Making a story of diversity and connection accessible—to share hope and a love for the ocean!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
3 months ago
– Wed, Jul 10, 2024 at 08:42:32 AM
Thank you to everyone who backed this campaign for Be the Sea: Audiobook and Hardcover Editions! You’ve made this story accessible to whole new audiences. Not only did you fully fund the creation of an audiobook, but we reached all three stretch goals! This is a huge deal for a small press, and as the author, I am overwhelmed with the care and generosity shown by this community! - Clara Ward
What's next?
Sam Stark got a head start this week and has been checking in about pronunciations and character voices to make the audiobooks something special!
Thanks to all of you meeting our second stretch goal, Clara Ward has already created a draft of the bonus story for the new hardcovers and e-books!
Soon Matthew Spencer will draw up line art for that bonus story. And as you saw in Update 10, he is more than ready to hand-color some extra-special hardcovers! Also, because we reached our third and final stretch goal, Matt will add foil stamping to all the hardcover editions!
Reaching that third stretch goal also means Minerva Cerridwen will be selecting 8 Sea Creatures to venture out into the world as cards or digital files—just for you!
All of this will take some time, and we know the wait will be worth it. Chris will be sending out details on rewards delivery before the end of the month!
Finally ... many, many thanks to all of you from all of us!
Clara, Sam, Matthew, Minerva, Emily, Chris, and the team at Atthis Arts
All Stretch Goals Achieved!
3 months ago
– Tue, Jul 09, 2024 at 06:34:12 AM
With a slew of new and upgraded pledges in the past 24 hours, we've now hit our final stretch goal. This means fancy foil stamping on the hardcover, bonus story from Clara, and 8 Minerva postcards!
Thank you!! Chris
Final 36 Hours - Bake Ginger Scones with Friends!
3 months ago
– Mon, Jul 08, 2024 at 08:28:52 AM
Hi everyone, it’s Clara again!
We’ve reached the last 36 hours of our Kickstarter. Over the weekend I was at BayCon in Santa Clara, where I was delighted to see some of you in person. And for those I just met and told about this Kickstarter, thanks for joining us!
So far, we’ve done pretty well with reaching 2 stretch goals. Now it’s time to make one final push if we want line art from Matthew Spencer foil-stamped onto the hardcovers and Sea Creatures from Minerva Cerridwen on twice as many postcards—bringing us all eight new friends!
But if you’re like me, you may find that final stretch, a big convention, or even the aftermath of a long holiday weekend (for those in the US), a bit overwhelming. So I’m going to share a favorite comfort food in the name of self-care and kindness.
Like Kai preparing for a festive tea party with their chosen family, I encourage you to grab a jar of candied ginger and shake it like a maraca—as we all prepare to make ginger scones!
Ginger Scones
(note: Kai uses vegan versions of all ingredients, and these scones still turn out great!)
INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
½ cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
10 Tbsp unsalted butter, chopped
1 cup crystallized ginger, chopped
½ cup heavy cream
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
½ cup raisins or dried currants (optional)
2 tbsp coarse sugar (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1 - Preheat oven to 375 °F.
2 - Whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, ginger, and salt. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until pea-sized. Add and gently stir in the crystallized ginger and raisins/currants if using.
3- Whisk together cream, vanilla, and egg. Reserve 1-2 Tbsp for later and pour remainder over dry ingredients. Gently stir until just combined.
4 - Scoop to form 10 well-spaced mounts on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Scones will spread significantly during baking.
5 – Brush with reserved egg mixture. Sprinkle with coarse sugar if using.
6 – Bake for 22 minutes or until browned. Let cool on pan for 5 minutes.
Makes 10 large scones.
—
Bonus note for those reading all the way to the end: The first recipe I ever posted from Be the Sea involved a log cake prepared and served at the same celebration as these ginger scones. You can find that recipe as a guest post in Cat Rambo’s Kittywumpus blog via this link.
Clara
Second Stretch Goal Achieved!
3 months ago
– Sun, Jul 07, 2024 at 07:15:46 AM
With about 72 hours left, we hit our second stretch goal!
This means that we'll be able to print a higher-quality hardcover edition (with a traditional cloth cover and dust jacket).
And each hardcover and e-book will include an all-new bonus story that takes place in the same universe as Be the Sea. It's called "A Grad Student's Guide to Micro-Dating" and will feature new line art from Matthew Spencer.
Our final stretch goal that will kick in at $6000 will unlock an additional upgrade to the hardcover book by adding foil artwork stamped into the cloth cover. And it will also get us 4 more postcards from Minerva Cerridwen. Meaning all hardcover orders and postcard add-ons would feature 8 beautiful Sea Creature cards.
Thanks again! Chris
Tour the Bookstores and Chocolate Shops – with Bonus Signs!
