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Wednesday, September 24, 2025 - 08:00
As noted previously, sometimes I cover publications because I think they'll be useful to the Project; sometimes I cover them to document that they're not useful. And sometimes the way I pre-schedule and write up materials out of order means that I blog things that I might have otherwise just noted as "not useful" in my database. So I blogged Downing 1989 to document that, despite the intriguing title, it isn't really useful for historical study. But I'm blogging this response to that article because I have a couple dozen articles pre-scheduled in a specific order and dropping it would leave an awkward hole in my schedule that would mar the logical symmetry of the blog structure. OK, maybe that's going a bit far, but let's just say it's easier to blog it than to not blog it at this point.
The second Downing-related article does turn out to be relevant (and points out that maybe I quit on Downing 1989 too early?) In the mean time, as I'm typing this, I'm finding mysefl dealing with several random ants crawling across my screen, so the next task is to figure out where they're coming from and deal with it. (Late summer is always "dealing with ants" season.)
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LHMP View comments (0)
Full citation:
Reineke, Martha & Christine Downing. 1993. “Within the Shadow of the Herms: A Critique of "Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love" [with Reply] in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 19, No. 1: 81-101, 103-106
Given that I found Downing 1989 to have little relevance to the goals of the Project, it may be unsurprising that I find Reineke’s critique of it to be similarly of only tangential interest. Reineke begins by spending almost half of her article in a detailed summary and rewording of Downing’s points (something that Downing complements in her reply). Reineke’s critique focuses primarily on modern psychological theoretical interpretations, adding in additional frameworks of analysis. Her one historical critique is that Downing “is insufficiently mindful of [the] androcentrism and misogyny” of the ancient Greek sources and the society they were created in. Glossing over this context includes not recognizing (or at least, not acknowledging) that the women presented in, for example, Plato’s work represent a male-centered fiction and not an accurate reflection of women’s function in society. Downing’s response largely boils down to: “I think we’re closer in our interpretations than you believe, but maybe I was less clear than I could have been.” But, as with Downing 1989, the focus is strongly on modern psychoanalysis, not on history.
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Monday, September 22, 2025 - 08:00
Because I have two papers in my to-do folder that follow up on this book, I thought I’d take a look at the book first. Alas, It doesn’t appear to be very useful, so I suspect the followup articles will also be covered very briefly.
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LHMPFull citation:
Downing, Christine. 1989. Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love. The Continuum Publishing Company, New York. ISBN 0-8264-0445-6
There are some books that have been on my shelves since the earliest years of my interest in the subject without me ever having cracked them open. Indeed, it was the accusatory gaze of those books that helped spur me on to starting the Project. But not all of those books are actually relevant to the study of history. And this is one of them. To be fair, once I skimmed through the first few chapters, it became clear that Downing was not attempting or claiming to do history. She's doing Freudian psychology. The book is also, in many ways, a memoir of her own sexual journey and her experiences as part of the queer community during the AIDS crisis. But even to the extent that myths and images from Classical Greece are discussed, it is in terms of what they mean to 20th century people who are trying to frame their own sexuality in mythic terms (as mediated by Freud's peculiar ideas about same-sex attraction). It's very much "of its time"--the author's previous book was feminist-goddess-imagery explorations. But at least I can tick it off from my list now.
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This is not a book about history. The author’s area of focus is religious studies and psychology and the book primarily concerns itself with interpreting Greek and Roman mythological references to same-sex relations through a Freudian and Jungian lens. (Indeed, half the book is a discussion of Freud’s and Jung’s writings on same-sex relations and the development of their theories.) The conclusions are entirely concerned with modern Freudian understandings of Greek myth and how those might inform the experiences of modern people. Therefore I’m not going to summarize or analyze the book in detail as it doesn’t speak to the experiences or understandings of historic individuals.
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Sunday, September 21, 2025 - 15:22
As noted previously, I'm working through a bunch of articles in my "to do" folder that got deprioritized for various reasons. This one is focused primarily on male relations, but does toss in an appendix with brief mentions of f/f possibilities.
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LHMPFull citation:
Bremmer, Jan. 1980. “An Enigmatic Indo-European Rite: Paederasty” in Arethusa, Vol. 13, No. 2, Indo-European Roots of Classical Culture: 279-298.
Bremmer presents some anecdotal, cross-cultural evidence for classical Greek pederasty having structural similarities to some generational-initiation ceremonies or systems in “primitive” cultures, positing that it is, perhaps, a relic of a more widespread Indo-European practice. The body of the article is focused exclusively on male relations, however a very brief appendix reviews three brief references to a possible female parallel in Sparta that could expand understanding of the context of Sappho’s love poetry. The references are:
- Plutarch: reference to Spartan noble women “loving girls”
- Hagnon: reference to having intercourse with girls before their marriage “as one did with boys” (although evidently the interpretation that this is women having intercourse with them is motivated by the logical implausibility that it could refer to m/f intercourse, although other interpretations of “as one did with boys” are possible)
- Alcman: poems providing a connection between female initiation rituals and same-sex love (a reference to the genre of partheneion “maiden-songs” that can include expressions of love and praise from a female singer to a female object)
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Saturday, September 20, 2025 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 324 - Emma Stebbins Exhibition Interview - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/09/20 - listen here)
[This episode is an interview with Heckscher Museum curator Karli Wurzelbacher about her upcoming exhibition of the work of American sculptor Emma Stebbins. A transcript will be posted when available.]
Show Notes
In this episode we interview Heckscher Museum curator Karli Wurzelbacher about her upcoming exhibition of the work of American sculptor Emma Stebbins:
- Stebbins’ background and biography
- Genres that Stebbins worked in
- Technical process of creating sculptures
- Rome as a magnet for the international sculpture community
- Discrimination against female sculptors
- The expatriate community in Rome
- How Stebbins met actress Charlotte Cushman and their relationship
- Major works
- Exhibition contents
- Her groundbreaking subjects
- The intersection of allegory and industry
- Stebbins’ reputation in her own time
- Exhibition details: Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, September 28, 2025 - March 15, 2026
- Support for the exhibition includes:
- Terra Foundation for American Art
- Henry Luce Foundation
- Robin T. Hadley and Richard T. Cunniff, Jr.
- Andrea B. and Peter D. Klein
- Priscilla and Robert Hughes
- This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here: Emma Stebbins
- For additional historic context, check out our podcast on Charlotte Cushman.
A transcript of this podcast will be added here when available.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to the Heckscher Museum of Art Online
- Website: Stebbins Exhibition
- Instagram: @heckschermuseum
- Facebook: Heckscher.org
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LHMPThursday, September 18, 2025 - 13:27
Bird-watching is more of a supplementary hobby for me—something I’m always doing regardless of what else is going on, but not something I tend to plan as a specific event. So I was eagerly anticipating learning a bunch of new birds, but there was only one line-item in our trip brainstorming that was specifically a bird-watching event (and as it happened, we weren’t able to do that thing). So this is the bird-watching layer of the trip. (I’ll get to the non-bird-watching parts later.)
At first I was going to rely on iPhone apps for ID purposes. I picked up a free app, Twitcher, that was nice in that the menu had mini-images of the birds, to make it easier to skim for possibilities. But actually accessing the full details on each bird was an “in-app purchase” thing, which pisses me off. So instead I paid off the top for Birds of New Zealand, which is more extensive (includes a lot of rare visitors), all content is part of the app, and includes a checklist where you can note where and when you saw each bird. The down side is that the menu includes only names (grouped alphabetically either by taxonomy or by the common name). So unless you already have an idea what type of bird a mollymawk or a prion or a Pukeko is, you’re going to spend a lot of time clicking through. Oh, another feature of the app is that you can display names either by Anglo common names, Maori common names, IOC names, or genus+species
Eventually I found a print guidebook in a tourist shop, which make things a bit easier for the leafing through, and it was even small enough to fit in my purse easily: Birds of New Zealand by Geoff Moon. Includes photos of different ages, sexes, and seasonal plumage. Very useful.
Before I found that book, I got a smaller booklet: A Mini Guide to the Identification of New Zealand’s Land Birds by Andrew Crowe. (How’s that for nominative determinism?) Land birds only, illustrations rather than photos, but clearly shows distribution maps and color-coded tags for whether the bird is endemic (NZ only), native, or introduced. I’ll do a summary of that data at the end.
8/31 (Driving from Auckland to Rotorua) My very first bird ID was a Common Myna in a little village on Lake Waikare where we stopped for lunch. Also a Swamp Harrier (of which I’d see many). (No photos) At Tanner’s Point – scenic beach on the east coast (North Island). Lots of bird calls in the trees, but hard to spot the birds. I was able to ID my first Tui which eventually became my favorite bird. (It also seems to be a local favorite and shows up in a lot of art.) Thie header photo is from the aviary in Auckland zoo, because that’s my best shot, but I saw lots of them in the wild. Also depicted: large-scale street art in Rotorua.
And these are all going to be sideways, aren't they? Grr. Well, I can either spend a couple hours fiddling with the photos or I can just go for it.
Rotorua is on the shore of an enormous lake with scattered sulfer springs. There’s a large bird sanctuary both on shore and the small offshore islands. Birds ID’ed:
A large nesting colony of Red-billed gulls.
Black swans (close up from a later date, swans with cygnets from Hobbiton)
The Pukeko is ubiquitous in urban parks. A gorgeous bird with iridescent blue and green feathers and a red bill. The closely related Takahe (no photo) has very similar coloration but is larger, heavier, and flightless. It’s also seriously endangered (remember: flightless). I saw some Takahe in the Auckland zoo, but in the wild they’re restricted to the South Island.
