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STEVEN D. BREWER

AUTHOR OF SPECULATIVE FICTION AND POETRY IN ENGLISH AND ESPERANTO. TEACHER OF
SCIENTIFIC WRITING. LOVER OF NATURAL HISTORY. (HE/HIM)

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Phased Retirement

Posted on 2024-04-24 by StevenDBrewer

Twenty-eight years ago, I joined the Biology Department at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst. As a freshly-minted PhD in Science Education, I was hired
to the direct the Biology Computer Resource Center (BCRC) — a small computer lab
that was both a computer classroom and drop-in space for undergraduates.

I really enjoyed the educational and technical work I did for the Department and
University. The Internet was new and we built a lot of interesting and
innovative educational resources. When I was hired, I had no formal teaching
responsibilities, but over time I developed a number of face-to-face and online
classes which offered unique learning opportunities for students.

During the pandemic, the Department closed the BCRC and my job responsibilities
became solely teaching. When I was no longer obligated to spend all of my
summers, breaks, and intersessions maintaining computer systems, I decided to
repurpose that time for writing fiction. Since then, I’ve published several
short stories and two books of fiction. And written a number more that are, as
yet, unpublished.

Last year, after a long stay in the local hospital, I was diagnosed with a
chronic lung condition that makes it likely I will become very ill from any
respiratory infections. I’ve been working remotely since then, and I’m so
grateful that the University has provided this accommodation that has allowed me
to continue working. But remote work is isolating and difficult. And I’d also
like to have even more time for writing fiction.

This evening, I was notified that my application to do a phased retirement over
the next two years has been approved. Beginning in Fall 2024, I will teach only
half time for two academic years and then fully retire. I’m looking forward to
making a gradual transition into retirement and being able to devote myself more
to my new creative endeavors.

life, writing Leave a comment

New Shimenawa

Posted on 2024-03-31 by StevenDBrewer

Four years ago, I discovered what shimenawa were and I made one for my beloved
sakura tree. But it was time for a new one. The old one had gradually
disintegrated in the weather and only part of a single shide remained. So I
gathered supplies over the past week and reminded myself how to construct the
tassels and shide to put up a new one in time for the cherry blossoms

Our tree was grown from cuttings gifted to the Town of Amherst by the Nation of
Japan in honor of William Clark. The tree has struggled in recent years since we
needed to have a trench cut in the front yard that impinged on its roots. But
we’ve been working with an arborist to nurse it back to health.

I look forward to the cherry blossoms every year and this year, perhaps, more
than ever. Now I’ll have a nice, fresh shimenawa to go with them.

sakura, shimenawa Leave a comment

Watch City Steampunk Festival

Posted on 2024-03-28 by StevenDBrewer

On May 11, 2024, I will be bringing a Small Publishing in a Big Universe (SPBU)
vendor table to the Watch City Steampunk Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts.
I’ve never attended Watch City before, but it looks like it will be a lot of
fun.

Currently, we are scheduled to have four or five authors sharing the table. I
will be sure to bring Revin’s Heart, which is steampunky fantasy adventure. (And
I’ll also bring a few copies of Better Angels: Tour de Force, just in case.) But
Water Dragon Publishing has a few other steampunky offerings. And, as I say,
there will several other authors there as well.

The SPBU model has been doing very well! It lets indie and small-press authors
share the cost of a vendor table and avoid the need to get a tax identity or
manage the purchasing system to sell books independently. A big traditional
publisher might be able to just justify a table of their own, but very few indie
or small press publishers could. We tried out the approach experimentally at
Worldcon in Chicago and we’ve had tables for SPBU at Baycon, Arisia, and
Boskone. It’s been a boon for authors who want to attend a con and they can tell
people where they can buy their books.

spbu Leave a comment

Fantastic Reviews of Revin’s Heart

Posted on 2024-03-26 by StevenDBrewer

Recently, I was gratified to receive two extremely generous reviews of Revin’s
Heart. Reviews are critical for getting the word out about new books.

