Raconteur Press

Okay, we need a second to catch our breath, because this is chaos — but it’s the good kind of chaos, so strap in! In April, we told you both Storm-Dragon and A Kiss for Damocles had been named as finalists for the Prometheus Award. Which is an honor in its own right, and more than we could have expected in only our third year as a press — and first year publishing novels. Just last week we told you J. Kenton Pierce won Best Novel for A Kiss for Damocles.

Our latest boys adventure, written by Malory | Snark and Shotguns, is available for preorder! Check out… A Felix Jones Adventure! Felix Jones is the kind of kid who builds a signature-forging laser scanner before breakfast and treats every rule as a starting point rather than a final answer. He was supposed to spend a weekend looking at old clocks on a tidal island. He was told it would be educational. He should have read the small print more carefully.

We are proud to announce that A Kiss for Damocles — the debut novel from J. Kenton Pierce— has won the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel. Pierce was named a finalist for the award by the Libertarian Futurist Society earlier this year, alongside four other novels. A Kiss for Damocles launched Pierce’s “Tales from the Long Night” universe and introduced readers to Shaifennen Roehe, a young homesteader on Hesperides Colony.

You were a weird kid once. So were they — right up until the monster showed up. A boy brings a rotten sandwich back to life and discovers the truest friend he has ever had. A lonely girl pulls a crashed alien out of a cornfield. A grieving kid hides a fire-breathing salamander in his dead father’s office. And out past the porch light, something with too many tentacles is looking up at the same stars — and quietly noticing the marriage coming apart inside the house.

Last month? Thunderdome. Last week? LibertyCon 38. This week? Well… it’s a story about words, mostly; but also about coming home, in more ways than one. This is absolutely not a picture of Spearman Burke, happy to be home with his brain (mostly) intact and nobody talking to him. We are still just a weeeeeeee little bit fried. Fortunately for you—and for us!—some of the other LC attendees left with enough life left in ‘em to relate what happened on this glorious weekend.

[Deej first posted this at his Locals a few days ago. He has added a few footnotes for this version.] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was in my 20s, and eBooks were (mostly) not a thing.1 I haunted book stores and used book stores, and even then, finding novels that suited my tastes was rough, as the tides in traditional publishing were already going toward exclusion and gatekeeping.

The week after returning home from a convention.

Being a kid wasn’t all cheering at Saturday morning cartoons. Sometimes it meant hiding under your blanket late at night while you munched popcorn and watched that cheesy B-movie monster on Chiller Theater hosted by “Chilly Billy” Cardille! I mean, sometimes the costumes weren’t that great. And the sets were cardboard and spray paint. And the scripts were… you know, in hindsight, it was more about the experience, okay? Hmpfh.

“But Mom, can I keep it?” This is the beginning of a story that’s sure to end well. Grab your bike and take a ride with us in our latest anthology, Pet Monsters! Personally, I was never afraid of a monster in my closet, or a monster under my bed. In fact, I often hoped one would appear, because it would mean I didn’t have to go to school the following day, instead of heating up the thermometer on an incandescent light bulb only to hear my Mom’s crushing reality check. “David.

General All the news that's fit to tell about happenings at Raconteur Press. The weekly update, convention happenings, short stories and general information. All the news that's fit to tell about happenings at Raconteur Press. The weekly update, convention happenings, short stories and general information.