"Stay Magical" preorders available and attending Worldshift: The Speculative Fiction Writers' Summit 2025!- August 26th, 2025 Newsletter
If you missed my email and/or my announcement on my social media yesterday, my YA magical girl-inspired fantasy short story collection, “Stay Magical,” is now AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER!
Thank you
I attended Worldshift: The Speculative Fiction Writers’ Summit 2025!
I spent the latter half of last week attending Worldshift: The Speculative Fiction Writers’ Summit 2025! This is a virtual writing conference focusing on writing speculative fiction (which often is also known as fantasy and/or sci-fi fiction). This event ran from August 20th to August 23rd, 2025 (though the vast majority of the events took place from the 20th-22nd). All the panels were online, and it was free to attend. There also was a paid option to get permanent access to the panels/webinars (as opposed to only having just 24 hours to watch the webinars once they first air, for those who got free tickets). You can learn more about the summit at this link.
Many of the panels were pre-recorded and included captions. I found this particularly helpful since I sometimes missed panels during the times that they initially aired, and could easily follow each of the panels. One of my favourite panels was Sarah Noffke’s “The Evolution Of A Writer: Finding Your Motivation Every Day.” Noffke discussed, in depth, her own writing journey and how she grew her career as an author, and I found it particularly inspiring.
If there was anything I wish could happen next time, I wish there were more opportunities to network with and get to know other writers attending the summit. Other virtual writing conferences I’ve been to include forums and/or social spaces like (or similar to) a Discord server for writers to chat inbetween panels. Though there was a “chat” available beside each of the panels as they aired, it wasn’t quite the same.
Overall, I had a good time checking out the Worldshift Summit, and I hope they run this again next year!
What Am I Writing Lately?
I tried editing “The Restless Writers’ Retreat” based off the beta reader feedback I received. I have a lot of work to get done with it…and I’m currently at the part of the writing process where I hate almost everything about this book. I’m very grateful for the beta reader feedback, but the further I get into writing this new draft based off said feedback, the more I hate it. Eventually, I got to the point of giving up on what would’ve been Draft 3 or 4 and put it to the side/on hiatus for now.
Writing isn’t easy. I know there will always be some difficulties. But if a project is making me outright miserable, I’m better off putting it to the side and picking it up later when I feel more ready for it.
I also wrote more poetry. It’s been a while since I did this, so I’m glad to get back into it.
I also examined all of my current WIPs so far to figure out which ones I want to finish. This resulted in me putting way more WIPs on hiatus than I had before. However, I think it’s mandatory for me to do so to prevent getting overwhelmed. No, it doesn’t help that I have 24 WIPs listed on my author website right now, and I do want to narrow them down to the ones I feel most motivated to write as of currently. I might even permanently drop some projects (meaning they’re on permanent hiatus) and remove them from the website. We’ll see how that goes.
Other writing-related activities I did include:
Prepared for the upcoming release of “Stay Magical!”
Prepping social media posts for the entire rest of the year & January 2026.
Submitted poetry and short stories to lit mags for hopeful publication.
What Have I Watched Lately?
I finally started watching Cardcaptor Sakura! For those unaware, it’s a magical girl anime about a girl named Sakura who accidentally releases several magical Clow Cards from a mysterious book. She’s then tasked with retrieving all the cards because if she doesn’t, that could spell disaster for the world.
The art is absolutely beautiful, and I love Sakura as a heroine. She’s aware that she’s in over her head, but she tries her best and can be quite innovative.
What Have I Heard Lately?
I recently started listening to Rachel Thompson’s “Write, Publish, And Shine” podcast. This focuses on writing advice, but this also includes the occasional interview with other published authors, too.
Episodes I recommend include:
#91: Shantell Powell on Visceral Writing and Writing with ADHD
#113: Revising With Love
#77: Come From A Place Of Passion And Honesty In Your Writing Life
What Have I Read Lately?
I’ve been reading a lot of books, thanks to me borrowing books from the library’s physical shelves and their ebook catalogue. I’ve also been rereading some books from my personal collection, so I have a literal pile of books on my desk that I’m reading right now. I’m the type of reader that starts multiple books at once. Somehow, I don’t end up mixing up the plotlines most of the time!
One of the books I read was “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury! Many of you readers might be familiar with this one - for some, maybe it was required book club reading or one of the mandatory books to read in school. However, I wasn’t familiar with this one, and I’m glad that I finally got around to reading it. I can definitely see why it’s culturally relevant to today, considering that discussions I’ve heard about this book often relate the book’s worldbuilding and plot to themes of censorship and the rise of “mindless/slop content” in media.
I also read “Julia” by Sandra Newman, which is a retelling of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” through the perspective of Julia, Winston’s love interest in the original story. “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was required reading for me in school, so I was already familiar with the original story going into this one. If you thought “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was pretty intense with its worldbuilding, “Julia” takes it up several levels in a way that fits really well with the original setting.
Other books I read include:
“The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up For Air, Keep The Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell
“The Diary Of Anne Frank: The Definitive Edition” by Anne Frank
“The One-Week Job Project: One Man, One Year, 52 Jobs” by Sean Aiken
Thank you for following my writing journey!
I hope you look forward to seeing more of my writing process and work. I also look forward to giving all of you more frequent updates as well, so stay tuned for more!
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at clarislamauthor@gmail.com! I’ll respond within 48 hours (except on weekends and holidays).