Category: Pallas Perilous

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New Release: “To Drive the Hundred Miles” by Alec J. Marsh

We’re so excited that it’s release day! Y’all ready for this?

This title is Duck Prints Press’s first-ever novella, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that Alec decided to publish with us.

Title: To Drive the Hundred Miles

Author: Alec J. Marsh

Genre: Modern with Magic

Rating: Erotica

Trigger Warnings: transphobia

Relationship: customer/employee relationship, family, f/m, siblings

Character Features: elderly (background character), in the closet, lesbian (background character), self-esteem issues, trans male, wiccan

Tags: bad parenting, break up, christmas, clitoral stimulation, coffee shop, coming out, emotional abuse, first date, first kiss, first time together, flirting, fraught family dynamics, gaslighting, getting back together, magic realism, pov first person, past tense, reunion, smoking (casual), vaginal fingering, washington, winter solstice

Excerpt:

Next to the antique shop with a sagging roof was a new café, cheerfully labeled The Three Pines by the sandwich board in the parking lot, which had four spots. There was no sign on the building front, and it looked like half a house, with the other half a brewery. I studied both for a minute in confusion. They were trendy and extremely clean. They wouldn’t have been out of place in Portland.

I was thrilled.

Inside was exactly the kind of bougie hipster coffee shop I haunted. The counters were dark wood polished to a shine, the tables small and uniform. Two armchairs sat in the window, a perfect spot for reading or watching the mountains.

I stepped up to the counter and scanned the menu. Besides espresso drinks, it offered frappes and chai lattes and Italian sodas. “Hi! How can I help you?” the girl behind the counter asked. She was extremely cute in a cheerleader sort of way, her blonde hair done up in a ponytail and sparkles on her eyelids. She wore a baggy pink sweater under her brown apron. She looked… vaguely familiar.

Length: 67 pages/24,001 words

Price: $4.99 US (release price*)

Celebrate the solstice today with this solstice story!
Get your copy now!

Love Alec’s writing? Make sure you check out Heart’s Scaffold and Study Hall, short stories Alec has previously published with us, and follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletters to be among the first to hear when they release future titles (don’t look now, but there’s one coming out in January…)

Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.

Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn about what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi monthly and read your fill!

*note: novellas and novels are subject to release pricing; three months post-release, the price goes down by $1.
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“To Drive the Hundred Miles” by Alec J. Marsh: Cover Reveal!

The wait is over – here is the gorgeous cover for To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh. The novella is coming out this Wednesday, December 21st, and you’re not going to want to miss out!

Have you been seeing our promos and thinking, “Yes! I need to read that!” Well, make sure you add it to your To Be Read pile on Goodreads and/or Storygraph!

Snow falls softly as dark descends early, and Will returns home to Serendipity, Washington, for the holidays. What awaits him at home?

Some conflict.

Some opportunities.

Some magic.

Some coffee.

And a lot of possibilities for his future…

We’ll have one more teaser coming out tomorrow, before the book is released on Wednesday, so make sure you’re following us on social media to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Want all the deets and the ability to claim free novellas? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi – $10/month and $25/month can get this and other titles from our catalog for free!

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Monthly Storygraph Giveaway: And Seek (Not) to Alter Me

Duck Prints Press returns to the second round of Storygraph giveaways with our second anthology And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakepeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.“

What is Storygraph? The awesome independently owned-and-operated alternative to Amazon-owned Goodreads! Working with them as a publisher doing this giveaways has been phenomenal: they’re organized, receptive to feedback, interested in innovative, and responsive. We’re thrilled to continue working with them on giveaways. If you’ve wanted a Goodreads alternative for organizing your reading, posting your reviews, logging your book collections, and more, you should definitely check them out.

What is Duck Prints Press? We’re the indie publisher dedicated to helping creators transition from creating primarily fanworks to creating primarily original works! We especially focus on publishing works featuring LGBTQIA+ characters.

What is And Seek (Not) to Alter Me? In And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, 16 authors and 16 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twists on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique artworks and stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.

