentioned reading The Hobbit

and deciding I could write a full length novel? That's the

first time that I wrote a full length novel when you were 1111.

Yeah, so you like, read The Hobbit went,

bitch, I can do that novel.

It was a little more patchwork than that kind of

start and stop, but, yeah, cool.

What was it? Do you remember what it was

about? Or you so

I do remember what it was about, because I'm still

working on it, and I was, yeah, no, it's terrible. I was working

on it even earlier today.

Yeah, that's the sign of an integrated

personality, and that is, like what people aim for. That's what

I

aim for. Kind of thing they warn you against in

writing, though, but for me right now, it's a different

because my middle school OCS are really, really good

OCS,

yeah, I mean, they're, it's not fan fiction, but okay,

yeah, wait,

I don't know what that means. Oh, original

character. Oh, okay, okay, so Corinne and I are super normy.

Oh yeah, you're gonna have to explain all of your acronyms and

all that kind of stuff to us. Okay? But there, wow, no, I'm

impressed, because there's so many everything I look at that I

wrote when I was younger, even like a few years ago, I'm just

like, No,

it's still like that for me. I'm on, you know, my

eighth or ninth draft of this story, because what I came up

with when I was 11 wasn't great, because 11 year olds are not

great at writing.

Yeah, and not only are you like a different

writer, you're probably a different person. Oh, yes,

very much.

So how long have you been a published

author?

So my first published short story was in 2014 and then

I think it's been 2016 2017 and 2018 were when all. All of my my

two novellas and then moonshine came out, yes, except for 2015 I

guess was the year that I skipped in 2019 also, I don't

have anything coming up yet. And knowing publishing timelines,

I'm not going to have anything, even if you know I sell

something tomorrow, it's not going to be ready before 27 or

2019 is over.

Well, if you sound patient, especially if

you're rewriting something you wrote when you were 11, yeah,

I'm used to the publishing timelines at this

point.

Yeah, they're, they're, they're difficult for

pretty much everyone, Yep,

let's see. So you live in Portland now, obviously,

pretty much,

right? Yeah. How long have you lived here? I moved up to

Portland when I was 18, so I've been up in the Portland metro

area since then, okay, about 11 years now,

okay, okay, all right. So obviously, Portland has changed

a lot in the past, like five to 10 years. Would you say

something like that? Yeah. So do you think that those changes

have affected the literary scene here at all? Or do you think

it's kind of like the same it's always been? Or I feel

like the literary scene has kind of stayed the same throughout

all the changes. I feel like that's been one of the few

things that feels kind of constant since I first moved up

here, because, you know, everyone's still really excited

about Powells, yes, sure, and all that, and bird stock or

Portland Book Festival. It's called now, but I'm a little sad

about that, frankly, that they changed the name. Yeah, I get

why they changed it.

It's your patience coming out again. Like,

word song is

a perfect name. It is a perfect name. It was really

good,

yeah, yeah,

but yeah, I think more so than the environment of Portland.

Changing the increase of like, remote work for publishing, has

had a bigger impact on the literacy scene in Portland,

because it seems like it's becoming more of a publishing

Nexus, yeah, even though no one's moving here to do

publishing, right? But because, you know, you can just email

people back and forth,

tell me more about what you mean,

I feel, still feel like all of the publishing

professionals like are headquartered in New York at

least, or even California, increasingly. But there's more.

It seems like there's more positions opening up for like

entry level editorial work or marketing work or things like

that, that's available for remote work,

all right, the unemployed person over here is

like, tell me more all this remote work that will let me

stay home with my dog?

Yeah. I mean, there's still, I think, not as much as

as would be ideal, but it seems like it's better than it's been

in the past couple of years.

So since you are entering that realm of not

just an author, but, I mean, maybe you entered it a while

ago, and I just don't know it, but you just finished your

masters in book publishing at Yes, Portland, state, which is

we kind of knew each other. Yeah, we crossed paths. I

remember your face, and that was the thing I like, messaged you.

I'm like, Why do I remember your face? Right? You were like, I

watched you humiliate yourself as a digital manager at hooligan

but I was just like, remembering I was telling Corinne. I was

like, Oh yeah, she saw me when I was just like, improving in

front of everyone.

That's fine,

but yeah, what made you decide to go that route

in terms of your skill set and training?