Many graylag geese, but it’s hard to know whether to call this introduced species “wild” since they’re interbred with domestic geese, resulting in variable coloration.
Large flock of New Zealand Scaup, a type of duck.
I got internet help on ID’ing this shag (a type of cormorant). Hard to see in this photo, but the back and lower breast are black with a white bib reaching down to mid-breast. The guidebook showed species entirely black, or with an entirely white throat and belly, or with a weird racing-stripe pattern on the sides of the neck and head, but nothing that matched what I saw. Fortunately a Bluesky NZ birding acquaintance noted that the Little Shag can have a wide variety of breast colorings, and I found a variant that matched my pattern.
Also ubiquitous are the New Zealand fantail (another bird popular in local iconography) which has a flycatcher habit, swooping out from a perch and darting about acrobatically to catch insects.
Not pictured: at the Waiotapu hot springs, a sign noted the presence of Pied Stilts so I did a lot of looking to see if I could spot one. In the middle of a large sulfer flat, there was something that I thought might be a bird. Or it might be a piece of wood. Or… no, it moved. And sure enough it was a Pied Stilt. But it was too far away for a good photo. Also spotted a Welcome Swallow
9/2 Rotorua – Mostly exploring around town. No new birds
9/3 Rotorua, forest hike. Spotted an endemic Tomtit, ID thanks to the white wing patches. But moved too quickly for a photo.
9/4 Hobbiton tour, so there was a lot of rural driving and then the Hobbiton site itself to spot things. Multiple introduced species:
Eurasian blackbird
The English sparrow is so common I wouldn’t have bothered taking a picture except it was being photogenic.
Also (not pictured) Australian magpie (which has flashy black and white coloring, but not the long tail I normally associate with magpies), Common Chaffinch, Eurasian Coot, Mallard Duck. Native birds included the White-faced heron. Several of these in the millpond at Hobbiton but I couldn’t get a good picture.
9/5 Driving from Rotorua to Wellington by way of Tongariro Park. Birds spotted by not photographed: Black-billed Gull, European Greenfinch. Bird not spotted even though the Tongariro information center said that was the best place to spot them: Blue Duck (though I did see them at the Auckland Zoo).
9/6 Wellington – No new birds, although I suppose I should mention that pigeons are everywhere. So common I didn’t even bother to note them on my checklist until now.
9/7 Wellington – No new birds, but had an amusing encounter with the very aggressive Red-Billed Gulls at an outdoor café, where I had to warn another diner that his lunch was about to be snatched.
9/8 Wellington – No new birds. At this point in the trip, we were doing a lot more relaxing than running around.
9/9 Day-trip to Kaitoke Park (site of the Rivendell set). No bird photos, but spotted the following: European goldfinch (in a small flock), Paradise Shelduck (unusually for ducks, the female is easier to ID, having a russet body and white head, but it also helps that they tend to work in m/f pairs, so you can see the contrast with the dark-headed male).
9/10 Drive from Wellington to Auckland. Spotted on the way (but no photos): introduced ring-neck pheasant and wild turkey.
Spotted the flashy New Zealand Pigeon, which I illustrate with a more photogenic one from the Auckland Zoo.
9/11 Auckland – We went to the zoo and stuck mostly to the NZ section. The big attraction was the kiwi exhibit (in a darkened enclosure where they’ve swapped day and night so they’ll be active for visitors). I got a video, but it’s really too dim to be work trying to pull a still from. I believe these are Brown Kiwis. Other birds seen in zoo enclosures: Bellbird, Grey Teal, Little Owl, Little Penguin, North Island Saddleback (surprised I didn’t see these in the wild), Sacred Kingfisher, Takehe, Yellow-Crowned Parakeet. And a Kea. Have a Kea, showing off its under-wings.
Spotted while at the zoo, but not in the exhibits so I get to count them for real: Eastern Rosella, Song Thrush.
9/12 We'd planned to take a ferry out to Tiritiri Matangi island bird sanctuary, but the ferry was cancelled due to weather conditions, alas. There are a LOT of seabirds in the bird books, but most are found on the outlying islands.
Summary (41 species: 23 native, 18 introduced)
Endemic or Native (13 species)
- Black-billed Gull
- Little Shag
- New Zealand Fantail
- New Zealand Pigeon
- New Zealand Scaup
- New Zealand Tomtit
- Paradise Shelduck
- Pied Stilts
- Pukeko
- Red-billed gulls
- Swamp Harrier
- Tui
- Welcome Swallow
Introduced (or recently migrated) from Australia (4 species)
- Australian Magpie
- Black Swan
- Eastern Rosella
- White-Faced Heron
Introduced from Europe (11 species)
- Common Chaffinch
- English Sparrow
- Eurasian blackbird
- Eurasian Coot
- European Goldfinch
- European Greenfinch
- Graylag Goose
- Mallard Duck
- Pigeon
- Ring-Neck Pheasant
- Song Thrush
Introduced from elsewhere (2 species)
- Common Myna
- Wild Turkey
Zoo (11 species, native except as noted)
- Bellbird
- Blue Duck
- Brown Kiwi
- Grey Teal
- Kea
- Little Owl (introduced)
- Little Penguin
- North Island Saddleback
- Sacred Kingfisher
- Takehe
- Yellow-Crowned Parakeet
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TravelWednesday, September 17, 2025 - 17:41
Sometimes, when I've done a podcast episode on a topic, I tend to deprioritize other publications on that topic in order to keep myself fresh with new material. And there are some topics where there's so many publications that each one adds relatively little new information, so I'd rather focus on expanding the overall content. But sometimes its just worth getting caught up on various topics that aren't "top priority" simply because they're there in the to-do folder. Which is why I'm currently working through a number of journal articles that fall in the aforementioned categories. Some of them feel like just housekeeping with not much substantial interest. But some of them--like this one--add significantly to the understanding of those topics.
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LHMPFull citation:
Nelson, Max. 2000. “A Note on the ὄλισβος” in Glotta, 76. Bd., 1./2. H.:75-82
I hadn't gotten my hands on this article when I wrote "The Dildo Episode" for the podcast. It could have added a little nuance to some of the early material.
This is one of those delightful linguistic deep-dives so beloved of classical philologists. Nelson considers the use of classical Greek ὄλισβος (olisbos) as meaning “dildo” within the context of its other meanings and of other words for dildo and concludes that not only was “dildo” not the primary meaning for the word, but that it also wasn’t the standard/default term for such an instrument. Rather, the modern scholarly assumption that olisbos=dildo derives from the use of the word in Aristophanes and the tendency of the works of Aristophanes to dominate understandings of Greek usage of his time.
The article starts with a chronology of glosses and explanations for Aristophanes’ “olisbos” starting with late classical glosses of it as “leather penis”, including non-sexual (or perhaps anti-sexual) interpretations as “pessary,” and leading to a universal assumption in the 19th and early 20th centuries that the word meant a leather dildo.
To counter this, he notes various appearances of the word in music performance contexts, where it is paralleled by “plectrum,” where it indicates a stiff, oblong object used with stringed instruments. (This is likely the context for the appearance of olisbos in a poem fragment attributed by some to Sappho—by others to Alcaeus—which has generated the claim that Sappho’s use of a dildo supports understandings of her sexual activity.)
The article continues with a detailed discussion of the etymology and parallels for olisbos. The root means “slider” which, in a musical context, evokes an object slid along the strings. [Note: I’m not quite sure how that would work with a lyre—the usual context—but perhaps a deeper dive into ancient Greek musicology would provide enlightenment.]
But olisbos did also clearly appear as a euphemism for a dildo (presumably due to its shape). And evidently “plectrum” could also have this meaning, as seen in a drama by Herodas in which two women discuss the output of a leather worker who “could not even stitch the plectrum for a lyre” which makes no sense in a musical context, as a musical plectrum would be made of a hard substance such as horn, ivory, or wood. [Note: All of which are also substances noted in other ages as materials used for dildos.] “Plectrum” comes from a root meaning “to hit, strike” indicating how it was used musically, but also lending itself to sexual innuendo. There are at least two other texts where a clear double-entendre between musical-plectrum and sexual-plectrum appear.
Olisbos is rare in the surviving literature after the date of the possible-Sappho poem, but one of the authors who uses it is Aristophanes, commentaries on whom perpetuated and amplified familiarity with the sexual sense of the word. The author suggests that this could have been an idiosyncratic use in his work rather that representing a standard and accepted term for the object.
Nelson catalogs a number of other words used for dildos in ancient Greek, including the genre of comic drama where olisbos typically appears. Excluding words whose primary meaning is “penis,” he notes (I’ll skip the Greek versions and do a rough transliteration):
- Memimemenon (imitation)
- eidolon (reproduction)
- organon (instrument)
- maxrogangylos (cylinder)
- solen (tube)
- bachteria (staff)
- epixouria (aid)
- paignion, athyrma (toy)
- schytinon, derma (leather)
- tarsos, gerron (wicker or maybe pole)
The ancient author who wrote most extensively on the dildo (Herodas) didn’t use “olisbos” at all, but rather the isolated term “baubon.”
Nelson, in my opinion, has made a solid argument for his conclusions that, while “olisbos” was one of many ancient Greek euphemisms for a dildo, this was not its primary meaning, nor was it the primary term for the sex toy. Rather, this impression has been given by an accident of historiography. (On the other hand, this article impressively demonstrates the pervasive presence of dildos in the ancient Greek imagination.)
