Auction for Trans Lifeline
Wellp. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been watching the news with great dismay. I’m Canadian, but I’m extremely upset on behalf of all my queer American friends and...
Meet Me at Can*Con!
Hi all! I sure did wait until the last minute to announce this, but I’m going to be at Can*Con - Ottawa’s annual literary speculative fiction convention -...
A secret, silent story! + 3 book recs
Hi all, It’s back-to-school time! I always enjoy the rush of new faces and new things to do at my day job (though it also leaves me very tired.) Whether or...
The Neurodiversiverse is out!
Or actually it came out a week and a half ago, but I’ve been avoiding my newsletter. But anyway, Thinking Ink Press’s anthology of alien encounter stories...
Things I've Been Reading (short story edition)
Hi all, Before we get into any story recs, I want to tell you I’ll be at the virtual Nebula conference this weekend! I’m moderating one panel: Writing and...
Things I've Been Reading (novel edition)
Hi all, So I said I wanted to talk more casually, outside of a traditional book review format, about books that I liked or found thought-provoking. Now I'm...
Announcement: Autistic Book Party is shutting down.
Hi all, It's been a quiet few months! Actually, this year's winter semester (Jan-April) was the busiest I've ever been at my dayjob. The newsletter fell by...
2023 was a good year, actually
Well, it's 2024. And now that 2023 is over (I chafe at writing "year in review" posts while the year is still ongoing!) it's time to look back on what...
Everything Is True has moved to Buttondown!
Hi all, If you're reading this, it's because I've successfully migrated my subscriber list from Substack to Buttondown. Effective immediately, Everything Is...
Announcing: The 12 Days of RESURRECTIONS
RESURRECTIONS drops into bookstores tomorrow, and in honor of the occasion, I want to do something fun! Specifically, I want to play a few days of festive...
Barcelona, part 3
Hi folks! A couple of quick news items: If you missed the RESURRECTIONS virtual launch, you can watch it here.RESURRECTIONS is also the Book of the Month on...
Barcelona, part 2
Before we get into the continued adventures of an autistic author in spain, here’s a quick reminder: the official launch event for RESURRECTIONS is this...
Barcelona, Part 1
Hello, readers - I had the most amazing experience in Barcelona; it was truly a once in a lifetime journey. It took a little while to recover from all the...
BARCELONAAA!
Hey folks! We're going to deviate a little from the usual newsletter schedule for the next few weeks - because I have some AWESOME NEWS! Because of the...
Autistic Book Party, Episode 80 and a half: Short Story Smorgasbord
Hi all! Today you can head on over to WordPress, where I’ve got a new batch of autistic short story and poetry reviews and recommendations - including new...
"Your meltdown brain is wise."
Hello! Before we get into today's post, some news: Look at this lovely cover art for the Catalan translation of THE INFINITE: Speaking of Catalan, due to the...
Friday Chatter: Meeting People
Well, this Friday Chatter is going up a day early because on Friday I’ll be on a train to Ottawa for Can*Con 2023! If any of you are in the area, feel free...
The Symbol Grounding Problem
Before we get into today's post, some news: RESURRECTIONS is up for pre-order on Kindle! (If you're not in the US, it may take a few days before it...
Meet me at Can*Con!
Can*Con is my “home” convention - close to where I live, smallish, literary-focused and full of excellent people. So I’ll be back there again this year,...
COVER REVEAL, NEW POEM, and poem notes!
I've got some really cool news for you today! First, feast your eyes on the OFFICIAL COVER for my upcoming collection, RESURRECTIONS: The planned release...
Friday Chatter: Difficulties
What’s a topic you find difficult to successfully approach in fiction? And - this second part is important - what’s an example of a time when you, or another...
The Courtroom Scene
So, in the draft of MOTHER DRAGON, there is a fantasy courtroom scene. Not literally a courtroom - it's a fantasy culture and our modern court system is not...
Autistic Book Party, Episode 80: The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester
The newest Autistic Book Party is live on Wordpress! Click the link to find out why I loved this autistic YA by Maya MacGregor. Meanwhile: my poem “The Fox’s...
Things I've Been Reading
This is a feature I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. I love recommending autistic stories, but my reading life is more than just autism and sometimes I...