So it was after I published my first novella for

all the gold in the vault through less than three press

that I kind of had in my experience working with the

editors on that, I got very curious about their end of the

work that they were doing, mostly because I kind of hate

editing my own books. I was like, this would be better if I

was editing other people's books. But that's kind of what

got me started on thinking more about pursuing the publishing

end of publishing. So that's the point when I kind of started

looking into going back to school and PSU, which is where I

got my undergrad, had the book publishing program, and I was

aware of it as an undergrad, but it wasn't something that I was

interested in pursuing then. But then I eventually did a couple

years after getting my undergraduate degree.

Did you focus on editing? Because I know

there's a lot of different things that you can do within

the publishing industry.

I started thinking that I would focus on editing, but

then I realized that as an author, marketing was really my

weak points. I'm like, I should get better at this.

Good for you. A lot of people will just, I.

Air toward their strengths, yeah.

And marketing is really intimidating work, I think for a

lot of people, because it's kind of boring, yeah,

correct marketing. I am in marketing and it, yeah. I mean,

I feel like I've dealt with a lot of authors who are just sort

of like, shy about promoting themselves, yeah, that's, I feel

like the biggest stumbling point kind of is just like people are

like, I don't want to tell people that I'm, you know, and I

mean to me, it's like, tell everybody. It's like, This is

amazing. You wrote a fucking book, you know, like you'd sing

it from the mountaintops, like I would if I wrote a book. But you

write a book, I should write a book. Okay, about it.

Do you feel like you're a better marketer?

Now, I

do feel like I'm a better marketer now. I do still

suck at promoting my own stuff. Yeah, that's, that's one of the

things I learned in the program. I'm pretty good at marketing

other people's stuff. Like, I feel like I would have a lot

more fun editing other people's stuff, yeah, my own stuff.

Do you know what you should be doing,

though, as an author? Are you sitting there going, Oh, I

should be doing this, but I have an emotional block against it,

or

I do have, I think, a better sense of that now, kind

of, what's the most practical way for me as an author to go

about marketing as well as kind of, I think I have a better

sense of what my expectations should be for my publishers in

terms of what they'll do in terms of editing and marketing.

And I wish there were both of you

so nice. We were talking,

yeah, we were talking to an author. There's

like, one author that we had been working with, Corinne and

I, who just, like, was doing effortlessly, amazing. Yeah.

We're like, how did you sell of these books? And he's like, Oh,

I just was, like, contacting people I know everywhere,

yeah,

just buying it, yeah,

yeah, I can't do that.

He was, yeah, messaging all these people he

knew. And they were like, okay, yeah. We really like you, we'll

do it.

So, yeah, that's,

yeah. I mean, I know I would feel awkward

about that. Yeah, I do. Like, I currently feel awkward about the

podcast doing that. So I can only imagine, like, if you're

This isn't like, this is just me interviewing other people. Like,

if you're out there, putting your heart and soul into a book,

that must be a lot more difficult to like lay out for

everyone.

Yeah, it is. Although I I find that my biggest struggle

is just summarizing the things that I write. I don't, I mean, I

do still like, care about what people think of my stuff, and if

they don't like it, then I get all sensitive about it, but, but

I feel like that is less of a problem for me than just when

people ask me what my books are about, I'm just like, I don't

know what

life, yeah, world.

I wrote it all down. It took me like 90,000 words.

Yeah, really funny. Buy a copy and read it.

Yeah, there's a reason it wasn't like, well,

so you mentioned your novellas, so you had two novellas, and

then you had a novel come out last year, yes. So the press

that did your novellas, less than three press just went

under. Yes. So what happens now with your novellas?

So the good thing, I guess, I mean, it's very sad

that lesson three press is closing, but the good thing

about this particular situation is they've been very upfront

with their authors and their their editors and artists who

work for them by contract about what's been going on and what's

going to be happening next.

So it wasn't a big surprise when everything

happened. It was a little

abrupt, but they, I mean, they were very

communicative once, once they knew for sure that they weren't

going to be able to continue with the press, and they've been

very good about making sure that authors, the authors, still have

everything they need, basically, to republish their books

elsewhere. So I've got the master files for the ebook and

the print and the print cover files, and I have all of my

rights reverted to me, and I'm able to continue to use the

covers that they designed for my books, good, okay, through them

and the edits that they did as well. So basically, all I have

everything, I need to just kind of put them back into book form

and put them back out into the world. Okay, so now I'm just

figuring out how I want to go about doing

that? Would you consider just self

publishing, or would you, yeah,

that's, that's actually, I think, probably the

top of my list. I'm still working with my agent to figure

out what, what's the best way, what's the best option? Yeah,

but that's, that seems like it's probably the most practical

option for them. Hopefully, I'll know. For sure soon,

let's see. Can you tell us a bit about your current publisher,

angry robot. They define themselves as a global imprint,

and are British based. How has working with a British publisher

been for you as someone living in the US?