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Monday, September 15, 2025 - 12:12
While I cast about for an organizing theme for the next bout of LHMP blogging, I think I'll do some housecleaning on loose threads in the files, like this book which simply gets a note that--however intriguing the title--is not useful for lesbian topics.
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LHMPFull citation:
Bray, Alan. 1996. Homosexuality in Renaissance England. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 9780231102896
As part of the purpose of this blog is to help researchers determine which publications are worth examining in more detail. I’m going ahead and blogging this item simply to note that it explicitly declines to consider women at all. This is all too common for histories of homosexuality written by male scholars. I feel that Bray is giving excuses for his simple disinterest in claiming that popular thought made no connection between female and male homosexuality. But I intend to address that topic on its own at some point.
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In the introductory matter for this book, Bray states: “I have...restricted the scope of the book to questions of male homosexuality. Female homosexuality was rarely linked in popular thought with male homosexuality, if indeed it was recognised at all. Its history is, I believe, best to be understood as part of the developing recognition of a specifically female sexuality.”
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Saturday, September 6, 2025 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 323 - On the Shelf for September 2025 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/09/06 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for September 2025.
It’s been quite a month! To start with, I worked pretty intensively to get my first self-published book out. It’s not a historic project, being a collection of connected fantasy stories under the title Skin-Singer: Tales of the Kaltaoven. Some fairly cozy shape-shifter adventures with a low-key sapphic romance threaded through it. The project had two purposes: to bring these stories—written over the last thirty years—back into availability, and to use as a “practice project” for the self-publishing process. If it sounds like your sort of thing, I hope you’ll check it out. I’m planning to do an audio version of it as well, doing my own narration.
The second big thing in the last month was going to the World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle. Worldcon was special for me this year as I was a finalist for a Hugo Award for a non-fiction piece I co-wrote on some really geeky statistical analysis of award nomination patterns. My co-author and I didn’t win the Hugo—I’m very happy for the book that won—but it was exciting to have the finalist experience and feel like a minor celebrity. I participated on several discussion panels, two related to history and one on constructed languages. And I had lots of chances to meet up with people, including my cover artist for Skin-Singer and five—count them, five!—of the authors published in this podcast’s fiction series.
Then I barely had time to touch base at home and record a couple more podcast episodes before heading off for two weeks in New Zealand, which is where I am when this airs. This is my official “celebrating retirement” trip with my best friend. We’re doing a bunch of Lord of the Rings tourism, as well as hiking, enjoying nature, and cultural experiences.
After I get back, it’ll be time to start the publicity push for next year’s podcast fiction series. As I mentioned last month, I’ve decided to continue the fiction series for another two years to make it an even ten and then shut down that part of the project. Let’s make these next two years count! The call for submissions is up on the website and is functionally identical to last time.
Publications on the Blog
I’m still on my temporary vacation from blogging books and articles for the Project, but in August, before that vacation started, I covered six items. First up was a retrospective essay by Emma Donoghue on her career in lesbian history—chosen as the 500th publication covered on the blog.
Next were a couple articles by Susan Lanser: “Befriending the Body” exploring the intersection of sexuality and class in 18th century England, and “Sapphic Picaresque” examining a brief literary fashion for positive or neutral depictions of lesbians in the early 18th century.
Next up were two items on the politicized medical fascination with the lesbian clitoris in the 16th through 18th centuries: Katharine Park’s “The Rediscovery of the Clitoris” and Corinna Wagner’s Pathological Bodies. We finished off with Martha Vicinus considering the public reception of male impersonation at a time of social change in “Turn of the Century Male Impersonation.”
When I regroup and start blogging things again, I need to look at my history book outline and identify topics I need to fill in. I’ve started working on some of the introductory text for the history book, so it’s feeling very real now. And I really need to come up with some better way of referring to it than “the history book.” I haven’t come up with a draft title yet because I’d like to clearly distinguish it from the Lesbian Historic Motif Project as a whole. So for now, it’s just “the history book.”
Book Shopping!
After a long drought in book-shopping for the blog, I picked up a new title, thanks to the recommendation of a fan of the Project. This is a translation of a text purportedly by the Abbé de Choisy, a 17th century French aristocrat who was assigned male, but raised by his mother as a girl, and after some experimentation as an adult, settled into wearing female clothing and having romantic relationships with women. Because history is complex and sex and gender categories are not stable over time, it's difficult to be certain how to classify Choisy. The translator uses the term “transvestite”—the English title of the translation is The Transvestite Memoirs—but the translation was originally published in the 1970s and I suspect a different approach might be taken today. There’s also the complication that—although presented as a non-fictional memoir (to which a fairy tale has been appended)—historians have been unable to find any corroboration for Choisy’s behavior in contemporary sources and consider the entire work to be fictional. In any event, I’ll look into this topic in greater detail when I cover the book for the blog, along with other publications on the topic. Regardless of the interpretation, Choisy appears to have been a fascinating figure who sits somewhere in a sapphic-adjacent space.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
Leaving aside memoirs that might be fiction, let’s take a look at new and forthcoming books that are clearly fiction. The vast majority of them are set in the 19th or 20th century which always leaves me hungering for a bit more variety. On the other hand, I think we’ve found all the August books that seemed to be missing last month. Some of the cover copy this month is on the long-winded side, so in some cases I’ve condensed it.
I found one July book not previously identified: Of Velvet and Stone by Catherine Martini from Djuna Publishers.
England, 1852.
In a world ruled by class and restraint, Lady Violet Bridgeman commands Hawthorn Manor with poise and precision. A widowed aristocrat bound by duty and tradition, she governs the estate with quiet authority—but her world shifts when a fall from her horse leaves her in the care of Charlotte Thorne, a reclusive woman who lives alone at the edge of the forest.
Charlotte is everything Violet is not—earth-bound and fiercely independent. Cast out from her family for loving another woman, she has chosen solitude over compromise, survival over society. But when circumstance forces the two women into close proximity, an undeniable tension grows between them—one that defies decorum, disrupts the safety of silence, and burns with unspoken longing.
There are a lot of August books that weren’t up yet when I did last month’s episode.
In the Wings by Charlotte Monet combines turn-of-the-century France with romance on the stage.
Paris, 1895. Where ballerinas are as expendable as bouquets tossed at their feet, nineteen-year-old Élise has one sacred rule: her body belongs to only the stage.
For a future beyond frugality and scraps, she has clawed her way up the ranks, enduring blistered feet and the gazes of obsessive patrons. When Monsieur Delaunay, a powerful benefactor of her ballet company, promotes Élise to principal in Giselle, it should be a dream come true. But the cost of her elevation begins to mount—first in favors, then in expectations, and finally in demands that make Élise question who truly controls her body after all.
As rehearsals and relations grow unbearable, Élise seeks solace in the one place she shouldn’t: the arms of her friend, a fellow ballerina. What begins as comfort turns into furtive glances and feelings that, if discovered, would leave both girls cast out and penniless on the streets. With opening night drawing closer, the curtain lifts on all the deceptions, and Élise, who has always been a model ballerina, must make the impossible choice: sacrifice her career to reclaim her autonomy, or risk love and freedom for the lure of the spotlight.
The setting for Bound to the Sea by Chloe Clarke isn’t entirely clear. The content tags say “Gilded Age” which generally refers to around 1900, but the plot is a fairly standard pirate romance which wouldn’t make any sense for that date. So perhaps just call it “Pirate Age” since the genre rarely aligns closely with history.
When Cassandra inherits her father's pirate ship, she doesn’t just take on a new title—she inherits a storm.
She must earn the respect of her crew and navigate a world where loyalty is as scarce as mercy. But amidst treacherous waters and whispered betrayals, Cassandra’s fate shifts with the arrival of a mysterious new crew member who doesn’t challenge her authority, but her heart.
What begins as a fight for survival becomes a voyage of self-discovery, love, and a daring quest for treasure that could change everything. In a world ruled by gold and blood, Cassandra must choose what kind of legend she wants to leave behind.
The Girl from Berlin by Johanna Weiss is a fictionalized true biography that has been told numerous times before about an unlikely romance in WWII Berlin.
Berlin, 1943. The city is a world of blackouts and air raids, of silence and suspicion. Lilly Wust, a young wife and mother, lives behind the facade of a dutiful German housewife—until a chance encounter shatters the life she thought she knew.
Felice Schragenheim is witty, daring, and reckless, a woman living under a false name in the heart of a city that wants her erased. Against all odds, and in the shadow of the Reich, she and Lilly begin an affair that is as intoxicating as it is dangerous.
Their love grows in stolen glances and whispered words, in hurried letters and secret meetings while bombs rain down around them. But with every risk they take, the walls close in tighter, and Lilly must face the cost of loving someone the world has marked for destruction.
Diverging from the focus on the last couple of centuries, but veering into an alternate timeline in which women could lead the Roman army, we have Hibernia: An Antiquity Sapphic Romance by Kimia Kore.
Augusta Valeria, one of the first female Roman centurions allowed into the Roman army after Caesar reforms the roles of women in Rome, travels to Hibernia with her commander father to subdue the final piece missing from Caesar's Roman Empire.
When an assault on her life by fellow Roman soldiers is thwarted by Eithne, a Hibernian girl, Augusta follows her into her world and soon becomes enraptured by how a Hibernian sisterhood can live without men. But as the hours pass and other Romans start searching for her, Augusta must choose between Rome and Hibernia—and learns that Eithne is not at all the simple redheaded young woman she first appeared to be.
