Hello, everyone! Before I get into the main thing I want to share this week, I have a few bits of news.

First, I’m thrilled to be one of the guests of honour for Can*Con 2025, here in Ottawa next October. My fellow guests of honour (so far) are Premee Mohamed and Stephen Kotowych, two people I like very much and whose work I admire.

I was recently interviewed by Jamie Portman for an article that ran in Postmedia papers across the country; it seems to have only appeared in print, so far, but you can read it here if you like.

On Nov. 30, I’ll be in Montreal for an in-person conversation (mostly in English) with Guy Gavriel Kay and Mathieu Lauzon-Disco, at the Joie de livres booth at the Salon du Livre. Tickets are quite reasonable. We’ll also sign books afterward.

I’m horrified by the U.S. election and what it means not only for my friends in the U.S. but for the world, and Canada’s politics will be affected too, probably not for the better. There will be more to say; at the moment I am reeling and grieving.

I do believe that the human imagination is key to our ability to fight back, because imagining otherwise is the beginning of liberation—and I believe that as generative and predictive technology threatens to erode original thinking, it is essential for us all to keep our skills sharp. I’m looking forward to this free workshop I’m giving in Ottawa on Tuesday, as one tiny way of using my expertise in that cause. I think we’ve hit the cap of 25 people; if you are on the waitlist, feel free to email me at kateheartfield@gmail.com and I’ll see what I can do; if you’ve registered but find later you can’t make it, please do cancel to make room for someone else. There’s been a lot of interest in it, so I plan to develop an online version of the workshop sometime in early 2025, which will also be free.

Next newsletter, I’ll pass along some of my notes from that workshop.

In the meantime, here are some of the historical images from Paris that I had in mind when I was writing The Tapestry of Time, and which have been coming back to my thoughts unbidden in the last few days.

The World Fantasy Convention was in town and so, after a long day of panels and readings, some writers had descended on a restaurant in Niagara Falls, NY. We had made a reservation for our party of 20, which they split into three tables, and the restaurant also had another couple of tables where people were wearing conference badges.

It was well past an hour and a half by the time some of us even got our drinks; the restaurant was overwhelmed, I guess, and seemed to be doing one table at a time, start to finish, before beginning to serve the next one. I didn’t mind too much as it gave me a chance to catch up with writer friends, but by the time our table made it to the cash to pay, we were outwardly polite and appreciative but inwardly tired and grumpy.

The teenager behind the cash was not picking up on our exhausted vibes, though. As we handed him credit cards, he kept asking us, with amazement, whether we were really writers. Like actually writers, of books and things. Like for real? “Why is that so hard to believe?” one of us asked with a smile. “Do we not look like writers?” “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not that. It’s just that you don’t see writers, you know, just out doing things, very often.”

I wish my introvert batteries hadn’t been so low by that point; I might have asked him more about himself (he did tell us he liked manga) and given him some information to help him find the local writing community, if he wanted to. I remember very well the feeling I had when I was a young reader that authors couldn’t really be ordinary people that one could meet and talk to; I didn’t meet any until I was an adult.

Hi everyone! It’s been an incredibly busy month of promo, travel, and deadlines. I finished the first draft of Mercutio, but it needs revision, and I have other projects on the go. So I’ll keep this short!

I’m at the World Fantasy Convention and the Ottawa International Writers Festival later this month, and at Can*Con in early November. Details on my updated events page.

The smaller paperback edition of The Valkyrie is out in the UK as of Oct. 10, and will be out in North America on Oct. 22. Available wherever books are sold! To celebrate, I thought I’d excerpt the first few paragraphs, below.

Yesterday, The Tapestry of Time hit shelves in the UK and many export markets, and the audiobook and ebook versions are available now in much of the world, including Canada. The print edition hits shelves in Canada in a few days, on Oct. 1. (A reminder that the US edition will be out in June.)

It's a novel about four clairvoyant sisters in the summer of 1944, fighting the Nazis for control of the Bayeux Tapestry. It's based in part on the true story of the tapestry during that summer, so it follows the events of real history, but as usual for me, there's some fantastical weirdness going on as well. I hope it honours, in some small way, the real people who have given or risked their lives to resist fascism in many generations and countries, and those who do so today.