Want your own copy of this awesome, innovative collection? Enter our giveaway on Storygraph NOW – or, if you don’t want to wait that long and leave it to chance, you can always buy your own copy immediately from our webstore!

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“And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing'” – Now Available in Our Webstore!

Did you miss our crowdfunding campaign for And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”? Was there merch you wanted that you didn’t get? Have you been eagerly awaiting it’s arrival in our webstore (haven’t we all been?)? Well YOUR TIME HAS COME!

In And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, 16 authors and 16 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twists on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique artworks and stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.

And now, you can get your very own e-book copy from our webstore! Only $9.99 for 16 phenomenal stories and 20 gorgeous art pieces!

We’ve also listed four merchandise items from the original crowdfunding campaign that we have extras of – if you want ‘um, you’d better grab ‘um, because once these extras are sold out, we will never be making more!

Art Prints of the Front Cover

(featuring the gorgeous artwork by Gio Guimarães in all it’s colorful, queer glory!)

Art Prints of the Back Cover

(featuring even more of Gio Guimarães‘s wonderful work!)

“Taming My Wild Heart to thy Loving Hand” Bookmark

(with artwork by Alicia Matheson and the signatures of our contributors!)

Bard Dux Sticker

(created by Alessa Riel)

Don’t Miss Out! Visit Our Store Today!

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Our Next Anthology! Aim for the Heart: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s “The Three Musketeers”

Our next anthology, second in our Queer Fanworks Inspired By… series, will feature stories and black-and-white artworks inspired by The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas! This theme was selected by monthly backers on our Patreon and ko-fi, based on a list of finalists selected by our management team, and we couldn’t be more excited about their choice!

Have you ever thought, “this story is great but why isn’t it queer”?

Are Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan your OT4?

Do you love ridiculous hats? Flamboyant outfits? Skirts wider than doorways? Shiny shiny swords?

Are you positive that literally every female character in the book deserved better than canon?

Well, if any of those describe you, WE WANT YOUR ARTWORK! This is an open call for artist applicants to create a black-and-white or grayscale artwork of A4 size, taking inspiration from the source material of the d’Artagnan romances, transforming them, and queerifying them for the delight and enjoyment of all! You must create fanart (of any fandom, doesn’t have to be this one!) to be eligible to apply for this anthology! And – this is a paid opportunity! We’ll be paying a minimum of $50 per page of artwork – and there may be opportunities for artists to do more than one page, and there may be a pay increase (dependent on crowdfunding success).

Interested? Fascinated? Intrigued? You and Milady both! Read on to learn more…

Recruitment is open until October 15th, 2022.

We’d love to hear from you, so why not take a stab at publishing with us and Apply Now!

Artwork by Pallas Perilous.

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For those who may not have seen…

The crowdfunding campaign for our anthologies She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars has ended, and we’re funded!

A huge, HUGE thank you to everyone who helped spread the word, all the authors and other contributors, and of course to everyone who backed!! We couldn’t have done it without you.

Wondering what comes next? Well…

…we finish editing!

…we order merch!

…we fulfill all our orders!

…we publish the e-book versions on our website!

…and we keep working on publishing more queer books, queer anthologies, queer art, and more!!

(Missed the chance to back the campaign? Well, the books will be available on our website as e-books in – probably – November or December. And, you can always support us monthly – and get lots of awesome perks for doing so! – by backing us on Patreon or ko-fi! Backers get sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes access, exclusive stories, a say in determining themes for future anthologies, and more.)

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“He Bears the Cape of Stars” and “She Wears the Midnight Crown” Cover Spotlight!

When we commissioned @thefriendlypigeon to create the cover art these books, we had a lot of ideas that went in a lot of directions. Pigeon took all those thoughts and narrowed them into these two absolutely gorgeous pieces that we couldn’t be more happy with!

So, these are the covers – what are the books?