A Lady Called Trouble by Lauren Leigh has a bit of a gothic air to it and feels like it must be set sometime during the 19th century.
Edwina feels instant regret after her sensible marriage to Edgar, which only intensifies when they reach his country home. Between Lady Caroline, the tempestuous ward he neglected to mention, his stark change of demeanour, and her heart's stubborn refusal to yield to him, she doesn't know what to think. The only thing she's sure of is that the way Lady Caroline gives her butterflies all through her body feels downright dangerous.
After leaving London in a swirl of vicious rumours - the truth of which she declines to comment on - Caroline has her own regrets. She seems to have a knack for falling for the wrong people and her cold-hearted guardian's country home feels like no place to nurse a bruised heart - but worst of all, she can't seem to stop thinking about her guardian's new wife.
As Caroline and Edwina grow closer and the ghosts of Edgar's past hang heavy over the house, will they all be able to find a path to happiness?
This next book has a somewhat odd background. The bio for the author, M.C. Collins, says she’s the niece and literary executor of New Zealand writer Susan M. Gaffney. Collins previously finished and published Eve of Kilcargin, an incomplete work from Gaffney exploring a lesbian romance. In the current book, The Mistress of Hannasbury, Collins has explored an imagined life for one of the side characters in Gaffney’s work. It isn’t clear if this story stands alone or should be read in combination with the first.
In 1926, five years on from the death of her husband, and her ignominious exit from a newly independent Ireland, Lady Pamela Collingwood of Kilcargin finds herself homeless when her wealthy lover abandons her for a younger woman. Estranged from her daughter and disowned by her sister, she turns to her old schoolfriend and ex-lover Grace: now the wife of an eccentric, social-climbing industrialist with dreams of becoming a champion racing driver. Pamela is offered sanctuary at their vast country estate on the edge of the Lincolnshire Fens, but the two old friends quickly discover that their schoolgirl attraction still simmers, shaking the foundations of Grace’s idyllic, yet unfulfilling marriage.
There are a couple of Jane Austen take-offs this month. The Scandal at Pemberley by Mara Brooks asks the question, what if Jane Bennet wasn’t quite what she seemed?
She was supposed to be the perfect bride. Instead, she became the greatest scandal of Pemberley.
Jane Bennet arrives at the grand estate expecting quiet refinement. What she finds is temptation in the form of Georgiana Darcy—shy, beautiful, and far too willing to risk everything behind locked doors and candlelit halls.
Whispers turn into secrets. Secrets turn into touches. And every touch risks exposure. Servants linger, shadows stir, and someone is always watching. Their passion is intoxicating, but discovery could mean ruin for them both.
September books start off with what looks like a very fun Regency: Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti from St. Martin’s Griffin.
Celebrated authoress Lady Georgiana Cleeve has achieved fame and fortune. Unfortunately, she’s also acquired an enemy: the enigmatic Lady Darling, whose spine-tingling plots appear to be pulled straight from Georgiana’s own manuscripts. What’s a stubborn, steely writer to do? Unmask her rival, of course.
But unmasking doesn’t go according to plan—because Lady Darling is actually Cat Lacey, the butler’s daughter and object of Georgiana’s very secret, very embarrassing teenage infatuation.
Cat Lacey has spent a decade clawing her family out of poverty. The last thing she needs is to be distracted by the stunning(ly pretentious) Lady Georgiana Cleeve. But Cat can’t seem to escape her infuriatingly beautiful rival—including at the eerie manor where they both plan to set their next books. The plot unexpectedly thickens, however, when the novelists find themselves trapped in the manor together. In between ghostly moans and spectral staff, Cat and Georgiana come face-to-face with real danger: the scorching passion that’s been haunting their rivalry all along.
Time-travel stories hold an uncertain place in the historic genre, but this one looks intriguing: When the Light Pulls You Back by Carey Miller.
Buffalo, NY. 1986. Mina Melton has always been drawn to traces of the past — the fading lines of old buildings, the worn streets of her city, and the stories of women whose lives shaped the world in quiet, enduring ways. But when she and her best friend Lillian are pulled through time to the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, where the glittering surface hides a far less perfect reality, history becomes something more immediate. More fragile. More alive.
Caught between two centuries, the girls search for a way home and stumble instead upon a frightened child, a missing bag of coins, and the slow realization that the past cannot be separated from the present — or from the future. As they move through a world where women’s stories are so often lost or overlooked, Mina and Lillian begin to understand not only the weight of history, but the risks of the heart — and the truth of what they’ve meant to each other all along.
We have an interview later in this episode with Cathy Pegau, the author of A Murderous Business (A Harriman & Mancini Mystery) from Minotaur Books.
There can be a blurry line between what is ethical and what is legal.
Margot Baxter Harriman took the reins of B&H Foods after her father passed. It’s not easy being a business woman in 1912, but she is determined to continue what her grandparents started decades ago, no matter what it takes.
So when Margot finds Mrs. Gilroy, her father’s former assistant, dead in the office with a half-finished note confessing to nebulous misdeeds at B&H, she seeks out help from a very discreet, private investigator to figure out what's going on. Her company, and her good name, are at stake if scandal breaks...and she could lose everything, including her freedom.
Loretta “Rett” Mancini has run her father’s investigation operation since he started becoming increasingly forgetful. When Margot offers her the chance to look into the potential scandal with B&H, she jumps at the chance.
But the more the two dig in, the more it becomes clear that Margot's company may be too far lost...and someone is willing to kill them both to keep things quiet.
I’ve condensed the cover copy for Claiming the Tower (Council Mysteries #1) by Celia Lake. The story is set in the author’s elaborate alternate history in which magical communities interact with the history we know.
Hereswith is frustrated with the world. There’s the utter mismanagement of the war in the Crimea. While she moves among the diplomatic set of London, she’s limited in what she can do there by her gender and their assumptions. She has more scope within Britain’s magical community, but expectations hem her in there as well. Hereswith loves the times she can retreat to her family home, her father, and their library.
Bess has moved from house to house as companion to a series of increasingly difficult older women. Her current position has narrowed her world to tangled embroidery thread, small household tribulations, and dealing with her mistress’s whims and changes of mood.
When Hereswith and Bess begin to talk, both of them begin to wonder what the world might look like if things were a little different. Are they brave enough to change the world?
We have another pirate romance: Tides of Reckoning (Daughters Under the Black Flag #2) by Eden Hopewell.
Izzy Montgomery thought she’d found freedom when she traded silk gowns and societal expectations for the rough life of a pirate. But on the Poseidon’s Daughter, even among her newfound family, shadows linger. Haunted by a past she can’t outrun and the threat of the notorious pirate hunter James Morley looming over the horizon, Izzy is determined to prove herself worthy of Captain Blackthorn’s trust and earn her place among the fierce women of the crew.
Sailing the treacherous Caribbean waters alongside her best friend Gracie and her lover, Anne Marie, Izzy faces a new challenge: Morley’s power is on the rise, his influence reaching even the shores of Tortuga. When a risky mission to infiltrate his inner circle goes disastrously wrong, Izzy and Gracie disappear, swallowed by the very world they sought to conquer.
If you enjoyed the book or movie Hidden Figures, then To the Moon and Back by Eve Noble is going to be right up your alley. I’ve condensed the cover copy a bit.
Two brilliant minds. One impossible equation.
Gloria Johnson can calculate lunar trajectories in her sleep, but as a Black woman at NASA in 1969, she's stuck typing other people's equations. Then she gets paired with Dr. Katrina Ivanova—the mysterious Russian defector who challenges every equation she thought she'd mastered.
Katrina Ivanova fled the Soviet Union for scientific freedom, only to find herself trapped by American bureaucracy. Her mother is still in Moscow, and the security chief holding her visa hostage wants one thing: intel on Gloria's family and their civil rights activities.
Professional competition turns personal fast. Gloria introduces Katrina to Star Trek. Katrina makes Gloria traditional Russian tea. Soon, their rivalry becomes something much more dangerous: attraction.
The social dynamics in Lady Like by Mackenzi Lee from Dial Press strike me as decidedly implausible, but if you’re in for a Regency romp that doesn’t worry about such things, check it out. Again, I’ve condensed a little.
Harriet Lockhart never planned to marry. The educated daughter of a high-class prostitute, Harry has spent her life defying expectations all while being subsidized by her late mother’s trust. When she is contacted out of the blue by her hitherto anonymous father, she finds herself at risk of losing the trust that he actually funds unless she acquiesces to his request that she lead a more respectable life, starting with finding a husband.
Emily Sergeant has only ever wanted to marry. If not for one mistake in her youth that rendered her a social pariah, she would be appropriately betrothed. Desperate for an alternative to the only man willing to marry her, Emily flees to London.
Worlds collide, dramatically and hilariously, when both women decide on the very same duke as their best possible chance at a tolerable husband and the security that he brings. In a tongue-in-cheek romp, Harry and Emily compete for the duke's favor, only to find their true hearts' desires may be more compatible than they ever could have predicted.
Our second Jane Austen novel is The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet by Melinda Taub from Grand Central Publishing.
Mary Bennet is the middlest middle child of all time. Awkward, plain, and overlooked, she’s long been out of favor not only with her own family but with generations of readers of Pride and Prejudice.
But what was Mary really doing while her sisters were falling in love? Well, what does any bright, intrepid girl do in an age when brains and hard work are only valued if they come with a pretty face? Take to the attic and teach herself to reanimate the dead of course. The world refuses to make a place for peculiar Mary, but no Bennet sister ever gives up on happiness that easily. If it won’t give this fierce, lonely girl a place, she’ll carve one out herself. And if finding acceptance requires a husband, she’ll get one. Even if she has to make him herself, too.
