For the last three months I’ve been working on a new lit mag. I joined the team at Black Ink Ocean. We are a literary magazine dedicated to the Southern Gothic and our first issue is out TODAY.
It is called Bite-Sized, and its a Mini-Issue (I.e. 1/2 or 1/3 the size of what we’d like our full issues to be). We decided to do a mini-issue because we didn’t think that a full issue would be conceivable with not only a new team but not a lot of followers. The mini-issue has been a success so far. If you’re up for it, help me make it more of a success by reading it and supporting it.
The issue is free (even though it is accessed through Ko-Fi).
Also! If you want to see my latest writing on substack for Black Ink Ocean: check it out.
I have a lot of new years resolutions and a lot of hopes for the future, many of which are def doable. I will keep you all updated, as I usually try to do.
It’s been a while since I have blogged. I think that in the whirlwind of the year, a lot of stuff has happened to me, and in my life and I just… disappeared? Let’s start with the good news. I have officially been given the title of Managing Editor at my magazine. I am starting as a production manager at a startup lit mag. I am published (yay). I will be applying for my PhD this fall.
It’s been a really good year for me. And while I have not been able to do the sort of writing that I wish I could do, I have been able to continue to go further and to new heights in my actual personal life, career, and everything else. I’ve seen more of my friends, traveled more places, and in general not gotten sick (knock on wood).
But, in all of that I have come to the conclusion that while I think I could do social media well, I’m not sure that’s the path that I want to take for book marketing my novel. I’ve tried for the last few months to do TikTok, and while I can record videos every day, it ends up being more of a chore because I am constantly on the move for my jobs and what I am doing in the real world (so to speak). So, I think I’m going to refocus elsewhere. I always knew that people need to focus at what they’re good at and focus on the social medias that matter to them.
Thus, I’m going to refocus on my blog and YT. I’ve always been good at my blog and YT, and I personally think I can do both better. So I am. Short term videos are not for me.
That means! I’ll be posting more here, as bigger developments happen for my books and my projects.
Current projects in the docket:
Dark Academia/ Dystopia novel (First draft)
The Time In Things – Short Fantasy novel
Neighbor’s memoir
Poetry collection
Restarting the webnovel project.
I’m going to find more effective ways to market my books in ways that matter to my readers. I think that is so much better for me in the long term and long run. That means actually making a newsletter. Actually finding book marketing places online. Attending bookish events here on the West coast (and then hopefully throughout all of the US).
That’s cool and all Marlena, but why did you decide to name it Fox Fairy Font? Why did you decide to self publish? What are your future goals with Fox Fairy Font?
Excellent Questions!
WHY FOX FAIRY FONT
When it comes to the name “Fox Fairy Font” I rather think that this is self explanatory, but I can break it down for you.
Fox = Favorite Animal.
Fairy = One of my favorite fantasy creatures
Font = a third word that starts with “f” and has literary implications.
Is it really that simple? Yes. This isn’t rocket science, it’s creating a name that will stick in the minds of those that say it. I wanted to invoke something that screams “me” while also having the air of a real publishing house. I could have gone with one word, but I decided that all good things come in threes.
It also just so happens that foxes and the Fae (in lore) are both cunning creatures. They are also tied together. They’re both tricksters after all.
WHY SELF PUBLISH
I wanted to traditionally publish, don’t get me wrong. However as I continued to develop the multi-verse that I was working on and the more that I learned about specific aspects of the publishing realm, the more I wanted control over all the pen names and the content. I may make a larger post about this in the future, but for now, know that I am doing it because I want to. Know that I am proud to be doing it and honestly while my mind has changed since 10 years ago when I swore I never would, this has been an interesting step for me growth wise.
It’ll be difficult but I’ve done difficult things in the past. I’m not too worried. Because at the end of the day, I’ve always been writing for myself. I’m selfish and I recognize that.
CURRENT PLANS
My current plans are relatively simple. I plan to use the company to publish my books. This year (2025) I plan to publish one and get YP back up and running for weekly rereleases. In the future (2026 and on) that will probably move to 2 or more.
I plan on using this company for all of my pen names.
PEN NAMES AND THE EXPANDED UNIVERSE
Oh I can not WAIT to go further into this in the future, and I will. For now, when you visit my website you will see three two pennames outside of Marlena Marie: Astrid Axton and Bella Brax. Bella Brax will be taking on the Yasloughve Project from this blog. I will be reediting that and getting it live hopefully sometime late 2025. I am still debating on having a separate website for Bella and I think I may because it will be easier for people to go to the website to find things. We’ll see.
