Submission Shout Out & Another Demo Update!
about 2 years ago – Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 06:28:43 PM

Hello again, our dear, sweet backers!

We’ve returned with another update from the mountain atop which we keep a loving, eagle eye on the production of The Literary Tarot!

DEMOS

The Lunar New Year has come and gone, which means production can start up again!  We finally conquered the supply chain dragon, and so we have managed to get our hands on the materials needed to test our new foiling technique. So demos are incoming next week! With luck, we’ll be approving this new foil AND THEN moving toward our FINAL demo!

Speaking of this mystical, final demo, we’ll announce a virtual unboxing event for you all as soon as we can pin down a shipping date from our printer! We want you all there with us as we marvel at the work we’ve done together and that you were each so instrumental in making possible! So WATCH OUT FOR UPDATES!!!

Since we can't seem to stop swanking out this product, even when our hands are tied at the printer, we took the time to add a lot of fun little tweaks to the product to make it even cooler. Subtle things that maybe only we notice, but damn are we excited about them. For example, have you ever seen a cooler barcode? Edge and I are adding so many fun little treats to the design!

SUBMISSION SHOUT OUT

As you all likely know by now, we also make the literary magazine F(r)iction, filled with marvelous and wonderful stories, poetry, comics, and essays. Not only do these amazing books enchant readers and students alike, but it’s also our primary tool to elevate diverse and emerging voices.

We are proud as all get out that F(r)iction has launched so many literary careers, and we’re on the hunt for great new talent.

Since we know many of you are writers or know writerly folks (you did back a literary tarot, after all!), we wanted to extend our call for submissions to you all!

We’ve just opened submissions for our new few issues. Are you ready for the themes? They’re pretty awesome.

Unseen is our issue for stories and writing about the things that get lost in the margins, fall through the cracks, or just plain disappear. This issue will specialize in work from marginalized writers, and features some super awesome collaboration with Kelly Sue DeConnick’s #VisibleWomen movement.

Dreams will focus on what we experience as we sleep, from fantasy to nightmare, as well as the various avenues of altered consciousness, waking, magical, and mysterious. We’re looking for work that explores the subconscious, loses itself in a hallucinogenic haze, or just plumbs the wildness of imagination.

If you, or someone you know, creates beautiful stories, creative nonfiction, or poems, we encourage you to submit your work! You can find all the details and requirements on our Submittable page.

UPDATING PLEDGES

One final thing to note: you can still add items onto your pledges. If you’ve been considering a Big Guidebook, or a tarot cloth for yourself… or if you might have a friend who’d enjoy a Tarot Box Set as a gift for an upcoming occasion, we can help you out. Just shoot us an email and we’ll get you set up right! Send your questions and additions to [email protected].

We are so grateful for your support in this project! Thank you again for being a backer, and for making this tarot deck possible.

We’ll be back with more updates as soon as we have them!

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroo team

Demo Updates and Unlocking Orders!
about 2 years ago – Sun, Feb 13, 2022 at 04:25:33 AM

Ahoy, sweet backers! We have some more news, and a touch of blues, to share!

Demos

First up: DEMOS. We finally set our peepers on the gold foil we planned to print on previously…but as you can see from the photos below, it just wasn’t bright enough for us. The gold looks fantastic but printing straight on the foil muted our brighter shades…

But we worked with our printer to find an alternative using a PRESS FOILING TECHNIQUE. It’s much more expensive for us, but it’s going to be INFINITELY worth it (and, as you know from reading these 23 updates, that’s a cost we are happy to eat to make sure we give you the best possible product).

We sorted out a small 10-card demo sample to check it out and just take a look!

Now, we’re just waiting on the next small sample set of demos to work on the accuracy of the gold foiling. After that’s been sorted, we should be receiving a full deck demo, so as soon as we know when we’ll have that demo, we’ll send out a calendar invite to all of you to join in our unboxing meeting. (The next demos should be in production soon, but haven’t yet hit the press because of factory shut downs in China since mid-January for the Chinese New Year celebrations.)