However, Mary’s genius and determination aren’t enough to control what she unwittingly unleashes. Her desperate attempts to rein in the destruction wreaked by her creations leads her to forge a perhaps unlikely friendship with another brilliant young woman unlike any she’s ever known. As that friendship blossoms into something passionate and all-consuming, Mary begins to realize that she may have to choose between the acceptance she’s always fought for and true happiness.
The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder by Stephen Cox takes the Victorian obsession with spiritualism in an unexpected direction.
London 1881. Can two crooked women stop a murder?
Extravagant medium Mrs Ashton and her lover, blunt working-class Mrs Bradshaw, run a spiritualist scam. Mrs Ashton secretly reads minds.
Grieving Lady Violet craves the truth behind her mother’s untimely death. But Lady Violet’s powerful husband Sir Charles hates spiritualists. Has he killed before?
Uncovering this MP’s wicked crimes puts all three women in terrible danger…
To solve a shocking murder, look both sides of the grave.
A joyous romp with a serious core. Taking a wry look at Victorian hypocrisy, this twisty and gripping thriller goes from dockland slums to a country estate and the Old Bailey. Aided by Maisie - the sharpest and smartest dock-lass detective ever - they struggle to bring a powerful man to justice. Whatever laws they have broken, these rogues cannot stomach murder. This extraordinary case threatens all their certainties - it could divide them forever. And if Mrs Ashton were to run into Mr Sherlock Holmes, she could teach him a thing or two.
Sixteenth-century Holland is the setting for I Am You by Victoria Redel from SJP Lit. The author indicates it’s a reimagining of the biography of a real-life painter.
At eight years old, Gerta Pieters is forced to disguise herself as a boy and sent to work for a genteel Dutch family. When their brilliant and beautiful daughter Maria sees through Gerta’s ruse, she insists that Gerta accompany her to Amsterdam and help her enter the elite, male-dominated art world.
While Maria rises in the ranks of society as a painting prodigy, Gerta makes herself invaluable in every way: confidante, muse, lover. But as Gerta steps into her own talents, their relationship fractures into a complex web of obsession and rivalry—and the secrets they keep threaten to unravel everything.
Other Books of Interest
This month, the “other books of interest” section contains several titles that just felt a little “off” without raising full alarm bells. I’m including them with a brief description, but with caveats.
Dora Copperfield: A Quiet Bloom by Kit Indigo from Rose Angel Publishing is a re-imagining of the story of Dora from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. It’s always interesting to imagine an interior life for characters who weren’t given one by their original authors, but the cover copy feels oddly generic to me. Dora is given a personal awakening and a sapphic romance.
When I came across the listing for The Book of Susan by Roxanna di Bella and looked into the author’s other titles, it became clear that she has a standard modus operandi that makes her biography and the entire body of work look like a work of fiction itself. Di Bella has published 10 books in the last 3 years, all historical stories that she claims are based on actual documentation—letters, diaries, etc.—that have come into her hands, either due to a family connection or due to relatives of the book’s subject entrusting the materials to her. There’s a common theme that the story has been suppressed due to the lesbian aspects, but is now being made public with the names changed. (Which, of course, makes it impossible to research the truth of the claims.) If the books had simply been presented as invented fictions, they wouldn’t have raised my suspicions, but the repeated pattern of claiming secret documentary sources just feels…off. The Book of Susan concerns suppressed information from the Dead Sea Scrolls giving hints of same-sex relations among early Christians. A Flower in Auschwitz involves a WWII concentration camp romance between a nurse and a prisoner. If you’re curious about her earlier titles, they’re linked to these in the Amazon records.
What Am I Reading?
And what have I been reading? Checking my notes, it appears to have been just two audiobooks. After enjoying the tv series of Murderbot by Martha Wells, I’ve decided to try the books again, starting with All Systems Red. I’d read one of the later books a couple years ago and rather bounced off it due to the percentage of blow-by-blow battle scenes. All Systems Red worked better for me, so maybe I just needed to start at the beginning and get more invested in the characters.
I also listened to the audiobook of Ann Leckie’s short story collection Lake of Souls. This is a combination of stories set in two of the worlds of her longer works, plus a number of stand-alones. The title story is one of the best depictions of an alien culture I’ve seen in a long time. Leckie’s handling of aliens reminds me a lot of C.J. Cherryh.
I plan to have some reading time during my New Zealand trip, so maybe I’ll have a better account next month.
Author Guest
We have an interview this month with author Cathy Pegau about her new book.
[Interview transcript will be added when available.]
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- My new book: Skin-Singer: Tales of the Kaltaoven
- A Worldcon report
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Donoghue, Emma. 2007. “Doing Lesbian History, Then and Now” in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 33, No. 1, Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality in Global Perspective: 15-22
- Lanser, Susan. 1998. “Befriending the Body: Female Intimacies as Class Acts.” in Eighteenth-Century Studies 32 (winter 1998-99): 179-98.
- Lanser, Susan. 2001. “Sapphic Picaresque: Sexual Difference and the Challenges of Homoadventuring” in Textual Practice 15:2 (November 2001): 1-18.
- Park, Katharine. 1997. “The Rediscovery of the Clitoris: French Medicine and the Tribade, 1570-1620” in The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality, ed. David Hillman and Carla Mazzio. London: Routledge. 171-93.
- Wagner, Corinna. 2013. Pathological Bodies: Medicine and Political Culture. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 978-1938169-08-3
- Vicinus, Martha. 1996. “Turn of the Century Male Impersonation: Rewriting the Romance Plot” in Sexualities in Victorian Britain ed. Andrew Miller and James Adams. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
- Book Shopping
- The Transvestite Memoirs by the Abbé de Choisy
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Of Velvet and Stone by Catherine Martini
- In the Wings by Charlotte Monet
- Bound to the Sea by Chloe Clarke
- The Girl from Berlin by Johanna Weiss
- Hibernia: An Antiquity Sapphic Romance by Kimia Kore
- A Lady Called Trouble by Lauren Leigh
- The Mistress of Hannasbury by M.C. Collins and Susan M. Gaffney
- The Scandal at Pemberley by Mara Brooks
- Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti
- When the Light Pulls You Back by Carey Miller
- A Murderous Business (A Harriman & Mancini Mystery) by Cathy Pegau
- Claiming the Tower (Council Mysteries #1) by Celia Lake
- Tides of Reckoning (Daughters Under the Black Flag - Tides #2) by Eden Hopewell
- To the Moon and Back by Eve Noble
- Lady Like by Mackenzi Lee
- The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet by Melinda Taub
- The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder by Stephen Cox
- I Am You by Victoria Redel
- Other Titles of Interest
- What I’ve been reading
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie
- Call for submissions for the 2026 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
- This month we interview Cathy Pegau
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Cathy Pegau Online
- Website: cathypegau.com
- Instagram: @cathypegau.bsky.social
Major category:
LHMPPublications:
Skin-Singer: Tales of the KaltaovenFriday, August 29, 2025 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 322 – An Encounter With a Lady by Catherine Lundoff - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/08/29 - listen here)
I’ve greatly enjoyed becoming the home for Catherine Lundoff’s “Jacquotte and Celeste” series, set in the mid 17th century among political turmoil and pirate adventures. This will be the fifth of the stories that I’ve published, with a sixth story available on Catherine’s Patreon. Although the previous installment ended with our adventurers heading back to Paris to be caught up in more royal intrigue, this one circles back toward the beginning of their story. “An Encounter With a Lady” takes place before the first of the stories we published, “One Night in Saint Martin.” So after listening you might enjoy going back to try that episode again. There’s an index of all the fiction episodes at the Alpennia website.
Catherine Lundoff is an award-winning writer, editor and publisher. Her books include Silver Moon, Blood Moon, Out of This World and Unfinished Business and, as editor, Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space). Her short stories and essays have appeared in such venues as the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, Queer Weird Western Stories, Divergent Terror, Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, Fireside Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine and several World of Darkness anthologies and games. She is also the publisher at Queen of Swords Press. You can find more about her work at her website catherinelundoff.net and follow her on Bluesky. See the links in the show notes.
I will be the narrator today.
This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.
An Encounter with a Lady
By Catherine Lundoff
Celeste Adele Girard glanced around the ballroom and tried not to look furtive. If there had been one lesson that she had drilled into her head by the Count de Fermé, the King’s late spymaster, it was to always look as if she belonged, no matter what level of society she occupied. Besides, her blonde hair was dyed brown, her clothes were well out of latest fashion and she moved as awkwardly as any young miss taken out of a convent school and dumped into new and highly fashionable surroundings could.
And there were fewer higher surroundings to be had, at least in Port Royal, Jamaica, than Governor Henry Morgan’s home. Surrounded by luxury, much of it obtained through highly suspect means, Morgan the former pirate had sworn to rid the island of pirates beginning with his neighbors and former comrades. There would be many examples to choose from: Port Royal was one of the most popular pirate destinations in the Caribbean.
That, of course, was part of what brought her here too. The King’s new spymaster wanted to know more about how Morgan planned to drive off the pirates and how much of a threat their displacement would be to his majesty’s colonies and ships. Since she could not very well ask the pirates, it behooved her to go and see what she might find out in the governor’s informal court. Without crossing paths with the man himself, if possible. True, it had been a year and a few months since she had been here last and she was in disguise, but he was said to have a long memory for a pretty face.