The first was by The Faerie Review. The reviewer, Lily Shadowlyn, had read the
entire Revin’s Heart series at the time the final novelette came out and had
written a series of enthusiastic reviews about each of them. In the last review,
she had said, “I would love to see all the stories compiled into one larger book
or even a box set bundle someday, although it would be a hefty tome, the stories
it would contain would be worth it!” So, when the collected edition came out,
she reread the stories and the additional material had many nice things to say.

> [T]hink Treasure Planet with magic and LGBTQIA+ rep. The story moves along
> smoothly, and the action will get your heart racing. The characters are
> unforgettable, and you won’t see the twists coming.
>
> Lily Shadowlyn

The second review was a complete surprise to me. Damian Serbu wrote a review for
Queer Sci Fi. In his review, he speaks glowingly about the worldbuilding, story
structure, and pacing of Revin’s Heart. But his description of Revin made me
feel wonderful that someone really got what I was aiming for.

> Revin himself is a fabulous character. You pull for him from the first. He
> possesses a charming combination of hurt because of not being accepted for his
> true nature with a hope for a better future and acceptance for those around
> him, no matter who they are. And Revin blends a youthful naïveté about the
> world, especially within the realm of the pirates, with a bravery and courage
> in his exploits.
>
> Damian Serbu

I’m so grateful for the excellent reviews. It’s really hard to get reviews.
Every author wishes that more people who read books would share a review — even
if only to say, “I read this and it was OK.” But to get such lengthy, positive
reviews is extraordinary and I hope they lead to more people discovering Revin’s
Heart and enjoying it.

reviews, revins heart Leave a comment

Boskone Wrapup

Posted on 2024-02-15 by StevenDBrewer

In 2023, I had been scheduled to appear at Boskone, but ended up instead in the
hospital. It was a big disappointment and so I was excited this year when I was
again selected to appear on the program.

The second weekend in February happens to be also the second week of the
semester, so I had a regular workday on Friday. I drove to Boston the night
before and then had an early morning meeting and office hours. I had just enough
time between office hours and class to run down to the parking garage to meet my
confederates to open my car and help move in the books for the Water Dragon
dealer table. After class, I was able to get registered, pick up my packet, and
then spend a little time selling books before it was time for my first panel.

My first panel was Write My Doctoral Thesis: Science Edition. When I had signed
up, I hadn’t noticed that this was supposed to be comedic event (another
participant told me that they were under the same misapprehension, which made me
feel better for having missed this crucial fact.) After the fact, it was a lot
of fun. But during the session it was rather stressful: It was rather like
playing madlibs with very smart opponents in front of a live audience. But I
felt like I made good contributions and got some laughs. And I was pleased to
meet the other participants who all seemed like great folks.

Saturday was my busy day with a reading followed immediately after by a panel,
then a break, the book festival, and another panel immediately after. The
reading was reasonably well attended: I read The Better Angels and the Military
Morale Mishegoss, an excerpt of The Third Time’s the Charm, and The Better
Angels and the Super Sticky Situation. Then I had to run to the Speculative
Evolution panel. The participants were well selected, with people representing
diverse perspectives. I was bit disappointed that the Book Festival was kind of
a bust: I had a handful of people who came to speak with me, but it was a
general problem: there just weren’t many people there. My last panel, Romance in
Speculative Fiction was fascinating: it was an interesting group of
participants. A number of audience members, afterwards expressed how much they
valued my comments that provided representation for queer and non-binary
perspectives.

I spent Sunday in the dealer room selling books. Revin’s Heart bundles sold
well, although it became clear that people were planning to get copies of the
fix-up which is now out (although I did not have copies to sell at the con.)
This should surprise no-one. I was a bit more disappointed that, although people
liked my pitch for Better Angels, it did not sell particularly well. People
would listen to the pitch, say it sounded good, and then not buy the book. So
realized a little tweak. Rather than calling it “light-hearted space opera” I’ve
started calling it “fluffy military space opera” which will hopefully generate
the right amount of cognitive dissonance.

Boskone is just a month after Arisia, but the two events are quite different.
Boskone trends older — maybe 25 years older. And the participants seem clearer
on what they want. And what they want is traditional sci fi like they read when
they were younger. They seem therefore less interested in the new offerings of a
small press. The booth just next to ours was MIT Press selling, among other
things, books by Stanislav Lem (mostly written in the 1960s and 1970s) that
seemed very interesting to the participants.