September is turning out to be very busy, which is a mercy, because my next book releases at the end of the month, and the busier I am, the less chance I have to worry about how well the book will do. The UK release date for The Tapestry of Time is Sept. 26 (hardcover, ebook and audiobook narrated by Frankie Porter). Many export markets will get it that day too. In Canada, the release is Oct. 1, just a few days later.

An update on the U.S. release: it’s going to be June, 2025. Sorry for the delay, U.S. folks! Sometimes publishing works in mysterious ways in different markets.

If you’re interested in suggesting it to your book club, you can download a three-page kit from my website that has an introduction to me, plus discussion questions, suggestions for music mentioned in the book to play before and after, and a list of non-fiction related reads.

One reason I’m so busy is that I’m the new Writer in Residence for the University of Ottawa! It’s pretty surreal to be a writer in residence at all, and it’s especially sweet to have it be at the university where I did my undergraduate degree, a quarter-century ago.

Almost 10 years ago, in September 2014, I had what is known as “The Call” with a literary agent: the conversation that precedes an offer of representation.

I had spoken to agents a few times before (including two long calls back in 2008 with an agent who had chosen not to sign me as a client, but took the time to chat with me about my writing anyway, a kindness I’ll never forget). I had also had a few agents and small-press editors get close to the point of offering after reading my manuscripts — I’d had some exciting recommendations, some high praise from mentors, some “we’re doing second reads” or “we’re having internal conversations” emails. But I’d never made it to The Call. I’d dreamt of having a novel published since I was a small child. It was my only real life ambition. I was 37 years old, had been trying more or less continuously, and it just never happened.

To put my state of mind in 2014 in perspective, I have to go back a couple of decades. I finished my first novel in 1996, when I was 19 years old and in my second year of undergrad. It was a contemporary, realist coming-of-age literary novel. I can’t remember now who I sent it to. Not many places, since it cost an arm and a leg to print out. I know a few publishers were in the mix, and possibly a few agents. I knew almost nothing about publishing, and there was not much on the internet yet to help. Also, the book was not very good. So that was that.

Over the next 18 years, I wrote four more novels. In the meantime, I went to grad school, got a fulltime job as a journalist, bought a house, moved out to the country with my partner, had a child. And every few years, I’d finish a novel, and query it, to no avail. I started the querying journey with a dot-matrix printer and SASEs (self addressed stamped envelopes), so I don’t even have email records of half of it. My querying continued into the email era. It never occurred to me to keep a spreadsheet or anything like that, and I pre-date query-tracking websites. I have no idea how many queries I sent out over those 18 years, but it is somewhere in the hundreds, probably the high hundreds. I had reached the point where I wasn’t even telling anyone about my writing anymore, because I hated the look of pity I’d get in response.

There’s a trick to make award ceremonies (a little) easier on the nerves: pick another writer on the ballot and root for them with all your heart. I first learned this trick from the wonderful (and multiple-award-winning) Sarah Pinsker, and I do it every time. On Sunday, at the Aurora Awards, I didn’t even have to make the slightest effort to root for someone else. Indeed, I was rooting for all the other writers on the list to various degrees.

I never think it’s likely I’ll win an award I’ve been nominated for, but my level of expectation runs on a spectrum to “hell no, never going to happen” to “probably not.” On Sunday, I was way over at the “hell no” end of the spectrum. For one thing, I won the same award last year, for The Embroidered Book, and I thought back-to-back victories for best novel would be unlikely, especially for someone still fairly early in their career, as I am. (I haven’t won any awards other than the Aurora, although I’ve been nominated for some.) For another, The Valkyrie, while it has done well, hasn’t made the same splash or reached the same level of sales as The Embroidered Book. Most importantly, I was sharing the ballot with successful writers I greatly admire, any one of whom would have been a completely unsurprising winner (Waubgeshig Rice, Jessica Johns, Andrew F. Sullivan and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Go read their work!)