She did not look for a young gentleman with flame red hair amongst the throng. Captain Jacquotte Delahaye would not risk her neck by coming here again, not even in disguise as a young man. More’s the pity. She tapped her lips lightly with one finger behind her fan as she remembered the pirate’s kiss. Right before that same pirate stole the letter than gave Celeste some protection, at least in French waters. Celeste narrowed her eyes for a moment: it would be good to find a way to avenge herself, even if that was unlikely to happen here and now.
“Child! Come here at once. Where is your chaperone?”
The harsh English accent cut through Celeste’s reverie like a knife. She bit back a retort and jumped like a startled hare. “Oh, madam, if you please, I am a guest of Lady Aston’s and she was right here...” Celeste trailed off as she gestured vaguely at the empty space at her side and gave the older Englishwoman a wide-eyed stare.
She was dark-eyed and imperious, her features striking enough to mark her as a great beauty in her youth and certainly more than handsome now with age and gravity making her face more interesting. But of most importance to Celeste was that she had a sharp gaze that seemingly missed very little. It quivered through her like an arrow and she dropped her own gaze to the parquet floor and picked awkwardly at her fan.
A moment later, Lady Aston’s welcome voice came to her rescue. “There you are, my dear! Oh…Lady Carlisle, isn’t it? I had only just heard that you had arrived here in Jamaica.”
“You mean that you had heard I was dead and are now completely astonished to find me alive and here in Jamaica. Come now, Elizabeth, you were a better liar when we were girls.” The imperious woman drew herself up with the aid of a gold-headed walking stick and gave Lady Aston a cool smile.
Celeste couldn’t help raising her eyebrows in astonishment, but had the good sense to glance away, making it appear as if she…was reacting to a red-haired apparition on the far side of the ballroom. Celeste bit back a gasp. She did not have the time or patience for this. That pirate should not, could not be here. Not back in Sir Henry Morgan’s palace when the former privateer had vowed to go pirate-hunting. After Captain Jacquotte Delahaye had stolen her letter of authorization from the king and given her the most distracting, passionate kiss Celeste had ever experienced, she and her ship had vanished from the local waters and there had been no word of her or her exploits since.
Not of course that Celeste had searched. Well, perhaps a little. With an effort, she dragged her attention back to the sparring match between Lady Aston and…of course, that Lady Carlisle. She of the Affair of the Queen’s Diamonds, the woman who nearly brought down a French queen. There were so many tales about her exploits that it was difficult to discern which ones might even have a grain of truth in them. What was she doing here?
“I see your protegee is lost in her thoughts. An unattractive quality in a girl so young. Certainly you were never guilty of that at her age, Elizabeth. But then, she is a bit old to be fresh from the convent school. Where have you been keeping her?” Lady Carlisle narrowed her dark eyes as she assessed Celeste and for a moment, the latter thought she knew how a mouse felt under the fixed gaze of a hawk.
“My French cousins in England sent her to me in hopes that I might refine her a bit and help her to find a suitable husband in these islands.” Lady Aston tapped her fan impatiently and Celeste knew that she wanted to return to her card game. It was time to intervene.
“My lady,” she curtsied politely, “it is a great honor to meet you. I believe that my clumsiness in calling myself to your attention is depriving my dear guardian of her opportunity to engage the other ladies in whist so I beg your permission to allow us to retire to the card room.” She glanced up at Lady Carlisle and the latter waved a dismissive hand. Several gentlemen were approaching and her attention was clearly diverted to a dark, saturnine man in a rich velvet coat.
Celeste took Lady Aston’s arm and gently tugged her away. Whatever business Lady Carlisle engaged in would have to wait for a better moment for eavesdropping. Lady Aston’s arm was tense under hers. “I don’t know what your game is, my dear, but steer clear of that woman as much as you can. She is very dangerous.”
“Even dead?” Celeste couldn’t resist. Why had Lady Aston thought her dead? If she was the same Lady Carlisle of the Queen’s diamonds affair, she must be nearly indestructible. Particularly given English food.
Lady Aston gave an impolite snort behind her fluttering fan. “She will die when the Devil himself comes to call for her and not one moment sooner. I wonder what she is doing here?”
Celeste started to respond when a vivid shock of red hair on a young man near the archway caught her eye…no, not a man. She had been correct in her first impression. Pirate captain Jacquotte Delahaye was indeed attending Sir Henry Morgan’s ball. The very one in which he planned to announce the extermination of pirates and piracy in the Caribbean. At least she had not grown more timid in the last year.
“Ah. I had an eye for handsome lad or two in my youth as well,” Lady Aston chuckled a bit. “But do not forget that you are an ingenue, fresh from the country or whatever tale you were telling Lady Carlisle. Not a bold and brazen hussy who flirts with strange men at balls. Particularly not this one.” Her lip curled in distaste for a group of bearded and burly men who surrounded Sir Henry Morgan as he moved across the room to his overstuffed chair overlooking the assembly.
The old pirate laid claim to the service of other old pirates, then. These men were certainly not planters or merchants, Celeste could almost smell the dried salt from their garments from across the room. One bore a black eyepatch, another a wooden hand. It occurred to her a moment later that if she found Jacquotte Delahaye so recognizable, some of these men must as well. She forced herself to not glance at the archway where the captain had been a moment before.
“I understand, ma’am. I had not realized that the lieutenant governor flaunted his old connections quite so boldly.” Celeste murmured softly.
“Hadn’t you? I had thought that might be why I was so fortunate as to enjoy your company again,” Lady Aston gave her a sidelong glance. “No, I don’t need to hear either the lies or the truth. Simply trust me in this one thing and steer clear of the pirates. I would not want to hear that you came to a…mishap of one kind or another, particularly when under my care. I loved your mother and I am fond of you, my dear.”
Celeste bit her lip slightly and nodded. Perhaps she was as recognizable as the pirate captain in her own way. She cast her eyes downward in as modest a look as she could summon and escorted Lady Aston to her card table. Since she had no interest in cards, and more to the point, no money for gambling, she was once again able to observe the ball, local merchants and landowners, pirates and spies.
“I had no thought to see you here tonight, Mademoiselle.” The low voice from behind her sent a frisson of heat through Celeste. It couldn’t be, she wouldn’t dare… She glanced sidelong at a brown-haired gentleman in somber clothes with a light brown beard and mustache. Who could this be? He caught her eye and she glanced away as if flustered by flirtation. How had Captain Delahaye found a disguise to quickly?
“How did you…no, never mind, it matters not. What are you doing here?” Celeste fluttered her fan in a way that suggested her companion had said something amusing.
“I am here to learn more about Sir Henry Morgan’s plan to exterminate piracy on the high seas, of course. Such a noble endeavor! Certain to earn him more rewards from the English king, not to mention the opportunity to plunder the stolen treasure of his former brethren. But that seems too frightening a topic for such a demure young lady. Are you newly out of a convent school, Mademoiselle, or perhaps have been in society a bit longer and have simply failed to find a husband yet?”
Celeste’s blue eyes narrowed above her fan, but she smiled a hidden smile. This pirate had her charms and it amused her to be reminded of them. But this time, there would be no thefts, not of her letters nor of whatever virtue she thought she had left. Perhaps, though, since they were both in attendance at the ball for the same reasons, they might find common ground for the moment. “If it is not too bold, would you like to dance, Monsieur? I see that few are willing to dance too near Sir Henry Morgan and his compatriots?”
“With reason, my dear. I do not wish to draw so much attention and neither should you. Let Sir Henry sink a bit further into his cups and he’ll be talkative enough to meet either of our ends. But come, we will join the dance at this other end of row.” With that, Captain Delahaye caught her arm and swept her down to the other end of the room.
This imperious gesture annoyed her. She wanted to eavesdrop, not to wait until a drunken Englishman shared his plans out loud. Who could trust in those? They’d be changed before half the room heard them. Unless Sir Henry thought that he had such a strong hand the pirates didn’t stand a chance against him? Aloud, she murmured, “What do you think his plans are?”
The Captain spun her gracefully into the dance and when she returned to his arms, said just as softly, “I imagine he thinks that a few English warships and some extra cannons on the port will solve the problem. Retake Port Royal, break the center of buccaneer power and scatter us all to the winds.”
Celeste laughed softly. “Even I know him to be more sophisticated than that when the mood strikes him. And you know him better than I, I suspect.” She spun away from Jacquotte in the dance, only to be swept back into the pirate’s arms a few steps later.
“Do I? You think an English privateer turned milord associates with a French whore turned pirate? Faith, Versailles must be grown more liberal than when last I was in France.” Jacquotte’s lips twisted in something that was not a smile and Celeste shivered.
“I do not believe you were a whore,” she said at last. “Nothing about you…suits that life.” She stumbled over the words and Jacquotte swept her off the floor into an alcove as the musicians changed their tune to a country dance. She blinked up at the pirate for a moment before she realized that the alcove they stood in was only a few paces from Sir Henry’s thronelike chair. A moment’s movement and she shifted her expression and her fan into a gesture of clumsy flirtation,
“How delightfully your eyes sparkle when you are engaged in…I assume you are a spy? I can see no other reason for the disguise, the return to this city, this governor’s palace?” Jacquotte tilted her head to one side and looked inquisitive.