Sunday afternoon, we packed everything up and I drove home, getting back just
before sunset.

better angels, boskone, conventions, revins heart, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Advertising Books

Posted on 2024-01-29 by StevenDBrewer

Trying to publicize your books is hard. It’s one of the things that you don’t
think much about until you try to transition from “writer” to “author.” At least
I didn’t. But I had seen enough authors talking about the need to do publicity
that I had some idea what I was getting myself into. What I didn’t know anything
about, however, was advertising.

Last summer, I saw a Facebook group that was going to offer a free starter class
for people who wanted to learn about advertising using ads at Amazon. I decided
to spend a little money up front just trying out the advertising system. I first
tried letting Amazon construct the ad (basically just showing a book among
search results, I think). But I think I clicked something wrong and it didn’t
work at all. It didn’t cost anything because nobody clicked on it — whatever it
was (I couldn’t figure out how to get it to show me what the ad was that it was
even showing). But it tried again and got some tiny number of clicks. But it was
clear that a lot more fine tuning was required. So I tried the class.

The class was based around long screencasts. I quickly found I couldn’t stand to
watch the screencasts at all. But accompanying the screencasts were
click-by-click directions for the activities. This I could do, so I set up a
handful of experimental ads like they recommended. The results were quite
discouraging. I didn’t get any sales (as far as I could tell) and, when I spoke
with another author who had taken a similar (but more advanced class), he
indicated that you needed to get orders of magnitude larger responses in order
actually see appreciable sales. And he had decided it wasn’t worth it.

Several people said that Facebook ads were a better fit, so I decided to hold my
nose and give those a try. I truly and wholeheartedly despise Facebook. But I
gave them some money to “boost” a post I had already written to promote Better
Angels: Tour de Force. The interface was less complicated and it seemed like I
got better results. So, after that ad finished, I decided to run another. When I
did, however, I discovered how enshittified the Facebook ad system is.

The first ad you buy has reasonable defaults that make sense: it defaults to $14
for a week with a goal of getting people to click on your link. But when you try
to do the next one, it dicks with the defaults. It tries to get you to spend $42
or $56 or some much larger amount. And it defaults to other weird goals like
“get more engagement” or “get more messages via Facebook Messenger”. And it
tries to get you link Instagram and What’s App accounts with your Facebook
account. Ugh. I feel so unclean.

Since I’ve been playing around with my book promotion posts already, I will
probably continue to purchase ads at some low level. Since it does seem to
actually put my ad in front of people who do, at some level, click through to
the book page. And maybe some of them actually buy a book. If nothing else, it
gives me some additional metrics on which book promotion posts are more
effective.

It still feels a lot like just rolling the dice.

advertising, bookselling Leave a comment

Boskone 2024 Schedule

Posted on 2024-01-25 by StevenDBrewer

Last year, I was scheduled to appear at Boskone, but ended up going into the
hospital the week before. Tempting fate, I have again proposed myself as a
participant and have now received my final schedule.

On Friday Feb 9, since this is during the academic year, I will have office
hours at 10am, and then will teach class (remotely) from 1:25 until 3:45. Then,
I will be free to participate in the convention for the rest of the weekend.

At 7pm on Friday, I will serve on a panel Write My Doctoral Thesis: Science
Edition (in Burroughs). This looks like it will be a lot of fun.

Saturday is my busy day: I have a reading (in Galleria – Cabaret) at 12:30, then
Speculative Evolution (in Marina 4) at 1pm, followed by the Boskone Book Party
(in the Galleria) at 6pm, then Romance in Speculative Fiction (in Harbor 2) at
7pm.

But Sunday, I’m totally free!

Mostly, when not otherwise scheduled, I’ll be at the Water Dragon Publishing
table in the Dealer Room. I’ll have plenty of copies of Better Angels: Tour de
Force, as well as bundles of Revin’s Heart. Stop by and visit!

boskone, conventions Leave a comment

The Better Angels and Bebe’s Bedtime Bedlam

Posted on 2024-01-19 by StevenDBrewer

David was still on the bridge of Angels’ Wings, the Better Angels’ starship,
when Bebe came out in her nightgown.

