ravenna_c_tan

Here’s what’s keeping me super-busy this month… Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Magic University hit the (digital) shelves?

It feels like a different era of history. In 2010, Obama was president, the Kindle was still a newfangled thing, and Twitter still felt niche (at 40 million users). And the final Harry Potter book had come out only 3 years earlier, and the final movie was still to come…!

At the time I didn’t know that writing a trans-inclusive magic school book was going to become such a political statement. I mostly wanted to write a magic school series where we knew up front lots of the characters were queer and that would actually pay off a rivals-to-lovers trope/plot line. I wanted to write original fic that my fanfic-loving friends would love to read.

I didn’t include a trans mentor for my hero to spite J.K. Rowling. At the time she hadn’t yet voiced her anti-trans views. I included trans characters because trans people exist.

I also include some characters who change gender magically. While I wouldn’t call that “spite,” it did always feel like a missed opportunity to me (and many fanfic writers) that none of the many ways a wizard could change gender in the Harry Potter books (Polyjuice, animorphmagus, etc) are ever explored.

But here we are, in 2025, with JKR leading a brigade of anti-trans voices in the UK, and the USA devolving fast into a book-banning fascist nation trying to legislate trans people out of existence.

It’s why now seems the right time for me to produce a hardcover omnibus edition of Magic University. So I’m running a Kickstarter to do just that.

I launched last week and it took off like a rocket! The more people who back it, the fancier I can make the hardcover edition, too, so if I can nerd out about books for a minute: it’s already slated to have a really nifty fore-edge design on the pages, a Wibalin buckram binding, and a foil-stamped or debossed title on the cover. If the campaign continues to do well, well reach the custom designed endpapers goal next, and at $10,000 we can add a ribbon bookmark! (I really really want to get to the ribbon bookmark…!)

The link, if you want to read more about it or become a backer:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ceciliatan/magic-university-collectors-edition-hardcover-omnibus?ref=depv7q

(Mock-ups of the hardcover design and such below the cut…)

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Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Hey folks, if you've still got my old fandom email address of ravenna_c_tan (AT) yahoo.com, that address is going away.

I'm replacing it with the similar Gmail form: ravenna.c.tan(@)gmail.com

Of course, there's kind of the question of whether I will even call myself a Harry Potter fan after the great JK Rowling TERF wars of 2020, but that deserves a post unto itself.

I guess the short version is this: as a bigender queer myself, I find JKR's ideas about trans identity to be harmful and regressive, and her doubling down on those ideas and pushing her morally and intellectually bankrupt essays on the subject onto the public to be reprehensible.

But the author is not the work, and what brought so many folks to Harry Potter and kept us together for so many years was the spirit of diversity demonstrated (however facilely) in the books, and the idea that together we could tear down repressive power structures that use fake 'purity' ideals to prop themselves up.
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I. AM. EXCITE.

Riverdale Avenue Books is re-releasing my new adult paranormal series, Magic University, in brand new editions, with new completely new cover art. The books are coming out in ebook, paperback, and audiobook and book two in the series will go live the week of January 20th!

If you’d like to help me spread the word about the new book, please please join my Thunderclap by linking your twitter, facebook, or tumblr to the announcement which will go off once and only once on January 20th! Join up here: http://thndr.it/1Iqehwe

Pre-orders for the ebook can be made on Amazon right here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RW7SERU

For my fandom followers, this is the series that is my answer to Harry Potter. It’s a university where sex magic is the most powerful subject and that means our hero Kyle can’t exactly ignore his sexuality (or his bisexuality) when he’s trying to save the world.

This cover depicts Timothy Frost, Kyle’s nemesis.

And now, the fantastic and amazing art! Click on the thumbnail to see it full size (or just look under the cut):

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

**Deadline is passed! Thank you all for playing! I’ll plan to make this offer again in a few months!**

The fanfic roots of my Magic University series are pretty clear, I think: who in Harry Potter fandom didn’t wonder what college would be like for wizards and witches? Although I have all original characters and an original magical system, the MU books are by a fan (me), for fans (*waves to LJ flist*), and happen to be liked by lots of other readers, too.