Keeping Short SFF Alive
For those of you who don't already know, Kindle Newsstand is closing, and magazine editors are freaking out. If you are like me, and not a heavy Kindle user,...
Announcing: RESURRECTIONS
Yesterday Apex Books gave Twitter users a sneak peak of the cover art for RESURRECTIONS - a new collection coming up on December 19. But of course I want to...
Friday Chatter: Accomplishments
The votes are in! There was a wide variety of different opinions about posting schedule, but we’re going with the most popular options: a paid essay every 2...
The Bittersweetness of a Finished Draft
If you're wondering about the results of last week's poll, I can't tell you yet - we still have one more day before it closes! There's still time to vote if...
A poll! Actually, 3 polls!
Happy August! So I hardly ever do this, but for the past few months I’ve been seriously rethinking how I do my schedule, and the Substack schedule is part of...
Enough.
This weekend, after listening patiently to my angst, a close friend told me to write down what "enough" looks like. (I had been complaining that I didn't...
Friday Chatter: Shapeshifting
In response to my review of “A Dragon In Two Parts,” Kiya Nicoll posted this meme: What would you do with your body if the sky was the limit?
Autistic Book Party, Episode 79 and a half: Short Story Smorgasbord
Over on Wordpress, it’s time for a Short Story Smorgasbord! It’s been a while since we had one of these, and I’ve also been getting better at keeping up with...
Friday Chatter: Venting
This week’s post was about venting techniques, in a sense. What venting techniques work for you? What helps you feel like you really “got a problem off your...
The Complaining Notes
One of the things I'm learning in therapy is how not to panic. This isn't an explicitly stated goal. I didn't come in saying, "I want help not panicking." (I...
Friday Chatter: Memory
I’m still chewing on the quote that I shared on Tuesday from “The Winter Knight,” about how memory can be nonlinear, like “a snarl of lights that needed to...
Autistic Book Party, Episode 79: The Winter Knight
Autistic Book Party is back this week, with a look at Jes Battis’s dreamy, surreal urban fantasy, “The Winter Knight.” If you’ve been here since April this...
Friday Chatter: AI Creativity
I’m still reeling from the conference, tbh, and thinking about AI more than I should. The writers I’ve seen are pretty unanimous in saying we do not want AI...
Conference Highlights
I'm back from the Fourteenth International Conference on Computational Creativity. It was a whirlwind of a week. My scholarly contribution was minimal, but...
Away this week
No post this week because I am traveling! Specifically I am in Waterloo, Ontario, at the Fourteenth International Conference on Computational Creativity,...
Friday Chatter: Review
On Tuesday I talked about writing reviews, but now I want to hear about reading them. What’s one of the best / most enjoyable / most useful reviews you ever...
Friday Chatter: Review
On Tuesday I talked about writing reviews, but now I want to hear about reading them. What’s one of the best / most enjoyable / most useful reviews you ever...
To Pan Or Not To Pan: On Negative Reviews
I was thinking recently about negative reviews, spurred partly by Charles Payseur's post on the topic and by the recent Critical Friends episode featuring...
To Pan Or Not To Pan: On Negative Reviews
I was thinking recently about negative reviews, spurred partly by Charles Payseur's post on the topic and by the recent Critical Friends episode featuring...
Friday Chatter: Formats
If you’re a writer, what’s a writing format that you haven’t tried, but would like to - or a new format that you did try, at one point, that was very...
Friday Chatter: Formats
If you’re a writer, what’s a writing format that you haven’t tried, but would like to - or a new format that you did try, at one point, that was very...
Writing For A Video Game
Now that Trinity Fusion is out, I wanted to talk about what the writing experience was like, especially for readers who don't have any experience writing in...
Writing For A Video Game
Now that Trinity Fusion is out, I wanted to talk about what the writing experience was like, especially for readers who don't have any experience writing in...
Cheating With ChatGPT
Like just about every other professor in the world, it seems, I've been dealing with my share of students who've tried using ChatGPT to write their...
Cheating With ChatGPT
Like just about every other professor in the world, it seems, I've been dealing with my share of students who've tried using ChatGPT to write their...
Friday Chatter: Helplessness
There’s a lot we could discuss about AI, but for today’s Chatter thread I want to briefly highlight a different point from this week’s post - the one that’s...