“Bebe can’t sleep,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

“Can I get you something? Some warm milk maybe?” David asked.

“Bebe wants you to read her a story.”

David felt his hackles rise.

“What story would you like?” he said, apprehensively.

“Bebe wants you to read Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile!”

“Again? Didn’t I read that last time? And the time before?”

She grabbed his sleeve and tugged, “Come. Come!”

David tucked Bebe into her bed, then seated himself. Eyes shining, she wriggled
with anticipation under the covers.

“Close your eyes,” David admonished.

Bebe complied and David began to read.

“Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile. By Cat Cattwaddler.

“‘Catch, Cap’n’!” called Crocodile.

“‘Can’t,’ quipped Cap’n Capybara. ‘Carrying coffee!'”

Bebe began giggling.

“Cup caught casually chucked chunk.”

Bebe started snorting with laughter.

“Crocodile cried, ‘Captivity crummy!'”

“Aw!” Bebe said, plaintively.

“Go to sleep!”

David read the rest of the book to Bebe. By the last page she was finally
asleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. He laid the book down and tiptoed
out as quietly as he could. Then he turned and found the rest of the Better
Angels standing in their nightgowns.

“We can’t sleep, David! Read us a story too!”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “What story do you want?”

“Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile!” they all said in unison.

“But…” David said, turning to look back at the door. Then he put his foot down.
“No. You’ll have to pick something else.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story was originally written for a set of prompts for #wss366.

Better Angels: Tour de Force is now available at The Truck Stop at the Center of
the Galaxy.

better angels Leave a comment

Making Pitches to Sell Books

Posted on 2024-01-18 by StevenDBrewer

I’ve been rather surprised to discover that I seem to be pretty good at selling
books. It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have books that people want to read. But a
huge part of successful selling is to have a pitch that lands with the
prospective buyer. And that’s what I seem to be good at.

I think it derives from the years I spent doing educational assemblies. To make
those performances work, you need to hone a series of stories and statements so
that the wording and timing resonate with the audience and they get caught up in
the performance. When it works best, the audience will play along and you can
hear them respond and engage with what you’re saying. It’s not a conversation,
but you can hear through their laughter or groans when they’ve understood
something or gotten the silly joke you were trying to tell.

The first step is judging when to engage with someone approaching or at the
table. Some people stand back or refuse to make eye-contact. Or are clearly
focused on looking at the books themselves. I usually just offer a quiet
“Hello.” Or “Can I help you with anything?” Or, if they seem unsure, I might
ask, “Would you like a tour?” Or, occasionally, “What do you like to read?” I’d
rather not ask that, because I want to steer them to what I want them to read.

When I’m selling Revin’s Heart, I often begin by pointing at the Airship Pirate
ribbon and asking, “Would you like to be an airship pirate?” Most people at
science fiction conventions would like to be an airship pirate, although there
are exceptions. The ribbon is particularly good because its instantly
recognizable to LGBTQIA+ folks who can tell immediately that the book might
appeal to them.

I leave a beat while they consider the ribbon and then, as they take it, I say,
“It’s for my steampunky fantasy adventure with pirates and airships and a trans
protagonist.” I usually tick off on my fingers as list the items.

I leave another beat and say, “It was serialized as seven novelettes. They’re
five dollars each, but — if you buy all seven as a bundle — you can get them for
$25… [beat] which is like two free!”

If they express interest in the first one, I point at the Third Time’s the Charm
and say, “Pro tip: don’t name the first book in a series ‘the third’ something.”
This almost always generates a smile, if not a laugh.

At this point, I generally point to Better Angels and say, “This is my newest
book. It’s about a group of non-human biological androids [beat] that look like
pre-teen girls [beat] and serve as magical girl singing-and-dancing idols [beat]
but they can change up their programming [beat] and become a covert military
force.” Usually, by this point, people are totally caught up in the pitch and
are expressing wonderment or laughing. When I did this pitch at the Steampunk
Isn’t Dead panel at Arisia2024, I had been honing it all weekend, the audience
responded, as I performed it, with a rising volume of amazement, “aaaaaAAAAAAH!”
ending in laughter and applause.

