Sorry for the lack of a newsletter for the past week or so. I've been traveling and doing a bunch of events. But also, I kind of needed to pause and reset because I was starting to feel like I was repeating myself. This happens sometimes — I anticipate tons of new content soon. 

But meanwhile, I just wanted to let y'all know that I am visiting Australia in a couple weeks! 

This visit will take place during the time the first issue of my Star Trek comic, Star Trek: Zero Point reaches comic book stores, so I'll be celebrating when I get back. Also, I expect to be giving some previews and sneak peeks for my upcoming novel about time traveling vampires, Good Things Are Coming Your Way. (You can pre-order it now!) 

Anyway, I'm super stoked. This is my first visit to Australia since Swancon in 2019. And it's my first time going to Sydney or Melbourne since I was eighteen years old when I lived in Sydney for about four months and traveled around Australia a bit. That was the time when I nearly got murdered by Hells’ Angels, and I took a Greyhound bus to the direct center of Australia, killing armies of kangaroos along the way.

Despite not having gone back in so long, I still have an immense fondness for Sydney. It was such a wonderful city to live in, with amazing nightlife and a wealth of Asian culture. Sydney was the first place in the world where I had a lot of queer friends and got my first inkling that I might myself be queer. For a few months, I lived with a woman whose close friend was a trans woman, and just knowing that this was possible blew my mind and shifted something in my reality matrix. I sang in the choir at the local Episcopalian cathedral, where I was adopted by a crew of gay baritones who took me out to Bondi Beach and gave me my first taste of queer community.

I did a lot of growing up in Sydney, and I've always wanted to go back. So this is an amazing treat. But I also loved Melbourne when I visited, along with Brisbane. I've never been to Canberra, but I've heard lovely things.

Anyway, I will be attending the Brisbane Writers Festival from Oct. 9 to Oct. 11. First, I’ll be taking part in a comedy reading called So Bad It's Good, where I and some other authors will read intentionally bad writing by a fake alter ego. I will be very jet lagged, having just gotten off a plane mere hours earlier. Please come and root for me! I’ll also be in conversation with Luke Bateman about Lessons in Magic and Disaster the next day, and on a panel about Myth & Magic the day after that. Brisbane folks, I’d love to meet you!

On Weds., Oct. 14, I will be in Sydney, chatting about Lessons in Magic and Disaster with Bronte-Marie Wesson. We’ll be at Kinokuniya at 7 PM.

And on Thurs, Oct. 15 at 6 PM, I’ll be in Melbourne! I will be at Readings Emporium, having a nice chat with three wonderful authors: C.S. Pacat, Amie Kaufman and Seth Haddon. We’ll probably read for a few minutes each and then have a conversation.

And finally, I’ll be at the Canberra Writers Festival on Oct. 17 and 18. On the 17th., I’ll be having a nice chat with Garth Nix and Amie Kaufman about their latest books, and then I’ll be on a panel about the future with Garth Nix and Barbara Truelove, moderated by Kaaron Warren. Finally, on Oct. 18, I’ll be on a panel about witches with Kate Foryth, Irma Gold and Karen Viggers.

I have no idea when I’ll get back to Australia again! So if you’re around, I would really love to see you at one of these events.

And stay tuned for more thought-provoking (or mind-melting?) newsletters very very soon.