So it hasn't been. There haven't really been any problems with

them being based in Britain. I think about half of their

authors are based in the US. Okay, yeah, so aside from, like,

in the early stages of getting moonshine published, some Skype

calls that had to figure out time zones, and I'm sure, yeah,

it's, it's mostly not been an issue. They did. Used to have

their sales and marketing manager Mike Underwood, who

worked for them, and he was based in the US. So we had at

Emerald City Comic Con, there was an angry robot booth that he

managed. So when he was still at angry robot, we were able to all

the angry robot authors who were at that convention were able to,

like, have a home base at the convention to do book signings

and things like that. But then once he left angry robot, then

they didn't have that that US person. So for the past Emerald

City Comic Con, that that option wasn't there. Okay, okay, so

that, I guess, is the big

drawback. Are they gonna get somebody new, or

are they just kind of,

like, I don't

know, remote work? Yeah.

So if you could choose any publisher to publish your

work, who would you choose like, if you have like, a dream, not

even like or like a brand, like a certain

publisher, or kind of like an ideal publisher, in terms of,

like, what you know about publishing, not necessarily a

named thing, yeah,

well, as I mentioned, like learning more about how

marketing works at PSU through hooligan press, and kind of

being able to apply that to my own writing career, and having

worked with smaller presses before, and going back to that

thing about me being bad about marketing my own stuff, like I

bet, having a publisher who's really, really good about

putting in the legwork and the money for marketing, which a lot

of small publishers aren't able to do for basic monetary

reasons, but having a publisher who could do all that work for

me so I don't have to worry about any of it.

Yeah, that's really interesting, because I I

feel like one of the biggest embarrassing secrets of

publishing right now. It's like people tell you that they that

you should do it for, you know, the prestige, prestige. Why did

I say prestige? Who am I? Like I was on when, when jahd came in

here, I said Patreon instead of Patreon. And I was like, I've

never said Patreon before, but, like, but also, people get into

it because people tell them that the marketing is better for

traditional publishing. And I don't even know if that's true.

I guess it would have to be like, you'd have to be one

of their big ticket authors to get that marketing

Yeah, that's the thing, yeah. And I

understand, like, I think that's a great point for why it would

be like, your dream, yeah? Because that's what a publisher

shit should do, right? Yeah, right, yeah. And at this point,

it's kind of just like, you know, they give the big advances

to the big authors, they give the big marketing budgets to the

big authors. And it's sort of a catch 22 of like, well, they

could do it on their own, because they're big names. But

on the other hand, it's not even catch 22 it's like, orboro,

yeah, yeah, it's true, yeah. Well, there's just such an

expectation these days that authors do the lion's share of

marketing themselves, right? Because it's like, Well, you're

the ones with the platforms. Like, you know who your audience

is. You know where they are. Like, you know how to reach them

and engage with them, and engage with them, and you know how to

get them that get them to buy the book, which in some

respects, is true, but I mean, it's also true that the

publisher should take care of a lot of that.

Yeah, we've been working in nonfiction too,

so I don't know if it's the same with your genre. Is, is that,

was that a part of them when they acquired you, what they

told you to do, like we expect this level of marketing from

you, or was that something that they weren't quite as concerned

about?

There with angry robot, there was certain things that

they were they're pretty clear about. We can't necessarily

support this aspect of marketing. So that would be

something you want to make sure you're on top of kind of thing.

The thing that comes to mind immediately was book blurbs.

Like, they expect authors to get their own book blurbs.

Oh, okay, yeah, we do too. I mean, that is pretty normal,

yeah, but, but I've also worked for houses where editors did

that. So, yeah, yeah. So I

think we did. That at Ein also, I actually, at the same time,

like I was getting my book blurbs for moonshine. I was also

getting blurbs for I was on the sleeping in my jeans team, so I

was getting blurbs for that book as well.

That's true. I got the, I'm gonna brag right

now, but siblings and other disappointments. I got the top

Nicole Wolverton, like the biggest blurb there. She had

this great book. You should look her up. Nicole Wolverton. It was

called the trajectory of dreams, and it was the sort of thing

where we were all, I don't know if this was the same at ooligan,

when in your experience, but we all had to sit around and talk

about, like, what does this remind us

of like we did, yeah, kind of brainstorming thing,

yeah? And so

it was a collection of short stories, and

it was kind of a dark collection of shorts. Have you read

it? Siblings, and I haven't read that one. It's

pretty good.

