{"id":4070,"date":"2022-11-28T13:19:37","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T13:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/?p=4070"},"modified":"2022-11-28T13:19:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T13:19:38","slug":"do-cowbots-get-blue-balls-an-interview-with-s-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/do-cowbots-get-blue-balls-an-interview-with-s-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Cowbots Get Blue Balls? An interview with S. Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>S. Park&#8217;s new short story collection, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/13359\">Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls<\/a><\/em>, is part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/?subject=queering-consent\">Queering Consent<\/a><em> <\/em>erotica series. He&#8217;s as prolific in turning in polished copy as any editor could dream of, and we&#8217;ve also published a series of short-story zines by him, with more books and zines in the works. We spoke with him for <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/rYrEuT645BA\">our latest episode<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/microcosm.pub\/podcast\">People&#8217;s Guide to Publishing podcast<\/a>, and he was kind enough to answer some written interview questions below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"An interview with S. Park, author of Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls (A People&#039;s Guide to Publishing)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rYrEuT645BA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What inspired you to write your book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it\u2019s a collection of five stories, there were five different inspirations! Overall, though, given the book\u2019s theme of loving the \u201cother\u201d my own thoughts and feelings about queer identities had a large impact. The mainstream likes to make their villains and their monsters queer for a reason, and while I think fighting back against that is a valid response, embracing it is as well. If you tell me that a man loving another man is monstrous, then how about a man loving a demon? A robot? A vampire? If you are going to be horrified by how strange and alien my love is, then I might as well go all the way and be as strange, monstrous, and horrifying as possible! And yet in this collection especially once you read the stories, they\u2019re not horrifying at all. They\u2019re consenting people who care about each other finding ways to bridge divides that vary from two princes, one of whom merely happens to be a fairy, to a human being who\u2019s meant to slay demons instead finding pleasure with one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4071\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road.jpg 965w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What was it like to publish with Microcosm?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s been pretty smooth sailing so far. I\u2019ve been lucky to work with an editor whose style and approach suits me pretty perfectly, and my prior experience with other small presses meant that nothing in the process was a shock, though I was mildly surprised when I found out there was a \u201cmarketing team\u201d (Microcosm is by far the largest publisher I have worked with, several have been single individuals running \u201cbasement\u201d passion projects!) and that said team wanted to change my book\u2019s title to be more provocative. I can\u2019t help my continuing urge to point out that the cowboy is the human and the robot is the city-slicker in the story in question, but I will admit that <em><a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/13359\">Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls<\/a><\/em> is both more memorable, and gives more of a clue to the steamy nature of the contents than <em>The Only Chance Inn<\/em> does!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What was the submission\/query process like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was incredibly lucky to be able to compress that process, due to knowing my editor Lydia personally before submitting to Microcosm. They had read a number of my fanfiction stories, so when their work on the Queering Consent series came up in conversation, they already knew that I wrote the sorts of things that would fit well under that label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What else have you written?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write a lot! I\u2019ve written millions of words of fanfiction across fandoms from the silly to the obscure to the incredibly horny. (My Little Pony, The Chronicles of Amber, and Hades the video game, to name one in each category!) I\u2019ve also published a few previous books, ranging from erotic romance (<em>The Sacrifice<\/em>, published by JMS Books under my previous pen name of Stephanie Park is probably the best of those) to post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure featuring vampires (<em>Blood Choice<\/em>, a book originally published by the Austrialian Jaffa Books, alas now defunct, but that was picked up by Thurston Howl Press, and is still available through them.) I\u2019ve also had quite a few short stories in assorted anthologies, and I even self-publish some zines on my own.&nbsp; I am constantly full of thoughts and ideas, and I can\u2019t help but have some of them come out as stories!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are you currently reading?