One of the most exciting and important developments during my time in HP fandom has been the creation and growth of the OTW: Organization for Transformative Works. If you’re not familiar with the OTW, you should be. The OTW, plain and simple, fights for the rights of fans to create fanworks. They are a bastion against the mishandling and misconduct that corporations and literary estates are prone to as they overreach on what copyright entitles them to. (Did you see that the Doyle estate finally was forced to accept that Holmes and Watson are in the public domain?)

And fanworks are in the news a lot these days (you might have noticed that 50 SHADES OF GREY, which began life as a fanfic, turned the publishing industry completely inside out last year, while AFTER, a One Direction fic from Wattpad, sold to a NYC publisher for six figures…). I believe that as corporations realize there is money to be made and material to be exploited, the right of fans to create transformative works is one that will need to be defended even more zealously than it was when they were just calling us “pirates” and “molesters” for doing it.

The OTW also operates The Archive of Our Own, a fanworks and fanfic archive. Anyone who has ever had a fanwork TOS’d or DMCA’d off a site like YouTube or Livejournal knows the value in having an online repository that is owned by us, not by some tech company.

I’ve been a paying member of the OTW for years. This year I decided to go a step further, and with the blessing of the OTW’s membership and development folks, I cooked up the following plan.

**Deadline is passed! Thank you all for playing! I’ll plan to make this offer again in a few months!**

Join the OTW or renew your membership for $10 or more before 12 noon eastern time tomorrow and I will give you a free ebook copy of THE SIREN AND THE SWORD, the first of the books in the Magic University series. AND, the first five people who respond with a donation of $25 or more will get either a signed copy of the book in paperback OR a free audiobook download from Audible.com! Your choice!

To participate, go to the OTW website (http://transformativeworks.org/support-otw), go through the Paypal button there to process your donation via credit card or from a Paypal account. Then forward your Paypal receipt, which you should get in email, to me at ctan.writer @ gmail dot com. That’s it! I’ll reply with your reward!

Please feel free to spread this offer around to anyone you know who might enjoy a magical new adult erotic romance, or who might enjoy supporting the rights of fans to create fanworks, or ideally both. :-)

Remember! Deadline is tomorrow, Friday November 21st at 12 noon! (Eastern US time!)

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

So this past weekend was the fabulous Geeky Kink Event in New Jersey, at which I was Perv Laureate. (It’s like poet laureate only kinkier!) On Saturday night I took part in a special Between the Covers erotica reading with Laura Antoniou and D.L. King, hosted by Lori Perkins. (BTC happens twice a month in NYC, once downtown and once uptown.)

I read two short pieces. The first is a hot scene from The Siren and the Sword (book one of my Magic University series, which just came out in a new edition). In it Kyle gets some help on his Soothsaying homework from his girlfriend, Jess.

The second is a humorous piece of fanfic I wrote many years ago entitled “Draco the Wonder Ferret.” It’s… I don’t think I can describe it, really. It’s a cracktastic Harry/Draco slash fic. Definitely NSFW and do not be drinking anything in front of your computer while watching this or you may sporfle.

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Right now here’s what it looks like my schedule is for the Geeky Kink NE event this weekend! (One of the major presenters at the convention had to cancel because of a family emergency, so these times for events are still subject to change.)

Saturday 2pm: Celebrity Munchausen
Saturday 8pm 5pm: The Patented Cecilia Tan Erotic SF/F Reading
Saturday: 10:45pm: Slytherin Hazing Session
Please bring your wands and come dressed Hogwartian if you can!

Sunday: 12:15 11:15am: Circlet Press 21st anniversary Bingo Game
(There will be prizes!)

Among other fun events taking place during the convention, there’s a Cosplay in Character Meetup, a clothing/gear/accessories swap, Strip Magic the Gathering (instead of poker), cotton candy bondage, and much more. This is going to be fun.

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

The programming folks for Ascendio, the Harry Potter convention in Orlando this coming July, will soon begin announcing some of the chosen programs, presentations, and panels. I have a sneak peek here of a few items in the Quill Track that I will be speaking on!

Accio Books! How Digital Publishing Has Made Gatekeepers Of Us All

Panelists: Cecilia Tan, Mark Oshiro, Lev Grossman, Erin Pyne
Summary: With the advent of the e-book and the ease with which writers can self-publish to platforms such as Amazon Kindle, many authors are bypassing the traditional book publishing model in favor of self-publishing. This panel will discuss new avenues for publishing, and the pros and cons of going the traditional route, vs. self-publishing.

