WWAC and Beyond

We are very proud to have had over 300 writers share their passionate opinions about books, comics, and more here at WWAC. We are honoured to host every single word these wonderful people have written for us, and we are equally proud to see our writers making their mark beyond WWAC, as well. Want to see what some of our writers, past and present, are up to now and in the coming year? Read on!

Doris V. Sutherland: As well as my blogging activities, I’ve got my name in a couple of books. One is Bernice Summerfield: In Time, an anthology of short stories starring a Doctor Who character which is out this December; my contribution is entitled “The Bunny’s Curse”. The second is an entire book I’ve written about the classic 1932 film The Mummy, as part of the Devil’s Advocates series, due out in May 2019.

Amanda Hardebeck: Working full time at day job (Braille) and running my own publishing company, Static Pen Publishing (@staticpenpub). On top of all of that, writing a mafia erotica series (under pen name) among other numerous stories. First book in the mafia series will come out in early 2019.

Jameson Hampton: Expect to see me in some anthologies in 2019! I’ll have comics in “Why Faith” by Arcane Inkdustries and “Life Finds A Way” by Cloudscape Comics, both of which will be on Kickstarter in 2019, as well as my first D&D module in “Uncaged” by Ashley Warren! 

Kayleigh Hearn: I’m about to be published in my first anthology, with my essay “Bride of Frankenstein, Mother of Monsters” appearing in Called into Being, a zine celebrating Frankenstein’s bicentennial. As for other comics writing, my Dakota North retrospective appeared in The MNT #18, and I wrote in praise of the ‘80s crime manga Banana Fish in PanelxPanel no. 15. I also wrote about some fantastic films on Talk Film Society, and will never get over the surreality of seeing my review for Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau’s epic Best F(r)iends pullquoted on the film’s official website. Follow your bliss, kids!

Emily Lauer: I’m a professor, so most of my writing is either free online or in a scholarly tome of some sort; there’s not much in between. This year in addition to writing for WWAC and a few other sites, I put together a cluster of essays about maps in speculative fiction for the journal Modern Language Studies, and most excitingly, I co-edited the book The Harry Potter Generation: Essays on Growing Up with the Series, which is now available for pre-order! 

Paige S. Allen: Outside of my work with WWAC/Bookmarked, I am a freelance TV and film critic. This year, my work has been featured in IGN, The Nerdist, Bustle, Marie Claire, and Harper’s Bazaar (clips can be found on my website, paigesallen.com). I’ve also been dabbling in fiction writing lately! I have a story in the Dates 3 queer historical anthology series that will be on Kickstarter in early 2019, and I have another story in Behind the Sun, Above the Moon that will be published in late 2020.

Melissa Brinks: I published my first book! The Compendium of Magical Beasts is a sort of field guide/bestiary of magical creatures, written in the voice of an early 20th-century woman and accompanied by Lily Seika Jones' absolutely gorgeous illustrations. I also sold my first piece of short fiction (publication coming in 2019), sold an article I've been working on for some time to another outlet I'm very excited about (also coming in 2019), and started contributing to Forbes about indie games. It's been a pretty wild year!

Heather Wells: Outside of the site, most of my time goes to working full time for a financial institution, where my love of spreadsheets means I get to manage all of the many projects we undertake each year. Outside of that somewhat mundane tidbit, I write for our sister site Sidequest and for my own personal book and writing blog The Writerly Kind. I’ve gotten back into fiction writing and hope to have some one-shots posted online in 2019, too! You can also spot me occasionally streaming MMOs and RPGs to Twitch, where I yell loudly about sad boys and bad storytelling in video games.

Lisa Fernandes: I spend my spare time when not at WWAC reviewing for All About Romance, a romance novel review website.  I freelance, while writing screenplays (my first short film will be released next year!) and trying to gain further freelance jobs.  You can support me on my Patreon, or by donating to my Ko-Fi.

Lela Gwenn: It's been a great year for me! I had a story in the Where We Live anthology that supports victims of the Las Vegas shooting. I contributed stories to All We Ever Wanted (out now!) and The Good Fight. My first 4 issue mini, Bad Luck Chuck, was just announced at Dark Horse and will be premiering March 27th 2019. Pre-orders are available in January.

Emily Stewart: Aside from contributing to Book Beat, I’ve been acting as a publishing assistant for Common Deer Press, growing my own freelance editing business, and writing a bit. This year’s accomplishments include reviewing Box Kite and Gush for Arc Poetry Magazine, and completing an illustration series for the 100 Day Project.

