Lynn Strong

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  • Happy Book Release Day (and Discount Chocolate Eve)!

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    The Wyngraf Valentines Edition is available now!

    I can’t say I’ve been working towards a day like today for 50 years, because I’m 50 right now. However, considering the first “book” I wrote (and illustrated) was when I was 3, I can say it’s been 47 years in progress.

    The character who became Ashar showed up in my head in 2018, and Rahat showed up in 2019, and I had 80% of the first draft done in 2020, and then I put it on the shelf with the rest of my scribbles because the notion of cozy fantasy as a publishable genre outside some corners of fanfic wasn’t really a glint in anyone’s eye, especially not back in 2018.

    And then between the global pandemic and billion dollar climate catastrophes and Trump, suddenly a lot of people decided they’d lived enough apocalyptic horror and would really not mind reading some fantasy that wasn’t grimdark anymore. But I still had no idea any of my scribbling might be publishable until I saw one of Nathaniel’s posts in the Cozy Fantasy Reddit last summer. I remember fighting with writing an ending around the 4th of July and being absolutely mortified that an autocorrect had autocorrected the last word of the last edit wrong!

    And Nathaniel very patiently did not laugh at me when I sent a frantic “what have I done, I know you wanted it to be well edited before I hit submit, I’m so sorry” email, assuring me that one typo would not make or break the acceptance of the story.

    Gmail gives preview of messages, and I knew writers got a lot of rejections, so when a few weeks later I got an email starting out like “we couldn’t fit your story into the summer edition,” I thought I knew the rest. And then I opened it, and if I hadn’t been sitting down I’d have fallen over when Nathaniel went on to say that he’d like to buy it for the Valentines Edition.

    He’s been absolutely fantastic to work with, kind and cheerful and infinitely patient with editing exchanges that occasionally went like:

    Nathaniel: “Rahat’s actual name can’t start with H for very good structural reasons.”

    Me: (12 hours of historical research on the lineages of both the Mughal and Safavid dynasties to come up with name and title patterns that were plausible followed by writing 15,000 words of sequel in order to find out how Kamil thinks of Rahat inside his own head and realizing the syllable he’d have started with that Ashar needed to interrupt was the first syllable of the title ‘shahzada’)

    Nathaniel (probably not used to someone writing 15,000 words of sequel to figure out how to change one letter of manuscript): “Sure, shahzada works!”

    I wish I was better at short story ideas as opposed to ridiculously long story ideas, because 15,000 words is way outside Wyngraf’s limit, but I’d absolutely love to write for Wyngraf again!

    In the meantime, in honor of Discount Chocolate Eve, here’s the Has Spoons edition of the hot chocolate recipe I mentioned in Priye’s preview. (True confession, today I did not have the spoons to make it. But tomorrow is Discount Chocolate Day, so maybe I can make it then.)

    Spoonful Hot Chocolate of Decadence

    (Occasionally called Secret Ninja Master Hot Chocolate by my friends, except no longer quite so secret.)

    Equipment:

    • 16 oz. microwave-safe mug
    • Small whisk or hand held milk frother

    Ingredients:

    • 12-14 oz. milk (or your preferred alternative)
    • 2-4 Tbsp semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (depending on your preferred richness level)
    • Optional 1-2 Tbsp sugar or honey (if you have bittersweet or bakers chocolate)
    • Tiny pinch of salt (don’t forget this!)
    • 1/8 tsp-ish vanilla
    • Flavor twists as desired:
      • 1/8 tsp-ish rose water or orange blossom water and/or
      • 1/4 tsp-ish cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and/or chai masala
      • Optional shot of liqueur of your choice if it has been One of Those Days

    Step 1:

    Half-fill the mug with milk and add the chocolate chips, any desired sugar/honey, and the pinch of salt.

    If your additional flavor notes involve any dried spices like chai masala, add them here so they meld in with the hot liquid and aren’t raw at the end. (Liquid flavors are more volatile, so save vanilla or rosewater for the final step.)

    Step 2:

    Microwave for 30-45 seconds, then whisk or froth a little with the little frother. (Don’t worry if the chips are still hard.)

    Step 3:

    Microwave for another 30-45 seconds, then whisk or froth again. (At this point the chips should be melty enough to blend through nicely and turn the milk a lovely light chocolate color.)

    Step 4:

    At this point you’ll know about how much volume the frothed milk and hot chocolate are taking up.

    Add more milk to better fill the mug (but leave half an inch or so for final frothing).

    Microwave another 30-45 seconds to heat the new addition of milk, then froth. (Adjust time to suit your own tongue.)

    Step 5:

    Add any liquid flavor notes like vanilla/rosewater after the chocolate is warm enough to drink, so the vanilla flavor doesn’t evaporate during the heating and frothing. (Taste testing is handy.)

    Add any other liquid flavor notes desired at this point and stir through with the frother.

    Step 6:

    Drink. Purr. Repeat.

  • Pre-orders, previews, and Priye’s brindle chai

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    Wyngraf’s Valentine’s edition is available for pre-order!