Celeste smiled and raised her fan up under her eyes to cover her lips. A chance word from the men around Morgan caught her attention then and she inched a bit closer to the edge of the alcove, where a dark curtain separated them from the group around Morgan. There was something about a ship, no, three ships. A new cannonade on the harbor. A raid on the taverns near the water. The phrase “put to the torch” sent a chill through her. Jacquotte met her gaze with a look of such fury that Celeste had no doubts of the pirate’s intentions. There was something about days, possibly three, and Jacquotte stepped forward.
She grabbed Jacquotte’s arm and shook it slightly. “Too many of them. Not here, like this. Come with me.” She took the pirate’s hand and tugged and after a long minute, she followed. They slipped around the outskirts of the ball to one of the open doors to the garden. Celeste murmured something about feeling faint for the benefit of the dancers who were cooling themselves in the night air and Jacquotte solicitously gave her arm for support.
Once in the gardens, Jacquotte lifted her hand and kissed it, then turned it over and kissed her palm. Celeste felt a hot flush dance on her neck and nearly laughed at the sensation. This pirate, at least, never failed to intrigue her. “I need to go to my ship, chérie, to talk to my men and see what we can do to thwart Morgan and his men. It has been a delight to spend the evening in your company.” The pirate released her hand and turned to slip away in the dark.
A rough voice from the shadows made them both start. “What have we here? A pirate captain playing at being a gentleman? That great buffoon in the palace must be like a pox, spreading his thrice damned foolishness to all who get too close.” Whoever he was, he stayed in the shadows while the moonlight glinted off the knife that suddenly appeared in Jacquotte’s hand.
“What are you doing here, Tom Harris?” Her voice was calm, but Celeste could see her shift her stance and become more alert, as if expecting a possible attack.
“Reckon I’m here for what you came for, Delahaye. Except you seem to have gotten distracted by a bit of skirt. Nice bit of fluff, but not one to bring along on tonight’s work. Where’s your crew?”
Celeste stiffened and pulled a knife of her own from the inner pocket of her voluminous skirt. She held it up so that the moonlight glinted off the blade and bared her teeth at the shadow that interrogated them. A soft laugh erupted from the darkness. “The kitten has claws! Would that I had the time to tame you, sweetheart!”
“Leave her be, Tom, and tell me what you want.” Jacquotte’s voice took on a cold edge.
“Not in front of her…” he began.
Jacquotte cut him off, “I trust her and that’s all you need know. Now tell me what you want before I filet you like a fish.”
Tom laughed again. “I hear that old Henry wants to burn and blast us out of our home in Port Royal, then chase us out upon the sea. You heard as much or more?”
“About as much. Who’s backing you?”
“Teach’s brat and the Black Lagoon Fleet, my own crew, most of the pirates who’ve heard a rumor here or there. The others are too drunk to believe a word of it.”
Jacquotte gave him a slit-eyed gaze. “And where did you get your information?”
He laughed again, more softly. “Let’s say that there’s another party with an interest in the matter, one who’d as soon not see Sir Henry’s plan succeed. But I can see by your looks that you’ve heard something of the same. Now I must be off. I was told to meet my spy in the gardens to find out more about when he plans to toast us all in our beds. I’ll send word to your ship.” He tapped his hat in a mockery of courtesy to Celeste and disappeared into the darkness.
“We need to see who he’s been speaking with,” Celeste said softly.
“And I need to go and talk to my crew.” Jacquotte leaned over and caught her hand. “Find out what you can, but be careful. Are you in the same room as last year?”
“At Lady Aston’s, yes.” Jacquotte nodded and slipped away. Celeste bit back a smile realizing that she had very nearly told a pirate captain to be “cautious.” But now she needed to find out what she could for her own mission, Where would a pirate meet someone in the garden of Sir Henry Morgan’s estate at dead of night? Though that did not narrow the options much. She tucked her knife out of sight, but within easy reach in her skirts and took a path around the patch of darkness where Tom Harris had vanished.
Where would an obvious pirate hide on the grounds of a man sworn to eliminate all pirates not under his control? She guessed that there must be an escape route nearby and that he would not venture this close to the house and its guards without reason. But that left any number of dark paths and trees that might hide anything from a pair of lovers to footpads to…Lady Carlisle. Not in the actual bushes, of course, but sweeping carelessly down the path on the arm of the gentleman she had seemed so delighted to see.
Celeste thought briefly of being brazen about wandering the garden unaccompanied for a moment, then decided instead to step into the darkness of a nearby stand of trees herself. Lady Carlisle might have some questions about the behavior of a convent miss that would be awkward to answer. But she miscalculated in the darkness and tripped, falling to the ground with a soft cry. The lady and her escort were closer now, close enough to hear and perhaps see her and Celeste cursed her luck.
She was testing her ankle to make sure she could stand when the gentleman in the velvet coat appeared in front of her and stretched out his hand. “What have we here? A little lost kitten far from the safety of her friends. You should not wander these grounds alone at night, my dear. You never know who you might meet.” His English was lightly accented, but it was not a voice that Celeste recognized. She took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.
“Thank you. Lady Carlisle. You seem to see me at my worst tonight. My deepest apologies. I came out for a breath of air took the wrong path and foolishly got turned around. I must beg your permission to depart and seek out Lady Aston.”
The lady tilted her head to one side, like a bird of prey. “I don’t believe you, my dear. I’m not sure what you are doing, but I think you will come with us. I think I have plans for you, since you’re certainly not what you seem.”
Her companion looked puzzled, but did not loosen his grip, and frowned at Celeste, who schooled her features into a picture of innocence and confusion. “I don’t know what you mean, my lady. My father is a merchant and my mother is dead. I am just the guest of Lady Aston, a friend of my mother’s, There is nothing more to me than that.”
Lady Carlisle reached out and tugged at Celeste’s hair. Celeste gasped as the brown wig came unpinned, exposing her blonde locks underneath. “I thought as much. You’re not bad, girl, but you need more time and practice to pull the wool over my eyes. French spy, I take it? No, don’t bother lying. I’ve seen and outwitted far too many of you not to recognize one when I see her.” She stepped forward on the path. “Bring her. We can’t have her running loose now.”
Over Celeste’s protests she found herself towed down the path behind the lady, who moved through the darkness in her pale gown like a ship in full sail. The gentleman, even when he did not appear to be paying attention, never loosened his grip. Celeste considered screaming for aid, but then would-be rescuers in a pirate’s garden might be worse than her current predicament. What did they want her for, anyway? The possibilities were all…distinctly unpleasant.
At the edge of the garden, Lady Carlisle stopped and barked out a short phrase. Celeste was not surprised to see Tom Harris step forward. He had to have gotten his information from someone in the house, though the notion that an English lady would associate directly with a pirate surprised her a bit. Not that this English lady was like any other.
“Milady de Winter,” Tom sketched a bow of sorts. “I expected you to send a messenger.” He glanced briefly at the man, then at Celeste, before returning his attention to Lady Carlisle. His expression showed no recognition, only mild curiosity.
Celeste was still digesting what he had just said. Milady de Winter was legendary, but also long-believed to be dead: why would she resurrect that name now? She and Tom Harris bent their heads together, murmuring softly so that she only caught a few words. They seemed to be confirming what she and Jacquotte already knew…except she caught the word “fortnight.” What was happening in a fortnight that these two needed to meet in secret about?
Once or twice, Lady Carlisle cast a glance at her, her expression speculative in the dim light. A shot of ice ran through her. Did this woman intend to use her as some sort of bargaining chip or worse, payment to Tom Harris for his services? She drew a deep breath, vowing that either Tom or she would feel the blade of the knife in her skirts if that happened.
But a few minutes later, their business was concluded. Tom accepted something from Lady Carlisle’s hand and vanished into the darkness. She beckoned to Celeste’s captor, “Come on. We still need to finish this.” She swept past, heading once more for the Governor’s mansion in the center of the gardens.
Celeste found herself dragged in her wake once again, only this time she began to wonder if her knife might be better applied to the hand of her captor than anything else. Perhaps if she stumbled again, she could throw him off balance? She lurched sideways, but couldn’t break his grip on her wrist. Instead, he tightened it, now pressing her arms against her sides by wrapping his arm around her waist. This was worse than before: she had no desire to be closer to him and now it would be harder to reach her knife.
Lady Carlisle led the way back to the house and went to a side door that opened from the garden into a small drawing room. “Now,” she said coldly. “Let’s find out what you know. I’m sure a French spy at Sir Henry Morgan’s home would pick up a few useful tidbits. We’re prepared to make you tell us, if you insist. But I can’t imagine that your loyalty needs to be paid for in your blood.” She sat down at the table near the door where they entered. “Now, who are you? Your real name.”
Celeste murmured a phrase that she had picked up in an unsavory tavern and Lady Carlisle nodded. Her man gripped Celeste’s arm and gave it a hard twist. “The choice is either that you tell me what you know and I determine whether or not it is worth your life or you tell me nothing of any use and he kills you here. Do I make myself clear, girl?”
“Why did he call you Milady de Winter back there in the garden?” Celeste shifted to loosen the pressure on her arm. If she escaped from this, she’d bear his fingerprints on her flesh for a ten day.
“That is what worries you right now? What an interesting child you are1 It is an old nom de guerre that I thought I would bring back. After all, I’m dead, isn’t that what Lady Aston thought? Why not be dead under different names? So many delightful things that one can learn and accomplish if no one knows where to look for you.”
It was then that Jacquotte appeared outside the door to the dark garden. Celeste nearly shrieked with relief, but instead, she twisted hard and stepped on his foot, forcing Lady Carlisle’s companion to focus on her. Jacquotte slipped into the room, knocking Lady Carlisle over with a quick blow of her cutlass handle. He spun at her cry, releasing Celeste at last, and tugged her own knife free of its scabbard. It was a moment too late.