Yeah, I liked it. I liked working on it, but I

had to contact like Dan kayon, which I went and read later. And

now he's kind of big. I've heard of him, yeah, yeah. He's a

Portland author, but he hadn't released, okay, yeah, his latest

book, yeah, but he had a collection of short stories at

the time, and he like, did message me back, and was like,

I'm sorry. I'm so busy I can't do it. But now and then I went,

like, Ill Will came out. Like, right after it, yeah. I was

like, but Nicole Wolverson wrote this book about, like, a very

strange woman who was, like, obsessed with astronauts, and

lived in Houston, and like, sense, was obsessed with the way

that astronauts sleep, and so she'd like, break into people's

restaurants houses and watch them sleep, and like, take notes

on them and make sure they were sleeping, right? Whoa. Because

she'd like it. I mean, I don't want to reveal everything, yes,

please, because there were reasons for it. It's a great

book, yeah. But like, anyway, what are the differences between

less than three press and angry robot press in your experience,

so less than three press. They're both independent

presses, but angry robot is owned by an entertainment

company, Watkins entertainment. I think they're also based in

the UK, British Yeah, yeah. What else did they do? I'm not sure.

I'm really only familiar with angry robot, of their imprints,

but, but they're not owned by, you know, one of the big five.

So they're considered like a medium sized independent press,

whereas less than three is a pretty standard small press. So

one of the big differences that I've noticed working with them

is, I mean, it's all kind of boring back on stuff like

distribution is one of the big things. Like my less than three

press books. They're not in Powells or Barnes and Noble or

things like that, but angry robot is distributed in the US

through Penguin Random House. So moonshine is in bookstores. If

it's a bookstore, moonshine can be there. So that's obvious.

That obviously has a huge effect on on how the books reach

people. And then it's also comes up with advances and royalties

and things like that, because less than three press is so

small they can't afford to pay advances on the books they

acquire. But they do pay to make up for that. They do pay pretty

handsome royalties. So it was a higher percentage, yeah, so for

moonshine, I get, I believe it's 12% royalties on that. Is it

Paperback or hardback or I think it's, I can't remember, off the

top of my head, it might be a different percentage for ebooks,

but I believe it is 12% for the paperback from moonshine, and

then for my less than three press books, it's 40% regardless

of format, through a third party vendor, and 45% directly from

less than three press Wow. Yeah, that's really good. It's a

really good radio but I don't get them to Yeah, I don't get

the wider distribution and I don't get the advance. So in the

long run, I I make more from moonshine because they gave me a

stack of money up front, right?

So your agent is one of my favorite

podcasters. She is excellent. So great. So yeah, anyway, I'm

going to try not to fan girl out and just kind of like gloss over

that and say Laura is great. Hello, Laura. So did she just

agent moonshine? Or was it? Was she there for your novellas?

Like, when did she enter your life? How did you come to get an

agent, and what role did they play?

So it's kind of a funny story. I mean, it's not a

hilarious story, but it's a pretty atypical kind of story

for getting an agent. So when. With moonshine. It was actually

acquired by angry robot through DV pit.

I don't know what that is.

So it's a Twitter pitch contest. Oh, yeah, for diverse

voices. So I had already been querying moonshine a little bit

at that point, but I heard about this Twitter pitch contest. It

was the first time that it had been run, and I was like, Well,

I I'm queer and disabled, and I wrote a book that has stuff

about that in it, and I want to, want it to connect with industry

professionals who care about that kind of thing. So I just

kind of tried my hand at DV pit, and that's how I touched base

with Mike Underwood, when he worked at angry robot, and he

asked me to submit a query to them, and then that turned into

the partial, and then the full. And they had the full for a

while, and I kind of forgot, actually, that the full

manuscript, the full manuscript, yeah, that they were still

considering it. So at a certain point, I was like, I think

before I go back into querying this. I'm gonna revise a part of

it.

Did you forget just because you were busy

with grad school or I think so, I guess it's no big

deal.

There had also been some some other agents who had had it for

a while, and I'd heard back from them, and I thought that was

like the end of who still had it, and I entirely misjudged, I

guess. Yeah, so I started revising it, and then, of

course, I hear back from Mike, and he it's like, is this still

available? You want to make an offer on it? Cool, yeah. So,

yeah. So terrible timing for my revision, but it worked out

pretty well for me. And they say you're completely unagented. And

I didn't, yeah, I didn't have an agent when they made that offer,

okay, but Mike himself is an author, so he was very helpful

in recommending me agents that angry robot had worked with

before. So he gave me a short list of agents that he really

liked. So I took some time to take a look at them see which

ones seemed like they would be good fits for moonshine and for

my writing career. And one of them was Laura, so Okay, yeah.