Laura Stump: This year was filled with change for me, beginning with writing for WWAC. I also wrote a short comic that was published in the anthology Strange Romance, Volume 3, as well as a short story in the anthology The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing and Other Female Fables. Now I'm working on my first Dungeons and Dragons module for an as-yet-untitled project art in the Feywild.

Brenda Noiseux: I’m working on the balancing act of consulting for small businesses and focusing on my art. Highlights from the year are an art piece crowdsourced via Kickstarter, exhibiting my Typewriter photography project, creating a new 2019 calendar, and my short story “You Can’t Rush the Kimchi” winning the first place winner of Queer Sci Fi’s Flash Contest. My best friend and I also have a boutique indie game studio, Almost a Game, and are getting ready to release our second game. Get inspired and follow along at my website, www.brendanoiseux.com, or Twitter @bittenby. 

Kate Kosturski: Outside of all the fine work I do for WWAC, I’m also a writer and the social media manager over at Multiversity Comics. Our most active social media is our Twitter account, so if you see bad jokes and stealth Supernatural references, it me. The majority of my work there is on the graphic novel team (where I have become the self-appointed Anthology Queen), but I do dip in to reviewing floppies now and then. I have also done TV reviews of the second season of Cinemax’s Outcast (RIP) and as part of our Summer TV Binge (this year my boyfriend and I tag teamed on Syfy/Amazon’s The Expanse), and interviews both in and outside of NYCC. Talking to “Outcast” and “Almost Famous” star Patrick Fugit was probably the highlight of the year.  I also actually got paid to write about comics for the PanelxPanel online magazine for their October 2018 issue, which itself focused on one of my favorite series, Giant Days. I also do volunteer work with Geeks OUT, a New York City nonprofit that seeks to amply queer voices in the geek community. For 2019, I plan on keeping up with all of this, but adding more indie creators into the mix, looking for new (and hopefully paid) outlets, and doing press work at more cons!  Follow along with my madness at @librarian_kate (and hopefully I’ll have a proper online portfolio in the New Year!) 

Zora Gilbert: Outside of monthly Kickstarter roundups, I edit and copyedit for one of WWAC’s sister sites, Sidequest, and am one of two editors for Margins Publishing! Right now, we’re working on our third volume of Dates, our queer historical fiction comic anthology (Kickstarting in February of 2019!), and earlier this year we published Queer Looks, a historical zine-slash-enamel pin joint. I’m also branching out into design & editing for tabletop RPGs, starting with some work on my friends’ upcoming RPG Aeronauts! If you wanna see me yell about whatever I’m watching or reading right now, hit me up @zhgilbert  on twitter.

Naseem Jamnia: Though I’m not writing for WWAC anymore, I’m still an editor for one of the sister sites, Sidequest, which brings me much pride and joy! I let go of my other commitments (including my freelance work) since I went back to school for my MFA. In 2018, I was the Bitch Media Fellow in Technology, where I wrote a lot of pieces I’m really proud of—including two print pieces!—and I still write for them sometimes. In 2019, I have my first academic book coming out (co-written with my mother), and I have an essay in We Made Uranium! And Other Stories from the University of Chicago Extraordinary Scavenger Hunt. Crossing fingers, my agent and I will also sell my book, an MG fantasy based on Persian mythology. 

Elizabeth Coody: My work for WWAC has slowed a bit this year as I adjust to life in my new and exciting role as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. I’m proud to be working with Samantha Langsdale to co-edit a volume of essays for the University Press of Mississippi called Monstrous Women in Comics. I hope you’re going to love our diverse and cross-disciplinary examinations of what gender and monsters do in comics. Look for it in 2019! Work with religion-focused comics scholars continues over on the Sacred and Sequential blog. Find my own article in the recent Sacred Text and Comics (UPM, 2018).

Liam Conlon: I’m still writing at WWAC, (stay tuned for some manga and indie comics coverage~) but in my off time, I’m producing podcasts for Ms En Scene and writing for WWAC’s other sister site, Sidequest! I did a ton of writing in 2018, and some of the pieces I’m proudest of are my cover story for Unwinnable Monthly’s November issue, where I interrogate nonbinary representation in Cyberpunk and talk about moving past a hegemonic, white version of it. You can read a preview of it here and get the full version by subscribing on their site. I also wrote a very personal piece for ZEAL Magazine about playing horror games in groups as a form of “collective submission.” I go into a lot of game design stuff alongside kink studies, mostly through the lens of Frictional Games’ SOMA. I’m very proud of it and it has some of my favorite pieces of art I’ve completed! As always, you can find me complaining about a ton of nerdy stuff on Twitter @Flowtaro.