Jacquotte’s knife caught the man in the velvet coat square in the stomach and he doubled over with a howl. A second slash ended his ability to make noise forever. Lady Carlisle gave a shriek and advanced on them with a small pistol, her expression murderous. Celeste grabbed a vase from a nearby table and threw it at her. The pistol’s shot went wild and Lady Carlisle dropped it to grab her bleeding arm. She opened her mouth to shout and Celeste grabbed Jacquotte’s arm and dragged her away.
Minutes later, they fled into the gardens, the shouts of pursuit behind them. Jacquotte towed her swiftly down a darkened path, then through a gate in the wall. The street outside was deserted. “Come with me on The Leopardess,” Jacquotte murmured softly. “You’ll have to stay out of sight for a bit until this is surpassed by something else in any case. Lady Aston won’t be able to keep you safe.”
“But I will be safe on a pirate ship?” Celeste tilted her face up with a laugh. “Did you hear what she told Tom Harris? Something about a fortnight before Sir Henry acted against the pirates?”
“My pirate ship. Yes, he told me and he told me they had you. That’s how I knew to come back here. My crew and his and the others have been emptying pirates out of Port Royal all night, as well as spiking the guns overlooking the harbor. My crew knows who helped me put a stop to Sir Henry’s plans tonight and they will value you as one of their own.”
“It’s an intriguing idea. And you’re right, I need to leave Port Royal now anyway. Permission to join your crew, at least for now, Captain?” Jacquotte met her laugh with a kiss.
Show Notes
This quarter’s fiction episode presents “An Encounter With a Lady” by Catherine Lundoff, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Catherine Lundoff Online
- Website: CatherineLundoff.net
- Website: Queen of Swords Press
- Bluesky: @qospress.bsky.social
Major category:
LHMPWednesday, August 27, 2025 - 15:45
As I mentioned in passing previously, I've decided to continue the podcast fiction series for another two years before putting the project to bed. This year's Call for Submissions if functionally identical to last year's.
Major category:
LHMPThe Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast will be open for submissions in January 2026 for short stories in the lesbian historic fiction genre, to be produced in audio format for the podcast, as well as published in text on the website.
I strongly advise authors to review these guidelines thoroughly before submitting. If your submission doesn't meet the requirements, you will have wasted both of our time.
Technical Details
We will accept short fiction of any length up to 5000 words, which is a hard limit. We will be publishing four stories. (If we get some really great flash fiction, there’s the possibility of doubling up if the total meets the word count limit.)
We will be paying professional rates: $0.08/word.
The contract will be for first publication rights in audio and print (i.e., the story must not have appeared in either format previously) with an exclusive one year license. (Exceptions can be arranged by mutual consent for “best of” collections within that term.)
Instructions on how to submit are given below. NO SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED OUTSIDE THE SUBMISSION PERIOD OF JANUARY 2026.
By submitting a story, you are warranting that the work is not generated in part or in whole using Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, etc.
What We’re Looking For
Stories must be set in an actual historic culture--i.e., a specific time and place in history--and the plot and characters should be firmly rooted in that time and place. (No time-travel or past memories, please.)
Stories may include fantastic elements that are appropriate to the historic setting. For example, they can include fantastic or supernatural events or beings that people of that era considered to be real. Or stories may be modeled on the fantastic literature of a specific historic era and culture. The limits to this will necessarily be subjective.
Stories must be set before 1900. We love to see stories that reach beyond the popular settings of 19th century America and England unless you do something new and interesting in them. I try to balance a diversity of settings and if you aren't competing with the rest of the 33% of stories with 19th c Anglophone settings, you have an advantage. [Also: see sensitivity note below.]
Romance is optional, and romance stories should have some other significant plot element in addition to the romance. A developing romance tends to take up a lot of plot space and we've all read a lot of "girl meets girl but they're the only two lesbians in the world." There are great stories that could be done with existing couples, friendly exes, or networks of like-minded women, just for a change.
We are not looking for erotica. Sex may be implied but not described. (It’s difficult to include both erotic content and a substantial non-romantic plot in short fiction. I’d rather that stories focus on the plot and characters.)
Stories should feature lesbian-relevant themes. What do I mean by that, especially given the emphasis the LHMP puts on how people in history understood sexuality differently than we do? This is where we get into “I know it when I see it” territory. The story should feature protagonist(s) who identify as women, whose primary emotional orientation within the scope of the story is toward other women. This is not meant to exclude characters who might identify today as bisexual or who have had relationships with men outside the scope of the story. But the story should focus on same-sex relations. Stories that involve cross-gender motifs (e.g., "passing women," "female husbands") should respect trans possibilities [see sensitivity note below].
Stories need not be all rainbows and unicorns, but should not be tragic. Angst and peril are ok as long as they don’t end in tragedy.
Authors of all genders and orientations are welcome to submit. Marginalized authors are strongly encouraged to submit, regardless of whether you are writing about your own cultural background.
If you want a somewhat less formal discussion of what sorts of stories really catch my eye, I wrote a blog about that.
Please feel free to publicize this call for submissions.
Submission Information
Do not send submissions before January 1, 2026 or after January 31, 2026. Submissions sent outside this window will not be considered (with allowance for time zones). Seriously. I had someone (twice!) send me submissions in mid-summer. I remember these things and you won't do yourself any favors.
And evidently I need to point out that you should not re-submit a story that has previously been rejected, unless you have prior approval to do so. "Prior approval" could mean "when I rejected it previously, I said that I'd love to consider it again if you addressed X, Y, and Z." It can also mean, "Before you send it to me, you email me explaining when it was submitted previously and asking if I'd like to see it again." It especially helps if you've worked to make it even better than it was before, because the overall quality of the submissions goes up every year and you'll have stiff competition.
Simultaneous submission (i.e., having the story out under consideration at more than one market) is ok, but explain that in your cover letter. My turn-around time for acceptances is short enough that it's unlikely to be a problem for me.
Send submissions to hrjones@me.com
Submit your story as an rtf or doc(x) file attached to your email
The file name should be “[last name] - [story title, truncated if long]”
The subject line of your email should be “LHMP Submissions - [last name] - [story title]”
There is no need to provide a synopsis or biographical information in the cover letter, but it won't count against you if you do.
By submitting your story, you are verifying that the material is your own original work and that it has not been previously published in any form in a publicly accessible context. You are also verifying that you did not use any Large Language Model application (colloquially known as "AI") in any way in creating the story.
Submissions will be acknowledged within 2 days of receipt. If you haven’t received an acknowledgment within 5 days, please query.
Based on previous years, I will generally have the submissions read and responded to within the first week of February. If you haven't received a response by mid-February, please query as the email may have gone astray.
Formatting
Use your favorite standard manuscript format for short fiction with the following additions:
In addition to word count, please provide the date/era of your setting and the location/culture it is set in. (These can be in general terms, but it helps for putting the story in context, especially if it uses a very tight point of view where the time/place are not specifically mentioned in the story.) If you are including fantasy elements and think I might not be familiar with the historic background for those elements, a very brief note in the cover e-mail is a good idea.
If you don’t have a favorite manuscript format, here is a good basic format:
- Use courier or a similar monospaced serif font, 12-point size
- Lines should be double-spaced with paragraphs indented. (Use your word processor’s formatting for this, do not use tabs or manual carriage returns.)
- Do not justify the text, leave a ragged right margin.
- Margins should be at least 1-inch or equivalent all around
On the first page, provide the following information:
- Your name (legal name, the name I’ll be putting on the contract)
- email address
- (standard formats generally require a mailing address but I don’t need one at this point)
- word count (please use your word processor’s word count function, rounded to the nearest 100)
- date/era of story
- location/culture of story
Centered above the start of the story, include the title, and on the next line “by [name to appear in publication]”. This is where you may use a pen name, if you choose.
Please use actual italics rather than underlining for material meant to appear in italics.
Please indicate the end of your story with the word “end” centered below the final line.
As I will be reading stories electronically, there is no need to include page numbers or a header on each page. (If this is part of your standard format, you don’t need to remove them.)
Notes on Sensitivity
I strongly welcome settings that fall outside the "white English-speaking default". But stories should avoid exoticizing the cultural setting or relying on sterotypes or colonial cultural dynamics. What does that mean? A good guideline is to ask, "If someone whose roots are in this culture read the story, would they feel represented or objectified?"
What do I mean by "stories that involve cross-gender motifs should respect trans possibilities"? I mean that if the story includes an assigned-female character who is presenting publicly as male, I should have confidence that you, as the author, have thought about the complexities of gender and sexuality (both in history and for the expected audience). It should be implied that the character would identify as a woman if she had access to modern gender theory, and the way the character is treated should not erase the possibility of other people in the same setting identifying as trans men if they had access to modern gender theory. This is a bit of a long-winded explanation, but I simultaneously want to welcome stories that include cross-gender motifs and avoid stories that could make some of the potential audience feel erased or mislabeled.
A note on transfeminine characters: I am completely open to the inclusion of stories with transfeminine characters who identify as women-loving-women. This is a complicated topic for historic stories, though, as this is not a motif with much known historic grounding before the later 20th/21st century. (In all my research, I've found only one possible, fictional example that was not presented as gender deception for ulterior purposes, and no clear non-fictional examples that don't involve intersex persons.) If you're submitting this type of story, you may have to work harder than usual on making it work in the historic context.
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