So then, from that point, it was basically a standard query

process, but I was able to put, you know, offer in hand in the

header, and that does wonders for guys. They're they're much

quicker to respond. Um, but yeah, it worked out well. She

got back to me quickly, and she was very excited about the

project, and so she was able to help me negotiate my contract

with angry robot, which worked out really well.

Good, good. I always worry about authors who

do it without an agent.

Yeah, it's scary and intimidating. And it's like,

before, before I signed on with Laura, and they had the proposed

contract sent to me, is like, I don't really know, yeah,

good, yeah.

Well, I would imagine to, like, your excitement just

takes over too. And you're like, oh my god, like, somebody's

gonna publish my book, holy shit. And then it's like, you

don't think about it. Does minutia of it and stuff

hinder your, you know, decision makings and ability to read

legalese and all that, yeah?

Well, it's also cool on angry robots part

that they like hooked you up with an agent before they tried

to manuscript.

Yeah, publisher could really take advantage of that

kind of thing what they were so

let's talk about your writing. All right,

all right. So in your bio, you talked about exploring gender,

sexuality and disability. How do you do that? Like for people who

have not read your books, I

don't know. It comes pretty naturally to me. I feel

like I don't really worry too much about, I mean, like, I try

to be cognizant of how the identities of the characters I'm

writing about read and how they could affect people reading

them. But I don't like, worry too much about, like, do I have

enough queer representation in the story? Because I always do,

when was the last time I wrote a straight character? That doesn't

occur to me,

I guess. I mean, so, so when I did see

that, like, normally, I wouldn't ask about that. If I were, like,

reading that in someone's writing, I would just say, Okay,

well, this is their life. This is what they're writing about.

But because you put it in your bio, I wondered if it was

important to you, if there was a message you were trying to get

out with it. Yeah.

I mean, it is important to me, because, like I said, I'm

a queer and disabled person, so this is kind of like just how I

experience the world generally. Is most of the people I know are

also queer and disabled, so that's that affects the

relationships I have with people and like the decisions we make

about our lives and things like that. And that can come as a

surprise to some people who don't have that experience in

their lives, right? I've had some confused responses to some

of the things in my book. Before, but

I guess I haven't gotten to anything

confusing in your book yet. I don't experience,

yeah, I don't get those responses a lot, but sometimes

it comes up with, like in moonshine, there's a character

named vix who's gender fluid, and sometimes people's

responses, they think that she's like a cisgender cross dresser,

but it's like, no, she's she's gender fluid. And I thought I

made that pretty clear. I thought how I wrote, how I wrote

fix, but that's not always how people read that character,

because usually I think it's just because they don't know a

lot about what gender fluidity is, right? So they kind of

project what information they do have onto this character whose

situation they don't necessarily understand, right? But I also

tried not to spend a lot of time hand holding that concept,

because it's

the point of the story. Yeah, this isn't really a story

to teach. This is gender people. About gender fluid people. It's

just the fantasy story that has a gender fluid character in it,

yeah? Because there are like characters in our

lives that we don't necessarily like question, because they're

just there and part of the story like, so why should you like,

have a lecture about, yeah? Do you have so you were saying that

you know a lot of people who are going through similar

experiences. Are they authors? Are they writers?

Yeah, I do know a lot of other queer and disabled

writers, less than three press because they're a queer romance

press, right? Like all of their authors, are queer, and they

that press specifically really focused a lot of attention on

stories outside of the mold of just two cisgender gay men in a

romance. Because a lot of times queer romance publishers, that's

really their big, big focus, and they might have like a small

lesbian imprint with a couple stories in it, kind of thing,

but less than three press was really, they paid a lot of

attention to trans stories and bisexual stories and asexual

stories. They really kind of included the whole rainbow in

their catalog. So I've gotten to know a lot of really great

authors through that who feel a lot less represented by

mainstream, I guess, for lack of a better term, queer romance

publishing. Yeah, but yeah, there's, there's a great

community there.

