Hello readers!

It’s August, and my newsletter is slightly later than my mental “middle of the month” scheduling, because I wanted to do this:

It’s the cover for my debut, The Upper Tentacle! The official reveal will be on Instagram tomorrow, Thursday 8/20, though due to the strangeness that is the publishing industry, the cover’s been feeding out to retailers already.

Even so, LOOK AT IT! That fabulous PINK! The artist, Caroline Teagle, and designer, Jared Oriel, nailed the retro vibes I suggested! I’m thrilled.

Preorders are available now, etc.: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amanda-helms/the-upper-tentacle/9781454972983/

Updates

Not too much to report here, but I wanted to share some links.

• Author Emmie Christie has been doing a really cool feature on her website where she spends a week reading stories out of a writer’s backlog.

  I had the honor of being highlighted the last week of July and into early August! Her spotlight for me is here.

• Second, I’ve decided that I’ll try to keep this newsletter largely reader-targeted, and any writing craft or industry thoughts that are geared toward writers will go on my blog. I have a recent post up about supporting human writers over genAI writers, by which I mean plugging the human writers far more than yelling about the grifters “writing” with AI (whom I don’t like! That’s why I’d prefer to spend my time and brain cells thinking about and celebrating human-created art). That post is here.

• Third and last, my novelette “On the Autonomy of Whales” got a lovely shoutout from Maria Haskins on Locus, where she named it as a recommended story! Read the review here, and please consider buying the issue of FIYAH with my story in it here.

What I Want to Read/Have Read

In lieu of a full book recs post, here’s a shortlist of books I’m looking forward to reading soon as well as ones I’ve recently enjoyed:

• Beth Goder is one of the best short story writers working today, and she’s gearing up to run a Kickstarter for her first collection! Check it out here.

• T. Kingfisher’s Daggerbound publishes next week! I have wanted this sequel ever since Swordheart first published.

• Chuck Wendig’s latest Calamities is out now!

• As is Lauren Blackwood’s The Queen’s Bodyguard!

Then I’ve recently read:

• The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella

• The Feywild Job by C.L. Polk

• Cursed Ever After by Andy C. Naranjo

• The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren

Also, I finally managed to pick up Dungeon Crawler Carl, which probably needs little introduction. While I’m not a huge fan of all the stats and thus will probably never be heavy into litRPG, Princess Donut is awesome and one of the best cat characters I’ve ever read.

Till next time!

-Amanda