Star-Powered Paracosm is a newsletter about audacious creative ambition in the face of burnout, algorithms, and industry BS. Follow author and artist Maggie Derrick as she shares art, writing, and lessons from the creative trenches.
Hi, I’m Maggie (She/They) and I’m a bisexual author and artist from Vancouver, Canada. I’m represented by Dana Murphy at Trellis Literary Management.
Maybe you’re here because you’ve heard about the Starborn Series. This queer romantic fantasy trilogy begins with The Star and the Ocean, which was one of 50 winners in the 2017 Watty Awards — a global writing competition that saw over 280,000 entries that year. Book two of the series, The Wind and the Horizon, and book three, The Fire and the Sky, are also available now!
As part of the Wattpad Creators program, I regularly post new writing on my profile, all of which is queer and free to read.
Or perhaps you found me through my artwork. I’m a self-taught digital illustrator, and while I mostly draw for myself, I do offer limited slots for character commissions. Among other things, I’ll be using Substack to document my progress as I work on The Wistfeld Project — an independent novel/graphic novel hybrid project.
So far I’ve had my work published in a couple of indie anthologies. My short story “A Happy Place” was included in Love & Bubbles: an Anthology of Queer Love Stories Under the Sea. An excerpt from a larger work entitled The Witch’s Patron, appears in emerge19 — a student anthology from Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio, where I studied creative writing.
My debut YA novel, The Many Ghosts of Magni Lamont, is currently on submission and looking for a home!
Perfect for fans of Isabel Sterling’s THESE WITCHES DON’T BURN, Aiden Thomas’s CEMETARY BOYS, and anyone who prefers their spooky cut with a little humor and heart, reading THE MANY GHOSTS OF MAGNI LAMONT feels like sipping a warm latte on a chilly fall day. Expertly mixing magic with the mundane, Derrick’s debut explores the long arms of grief, the particularly complicated negotiations of sisterhood, and what we owe to one another — in both life and death.
If you’re an editor/publisher and would like to know more, please contact Dana Murphy at Trellis Literary Management!
I am a grateful settler who lives, works, and creates on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. hay ce:p q̓ə