So I don’t think I’ve ever been as surprised in my life as I was when the fabulous hosts announced that The Valkyrie won. You can watch my acceptance here at about 1:22. It’s hilarious — that 10-second pause after they say my name, when I’m just blinking and looking around and it looks like I can’t find the right browser window, or I’m trying to get off mute, or my feed’s delayed? Yeah, none of that was happening. My total lack of reaction is apparently what happens to my face when I am utterly stunned. I was sure that I had misheard, my audio had stuttered, something like that. (Being a writer, I have now filed this look on my face away for the next time I need to write someone’s stunned reaction. Everything goes into the pot!) It was a very different reaction from last year’s gasp of joy when I won for The Embroidered Book, which was also surprising, but this one, for some reason, just totally bowled me over and made me unable to speak or react.

The town of Stratford, Ontario, shares a name with Shakespeare's birthplace, and it leans into that hard. In 1952, it became the home of the Stratford Festival, which has grown into a Canadian institution. It runs April to October every year, and puts on a number of Shakespearan productions as well as other plays and musicals.

I've been to the English Stratford, a long time ago, but I'd never been to the one here in Ontario, even though I was born very near it, and even though it’s a half-day's drive down the highway from where I live now. So last month, I made a road trip of it with my 14-year-old. We did a tour of the enormous warehouse and archives, full of costumes, sets and props from decades of productions.

And we saw two plays: Romeo and Juliet and Cymbeline, both fairly traditionally staged. Well, it's not very traditional for Cymbeline to be staged at all, which is one reason I chose that one; how often do you get the chance to see Cymbeline? It's not a play I even know very well; I might have read it years ago, but I couldn't have told you the plot if you asked me a few weeks ago.

Hello, all! A lovely bit of news since my last letter: my novel Assassin’s Creed: The Resurrection Plot is on the shortlist for the Scribe Awards, in the Original Novel—Speculative category. These awards are determined by a panel of judges and given out by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers; the winners will be announced later this month at San Diego Comic-Con.

I’m thrilled for a few reasons! This is my first Scribe Award nomination, and it’s always wonderful to have one’s work recognized by one’s peers. It’s an extra nice surprise to get a nomination for book 2 in a duology. Also, I worked really hard on this particular book, in collaboration with my patient and wise editor, Gwendolyn Nix. It was a big challenge to make sure all the elements were working together—the book 2 character arcs, the known history across several countries and a couple of decades, the invented plot, the videogame canon, the political themes—all within a tightly defined word count and on deadline. I wanted to make it accessible not only to those who knew nothing about Assassin’s Creed, but also to people who hadn’t read book 1 (The Magus Conspiracy). I also wanted to make it satisfying for the fans of the franchise, and especally for the amazing, supportive fans of the first book.

Tie-in writing sometimes gets portrayed as an easy paycheque for writers, but that has not been my experience. It’s made me a better novelist and has helped me to understand other strains and traditions of modern storytelling, and has introduced new readers to my work. (Also, it has helped me send even more people down historical rabbitholes on Wikipedia.) The most heartfelt and touching reader mail I’ve ever gotten comes from my tie-in books.

So a big thank you again to Gwendolyn and the whole team at Aconyte Books, to Bastien Jez for the cover art, and to everyone at Ubisoft who supported this book and created the world it’s set within. And to my agent, Jennie Goloboy, without whom my books would just be files on a hard drive. And a shout out to everyone else on the Scribe Awards ballot—it’s an honour to be in your company.

My partner and I recently watched Chimes at Midnight, the Orson Welles film about Falstaff that reinterprets pieces of Shakespeare's plays about Henry IV and Henry V. Until recently, it wasn't easy to find a copy. In 2006, Roger Ebert had to scare up a DVD from Brazil to rewatch it for the first time since 1968. He wrote:

"The crucial point about 'Chimes at Midnight' is that although it was rejected by audiences and many critics on its release, although some of the dialogue is out of sync and needs to be adjusted, although many of the actors become doubles whenever they turn their backs, although he dubbed many of the voices himself, although the film was assembled painstakingly from scenes shot when he found the cash—although all of these things are true, it is a finished film, it realizes his vision, it is the Falstaff he was born to direct and play, and it is a masterpiece. Now to restore it and give it back to the world."