But we’re making progress! Thank you all so much for bearing with us through these material delays, supply chain issues, and Lunar New Year-related production slownesses!

Digital Files

Just a wee note that we will be dispersing digital files once we have finished all our demos and tweaking and have done the final handover of all the deck files to our printer—we want to ensure you get the absolute final, perfect product digitally too!

Unlocking Orders

Next, let’s talk about UNLOCKING ORDERS: after our last update, several backers expressed a desire to add new items to their orders. We’ve had a lot of back and forth with BackerKit and, unfortunately, we can’t unlock orders without engaging a whole developer team at their end and running the risk of further delaying printing and fulfillment.

BUT, we have a solution for those who wish to add on items! We can do it manually on our end. So, if you’re keen on enhancing your order (thank you thank you!), please following these instructions:

1. Please email [email protected] with your full name and the email address associated with your order. (Please do not email us via Kickstarter—we have a staffer ready and waiting with the [email protected] inbox.)

2. Please clearly state which items you wish to have added to your order and the quantity of each.

3. We will manually add them on our end and then immediately charge the card on file.

4. Please Note: We cannot change or remove any items already on the order and charged for previously. The BackerKit platform only allows us to add and charge for new items.

So, don’t be shy! Let’s bring your orders up to where you want them be! Nothing makes us happier than people getting more shiny stuff and reading F(r)iction! We are super excited to help you add anything on, and thanks for being so excited about all the rad stuff we’re making!

Scholarship Fundraiser

There’s one more thing we would love to share with you all. One of F(r)iction’s wonderful comic writers, Karla Nappi, has just launched a GoFundMe campaign in honor of her cousin who passed away last year. Funds from this fundraiser will establish the Elizabeth Ann Wisemen Scholarship to provide struggling creatives with the help and support to see their dreams come true.

Karla has partnered with us here at Brink to create this two-fold scholarship. The first will sponsor the Community Feature in each issue of F(r)iction (through which we partner with rad organizations like Lambda Literary, the Afghan Women’s Writing Program, and PEN American’s Prison Writing Program), and the second will sponsor an intern stipend with our Publishing Internship Program. Here’s a link to visit the fundraiser and find out more details.

That’s the news from our end! We’ll get back to you more updates as soon as we have them!

Thank you profusely for your patience, kindness, and for backing this project.

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

Demo Videos, F(r)iction Update, Last Four Cards!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 01:46:20 AM

Morning our dear backers!

We hope you all had the loveliest of holidays! We’re just jumping in with a baby update about demos. We got them last month, the day before dearest Helen got Covid (which, in a cruel stroke of fate, happened two days before her booster shot). Then I got sick. Then Christmas.

So it’s been…ah…dubious!

But hey, look at this video of pretty cards and boxes!

The video of all the various things (including the pins and the Oracle’s Atlas’s rad cover) is too big for this platform, but feel free to take a gander on Twitter or (for a slightly longer video) on my Instagram here.

NEXT STEPS

Because you all were so incredibly supportive and amazing about us really taking our time to make sure we rock this, we are taking your advice (thank you!). There were a handful of issues in the demos (the brightness of the CYMK printing, precision of the gold foiling on the cards, texture of the vegan leather, ribbon choice, exact fit of the mini guidebook inside the book box, etc.) that our printer says he’ll take care of in final product. But, to be frank, we’d all just feel better if we can 100% make sure these are perfect before we greenlight thousands of decks.

As such, we’re getting a new round of demos printed.

We were thinking of doing an unboxing Zoom with Helen, Edge, and me when this new round comes in. Is that something you all would be interested in coming along to? I know it’s gonna be hella technical, but we 100% believe in uber transparency, so if that’s something you’d like us to set up for you all, please drop us a line in the comments and we can get that done! Also, it’ll be fun! We LOVE talking about all these cool printing techniques and cooing over the gorgeous art.

 F(R)ICTION UPDATE 

For the few thousand of you lovely, lovely folks who also picked up our ARCANA issue of F(r)iction, we wanted to give you a preview of that beaut as well. If you don’t care about this AT ALL, please just skip to the next section about the final card art!