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a stack by my bed that includes <em>Flipping<\/em> by R. Lee Fryar, which I\u2019m only about a third of the way through but which is an interesting world where ghosts depend on their haunted houses to continue to exist as ghosts, so of course a flipper messing with this ghost\u2019s house isn\u2019t going to go over well! I\u2019m also slowly working my way through <em>Antifa Splatterpunk<\/em>, an anthology from Cursed Morsels which is fascinating reading but which I find I have to take a small chunk at a time, as it\u2019s intense, and <em>Your Body is Not Your Body<\/em>, a trans-themed horror collection from Tenebrous Press with much the same problem. And I just started\u2014as a pleasant break from those\u2014<em>Trans-Galactic Bike Ride,<\/em> from a publisher called Microcosm, you might have heard of them! In non-fiction I am reading <em>War Before Civilization<\/em> by Lawrence H. Keely which is a stellar book and an amazing look into the fundamentals of human nature as relates to violent conflict, \u201ccivilized\u201d or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-576x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4072\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-576x1024.jpg 576w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard.jpg 730w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the best book you read in the last year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write more than I read these days, which is probably a failing of some kind or other. I would probably have to say <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/1273\/9781250244048\">Nettle and Bone<\/a><\/em> by T. Kingfisher, which falls short of being perfect by about one millimeter.&nbsp; Said millimeter being that I think the male \u201chero\u201d character was actually unnecessary and could have been written out entirely, though I understand why he got put in and why he wasn\u2019t written out.&nbsp; Sometimes \u201cgood enough\u201d is good enough, and oh WOW is this a \u201cgood enough\u201d book! More than good enough, it has everything I could ever want in a dark fairy tale world, including perhaps my favorite fairy godmother of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s next for you?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More of whatever inspires me, which could be anything, but also definitely more of the same. I adore writing queer relationships, happy sex, and strange, inhuman beings who maybe turn out to be awfully human after all, and I\u2019ve already pitched and had accepted another collection of similar stories to Microcosm, not to mention the direct sequels to several stories in the <em>Cowbots<\/em> book that are in the works as well! So there are many steamy, consensual, kinky, queer, and monster-loving tales to come. I\u2019m also enjoying self-publishing a zine series of queer horror stories, in which queer people aren\u2019t the real monsters, bigots are, and the queer \u201cmonsters\u201d get bloodily satisfying revenge.&nbsp; So if, for example, a trans man being able to summon a demon to send after the cis transphobe who assaulted him sounds like a fun time, those might be up your alley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4073\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-768x1025.jpg 768w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat.jpg 973w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Where can people find you online?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On rare occasion when I have coherent thoughts, I blog on Dreamwidth at <a href=\"https:\/\/bladespark.dreamwidth.org\/\">bladespark.dreamwidth.org <\/a>but I\u2019m most active on twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bladespark\">@bladespark<\/a>, where you can see my every little hummingbird notion, and also quite a lot of NSFW artwork, craft projects, and so on. I also have my self-published zines on Etsy (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/shop\/sparkcreatures\">sparkcreatures<\/a>) and in digital format on itch.io (<a href=\"https:\/\/bladespark.itch.io\/\">bladespark<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Any in-person events coming up soon?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No dates yet, but I will eventually have a book signing at As You Like it in Eugene, Oregon. Their event room is unfortunately out of order, but I\u2019m promised I\u2019ll be booked in after they have it repaired, and I\u2019m quite looking forward to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>S. Park&#8217;s new short story collection, Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls, is part of our Queering Consent erotica series. He&#8217;s as prolific in turning in polished copy as any editor could dream of, and we&#8217;ve also published a series of short-story zines by him, with more books and zines in the works. We spoke with&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/do-cowbots-get-blue-balls-an-interview-with-s-park\/\" title=\"Read Do Cowbots Get Blue Balls? An interview with S. Park\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,11,26,215,204],"class_list":["post-4070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogifesto","tag-business-of-publishing","tag-interviews","tag-podcast","tag-queering-consent","tag-sex-dating"],"my_excerpt":"<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>S. Park's new short story collection, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/13359\">Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls<\/a><\/em>, is part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/?subject=queering-consent\">Queering Consent<\/a><em> <\/em>erotica series. He's as prolific in turning in polished copy as any editor could dream of, and we've also published a series of short-story zines by him, with more books and zines in the works. We spoke with him for <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/rYrEuT645BA\">our latest episode<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/microcosm.pub\/podcast\">People's Guide to Publishing podcast<\/a>, and he was kind enough to answer some written interview questions below. <\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:embed {\"url\":\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/rYrEuT645BA\",\"type\":\"video\",\"providerNameSlug\":\"youtube\",\"responsive\":true,\"className\":\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"} -->\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/rYrEuT645BA\n<\/div><\/figure>\n<!