The 2nd Book The 3rd Book The 4th Book, Work in Progress, 3/4 done The 1st Book, coming soon! Yes, I am plastering these covers all over my website and other social media, but oh my! I am so pleased with them! The cover design is by Frankie Pauncevolt Hill at Digital Parchement Services and…
The Mysterious Book of Moons
For the human "Hermits," The Book of Moons is their first encounter with a form of magic. Ginger Croom, Hermitville's founder, has entrusted shy Oyster Olson with her copy of this strange text, shortly before her death. As he shares it with Babe Bump, the two of them begin to suspect a connection between Ginger's…
The Guild’s Most Romantic Pairings
Oyster and Babe on a special day. Tomma and Parsifal. L: Oyster and Babe Bump: "It's complicated, but we wouldn't change a thing!" R: Tomma on Parsifal: "He really gets me!" Professor Almond and Loki Fantur Nen and Artanaro Nar L. The lucious Professor Almond with the utterly lucious Loki Laufeyjarson. R. Fantur Nen and…
Faces of Tomma
I've run the HeroForge.com portraits through a profile picture program. Really interesting results! Here are several ways of creating Tomma Bedlam's portrait. Tomma is non-binary, so to see zir feminized more in some renderings than others is really interesting. The above two sets show Tomma dressed in ritual clothing, Elf-style. This set shows Tomma in…
Life in Hermitville
What's it like to live in a quirky, funky, queer-abundant, intentional community in the middle of a lush, tangled jungle? Well, for the "Hermits" of Hermitville, life is usually pretty good--play music, garden, take care of the goats and chickens, play music, make jam, sell at the Maku'u Farmers Market, garden some more, cultivate a…
Life Among the “Punatics”
Context and history The original inhabitants of the islands of Hawai'i were and still are the Kanaka Maoli (also known as Kanaka ‘Ōiwi)--aboriginal people who are styled "Native Hawaiians" by the occupying U.S. "state" and federal governments. This term is also in common use, though not everyone understands its political and social implications (and I…
The Cosmic Soccer Mom, Mal-i-Bu Bar-Bee
In The Guild of Ornamental Hermits, the Elsewherian known only as The Lawyer™ is a secret devotee of "the Cosmic Soccer Mom," the dreaded (yet sometimes strangely merciful) multi-dimensional goddess, Mal-i-Bu Bar-Bee. The Lawyer™ is startled to find representations of his beloved goddess in toy store windows on Earth, and understands that these supposed children's…
The Incredible Unstrung Band
The Incredible Unstrung Band, Deep Pahoa Jungle Concert. L to R: Roz, Sybil, Jennifer, Maximus, Maxine, Oyster, & Frank. Depicted via HeroForge.com. Hermitville has its own community band, The Incredible Unstrung Band. The band usually consists of eight multi-instrumentalists, though sometimes additional musicians or dancers perform with them. The band's playlist is eclectic, consisting of…
Rune Illustrations by Paul F.S. Bauer
Today I am sharing two illustrations I commissioned from my youngest son, Paul F.S. Bauer, for The Dire Deeds of the Guild of Ornamental Hermits. There is a scene in the book where the Elves teach divination using the Elder Futhark runes, and I wanted the results illustrated. Paul added the additional design elements based…
July 2020 Progress
I am back firmly in fantasy novelist mode! This past weekend I put some character and plot development changes in place and continued the final edit on Dire Deeds. I revised the list of 29 genders of the Elf world; and sorted and organized files of character "faces" (a form of fantasy "casting" that helps…
The Guild of Ornamental Hermits 