Welcome to Duck Prints Press’s newest project: two anthologies, entitled She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars, that explore wlw and mlm relationships developing, growing, and changing while the characters attend or participate in masquerades!

Our 36 contributors have stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.

This project, featuring two books and a load of gorgeous merchandise (include 8″ x 10″ art prints of these covers!) is crowdfunding right now on Seed & Spark – don’t miss your chance to get your own copies!

Read More About the Campaign NOW!

(and if you need an art commission you truly can’t go wrong with thefriendlypigeon – you should check out their website.)

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24 Hours to Go!

Well, technically there are twenty-five hours left in our Kickstarter, but! TIME IS ALMOST UP!

We’ve reached our first stretch goal, and we’ll be able to commission art for our back cover! Every single e-book will come with the graphic for the front and back cover, every print book will have full-color illustrations on the front and back, and backers at Levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 will get an extra art print featuring the back cover art! Gio Guimarães (Facebook (giovannabcg) | Facebook (giosdoodlesandartworks) | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter) is the artist. Gio and DPP have already signed a contract, and once we have sketches to share we’ll give y’all an update!

We’d love to reach our next stretch goal, at $16,500, so we can give our authors and artists a raise which doubles how much they earn for their contributions to the anthology. You can help! Check out our merch, help spread the word about the campaign on social media, and – if you want a copy – make sure you buy your own!! This is your only chance to get And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in print, and we’ve got a host of amazing merchandise for our backers too, so don’t miss out!!

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“And Seek (Not) to Alter Me” Art Teasers: Taylor C. Fischer and Pallas Perilous

Presenting And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”

Duck Prints Press has launched our second Kickstarter, running now through April 14th, 2022 – And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, a gorgeous collection featuring the work of 16 authors and 16 artists in a full-color, A4 size soft cover size-style book!

Today, we’re highlighting 2 more of our artists…

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Artist Spotlight: Taylor C. Fischer

Work Title: Masquerade

Biography: Taylor graduated from the Maryland Institute College of art in 2010. They believe that there are experiences and stories that can connect all of us with the aid of illustration and design. Their previous projects include: Dauntless, Elderscrolls Online, Sid Meier’s: Civilization, League of Legends, and Xcom

Taylor’s continues to create personal work in their free time, but also enjoys raising farm animals, horseback riding, training horses, beekeeping, and lives in their Tiny House on wheels.

Preferred pronouns are They/Them

Links: TaylorCFischer.com | Twitter

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Artist Spotlight: Pallas Perilous

Work Title: Born Under Saturn

Biography: Pallas Perilous (she/they) is an illustrator, writer, and designer who has been creating work inside, outside, and adjacent to fandom for twenty years. In her professional life she primarily creates graphic novels for young adults through traditional publishers, but has also self-published half a dozen books, provided visual communications consulting for fancy tech companies, and done a lot of public speaking. She is active in several programs focused on mentorship and advocacy for emerging creators, especially those from fandom and marginalized communities.

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There’s lots more lovely art, stories, merchandise, and more available from Duck Prints Press right now – back our Kickstarter!

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Cover Reveal for “And Seek (Not) to Alter Me”

Duck Prints Press is thrilled to announce our second anthology, which will be launching on March 15th, 2022!

The incredible Gio Guimarães, @sketching-fox, did the artwork for our front cover – and will be doing a back cover, as well, if we can reach our first Kickstarter stretch goal.

In AndSeek(Not)toAlterMe, 16 authors and 17 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of stories and artwork inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twist on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators play with gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.

Stories and artworks feature wlw, mlm, poly relationships, trans characters, gender swaps, canon divergent tales, AUs…there’s even a two page comic! This anthology doesn’t have it all, but it does have a wonderful range to help you fall in love with these characters all over again.

(brief note: yes we have concerns about KS and blockchain, but this project was too far along to crowdfund elsewhere, we apologize…)

Learn more about this project right now!

Our Crowdsourcing Campaign Launches on March 15th, 2022! Want to make sure you don’t miss it? Then follow our Project Page!