Otherwise, Astrid Axton is name which I’ll use for my first published physical book.
And, Voidfriends, you’ll see that the multiverse officially has a name: The Voriad. It’s a portmanteau of void and myriad. I will go more into the breakdown of the codes, timeline, and “location sequencing” I’ve created to categorize all the books in the voriad.
In short the voriad is the mutliverse that I’ve created that contains all my novels, canonically. Essentially, all books written by Marlena Marie are a universe (which is coded as [STN] ) there are authors in that universe that I am using as my other pen names (like Astrid Axton/AA and Bella Brax/BB). All of the books written by [AA], [BB], [IC], [EK], and [LL] exist canonically in [STN]. This will all come into importance as we get into the [SOS] and [SDS] books.
If none of this makes sense to you, that’s okay. It’s not supposed to. It’s meant to make sense to me. One day you’ll understand it, but for now I recommend saying, “wow Marlena those are pretty brackets” and ignore it.
FUTURE GOALS
First things first, I want to make Fox Fairy Font a full company with employees. I want to have people to help me with the production and the distribution of my books. Once I am able to support a full staff, and can sustain us on my writing (in a perfect world), then we go to phase two.
Phase two, is expansion. I would love to publish other people’s books other than just my own. I want to have the infrastructure in place before I go with this option, since I want to be able to provide the best service available.
Step 1: Hire editors
Step 2: Open for Acquisitions
Step 3: Fulfill the promise.
Of course, right now, this is not particularly possible. I recognize that. However, we all have to have goals. For the longest time my goal was to publish a book. Now that’s happening. That means I need to make another, and another and another. I am not entire sure what the future holds for me. I am certain it will be rife with grief and joy (I am a people pleaser and I really hate people hating me, but that’s the life of an author).
I am certain that regardless of what the future holds it is what I want. I’ve wanted to publish my books since I was 13. It’s now happening because I’m making it a reality. I’m excited to finally reach those dreams.
Hello! Hello! Voidfriends and Voidfolk. Am I back? Yes.
It’s been a while. That’s to say the least. The last time I really talked to you, feels like it was as I was leaving Scotland. I’m back in the US now. I have a new job (along with my old ones).
I can’t say I’m going to get back to writing book reviews. I will, hopefully, continue to collect quotes. I might do that as a thing instead. Also, I hope to get back into giving you my “what did I read” posts. As for additional content on the blog, I am not sure what it will be… if anything. But! This is all for 2023.
Some updates for me.
I officially graduated from my Masters, with distinction. I officially applied for my doctoral program, and the funding for it. I am still living in the UK at this time, so I really don’t see myself getting back into my usual 150+ book reading habits any time soon.
This blog has always been, and will always be, my writers website. So, tbh, I am pretty sure I will have to revamp it again in the coming months. However, thank you all for sticking with me for so long. You are all the best. I know that I will have a massive drop off in viewers the moment I take down my reviews (which I am contemplating doing but we’ll see).
Considering that I did not read as many books (i.e. hundred+) as I usually do, I’m surprised that I feel as strongly about some of these as I do. I feel STRONG feelings towards some of these.
Like last year, I’ll explain why I picked them as I go.
Alright! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! My top 10 quotes from 2021! I did not read enough books, or collect enough quotes, this year to warrant a top 5 quotes. All the same I love these. Surprisingly there were at least 20 quotes that fought for these spots. I probably could have been more ruthless, but I decided to be kinder to myself this year.
As I have been hinting for the last couple of months, things have been hectic on my end. This means a bunch of changes for my blog going forward.
Mainly, no book reviews, or at most one a month. I did get a backlog of reviews, but not enough for one a week for every week until I return to the states. I am only bringing 10 books with me, all of which are books I never planned on reviewing. (How does one review The Art of War, afterall.)
I wanted to do this list for a long time and honestly this was a fight to the death for me to decide which book got number one. I will explain the best I can for each book. Let’s go!
Also, I decided that this will go ahead and include some other media that I consumed because as much as I loved the books I read this year, some other series I read just… Blew other books out of the water. That’s why its top 10 reads!
Alright! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! My top 5 quotes from 2020! I was ruthless. I was horrible. I decided that with nothing else to lose, I had nothing more to give, but my honest feelings. I feel bad, but also not, because its no coincidence that the top 5 quotes spots were dominated by the same two stories. I fell for two stories so irrevocably that like, nothing can be or will be the same (along with a few others). As such! Here you are.
Marlena Marie 