But for all you who stayed with us, here’s some cool stuff about ARCANA!

Like the Literary Tarot, all the proceeds from Friction go directly to our nonprofit mission. But F(r)iction is extra special! Not only is it picked up at bookstores by people just like you, it’s also the primary teaching tool in all our educational courses. From high school and uni classrooms to max-security women’s prisons, this baby is specifically curated to help us think differently about ourselves and the world around us!

The ENTIRE book is full of amazing stories exploring magic in all its forms, from tarot readings to haunted houses to whale prophesies. Like every issue of F(r)iction, it includes custom illustrations for every single piece published, bringing every single literary offering to life in full color.

You’ll recognize four tarot artists in the mix, including Bradley, Hailey, Isabel, and Sam!

There are some rad celebrities in this issue who were ALSO in the Literary Tarot, including a quiz from Holly Black (to discover if your wife is a changeling—or just free spirited), a gorgeous literary fiction short story by K-Ming Chang (about a young woman searching for answers about her past), and an original comic by Rebecca Roanhorse (exploring how the darkness between the stars came to life).

I’m a huge sucker for this comic (and not just because I edited it!), but because it’s so silly beautiful. Our Suit of Quills artists, Isabel, took up this mantle as her very first professional comic gig ever! Here’s a fun preview of that beauty:

For anyone who hasn’t picked up a copy and would like to add Arcana or a subscription (Arcana + two other books) to their order, we haven’t locked out the final orders since we are waiting on our demos, so you have a few more days to sneak it into your order on BackerKit!

LAST TAROT CARDS

But, of course, you guys are here for tarot. So let’s show you the last four cards that we wrapped up!

Thank you all again for your support and incredibly kind words about taking our time with the demos (and remembering to sleep). We are so grateful for what amazing badasses you all are!

Now, we’re off to go refresh the Fed-Ex page a billion times to get updates on our demo shipments. COME ON, Fed-EX! No more delays, PLEEEEASSSSE. We NEEEEED this new demo!

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

Charging Credit Cards, Card Art, and Artist Portraits!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Dec 02, 2021 at 01:09:02 PM

Dear lovely backers!

As you know, today is the final day for completing your BackerKit survey if you don’t want to risk your shipment being delayed.

Please note that we will charge cards for any add-on items you purchased or any additional funds you may owe through BackerKit tomorrow so please make sure that you have the correct card information on file. If any issues arise with your payment, you’ll receive an email letting you know to correct your payment information.

If you need to review payment information, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://literarytarot.backerkit.com/.

NOW TO THE FUN STUFF!

Again, dear backers, please forgive us for being short, as we are rushing into our last 30 something hours before we send this baby to the printer! But we wanted to share some fun updates with you, nonetheless!

CARD ART PREVIEW

First off, card art! Five more cards are in (and one of them includes Dani’s favorite short story, so teenage Dani is hella excited), leaving us 4 cards to finalize (though they are all close and BEAUTIFUL). Only two more cards in the Parchment suit and two more in Ink, and this deck is DONE!

ORACLE GUIDEBOOK ARIST LOOK

As I’m sure you can tell from 20 updates of us bragging on our art team: we just think they are the cat’s meow. I really can’t say how much their dedication to this project has meant to us, and how much I’ve personally loved art directing each of their cards, designs, and fun enamel pins! As you can see from the art above, even in this mass crunch time, no one is cutting corners or speeding through their work.

Their passion and dedication moves the hell out of me, and I’ll always be grateful for this year we got to bring stories to life together.

BUT ENOUGH SAPPY STUFF! To show off their talent—and so you can get to know them a wee bit better—we added in a page for each artist in the Oracle’s Atlas (big guidebook) with a fun portrait that captures their rad personalities!

Isabel was even kind enough to make one for me too (and include Captain Whiskers, my “pet” squirrel—read “pet” as: squirrel who tolerates reading next to me in exchange for walnuts). Oh, and all that yellow will be metallic gold print in the physical book!