I’ve got a few other pitches. I learned an effective one for the Grimaulkin
series from the author. And for two of the Water Dragon anthologies, I will say.
“The Future’s So Bright is the bright, hopeful, optimistic stuff while Corporate
Catharsis is all the dark stuff you wish you could do to your boss.” This
usually generates a laugh and immediately helps the prospective buyer situate
those books in their mind.

After making the pitch, there are plenty of other things I can tell buyers about
the books. But I’ve realized that having an effective pitch that’s delivered as
a performance, sets the stage for everything that follows.

bookselling Leave a comment

Arisia 2024

Posted on 2024-01-18 by StevenDBrewer

I attended Arisia for the second time as a participant. Last year, I was only
one one or two panels and had a reading. This year, I moderated a panel, served
on four more, and had a reading. I dressed up in cosplay for the panel
“Steampunk isn’t dead.” Well. Sorta.

I moderated the panel on Gender and Sexual Identity Representation in Media.
Originally, there were supposed to be four participants plus me moderating.
Normally when there are four, the moderator can focus solely on facilitating the
conversation. Unfortunately, one of the participants was unable to join us and
so I tried to both moderate and participate in the conversation. I was satisfied
with providing enough structure to keep the discussion on track and making sure
that all of the participants were able to make contributions.

I served on three additional panels which were all fun. The Food in Science
Fiction and Fantasy left me with an appetite to write more about food. The Bi+
Panel provided new insight into bisexuality, pansexuality, and current thinking
in queer culture. And the panel on Invertebrates and Entomology in SFF was
fascinating due to the other interesting participants that each had useful stuff
to contribute. I felt like I made good contributions on each of the panels.

I got to offer a reading on Sunday afternoon. The audience was around a dozen. I
think they were mostly there to hear the other participants, who all write much
more poetical stuff, so my weird space opera stuff left me the odd-man out —
quite literally. But the selections I had made (Military Morale Mishegoss and
Super Sticky Situation) worked well together I got a polite, enthusiastic
response. The other authors were jealous of my giant poster of my cover.

Water Dragon had a dealer table again this year. Last year, I was the lead in
running it, but this year another author and his wife attended and took the
lead. It was great! Four other authors from the publisher took turns at the
table as well and it was great to get to meet them as well. I really value the
vital community of authors that Water Dragon Publishing fosters.

I had a new book just out Better Angels: Tour de Force as well as the novelettes
that form Revin’s Heart. The copies of Better Angels arrived just in time, but
the additional stock of Revin’s Heart didn’t arrive in time. So I plenty of one,
but ran short of the other.

I was grateful they required masks. Due to my underlying health conditions, I
can only attend events where everyone is masked. Knock wood, it appears I came
through the Convention without contracting any respiratory infections.

Next month, we’ll all be back for Boskone.

Arisia, better angels, boskone, conventions, revins heart, Uncategorized Leave a
comment
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@STEVENDBREWER@WANDERING.SHOP

Steven D. Brewer on 4/26/2024, 4:56:11 PM

#WordWeavers In your story, who’s hiding (literally or metaphorically)?

Interesting. I hadn't thought of the question this way before. In *Revin's
Heart* the protagonist is trans and is trying to conceal that fact. In
*Cecelia's Journey*, Cecelia and her girlfriend are on the run from Cecelia's
family. In *A Familiar Problem*, Rory is compelled to conceal from everyone that
he's been captured as a familiar by an ancient demon — and to pretend that the
demon is his familiar.

Steven D. Brewer on 4/26/2024, 4:41:33 PM

#PennedPossibilities What is the best piece of advice that you as an author have
ever received?

Finish stories, submit them for publication, then start writing the next story.
When the first story gets rejected, don't give into the temptation to revise it:
just send it out again and keep working on the next story.

Steven D. Brewer on 4/26/2024, 4:39:43 PM

#WritersCoffeeClub Do you write standalone stories, series, or both? Which do
you prefer?