-- \/wp:embed -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What inspired you to write your book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>As it\u2019s a collection of five stories, there were five different inspirations! Overall, though, given the book\u2019s theme of loving the \u201cother\u201d my own thoughts and feelings about queer identities had a large impact. The mainstream likes to make their villains and their monsters queer for a reason, and while I think fighting back against that is a valid response, embracing it is as well. If you tell me that a man loving another man is monstrous, then how about a man loving a demon? A robot? A vampire? If you are going to be horrified by how strange and alien my love is, then I might as well go all the way and be as strange, monstrous, and horrifying as possible! And yet in this collection especially once you read the stories, they\u2019re not horrifying at all. They\u2019re consenting people who care about each other finding ways to bridge divides that vary from two princes, one of whom merely happens to be a fairy, to a human being who\u2019s meant to slay demons instead finding pleasure with one.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:image {\"id\":4071,\"sizeSlug\":\"large\",\"linkDestination\":\"none\"} -->\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4071\"\/><\/figure>\n<!-- \/wp:image -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What was it like to publish with Microcosm?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>It\u2019s been pretty smooth sailing so far. I\u2019ve been lucky to work with an editor whose style and approach suits me pretty perfectly, and my prior experience with other small presses meant that nothing in the process was a shock, though I was mildly surprised when I found out there was a \u201cmarketing team\u201d (Microcosm is by far the largest publisher I have worked with, several have been single individuals running \u201cbasement\u201d passion projects!) and that said team wanted to change my book\u2019s title to be more provocative. I can\u2019t help my continuing urge to point out that the cowboy is the human and the robot is the city-slicker in the story in question, but I will admit that <em><a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/13359\">Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls<\/a><\/em> is both more memorable, and gives more of a clue to the steamy nature of the contents than <em>The Only Chance Inn<\/em> does!<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What was the submission\/query process like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I was incredibly lucky to be able to compress that process, due to knowing my editor Lydia personally before submitting to Microcosm. They had read a number of my fanfiction stories, so when their work on the Queering Consent series came up in conversation, they already knew that I wrote the sorts of things that would fit well under that label.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What else have you written?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I write a lot! I\u2019ve written millions of words of fanfiction across fandoms from the silly to the obscure to the incredibly horny. (My Little Pony, The Chronicles of Amber, and Hades the video game, to name one in each category!) I\u2019ve also published a few previous books, ranging from erotic romance (<em>The Sacrifice<\/em>, published by JMS Books under my previous pen name of Stephanie Park is probably the best of those) to post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure featuring vampires (<em>Blood Choice<\/em>, a book originally published by the Austrialian Jaffa Books, alas now defunct, but that was picked up by Thurston Howl Press, and is still available through them.) I\u2019ve also had quite a few short stories in assorted anthologies, and I even self-publish some zines on my own.&nbsp; I am constantly full of thoughts and ideas, and I can\u2019t help but have some of them come out as stories!<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What are you currently reading?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I have a stack by my bed that includes <em>Flipping<\/em> by R. Lee Fryar, which I\u2019m only about a third of the way through but which is an interesting world where ghosts depend on their haunted houses to continue to exist as ghosts, so of course a flipper messing with this ghost\u2019s house isn\u2019t going to go over well! I\u2019m also slowly working my way through <em>Antifa Splatterpunk<\/em>, an anthology from Cursed Morsels which is fascinating reading but which I find I have to take a small chunk at a time, as it\u2019s intense, and <em>Your Body is Not Your Body<\/em>, a trans-themed horror collection from Tenebrous Press with much the same problem. And I just started\u2014as a pleasant break from those\u2014<em>Trans-Galactic Bike Ride,<\/em> from a publisher called Microcosm, you might have heard of them! In non-fiction I am reading <em>War Before Civilization<\/em> by Lawrence H. Keely which is a stellar book and an amazing look into the fundamentals of human nature as relates to violent conflict, \u201ccivilized\u201d or not.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:image {\"id\":4072,\"sizeSlug\":\"large\",\"linkDestination\":\"none\"} -->\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-576x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4072\"\/><\/figure>\n<!-- \/wp:image -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the best book you read in the last year?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I write more than I read these days, which is probably a failing of some kind or other. I would probably have to say <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/1273\/9781250244048\">Nettle and Bone<\/a><\/em> by T. Kingfisher, which falls short of being perfect by about one millimeter.&nbsp; Said millimeter being that I think the male \u201chero\u201d character was actually unnecessary and could have been written out entirely, though I understand why he got put in and why he wasn\u2019t written out.&nbsp; Sometimes \u201cgood enough\u201d is good enough, and oh WOW is this a \u201cgood enough\u201d book! More than good enough, it has everything I could ever want in a dark fairy tale world, including perhaps my favorite fairy godmother of all time.