NONPROFIT STUFF

Speaking of the big guidebook and overwhelming gratefulness, we also wanted to show you all the programs you are impacting by supporting this deck. But of course, we all know art makes stories better, so Isabel drew us a fancy double pager. Here’s a look at that bad boy!

NOTE ON PRODUCTION

As you all know, we’ve been driving hard for this deadline on December 1st, and—fingers crossed—it looks like we’re going to make it. Though we want to be upfront with you all that we haven’t received our demos yet—shipping, even air shipping, out of China is apparently getting much worse—so our printer would like us to skip the last demo of the final, final copies of everything in order to stay on time.

Helen and I are both really uncomfortable with this. We want to make sure we hold every single card, box, pin, postcard, tarot cloth, etc. in our hands, so we can test, shuffle, spill tea on them…all so we can guarantee it’s perfect before we greenlight thousands of units!

Of course, we are working around the clock to come up with a solution to get our hands on anything that isn’t included in the first demo before the production cutoff, but we wanted to give you all a heads up that if we can’t find a solution, we’ll have to push back to ensure the integrity of the product we have so painstakingly and lovingly created.

Again, we will be working our arses off to prevent that from happening, but I always want to be honest with you all!

Right, back to work for us, but thank you all again! We can’t wait for you to hold these in your hands.

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

BackerKit Survey deadline fast approaching!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 04:00:13 AM

Dear lovely backers!

Hot on the heels of our last update, we’re back with some more card art, a peek inside the big guidebook, and a wee reminder about the upcoming survey deadline.

Survey Deadline

Let’s get the housekeeping out of the way first: the last day to fill in your survey is next Tuesday, 30th November. After this date, we will lock your reward selections and charge cards for any add-on item purchases made during the survey process. Note that while you can’t amend your order after this date, you will be able to update your shipping address up until we lock addresses to begin fulfilment next spring.

If you haven’t filled in your BackerKit survey and do so after November 30th, we’ll still receive your information, but your shipment may be delayed.

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your original survey email from BackerKit or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://literarytarot.backerkit.com/.

And THANK YOU! Though it may not seem like much as an individual backer, you have no idea how tremendously helpful this has been for us when trying to keep track of all 11,000+ of you!

 Big Guidebook Sneak Peek 

Thank you all for your VERY kind comments about our big book cover. Edge created a really rad 3D model so you could all see what it looks like with the foil…as it moves! It’s too big a file for Kickstarter to let us upload it directly into this update, but you can take a peek at it here. Also, if you’re a Twitter user, we’d love it if you might help us promote this beauty!

But what’s inside the book?

Well, there were a few stretch goals we had kicking around for the big guidebook that we didn’t reach during the campaign—like the vegan leather and two metallic foils on the cover, interior foiling inside the book, and adding an art appendix. So, technically, we shouldn’t do them….but…well…

We just added them anyway!

I know, I know, but we can’t seem to make anything that doesn’t max out its awesome stats!

As you’ll see below, we created custom illustrations for each suit (nice work, Isabel!), so each card meaning section has its own unique feel. This will not only make everyone’s digital issues cooler, in the physical book, these details will be printed in metallic gold. So, alongside the gold sections of the card art sparkling, all the design elements will also shimmer right off the page!

Here’s a mock-up of what that will look like for the Major Arcana:

And here’s a peek at how it will look in your digital issues (for print, all the stuff below in gold/yellow will be printed with the metallic gold).

For the print version, that same metallic foil will be used in all the cool designs, from the table of contents, intro essays, and how-to guides all the way to each suit info section! It’s even in our art appendix!

Speaking of the appendix, here’s a page to look at, for fun!:

The moment we remember how to sleep, we’ll do a full rundown on the content in the book, but for now, I hope you enjoy all the pretty designs! We’re having a blast making sure this book and the deck are just the prettiest damn things.

Card Art

And last but not least, we have been cooking through more and more card art. Check out these beauties!

That means we’ve finished 68 cards with 10 in progress left to wrap up (in a week!). Wish us all the luck and caffeine!

Cheers,

Helen, Dani, and the Brinkeroos