Hi everyone! Tomorrow (Aug. 16), the Edmonton WorldCon Bid is hosting an online party highlighting Canadian creators. I’ll be on the discussion panel about Canadian science fiction and fantasy, and I’ll also be interviewing my longtime friend and mentor Julie Czerneda about her work. It’s free to join and you don’t have to be a member of WorldCon. There will also be social spaces. Come on by!
Also, a heads up that I’m offering a full manuscript critique for the We The People summer fundraiser, which is raising funds to help families in Gaza, with some funding also going to immigrant and trans rights collectives. I don’t offer a full manuscript critique as an auction donation often, as it’s a lot of work and time, so if this is something that interests you, it’s worth grabbing if you can. (Don’t worry if your manuscript isn’t quite ready yet; I can do it any time in the next several months.) The auction starts Aug. 18, and it’s got hundreds of items worth checking out.
I’ve had a chance to get an early peek at a couple of forthcoming books that I want to recommend to you all. One is The Drowned Man’s Daughter, which a gorgeous, strange, dark ecological novella about how people form and break community. It’s by a friend of mine, C.J. Lavigne, so I am biased, but I’d love it even if I didn’t know C.J. It’s coming out in early September from Newest Press.
I don’t know Anna Kovatcheva at all, but the moment I started reading She Made Herself a Monster, I thought, “ooh, this is what I want from a vampire story!” Which is a little odd, because I just wrote a vampire story of my own (The Swordmaster, which comes out next year) and it’s nothing like She Made Herself a Monster. But The Swordmaster is what I wanted from a different lineage of vampire story, I suppose one could say. She Made Herself a Monster is not quite a supernatural approach to the theme, but it is Gothic, and weird, and deeply rooted in old stories. I think people who like my work will like it. It’ll be out in early 2026.
That’s all the news for this week. I’ll be travelling for the next little while — I hope to send a newsletter from the road, but if I miss the next one, I’ll be back in September.