    Here, have another cozy chai recipe, along with a preview of another character from a related story!

    I am both ridiculously excited and, at this particular moment, having a migraine. So I am doing some very low energy squee-ing. 😀

    Priye is a brindle catfolk-kitten who shows up in the sequel to Rahat’s story, in which we take a look at moments ranging from “what is the first thing an Imperial prince thinks upon awakening in the House of Jasmines with a cat walking on his face” to “what does a morning in the Catsprowl look (and smell) like” to “how exactly can a soft, round, middle-aged, and very un-parkour-suited accountant of a prince sneak back into his palace life without anything resembling a walk of shame, because it needs to be a walk of joy and discovery instead?”

    (Except that was about 15,000 words and counting, which is closing in on twice the short story threshold hahaha whimper. And if I want more stories to be submit-friendly, I need to be a lot closer to the 8,000 word limit!)

    So I thought, let’s try someone else’s point of view. And I adore Priye. She’s small and soft and gentle, and also has a lot of very quiet tortitude. She doesn’t like having to use human words because there are so many different human languages and sometimes the words aren’t allowed to go together and whichever set you choose is going to make people think things about you, and how you pronounce them makes people think other things about you, and it’s all Too Much To Cope With.

    Purrs are better than words, according to Priye. You know where you stand when someone is purring. You also know where you stand when someone is hissing. Cats are very clear about things like this — no complicated questions of whose words you use in which dialect with which accent. Purring means good, hissing means stop that, yowling air raid noises mean REALLY stop that, all nice and clear.

    So I asked her to get her slate from Elder Sister’s classroom and share a chai recipe for brindle kittens with us. She is chocolate brown and ginger orange, and she likes her coloring, so this is what she told me.

    Priye’s Brindle Kitten Chocolate Orange Ginger Chai

    • Milk
    • Chocolate (good)
    • Orange
    • Ginger
    • Chameli-sahib’s chai masala
      • Make warm and soft like kittens.
      • (Need spoons.)

    Lynn’s Low Spoons translation

    I have a Higher In Spoons edition I’m saving for the 14th, when I hope to be out of migraine land and having more energy for at least Secret Ninja Master Hot Chocolate, if not the entire half-hour production number of Asharan’s chai from the spices onward.

    But today the spoon drawer is empty. Food is complicated when you need to balance energy intake and migraine nausea and orthostatic intolerance and post-exertional malaise with a side order of weather-pain. So this is my Priye-approved 90-seconds edition.

    • 2 cups your choice of milk, water, or plant-milk, heated whichever way is easiest
    • Your favorite hot cocoa mix
      • (I used 4 tsp of Penzeys hot chocolate to make my big mug in a chai blend – if you’re making straight hot chocolate you might want double that again)
    • Your favorite chai masala powder
      • (usually my instant go-to is Blue Lotus’ regular, but I went with Blue Lotus’ mandarin – 1/2 tsp, to go with doubling the cocoa and getting orange already in the combo and minimizing the number of times I have to move)
    • A few drops of orange blossom water or shreds of orange zest
      • (if your chai masala doesn’t come with orange notes in it)
    • Half a meal shake
      • (this time chocolate, other times vanilla, usually Orgain’s vegan one because it’s the only one I’ve found without either artificial sweeteners or erythritol)
      • Use the other half to make another mug in a couple hours
    • A few bits of crystallized ginger either to chew or to put in the hot chocolate chai

    That lasted me the past 3 hours! About to go make “lunch” with the other half of the meal shake, and see whether Priye is up for more stories or just for more purring in the sunbeam.

    I hope you enjoy the low spoons variation, and that I’ll be up for the higher spoons variation on the 14th!

  • Rahat’s namesake sweets: Rahat-al-hulqum / Lokoum / Turkish delight

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    (This original post was from December 2023, but in a couple more weeks I’ll have a part 2 with a lot more history available!)

    This story started with Ashar’s rose chai and the idea that there should be more Prince Charmings in the world of different ages and colors and body types and confidence levels, but I needed something for Ashar to call him other than his own name. (Ashar is still pretending that as long as he never says Rahat’s actual name aloud, there is some resemblance of plausible deniability.)

    I’m also absurdly fond of rosewater in sweets ranging from my friend Kathleen’s amazing chocolate-cardamom-rosewater truffles to ice cream toppings to medieval-to-modern confectionery like rahat al-hulqum. And while the stuff doesn’t always come in rose-reds, I loved playing with the imagery.

    As a person with multiple disabilities, though, it’s often hard to cook anymore. So I haven’t personally cooked Yumsome’s variation on rahat/lokoum, but I loved the story they told about their encounters with it throughout their life and why rose is their favorite variation too.

    For those of us who are low on spoons but still interested in tasting it, Liberty Orchards sells them in winter (though they’re currently out) and Koska also sells it through Amazon.

    The origins of the phrase go back to 9th century Arabic medicinals for sore throats, though the candy version is mostly traced to a particularly ambitious confectioner who made a viral hit long before there was social media.