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>What\u2019s next for you?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>More of whatever inspires me, which could be anything, but also definitely more of the same. I adore writing queer relationships, happy sex, and strange, inhuman beings who maybe turn out to be awfully human after all, and I\u2019ve already pitched and had accepted another collection of similar stories to Microcosm, not to mention the direct sequels to several stories in the <em>Cowbots<\/em> book that are in the works as well! So there are many steamy, consensual, kinky, queer, and monster-loving tales to come. I\u2019m also enjoying self-publishing a zine series of queer horror stories, in which queer people aren\u2019t the real monsters, bigots are, and the queer \u201cmonsters\u201d get bloodily satisfying revenge.&nbsp; So if, for example, a trans man being able to summon a demon to send after the cis transphobe who assaulted him sounds like a fun time, those might be up your alley.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:image {\"id\":4073,\"sizeSlug\":\"large\",\"linkDestination\":\"none\"} -->\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4073\"\/><\/figure>\n<!-- \/wp:image -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>Where can people find you online?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>On rare occasion when I have coherent thoughts, I blog on Dreamwidth at <a href=\"https:\/\/bladespark.dreamwidth.org\/\">bladespark.dreamwidth.org <\/a>but I\u2019m most active on twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bladespark\">@bladespark<\/a>, where you can see my every little hummingbird notion, and also quite a lot of NSFW artwork, craft projects, and so on. I also have my self-published zines on Etsy (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/shop\/sparkcreatures\">sparkcreatures<\/a>) and in digital format on itch.io (<a href=\"https:\/\/bladespark.itch.io\/\">bladespark<\/a>).<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>Any in-person events coming up soon?<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>No dates yet, but I will eventually have a book signing at As You Like it in Eugene, Oregon. Their event room is unfortunately out of order, but I\u2019m promised I\u2019ll be booked in after they have it repaired, and I\u2019m quite looking forward to it.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->","my_excerpt_rendered":"\n<p>S. Park&#8217;s new short story collection, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/13359\">Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls<\/a><\/em>, is part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/?subject=queering-consent\">Queering Consent<\/a><em> <\/em>erotica series. He&#8217;s as prolific in turning in polished copy as any editor could dream of, and we&#8217;ve also published a series of short-story zines by him, with more books and zines in the works. We spoke with him for <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/rYrEuT645BA\">our latest episode<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/microcosm.pub\/podcast\">People&#8217;s Guide to Publishing podcast<\/a>, and he was kind enough to answer some written interview questions below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"An interview with S. Park, author of Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls (A People&#039;s Guide to Publishing)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rYrEuT645BA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What inspired you to write your book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it\u2019s a collection of five stories, there were five different inspirations! Overall, though, given the book\u2019s theme of loving the \u201cother\u201d my own thoughts and feelings about queer identities had a large impact. The mainstream likes to make their villains and their monsters queer for a reason, and while I think fighting back against that is a valid response, embracing it is as well. If you tell me that a man loving another man is monstrous, then how about a man loving a demon? A robot? A vampire? If you are going to be horrified by how strange and alien my love is, then I might as well go all the way and be as strange, monstrous, and horrifying as possible! And yet in this collection especially once you read the stories, they\u2019re not horrifying at all. They\u2019re consenting people who care about each other finding ways to bridge divides that vary from two princes, one of whom merely happens to be a fairy, to a human being who\u2019s meant to slay demons instead finding pleasure with one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4071\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-road.jpg 965w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What was it like to publish with Microcosm?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s been pretty smooth sailing so far. I\u2019ve been lucky to work with an editor whose style and approach suits me pretty perfectly, and my prior experience with other small presses meant that nothing in the process was a shock, though I was mildly surprised when I found out there was a \u201cmarketing team\u201d (Microcosm is by far the largest publisher I have worked with, several have been single individuals running \u201cbasement\u201d passion projects!) and that said team wanted to change my book\u2019s title to be more provocative. I can\u2019t help my continuing urge to point out that the cowboy is the human and the robot is the city-slicker in the story in question, but I will admit that <em><a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/13359\">Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls<\/a><\/em> is both more memorable, and gives more of a clue to the steamy nature of the contents than <em>The Only Chance Inn<\/em> does!