3 months ago
– Fri, Jul 05, 2024 at 09:02:19 AM
Welcome friends, it’s Clara again.
On this last Friday of our Kickstarter, I’d like to thank all of our lovely followers and backers! Your enthusiasm for both our cause and our somewhat eccentric updates has given Chris and me another excuse for an outing!
Chris led me on a walking tour of Rockridge in Oakland, California with promises of stops along the way for chocolate! (Those of you who’ve already read Be the Sea might have guessed that chocolate is my favorite comfort food.) This expedition was partly inspired by a Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl that Charlie Jane Anders led in San Francisco a while back. But Chris and I couldn’t make it when that group went to Oakland. Luckily, in addition to being a marine biologist and copyeditor, Chris used to live in Rockridge and offered to show me some of her favorite places. So join us for a tour including bookshops and chocolate!
Our first stop was The Chocolate Dragon (5427 College Ave, Oakland, CA, chocolatedragoncafe.com), where I enjoyed a rich and spicy hot chocolate. I also loved their sign, showing a dragon with hot chocolate! Sadly, they’d run out of haupia pudding (“Hawaiian vegan, gluten free, coconut pudding”), which I’m sure would have been Aljon’s favorite new recipe.
((This is Minerva breaking into the update to express xyr approval of this café’s name and sign!!! Snap the dragon is intrigued and hopes to fly there someday.))
Next we visited East Bay Booksellers (5433 College Ave, Oakland, CA 94618, ebbooksellers.com/), where I found this amusing staff picks sign above a selection that included several of my favorite (or future favorite!) books. The store also has a manifesto that includes this very Hopepunk sentiment: “As a cultural center within the larger society, we are trying to support an increasingly fragile ecology of creative, mutually supportive/compassionate thought… This requires not only our active support and the tacit support of our customers, but also that we enlist the support of other booksellers, authors, publishers, the media, and (ultimately) the culture at large.”
Just down the street, I was surprised to find another dragon sign marking Pegasus Books (5560 College Ave, Oakland, CA, pegasusbookstore.com). Chris explained pieces of a complicated merger history involving Pendragon Books. The upshot is, signage inside includes both, as well as a large selection of new, used, and sale books!
((Minerva breaking in again: Eep!!! :D Another dragon! What a good place.))
When we stepped inside Xocolate & Confections (5854 College Ave, Oakland, CA, thexocolatebar.com), we encountered a lovely selection with many vegan bonbons and other treats. As with The Best Hawaiian Chocolate in Be the Sea, Xocolate strives to use organic and fair-trade ingredients while keeping their production as local as possible. (Admittedly Xocolate is at a disadvantage, with Oakland well outside the “chocolate belt,” an area within 20 degrees of the equator where cacao trees grow.)
In case the two dragon signs early in our tour weren’t enough, Dark Carnival (3086 Claremont Ave, Berkeley, CA, darkcarnival.com) greeted us with two more dragons! Inside, the hidden nooks and idiosyncratic landscape were worthy of a dragon’s hideaway and contained treasures indeed. Chris found the John Varley story "Options" in the same edition she’d originally prized! (We’re not sure how this 1979 take on gender will hold up, but I’m curious to hear Chris’ review after re-reading.)
((Minerva, 9000 kilometres away and sweating: Oh no… So this is where all the dragons live these days…))
Their sister shop, The Escapist Comic Bookstore (3090 Claremont Ave, Berkeley, CA, escapistcomics.com), featured educational tidbits on signs scattered inside. (My apologies for the blurry photograph.)
Our last intended stop, Casa de Chocolates (2629 Ashby Ave, Berkeley, CA, casadechocolates.com) yielded the best water-based (and vegan!) hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. Made right before our eyes in the traditional manner with a wooden molinillo, this frothy blend was spicy with a hint of something floral that I couldn’t identify, but it successfully pulled all the other spicy notes together.
However, there was a final surprise waiting as we walked away and rounded a corner. Chris and I came upon a sign that seemed essential to include, given this Kickstarter project aims to make a story with a neurodivergent protagonist more accessible for all. We conclude our latest journey with this Humbowl reminder:
With that, our final tour comes to an end. I hope those too far away to visit were entertained by our discoveries. (And please share with anyone who might be in the area or might otherwise enjoy!) With only four days left in our Kickstarter campaign, we are so close to $5000—you could be the one to push us there right now and unlock the bonus story! I’m still hoping we can reach the $6000 stretch goal to fully fund the audiobook. That would free up funds for my beloved publisher, Atthis Arts, to support new projects, add fancy foil stamping to the cloth cover of the hardcover edition of Be the Sea, and also bring four more of Minerva’s amazing Sea Creature postcards into being! So please, if you care about those goals or value these updates, this is the perfect time to share the joy with all your friends!