    (The image here is from When Feta met Olive.)

  • Asharan’s Rose Chai

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    I originally came up with this chai recipe in 2019, for the last all-together role-playing session my friends and I had before one of us moved to Chicago.

    (And if anyone is wondering, the character I played, whom Asharan is built from, is a D&D 5e glamour bard. 😀 That’s how I’m keeping myself honest with spell power levels, and not having level 12-ish glamour bard Ashar pull off magical tricks that would be more in scale for the level 18-ish Archmage I hope folks will meet in the sequel!)

    The modern version that’s published in Wyngraf came first, and then because I am just that much of a nerd, I took my medieval spice collection from the SCA and reconstructed the way it might have been written in a cookbook from this world, complete with Arabic measurements.

    Here’s the medieval fantasy edition, lightly edited to suit Asharan’s world rather than our role-playing game.

    A masala-chai scented with roses

    Begin always with the spices whole; for while this could be done with a bit of magery in company, our company are soon to be somewhat parted, and I fear my wishcraft cannot enchant a taste of memory from half the realm away. 

    So instead, begin with the spices whole, chosen by hand of a trader you trust, and share first a cup of that trader’s family’s chai, to have also the tale of whence it came and of the family’s health; in order that the life-spark be conveyed with the spices, in a bond rooted in the earth in which it grew, through the lives of those who live by trading it from hand to hand along the spice-roads, unto those who partake of it in camaraderie, because chai is best to be taken among a company such as ours.

    In a pot of five ratl or more, take two ratl of cream and another two of clean water if you can have it, or if not three ratl of the milk entire, and set it to a gentle fire lest it burn; or if your company have need of haste, set a fiercer flame and a friend to the stirring that it not scorch.

    For that pot take from your spice-store a dirham of black peppercorns, cinnamon of the size of your small-finger, half a dirham of green cardamom pods, and the same of idrifil-i-sagir, which I believe you name grains of paradise for reasons which elude me entirely, and about which I must enquire of his Highness on some future occasion; it seems this definition of ‘paradise’ differs in some dramatic measure from my own. 

    Take an uqiyya also of ginger-root and galengal together, fresh if you have them, or sugar-preserved if not. Grate in a nutmeg until the scent please you, and perhaps a few dried cloves, but no more than a few, because of the strength of it. 

    Take an uqiyya or two of camellia-leaves, a cupped-palm, dried brown for the trade-travel, and at the end sweeten to your pleasure with a knob of gur if you yet walk the spice-roads, or perhaps honey instead if you are settled in a land of greenery. 

    Simmer it for so long as you can bear to leave it un-tasted, at least a candlemark unless your company finds some need of haste. (I once thought there always to be time to linger over chai, but I have since encountered owlbears.)

    Ladle the chai through a mesh into a beautiful pot, and sprinkle in a few drops of rosewater to scent it. Save the spices for a second infusion if it be desired. 

    And at the last, if you live in the green-realms and have nearby a jasmine or a rose of the old families, gather the petals yourself and scatter them atop the cups you serve. If they were dried instead, add them earlier that they may infuse, but a fresh petal atop a cup of chai is not to be cooked limp and then presented to honored guests. Instead, make of it an art: a joy to behold as well as to taste. 

  • Cozy fantasy with a splash of rosewater, and many cats

    Lynn Strong (who uses any pronouns, or none, with the pen name) has been a professional nonfiction writer for over 25 years. But Lynn had never ventured beyond fanfiction until Wyngraf Magazine accepted a story for the February 2024 edition.

    Well, Lynn thought, I guess I need a website, then.

    (Hi!)

    Rahat al-Hulqum

    Rahat al-hulqum is both a tasty confection that’s often flavored with roses and the nickname of one of the two main characters of Lynn’s Wyngraf story. Lynn hasn’t seen enough fairytales where Prince Charming wasn’t an athletic young white guy with gleaming teeth and confidence in spades; the main difference Lynn saw between Prince Charming and Gaston was who held the camera.

    So Rahat, this story’s Prince Charming, is a sweet, shy, fat, middle-aged bureaucrat, with a tendency to wander off chasing visions without telling his devoted staff where he’s going. (And Asharan, who also insists to his author that he isn’t anything like a Disney princess, adores Rahat despite his insecurities about how such stories usually go.)

    They’re both men of color in a world that takes a page from Ancient Egypt and another from the Mughal Empire, where the language of power isn’t based on French or Latin; it’s based on Arabic with occasional nods to Farsi. Tel-Bastet’s name (though possibly not its geography) is based on Bubastis aka Tell-Basta aka Per-Bast, an ancient city that worshipped the Egyptian cat goddess… though obviously the real Tel-Bastet came with a lot fewer magical cat-people. (But possibly just as many actual cats!)

    Lynn is gleefully working on a sequel that seems to be aiming to become a novel, and we’ll see where that goes. In the meantime, this site may see some recipes, some musings on how to make life cozier with multiple disabilities, possibly the occasional preview… who knows? (There’s a reason these stories have so much cat in them.)