It has been restored and re-released since, and we were able to find it pretty easily, thank goodness.

The Wikipedia article about the film includes this quotation from Welles, from a BBC interview:

There are so many good novels coming out, or recently out, and I can't read any of them now because I am up to my eyeballs in research books at the moment. I love research, though, and I thought I'd use this edition of the newsletter to talk about how I find answers to historical questions, using one recent example of a question I had, and how I went looking for the answer. Research is something I get asked about a lot, and these days, it's getting harder to do well online.

I've got a few topics on the go for my novel Mercutio at the moment: astrology, ships, playing cards, city-state politics, maps, food, clothing, philosophy … This week I spent a whole day reading about travellers from China to Europe in the 13th century. Sometimes I need to know a lot about a topic and sometimes I just have a question or two. And sometimes what I learn is that there is no definitive, findable answer.

Where possible, though, I like to find the answers to my questions as accurately and fully as I can, both because I think it's a useful service to be as accurate as possible, and also because the real, weird complexity of history makes for better fiction than just replicating assumptions.

Here's an example of a specific question I had earlier this month and how I approached it.

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of D-Day. 

I've always been interested in the history of the Second World War, and I talked to my grandpa about it a fair bit in the last years of his life. Although he'd been (narrowly) evacuated from Dunkirk with the rest of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940, by 1944 he was nowhere near France (he was posted in Iraq, doing vehicle inspections as Armament Quarter Master Serjeant.) That's why the memoir he wrote for his family in 2000 doesn't talk about D-Day except in passing. But it does include a long passage about his worries that "the present generation" might not realize how terrible the consequences might have been if the fascists had won the war. My grandpa and I were indeed from different generations, and there are lots of things he might not see the same way I do. But I agree with him wholeheartedly about that. 

One reason I wanted to write a novel set in the Second World War was to add my tiny contribution to the ongoing work of keeping that history alive and real, or at least spurring a reader or two to find out more about it. History can be forgotten–and more immediately, it can be suppressed or twisted to the ends of those in power, or those trying to take power.

My novel scheduled for publication in September, The Tapestry of Time, is about the abuses of history, and how fascists tried to take control of the historical narrative then as they continue to do now. 

Hi everyone! The news is out about the new book I’m working on:

I’ve wanted to write about Mercutio forever — and specifically, about John McEnery’s portrayal of Mercutio in the 1968 film of Romeo & Juliet, which got under my skin decades ago and has been part of my creative brain ever since. I’m so pleased to be working again with Jane Johnson (my editor at HarperVoyager UK for The Chatelaine, The Valkyrie and The Tapestry of Time.) I’m mid-way through the draft now, and I plan to send it to Jane before the end of this calendar year. This is a standalone; the second book in the deal will be for something unrelated.

The last two books before this one were really difficult for me process-wise, so I’m glad to say this one is coming more easily, at least so far. It’s also tremendous fun to write. I’ve been very deliberate about finding the joy in it, and taking my time.

Hi everyone,

This week, the main thing on my plate is the draft of my current novel, plus some contract non-fiction writing. But yesterday, the first line of a story popped into my head. I opened a file to jot it down, and then the second line came… and before I knew it, I had this strange little story.

So I thought I’d share it with all of you, hot off the press, so to speak! It’s about 700 words, so it’s a quick read.

Hi everyone! I'm really pleased to share that The Valkyrie has been shortlisted for the Aurora Award for Best Novel. It shares the ballot with Bad Cree by Jessica Johns, Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan, Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice, and Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It's a tremendous honour to see my book in that company, and I can honestly say that no matter who wins in the ceremony on August 11, I'll be cheering wildly. I'm a huge fan of Waubgeshig's work in particular, which has reshaped the way I think about the future.

As it happens, the subject for this newsletter is reading. Lately, I've been hungry for books that don't colour inside the lines. There has long been pressure on writers, especially in genre, to create a frictionless reading experience: a narrative that has a familiar shape, and sentences that don't make you stop to think. (For the record, many of my favourite books meet this definition. It's not a bad way to write; I just don't think it's the only good way to write.) These days, that pressure feels stronger to me, for a few reasons.