Do you listen to the unlikable women podcast

at all? I don't. I've heard of it, but they just had a they had

a pride episode where they there's several bisexual women

who are part of that, and they were talking about how the

Lambda Literary, literary awards had, like, gay or lesbian and

nothing else. Yeah, like, there was no like, queer spectrum to

it. I didn't know that. Like, I just thought that was

interesting. Yeah, that that's like, kind of the I am a cis,

straight person, like, so I'm just like, oh, well, to us,

that's like, Okay, well, this is the award for, like, gender

diversity, I guess not. Like, yeah, he didn't, yeah. I had no

idea until I listened to that, that that was, like, such a that

there was that kind of categorization, I guess,

yeah. And it's, it's strange the intersection of

publishing and queer communities, just because queer

communities have had such evolving language over the

entirety of the US is history, and it's really evolved rapidly

since the advent of the Internet, and communities kind

of breaking up and splitting apart based off of their

specific needs compared to what communities have historically

been served by society for what little queer communities have

been served by society and publishing, which is about books

and words and all that is, it's an unusual kind of situation for

them to keep up with the language changes that are

happening. And different communities, different

intersections of communities, come up with different words and

terminology and lingo and all of that is a lot to keep up with

well. And then all you have to see is like

people freaking out about they them. Yeah, it's

when people pretend to care about grammar once, once

trans people come up with well.

And I feel like if grammar is the only

thing you care about. You're doing it wrong. Yeah, it's not

great priorities. I mean, hey, that's not how

grammar works and B that's terrible priorities.

Yeah, language is made up, so you can just

change it to deal with, like, what exists. And if you're like,

creating what exists into the categories you already have.

Then that's very unimaginative, yeah, and unaccepting, yeah,

editors. I sympathize with editors, but I feel like it you

can, you can become very confined in in that space.

Yeah, there's, I mean, the key with language is you

want to be concise and specific, but also understood by the

people that you're talking to. And when, when it's situations

of, like, really specific communities coming up with their

own really specific language, it's like, well, how can we be

accurate but also use words that people actually know?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, why don't you

tell us a little bit more about moonshine.

Okay, so here's the part where I get to explain my

own book. I know

we've been building up to it this whole

time, but I imagine

since maybe you can help me out a little bit, since

you said you've been I'm about 50% through. Yeah, you know the

basic premise? Yes, but the biggest basic premise is, it is

a fantasy, kind of magical prohibition story about a young

woman named Daisy Dell who secretly does magic in her

society. That magic is illegal, but she kind of does a an

obscure form of magic that can kind of, she kind of has a

loophole around that illegality, but she still keeps it under

wrapping, under wraps, and keeps it secret as she starts her new

job in this office where she thinks she's just doing basic

secretarial work, but then strange things start happening,

and she's getting kind of suspicious of her boss, and

that's as far As I'll go without spoiling.

So it's a little bit like Thoroughly

Modern Millie. It is a little bit Thoroughly Modern Millie

meets like, I don't know. So there's Practical Magic, and

then there's like esoteric magic, and she's more of a

Practical Magic person, and everyone else around her is more

of an esoteric magic person. That's how I saw it, yeah, but

that's like me, based on my weird reading that I do by

myself. I don't know what you do, or where did you get it,

like, what? What got you into magic or those kinds of your

fantasy reading, obviously. But this seems a little bit more

like steampunk, sort of. It is a little bit because, I mean, I

guess the 20s aren't being steampunk, but, I mean, there is

at is it ash punk, I guess, okay, that's what we're calling

it now. Moonshine is ash punk,

not it is like secondary fantasy. So it's

technically high fantasy, if you're using that definition of

high fantasy, being set somewhere other than Earth. So

it's not earth, it's not earth, okay, yeah, it's its own world.

But it is based off the 1920s so it's very familiar, I think, as

like an Earth, like setting aside from the magic and the

ogres and things like that. But it is its own universe. There's,

I didn't get too much into the world building, and it's on the

side of a volcano. Yes, it's set in a country that was destroyed

a couple 100 years before by a volcano. So the land is still

recovering from that. And because of that, the land is

very cheap. So a lot of people who are fleeing wars or fascism

or problems across this fantasy globe are coming to this country

because the land is cheap and starting their own new society.

So there's a lot of themes of kind of the idea of progress in

society, because magic is forbidden in this in this new

country that sees itself as being very modern, and Daisy

sees herself as a modern girl, which is basically a flapper,

but she also practices this old fashioned magic. So she kind of

contends with her ideals there as like a young feminist with

her own job and pays her own rent, but also does this old

fashioned magic that is kind of blamed for society its ills and

is considered too traditional and something that society needs

to move on from. So that's kind of one of the big themes of that

story.

There's a lot going on, there's a lot going

on, but it's a good book. I'm having a great time, and I'll be

continuing to read it. But what are you reading right now?