I love to write serialized fiction. *Revin's Heart* was written as a series of
novelettes & I'm now working on a new series about Lady Cecelia, tentatively
entitled *Cecelia's Journey*. The *Better Angels* stories are also pretty
strongly serialized: the episodes, though independent, fit together in a
particular order. I do write standalone stories, although even then I can often
imagine follow-on stories.

Steven D. Brewer on 4/26/2024, 4:19:33 PM

"It's not possible, Curtains!" Roughneck said, shaking his fist. "We don't have
enough men."
"Our defense is going to be #porous," Curtains admitted. "The trick is to leave
an obvious opening Codwaller can't resist, draw him in, then spring the trap."
Curtains explained the plan. Roughneck grinned.
After making a show of force on the roads, Curtains redeployed his full force
into concealed positions in the forest.
By the time Codwaller realized they were surrounded, it was far too late.

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/26/2024, 1:10:53 AM

I've received the trade-paperback copies of the collected edition of *Revin's
Heart* in preparation for upcoming book sales. It's wonderful to actually have
them in hand! They're beautiful!
https://waterdragonpublishing.com/product/revins-heart/ #books #bookstodon

Revin's Heart by Steven D. Brewer
A young man falls in with airship pirates … and discovers how to follow his
heart.
Steven D. Brewer on 4/25/2024, 6:00:56 PM

They heard yells & running footsteps approaching in the dark alley.
Kasseh pulled up a manhole cover.
"Get in!" she hissed to Cecelia.
Cecelia scrambled down the ladder into the black. Kasseh dropped in behind her,
then lowered the manhole cover back over them.
Cecelia went down, then her foot dropped into cold, moving water. She squeaked &
drew her foot back up.
She looked up & down the dark tunnel. At first she could see nothing, but then
perceived a tiny #glimmer in the distance.

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/25/2024, 2:21:50 PM

Not everyone understands what great lap-puppies boxers are… #DogsOfMastodon

Steven D. Brewer on 4/24/2024, 4:19:23 PM

kvazaŭ festene
kun rozkoloraj konfetoj…
sakuro ĝisas

like a party, with pink confetti… sakura bids farewell

from *Premitaj Floroj*
https://www.amazon.com/Premitaj-Floroj-Esperanto-Steven-Brewer/dp/1477567267

#hajko #haiku #esperanto

Amazon.com

Steven D. Brewer on 4/24/2024, 3:18:35 PM

Starting next fall, I will begin a two-year phased retirement.
https://stevendbrewer.com/phased-retirement/

Phased Retirement - Steven D. BREWER
Twenty-eight years ago, I joined the Biology Department at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst. As a freshly-minted PhD in Science Education, I was hired
to the direct the Biology Computer Resource Center (BCRC) — a small computer lab
that was both a computer classroom and drop-in space for undergraduates. I
really enjoyed the educational and
Steven D. Brewer on 4/24/2024, 1:31:23 PM

"'Pedes are coming up from under *Angels' Wings*! They're coming up through
tunnels!"
Zaza and Bebe ran back outside and roasted a couple of 'pedes that showed
themselves, but they could see that there were more down in the tunnels.
"It would be suicide to go down in there, Top," Zaza said. "But if we don't do
something fast, they'll be able to attack us at will."

#wss366

From *The Better Angels and the Military Morale Mishegoss* in *Better Angels:
Tour de Force*
https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/product/better-angels-tour-de-force/

Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy : Better Angels: Tour de Force by Steven
D. Brewer
The Better Angels. Entertainment. Music and Dancing. And Rescues!
Steven D. Brewer on 4/23/2024, 12:44:07 PM

The envelope was on thick, creamy paper. His full name was penned in an elegant
hand with a rich, blue ink on the front. The flap bore the Contessa's seal in
purple wax. Curtains broke the seal & read the letter. Roughneck watched as he
read it again then folded it back up & replaced it in the envelope.
"Our contract here is null & #void," he said.
"But…"
"Round 'em up, Roughneck."
"On it!"
On the road out of the estate, Curtains addressed them, "Good work, men. I'll be
in touch soon."