A few weeks ago, an independent publisher announced that they were going to use an "AI" tool to sort submissions. (Using an Israeli AI startup, no less, at a time when the government of Israel is using “AI” surveillance methods to target human beings.) They backed down once the speculative-fiction community reacted, but other publishers will use these kinds of tools (I'm sure some already are). Indeed, one of the reasons publishers feel tempted is that generative "AI" is ballooning the numbers of submissions.

I don't remember the first time I became aware of Locus magazine. It's just always been there, the hub for news about science fiction and fantasy publishing, the place where upcoming books were listed, where books and stories of all kinds were reviewed. The Locus recommended list kicks off the award cycle every year, and it has introduced me to many writers I hadn't read before. It is one of the incubators for conversations about what people in our genre are doing in new and interesting ways. It's a magazine that makes an effort to grow and get better, and to cover as much as it can. This is particularly valuable with each passing year, as professional reviews become more and more concentrated in fewer publications.

As you may have seen, the annual Locus fundraiser has entered its final three days. I've donated two perks (a signed paperback of The Chatelaine, and a letter in response to any question you have for me, which I'll type on my Facit 1620 and sign and put in the mail to you. The question could be "should I keep writing?" or "what is your recipe for pancakes?" or anything at all.) There are also incredible perks from the top writers in the field.

Below is the cover for the issue that featured me, back in April 2020. That article was the result of a long conversation with Locus's Arley Sorg in a hotel room at the 2019 Nebulas. I remember talking to Arley for a long time about some personal things I hadn't really articulated before (because he's a warm, thoughtful person with genuine curiosity and compassion). And I remember Arley carefully triple checking the details of my biography, because Locus sees itself not only as a running conversation, but also as an archive of the genre, the magazine of record.

A few years later, I ran across a small error that involved my participation in a panel, in a Locus convention report. It was an understandable error (the source had provided inaccurate information) on a very minor matter and as a former journalist myself, I am not one to rush off and demand corrections for things from busy people. All the same, in this particular case, the facts mattered to me, and because it was the magazine of record, I wrote and (politely) asked them to correct it. They did, promptly and professionally.

I've just sent the copy-edited file of The Tapestry of Time back to my publisher, along with a form giving some information for the audiobook narrators. The book comes out in September. The next step is page proofs (and I should see cover art soon!)

My acquiring/developmental editor and I finished with the big picture stuff in December, and then the manuscript was passed to another editor for the copy edit, which covers grammatical and style issues line by line, clarifications and fact checks, as well as continuity and timeline snarls. This book has an intricate plot that weaves through very well documented history, and it went through revisions that moved around the events of the story. In the end, I'm pleased there were only a few small things that needed to be fixed. I'm always very grateful for the careful work of copy editors!

Authors do get some time (typically two weeks or so) to go over the copy edit to approve or reject changes, or address any queries. While I try not to reject a change out of sheer stubbornness, authors may choose not to take a copy editor's suggestion.

One of the things that my copy editor was checking for was British English, for two reasons: this book is coming out from a UK publisher, and it's written in the points of view of British people. It's very seldom I've been able to write any fiction in Canadian English, with the notable exception of short stories in Canadian magazines. The Venn diagram for how these three forms of English usually interact kind of looks like this (if I oversimplify to show what I mean):

Back in February, I was invited to be a guest speaker at a meeting of the Oxford University Speculative Fiction Group. (A remote appearance, alas. I'll get to Oxford one of these days!) I decided to speak about archetypes in fiction, and specifically character archetypes, and how they can support or undermine political structures. The talk draws on some examples from my own work, especially my next book, so it's a bit of a sneak peek at that as well.

We had a long and interesting Q&A session after this, but what follows is more or less what I said during the lecture portion.

On July 20, 2020, I was scrolling through Twitter on my phone, as one did in those days, and I came across a question from someone I didn't follow, just one of those questions people throw out on social media to get a conversation going. The question was this: "Combine the first movie you ever saw in theaters (that you can recall) with the last movie you saw in theaters. What film monstrosity have you created?"