I am reading. I'm actually rereading a series that

I read in high school. It's by Mercedes Lackey and James

Mallory called to the obsidian trilogy. So I'm just, I just

started the first book again, the outstretched shadow, but

that's kind of one of those. It's kind of in the vein of

those 90s door stopper fantasies that I mentioned, but it's a

little nice. Newer than that. It's from, like, the early 2000s

I think so. It still kind of has that vibe of fun fantasy

adventure, but without as much gratuitous sexual violence,

which I like. That was, yeah, that was the thing that really

kind of killed my interest in 90s fantasy. And that was,

like, I remember my my cousin, who was,

like a dude, was super into that, and like he was a D and D

guy, and he just had, like, an entire shelf full of doorstopper

fantasy, and it's all just all the covers were, like, tits

Fantasy had some gender problems, yeah, but this series

has not as much of that. It's a little more emerging, little

more progressive, and it's portrayals of women.

So I know that you just graduated from the PSU

program. Was that kind of a, is this? Is this a comfort read

like

to kind of decompress might be, yeah, I didn't read a

lot of fantasy while I was in grad school, because I was

mostly reading things needed to read for class, yeah, and for my

work at it will again. So that was more focused on nonfiction

and young adults like contemporary young adult. So

it's nice to get more back into fantasy, because that's really

my bread and butter.

Yeah, yeah.

Before we ask Corinne what she's reading, I'm

curious to know what you would like to I know that you're

interested in marketing for your own authorial purposes, but

like, if you could do something in the publishing realm as a

job, like, is that something that you're interested in, in

traditional publishing,

that might be, I'm still kind of trying to figure

out what my my career options are in terms of that. But I did

like developmental editing a lot when I did that at ooligan, and

that is something that I have to do all the time anyways for my

own books. So I feel like I would really enjoy working on

that with another author if I had an opportunity for it.

Have you ever? Have you ever done even kind of

smaller scale developmental projects with an author other

than in your

class, not really, actually, I don't do a lot of

like critique, critique partner kind of things with other

authors, and that's something that I would like to change.

Probably cool, but I mean, if I can have an opportunity to get

paid for That's

the dream. Okay? Corrine, yes, books you want to write, what

I'm reading, tell me, Well, okay, just, I just finished bad

blood, yeah, which I enjoyed very much, although I will say I

feel like most of the action took place like 25% you know

what I mean, like, at the end of the book, kind of, I was all,

there's a lot of, like, leading up to, like, this guy did this,

and this guy would, and there was a lot, obviously, there was

a lot involved in, you know, Theranos getting off the ground

and, you know, her lying to everyone, and I get that, but it

was just like, I just really wanted to read about the

takedown. Like, that's what I was there for. I was just like,

I just want to see them nailed, taken down

by, like a recent college undergrad. I just

love the idea of, like, Henry Kissinger, getting fucked over.

I mean, that was truly like. That made me like her. I

know me too. Get him. That was incredible, agreed? Yeah, no,

but I thought overall, it was really great, and I really

enjoyed it. And now I'm reading this book called The Call of the

weird by Louis Theroux, who is like a documentarian. His dad is

Paul Thoreau, the right, the writer. I've heard of Paul

Thoreau, yeah. He's like a British writer. So his son,

actually, I Okay. Full disclosure, I know him because

he did a documentary about Scientology. So that

was who he was. You never let me down.

No, I know I work so hard not to, but the book is

about, I think the subtitle is something about, like, travels

and America's, like, weird subcultures. So in one it's,

yeah, so it's interesting. I mean, it's like traveling around

America and talking to, like, people who, like, you know, are

UFO hunters and like that kind of stuff. Oh, my god, yeah,

sounds amazing. He does do a couple chapters with these white

supremacists, though, that I could do without. I think this

was published before it became, like, you know, serious.

I mean, they've always been, I know, but

before it became a serious, like, mainstream threat,

yes, yeah. So I think it was more of a curiosity back

then, but it's like, do you remember? I remember reading

about this many years ago, but there's like, this singing group

of these two girls who were like, you know, blonde hair and

blue eyed and whatever, and their names were like, links and

something. And I can't remember the name of their band, but they

just sung like Nazi songs or some Aryan songs. I. Know,

anyway, but they had some, like, recording deal, oh, prussian

blue. That was the name of it. Prussian blue, that was the name

of their band. So, anyway, I have not gotten to this chapter

yet.

Like, the Russian Yeah, yeah, because

they're Nazis.

Yes. I don't know. I haven't gotten to this chapter.