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What was the submission\/query process like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was incredibly lucky to be able to compress that process, due to knowing my editor Lydia personally before submitting to Microcosm. They had read a number of my fanfiction stories, so when their work on the Queering Consent series came up in conversation, they already knew that I wrote the sorts of things that would fit well under that label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What else have you written?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write a lot! I\u2019ve written millions of words of fanfiction across fandoms from the silly to the obscure to the incredibly horny. (My Little Pony, The Chronicles of Amber, and Hades the video game, to name one in each category!) I\u2019ve also published a few previous books, ranging from erotic romance (<em>The Sacrifice<\/em>, published by JMS Books under my previous pen name of Stephanie Park is probably the best of those) to post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure featuring vampires (<em>Blood Choice<\/em>, a book originally published by the Austrialian Jaffa Books, alas now defunct, but that was picked up by Thurston Howl Press, and is still available through them.) I\u2019ve also had quite a few short stories in assorted anthologies, and I even self-publish some zines on my own.&nbsp; I am constantly full of thoughts and ideas, and I can\u2019t help but have some of them come out as stories!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are you currently reading?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a stack by my bed that includes <em>Flipping<\/em> by R. Lee Fryar, which I\u2019m only about a third of the way through but which is an interesting world where ghosts depend on their haunted houses to continue to exist as ghosts, so of course a flipper messing with this ghost\u2019s house isn\u2019t going to go over well! I\u2019m also slowly working my way through <em>Antifa Splatterpunk<\/em>, an anthology from Cursed Morsels which is fascinating reading but which I find I have to take a small chunk at a time, as it\u2019s intense, and <em>Your Body is Not Your Body<\/em>, a trans-themed horror collection from Tenebrous Press with much the same problem. And I just started\u2014as a pleasant break from those\u2014<em>Trans-Galactic Bike Ride,<\/em> from a publisher called Microcosm, you might have heard of them! In non-fiction I am reading <em>War Before Civilization<\/em> by Lawrence H. Keely which is a stellar book and an amazing look into the fundamentals of human nature as relates to violent conflict, \u201ccivilized\u201d or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-576x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4072\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-576x1024.jpg 576w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-beard.jpg 730w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the best book you read in the last year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write more than I read these days, which is probably a failing of some kind or other. I would probably have to say <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/1273\/9781250244048\">Nettle and Bone<\/a><\/em> by T. Kingfisher, which falls short of being perfect by about one millimeter.&nbsp; Said millimeter being that I think the male \u201chero\u201d character was actually unnecessary and could have been written out entirely, though I understand why he got put in and why he wasn\u2019t written out.&nbsp; Sometimes \u201cgood enough\u201d is good enough, and oh WOW is this a \u201cgood enough\u201d book! More than good enough, it has everything I could ever want in a dark fairy tale world, including perhaps my favorite fairy godmother of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s next for you?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More of whatever inspires me, which could be anything, but also definitely more of the same. I adore writing queer relationships, happy sex, and strange, inhuman beings who maybe turn out to be awfully human after all, and I\u2019ve already pitched and had accepted another collection of similar stories to Microcosm, not to mention the direct sequels to several stories in the <em>Cowbots<\/em> book that are in the works as well! So there are many steamy, consensual, kinky, queer, and monster-loving tales to come. I\u2019m also enjoying self-publishing a zine series of queer horror stories, in which queer people aren\u2019t the real monsters, bigots are, and the queer \u201cmonsters\u201d get bloodily satisfying revenge.&nbsp; So if, for example, a trans man being able to summon a demon to send after the cis transphobe who assaulted him sounds like a fun time, those might be up your alley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4073\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-768x1025.jpg 768w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/s-park-cat.jpg 973w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Where can people find you online?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On rare occasion when I have coherent thoughts, I blog on Dreamwidth at <a href=\"https:\/\/bladespark.dreamwidth.org\/\">bladespark.dreamwidth.org <\/a>but I\u2019m most active on twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bladespark\">@bladespark<\/a>, where you can see my every little hummingbird notion, and also quite a lot of NSFW artwork, craft projects, and so on. I also have my self-published zines on Etsy (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/shop\/sparkcreatures\">sparkcreatures<\/a>) and in digital format on itch.io (<a href=\"https:\/\/bladespark.itch.io\/\">bladespark<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Any in-person events coming up soon?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No dates yet, but I will eventually have a book signing at As You Like it in Eugene, Oregon. Their event room is unfortunately out of order, but I\u2019m promised I\u2019ll be booked in after they have it repaired, and I\u2019m quite looking forward to it.<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4187,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions\/4187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}