September Newsletter: Preorders & Brief Thoughts on Empathy
Hello, readers!
September’s newsletter is a little early, because I wanted to share Barnes & Noble’s preorder sale!
Today until 9/11, use code PREORDER25 to get 25% off preorder titles at B&N.
As a reminder, my book The Upper Tentacle is releasing on February 9, 2027! Preorder it now if you’re feeling keen on reading an anticapitalism cosmic horror murder mystery around that time, just adding another book to your TBRs, or I dunno, looking at the pretty pink cover right up next to you.
While you’re preordering, maybe check out a few of the titles I have on my own preorder list!
Dreamweaving by O.O. Sangoyomi
And I’ve been putting off making the hard choice of which of my 150+ fellow 2027 debuts I can pick up, so here, now you all can have a hard time prioritizing too 😭
Preorders, fine, I’m just here for the promised brief thoughts on empathy
It feels apropos to end with a link to the 2027 Debuts website, because in our group we’ve been chatting a bit about the value of fiction in cultivating empathy, a topic that came about as we were discussing the recent phenomenon of readers preferring first person POVs for the purpose of self-insertion. Here’s a gift link (I think!) to a Slate article about this.
Okay, so some people prefer to read first person. That’s fine! They’re allowed their own preferences.
What I don’t get is this desire to have a blank enough character the reader can, I guess, wholesale import their own personality on that character.
I want to read about other people! I spend way too much time in my own head as it is; the last thing I need is to imprint myself on fictional settings and deal with my own ever-present anxieties and frustrations there, too.
It worries me if we have lots of readers who don’t want to read if they can’t pretend they’re the main character.
Books are uniquely placed to help develop empathy because we writers can directly present the character’s thoughts. It’s a deeper level than a movie or TV show alone. But if people are reading only to self-insert, then they lose out on gaining empathy for others, which, given the current state of the United States and the continued rise of white supremacy, is becoming increasingly important.
Amanda, come on. This is not looking “brief.”
Yeah, sorry. Like I said, I spend way too much time in my own head. That comes out in my newsletters, too.
Anyway, my book The Upper Tentacle is in first person, but the narrator is a body-splitting alien somewhat reminiscent of Chthulhu (or, well, a very junior version), and a running thread is literally about them gaining empathy, so! Maybe if people self-insert on them, it’s not such a bad thing.
Till next time!
-Amanda
