Dear friends,

I usually feel like my monthly newsletter is the right frequency for a newsletter: I usually have something to say, and I don't have to stress about when to send a newsletter. First of the month, out it goes. Months like this, though, there are so many things happening that even the tl;dr would be quite long. Don't worry if you need to take a break in the middle, stretch, get a glass of water. It's understandable. I’ve needed a fair amount of that myself.

So first up, I had an essay in Uncanny magazine called Middle-Aged Love: Rereading In Your Forties and Beyond! It's about how rereading changes with time, and I let myself focus on only the good ways. Other people have taken their turn to talk about coming back to books you used to love and finding that they're terrible, and I can let them do that. I want to talk about learning to love things differently, and with more depth. If that's your jam, I hope you take the time to read this essay.

The next August publication was a story in Strange Horizons magazine, Scarcely Gone. It's a very gentle ghost story--if you want a clear demonstration of how ghosts do not necessarily mean horror, this is it. It was one of my exercises in writing from lines in my dad's music (the original title was "The Moon Is Scarcely Gone," which is more clearly from John Denver's "I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado"), and also it was an exercise in writing very sensory stuff. I hope you enjoy it.

I got the news that one of last year's stories has been selected for Neil Clarke's Best Science Fiction of the Year volume for 2025! “And Every Galatea Shaped Anew” originally appeared in Analog, and I’m so glad it will reach a wider audience here. So that'll be coming soon, and meanwhile you can see the list of other wonderful stories by wonderful people who will be in there with me.

There are so many upcoming events in September! I honestly did not plan for it to be the Month of Marissa. You'd think that would be the sort of thing you need to plan or it won't happen, but it turns out no! You can just say yes to other people's plans and suddenly everything is happening!

So let's start out with the first thing: on September 10 I will be performing in SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant Lake Bowl! (810 W Lake St in Minneapolis) The BLB is very much a Minneapolis institution. "Does he really want us to go eat in a bowling alley?" one of my out of town friends asked when a local friend recommended the BLB, and the answer is yes, it's a bowling alley, it's a theater, it's a quite good restaurant and I am not biased because one of my friends cooks there, it's all that rolled into one, it's the BLB! And I am very excited to be performing there. I will be reading two science fiction short stories with musical backing by Martin Peter Law, who has written the backing pieces specifically to go with the stories! Weird and exciting. Cole Sarar, who organizes these events, will also be reading with Martin's musical accompaniment. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door. Doors at 6:00, performance at 7:00, come hear us! It's going to be a blast.

I bet that's not what those of you who were keeping score expected me to talk about! Because yes, my debut novella, A Dubious Clamor, launches this month! The launch date is Tuesday, September 15, so you still have time to preorder and get an awesome sword sticker and a chance to win a harpy plushie! But if you don't get around to preordering, don't worry, you can regular-order from my publisher at that same link after it's out, or you can also regular-order from places like Bookshop, Powells, B&N, and Amazon. Whatever works for you is great!

Or…if you're going to be in the Twin Cities on Thursday, September 17, you can come out to Moon Palace Books at 3032 Minnehaha Ave. for my book launch party!

The event starts at 6:00 and will feature me and my awesome friend Naomi Kritzer, with a little bit of reading and a bit more of talking to each other about our fiction and whatever else comes up, with a Q&A period if you have things you want to ask. It's a free event, but if you want to you can buy my book (and/or some of Naomi's books! or other books! It is a bookstore, they have them!) after. There will also be free fancy little cakes! I mean, free to you, I already paid for them. This novella has a lot of fancy cake in it, so I thought it would be fun and appropriate to get some for the launch party. Because of that, though…could you please let me know if you know you're planning on coming? If you don’t let me know and then you can come after all, that's amazing, please do. I just would like to have some sense of how much cake to aim for.

(I don’t want you to worry in the opposite direction. My writers-and-cookies friends will be happy to be writers-and-cake friends if there’s too much leftover. They’re humanitarians that way.) (There will also be gf and vegan options in addition to the “regular” cake, because that is how we roll.)

If you're NOT going to be in the Twin Cities but would still like to hear some A Dubious Clamor related content, I'm having a virtual event with friend and fellow Horned Lark Press author Jo Miles on Wednesday, September 23, at 7:00 Central. Our publisher (and himself a NYT Bestselling Author) Kevin Hearne will be facilitating me and Jo in our conversation about A Dubious Clamor and their delightful novella The Final Chronicle of Yeneh, which came out earlier this year. This is also a free event. Ping me if you would like the link to stream it with us on Streamyard, which works through several platforms. I don't have that yet, but I will soon! If you miss it, the recording will be posted on YouTube later, and I'll link to that in a later month's newsletter. 

If you want to hear more about A Dubious Clamor, friend and colleague Renan Bernardo interviewed me for his blog! That interview is here, short and pithy. I hope you have fun with it. 

With all of this event planning, you might think I haven't been doing much else. Most of you would not think that, because you have in some sense, even virtually, met me before. And you would be correct not to think that, because I have….ANOTHER NOVELLA COMING OUT!!!

I've been sitting on this news for months, and now it can be told, That Fatal Discontent is coming next summer from Union Square Books! We're talking about covers, we've done a round of edits, this is really happening and I am so excited.

(For friends and family who are not familiar with the Publishers Marketplace deal reports: you have to fit everything in one sentence. That’s why my team, which does in fact know how to use a period, wrote it that way: it’s required. Fun facts about the business that we take for granted! But now you know too!)

So yes: onwards and upwards! With more fun events, more writing, more to come, and maybe even a few more naps if we get lucky! Oh, and I can’t forget more cake! I didn't rewrite the recipe for blueberry spoon cake, because this is one of the few recipes I basically followed as-written. My family loved it, and I think you will too. Most of my family members immediately had suggestions for what other fruit would work in season. (Short answer: basically anything soft and juicy and intense. Not apples without significant alteration, not oranges, not banana. Not melon, the flavor would disappear. But any and all berries, stone fruit, etc. would be great, and I expect we'll be trying a variety of them.) Anyway, enjoy some cake for me this month! I’ve got a lot to celebrate.

Best,
Marissa