Hi everyone! Apologies for a second missive so soon after the last (an unusual occurrence) but there's a cool and time-sensitive opportunity to let you know about, especially for those of you who will be in Ottawa in the last week of February.

I told you last week that my book The Valkyrie is the February book for the book club run by CBC Ottawa's afternoon radio show All In A Day (hosted by Alan Neal).

Tomorrow afternoon (Feb. 1) they'll announce the exact location and date in late February for the meeting. I can't tell you that yet, but it's a place in Ottawa that's very special to me. If you miss the announcement of those details on All In A Day, you can find them on or after Feb. 1 on my social media (Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon) and I'll also post it on the events section of my website.

Once that happens, there's usually a flurry of folks trying to get the limited seats.

Hi everyone! I have some exciting news. In late February, The Valkyrie is going to be the book for the All In A Day Book Club on CBC Radio here in Ottawa!

This feature highlights local authors. The host Alan Neal encourages listeners to read one book together for a month, and then he meets with listeners and the author in a special location in Ottawa, where we all talk about the book.

(People join both in person and virtually via Zoom.)

It's then recorded and broadcast on All In A Day (which is the afternoon radio show on CBC Radio One, heard 3-6 p.m. ET on 91.5 FM).

Happy new year, everyone! We've had a lovely family holiday, eating vegetarian tourtière and other goodies, and listening to my small but growing collection of vinyl on the Fluance record player that I asked for as my combined Christmas/birthday gift.

I'll be 47 in a few days, and as is often my wont with birthdays, I've been pondering mortality and other big questions.

I rewatched the 2021 David Lowery film The Green Knight this week. I know that it had a divided reception among medievalists, but I adore it. This time around I particularly appreciated the imagery of greenness as life/death, without any division where that slash is. The decision to be ready to die is the same as the decision to be ready to live. In a way, it complements the opposite imagery in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which is partly about clinging to half-life:

Hi everyone! First things first: it's been a while since we did a giveaway, and I have a few spare copies of some of my books, so let's do it! If you'd like a signed paperback of The Embroidered Book, The Chatelaine, Alice Payne Rides or Assassin's Creed: The Resurrection Plot, shipped anywhere in the world, email me at kateheartfield@gmail.com by noon ET on Nov. 30 and I'll use a random number generator to choose one winner and ship it out. (Note that both AC: TRP and Alice Payne Rides are sequels!) If I choose you, I'll need to know:

• Which book (TEB, The Chatelaine, Alice Payne Rides or AC: TRP)

• Whether you want it personalized to you or as a gift (depending on where you live, I should be able to get it there before Christmas, although I can't guarantee that.)

• Your mailing address

This will be my last newsletter for 2023 (barring any huge news) and I just want to say thanks to everyone who's picked up one of my books this year, or spread the word. It was a big year for publications -- the paperback of The Embroidered Book, The Valkyrie, the reissued version of The Chatelaine, and Assassin's Creed: The Resurrection Plot. I wrote a blog post reflecting on the year in life and writing.

Hi everyone! First of all, a quick housekeeping note. I've just changed the newsletter delivery system from Mailchimp to Buttondown. My main reason for this is that Buttondown does not use newsletter content to train generative AI (or sell it to others to do so.)

So far, so good with the move, but if you notice any technical issues, please do let me know, at kateheartfield@gmail.com.

With Christmas coming up, a note that if you'd like a signed copy of one of my books, I recommend getting in touch with Bakka Phoenix in Toronto, or Perfect Books or The Spaniel's Tale in Ottawa. They all ship and have at least some signed copies in stock (and for the Ottawa stores, I can go in to personalize copies as long as you give us a little notice.) I'm also happy to mail signed and personalized bookplates, my treat. Brookline Booksmith will have bookplated editions of The Valkyrie available to coincide with our online event (see below.)

(Also: if you know anyone who'd like a copy of Assassin's Creed: The Magus Conspiracy in Italian or Polish, do get in touch! I have an extra copy of each and can send them out, signed, for the cost of shipping.)