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/23/2024, 2:30:43 AM

If you live in #WesternMass you might be interested in the #UMassAmherst Farm
Community Supported Agriculture program. They're selling shares for their fall
harvest: 25lbs of produce per week for 10 weeks. Sign up by May 1st for their
early bird discount!
https://www.umass.edu/stockbridge/umass-farm-community-supported-agriculture-shares
(The secret link to sign up is just above the graphic.)

UMass Farm Community Supported Agriculture Shares | Stockbridge School of
Agriculture
REGISTER HERE FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE 2024 UMASS STUDENT FARM CSA PROGRAM The
UMass Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program is a business run entirely
by the UMass Student Farm students. Simply put, a CSA program is a partnership
between farmers and their local community where both parties benefit. Our
“members” or “shareholders” purchase a farm share in the spring, and in
Steven D. Brewer on 4/22/2024, 3:39:22 PM

Curtains & his men surrounded the Contessa's rented mansion. At his signal,
Roughneck bashed down the door & three men charged in. After a few moments, the
gas lights came on. Roughneck gestured from the door. Curtains entered.
"She's long gone," Curtains said, after inspecting the room. "All of her
possessions are gone."
Roughneck cursed.
"Yes, she's as #slippery as a hagfish," Curtains agreed. His eyes lighted on a
letter sitting on the table. He picked it up. It was addressed to him.

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/22/2024, 12:58:57 PM (edited)

#PennedPossibilities MC POV: What is your biggest fear?

"If you win the tournament I will free you from your familiar bond," Tseluna
said.
"What if I don't win?"
"The battles in the tournament are to the death."
He felt a sense of rising panic.
"So, if I die, that's one thing. But… if I win, you'll just dump me?"
"*Baka*! What are you asking? Don't you understand?" she said. "I captured you &
bound you to my will! I'm a monster!"
"No!" Rory said. "You're a goddess. And I worship you!"
*"Baka…"*

Steven D. Brewer on 4/22/2024, 2:10:40 AM

"Play dodgeball with us, David!" the Better Angels called.
Reluctantly, David joined the game. Tau, as referee, barked to start the match.
"Bebe will get you!" Bebe squealed, throwing as hard as she could. But David
caught it.
One by one, Angels were eliminated until it was just David & Zaza left. They
stared at one another.
Zaza tossed the ball to David who tried to not catch it, but it stuck to his
hands.
"I'm out!" shrieked Zaza. "David wins!"
"Wait! Who covered the ball with glue?"

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/22/2024, 1:03:25 AM

#WordWeavers If your MC’s main skill evaporated, would they survive the story?

This question is incoherent for me. My protagonists tend not to have some
particular or unique skill. I'm much more likely to have a secondary character
be the one with some extraordinary skill or ability. I find ordinary
protagonists more relatable.

Steven D. Brewer on 4/20/2024, 10:49:11 PM

"On the contrary," Curtains said, straightening up. "Now you're going to learn
what happens when you #cross me."
Armed men appeared in balconies & rooftops surrounding the courtyard. And, when
the gang looked around, they realized all of the exits to the courtyard were
barred by more men holding naked swords.
They threw down their weapons.
Curtains walked up to the leader, drew a knife, & held it against the man's
belly. He winced.
"Where is the Contessa hiding?"

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/20/2024, 10:48:08 PM

After leaving the tavern, nearly doubled over, Curtains stumbled down the alley.
He arrived in a small courtyard that was used, in the daytime, by the city poor,
to dry laundry. At night, it was abandoned & empty. His footsteps echoed & then
were joined with the sounds of others as a group of men with sticks & clubs
entered & closed ranks around him.
"Hey you!" the leader said, poking Curtains in the back with a stick. "Now,
you're gonna learn what happens when you #cross the Contessa."

#wss366

Steven D. Brewer on 4/20/2024, 10:00:19 PM

The leaves are coming out fast and the petals are dropping. Tomorrow, it will be
like pink snow falling and within just a few days all of the sakura blossoms
will be gone — until next year.

Steven D. Brewer on 4/20/2024, 7:18:21 PM

Tanuki-chan was very thirsty after the visit to the first farmer's market of the
year. #DogsOfMastodon

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