Let's burn the world down. I'm done. I'm still, I'm still

reading the, like, alien convention UFO hunter, which are

like, they're endearing and charming. And I'm like, I love

this. Oh, wait a minute, no. And now I'm actually in the porn

chapter, so they're talking to like a guy who used to be that's

also adorable, and that's fine. So I feel like I might skip the

chapter with the white supremacists living that right

now. I know that's kind of what I feel like anyway, so, but

otherwise, I'm really enjoying the book. So that's what I'm

reading. What are you reading?

I'm reading moonshine. Oh, that's right.

Oh, I You must be reading something

else. I started reading freedom is a

constant struggle, which is just conversations with Angela Davis.

Oh, okay, there's a lot of global Palestine Solidarity, oh,

stuff it was written in or it was published in 2016 so there's

a lot about Ferguson. Oh, sure, yeah, so that and some really

filthy romance stuff that I just like, it's not for research,

okay, well, that's fine. Yeah, needs anyway.

So yes, I am reading more than one book.

Okay, I knew you were yours is the best though. I mean, there's

Angela Davis, but that's a completely different Sure.

Jasmine, do you have anything you would like to plug in

addition to your book, your book, plug your book again, yes,

like all of your books again,

yes. So moonshine is again, you can get that pretty

much anywhere that sells books, ideally for my less than three

press books. I don't actually know if they're still available

at this point, but I have a website, Jasmine, gower.com so I

will update on the state of those books once I know for sure

what that will be. And I will also be at Dublin world con in,

oh, cool, the middle of August. I don't remember the Dublin

Ireland. Dublin Ireland, yeah, awesome. And I just got

confirmation for what panels I'll be on, and I don't remember

what they are. Off the top of my head, hang on. One of them is

making a sec I don't know. It's about asexuality and

aromanticism in fiction. And then the other one is gender and

the writer. And again, the dates and information for all that is

on my website.

Jasminegower.com We'll link it in the show. Yeah,

no, perfect, yeah.

So I'll be there for Worldcon.

That's cool. Have you ever been to Ireland?

I haven't been to Ireland. I've been to the UK.

No, but not Ireland. We're in UK, London, Edinburgh and

Cardiff,

ooh, I went to Edinburgh and Inverness.

Nice. Yeah, that's it, though, yeah, yeah,

you lived in London. I

did. I did live there. I mean, it was like, college,

study abroad, whatever. So it was for like, four or four

months, but still, I did live there. That's true. Yeah, I was

trying to brush that off. And we were like, you lived in London.

I'm like, but I did. It's true that I did so anyway, but I went

to Edinburgh too. It was lovely. And I went to Cornwall when I

lived there, mostly because this is creepy, but I'll tell you,

Tori Amos lives in Cornwall. I wasn't gonna, like, stalk her,

but I was like, hey, maybe she'll be around somewhere, and

I could, like, bump into her and say, Hey, I love your music, but

I didn't see her. So you'll meet her someday, maybe someday, I

do. She's touring next year, and you better fucking believe I'm

going to the meet and greet for that. So, yeah, oh my god, you

should, yeah, your life will never be the same.

Well. I mean, like, if you need someone to

come up and be like, embarrassing for Oh god, yeah, I

have no steaks. Okay, okay, perfect. Yeah, be like, This is

my friend.

I'll be that girl. Okay, thank you. I'll take you

up on

that Jasmine. Do you have, like, a Twitter, or

any other I do have

a Twitter, it's at j, A, S, underscore, Gower, all

right.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and

talking about your journey with publishing and with authoring.

Yes, thank you for having me again. Yeah.

And everyone. You can follow us on Twitter, at

hybrid pub Scout, on Facebook, hybrid pub Scout, Instagram,

Instagram, hybrid pub Scout, pod, yes, and then come to our

website and get on our newsletter. Yes, please, yeah.

Corinne is gonna start blogging again. Yes, I am. She is going

to be a misanthrope. But also I'm

like, a lovable misanthrope though, right? Oh, I

love you so much.

But also she's going to start giving. Marketing

advice. Oh, that's true. I am, because that is valuable, right?

Jasmine, it

is right. Yeah, would be into that. Yeah, I could do

some more, honestly. Oh, good, yeah, I'm happy to do that.

Karen has

so much to offer. And

was Oh, and please leave us a review on iTunes,

please. And I'm not promising any readings

anymore. Corinne is gonna do all of them. I'll do them all. Yeah,

like, yeah, yeah, whoever. We're gonna flip a coin, and I'll just

say, Okay, sure. I'll read this however we want. Yeah, that's

fair, yes, please. Thanks for giving a rip about books.

You.