Schools of Magic: A Staple in Fantasy
Panelists: Lev Grossman, Cecilia Tan, Molly O’Neill
Summary: J.K Rowling was far from the first, and won’t be the last, to write a fantasy using a magical school setting. From A Wizard of Earthsea’s Roke to the Unseen University in Discworld, from Jane Yolen’s Wizard Hall to Tamora Pierce’s Carthak University, the magical school or university is a staple in fantasy literature. Why? In books intended for a young audience and featuring young protagonists, school may seem a logical setting for the age group, but there are many more reasons why an educational setting lends itself to fantasy storytelling. Lev Grossman sends his main character to Brakebills in upstate New York, while Cecilia Tan hides her Magic University inside Harvard.

And I’m not speaking on, but am looking forward to this one:
Katniss, Bella, and Hermione: Finding the Balance Between Asskicking Prowess and Emotional Realism in the Girls of YA Fiction
Panelists: Lindsay Ribar, Beth Revis, Aimee Carter, Michelle Hodkin
Summary: You’ve got Katniss, the champion fighter whose hard life has left her with little room for romantic emotions; and you’ve got Bella, who lives for love but trips over her own shadow and needs supernatural boys to save her. With literary role models like Hermione in the mix – Hermione, known for both her sensitivity and her asskicking skills – why are there still so many high-profile heroines who tend toward one extreme or the other? This panel will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of extreme portrayals of these various female protagonists, and what kind of heroines we want next from the YA market.

For more information on Ascendio, registering for the con, and other fun stuff that will be going on, check out http://hp2012.org/

And note that they are still taking proposals for presentations through February 29th! (Here: http://hp2012.org/?page_id=463)

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

So…. the Arisia Science Fiction Convention is less than a month away. Lots of fun is planned for it. Among other things I’m doing a panel on being a complete HARRY POTTER fandom NUT (well, that’s not what the panel is CALLED but that’s definitely what it’s about), plus I’ll be giving a Retrospective presentation for the Circlet Press 20th Anniversary at which I will give away lots of smutty books and entertain everyone with tales of being the “world’s premiere science fiction pornographer,” (so spake Walter Jon Williams of me/Circlet).

Another fun thing I am looking forward to is Afternoon Tea with special guests! For $25 per person, attendees get to sit at a table of 8 or 10 with their favorite writer and hobnob for over an hour. The tea will be Sunday afternoon (of course).

If you’d like to be at my table, or the table of one of the other fun guests (including Phil and Kaja Foglio, Gareth Hinds, Hugh Casey, Esther Friesner, Marty Gear, Bob Eggleton, Hildy Silverman, Trisha Wooldridge, and Eric in the Elevator) check out this webpage for more info: http://2012.arisia.org/VIP-Tea

I did the Breakfast with Guests last year, and although I was groggy from lack of sleep, it was a lot of fun. I expect I’ll be more awake for an afternoon event though…

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

The online reservation system is open for hotel reservations for Ascendio!

Details are here: http://ascendio2012.dreamwidth.org/1041.html

The con hotel is the Loews Portofino Bay at Universal, home of the Harry Potter theme park.
The con is July 12-15, 2012 in Orlando, FL.

In fact, join the Ascendio Dreamwidth community here: ascendio2012

Heidi says online registration for the con is already almost at 200 people — and the first 200 to register get the $25 off “early bird” discount. So to register for the con visit here: http://hp2012.org/?page_id=131

There are single-day passes as well as full packages and the “Merlin’s Circle” packages. Details are forthcoming later about Night of A Thousand Wizards (inside theme park) and other events to add on, I believe.

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Well, I left Canterbury on Sunday when the Harry Potter convention Diacon Alley ended (see previous posts in my fandom LJ for details), but upon traveling to London found that my HP fan experience really didn’t end. Not that this was truly surprising, given the how many scenes in the books take place there, not to mention how many scenes in my Harry Potter role playing games have been set there as well. (I’ll never forget meeting Severus by the Traitor’s Gate… and Lucius shortly thereafter… *shivers*)

My first night in London I found my hotel near King’s Cross without too much trouble.

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.