Hi all! A few updates before I forget:

• My novel The Swordmaster (this is the one about vampires in the court of Catherine de’ Medici, riffing off Alexandre Dumas) is delayed by printing issues, and is now scheduled to come out in print Oct. 22. It is already out in ebook and audio, however! Read by Maria Nicola Johnson.

• The timing of my upcoming appearance at the Kingston Writersfest has changed; I’ll now be on the panel at 10:30 on Oct. 1. I’ll post my full event schedule below.

• As of this writing, the ebook of Mercutio is on sale for $0.99 at various online retailers in Canada and the U.S. Thanks to a Bluesky pal for pointing out the sale to me. I’m not sure how long the sale will last.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have been struggling a lot this year with the publishing side of author life. With each new book (I’m up to 10 on the shelves now), being a mid-list author feels increasingly like being a mushy, cold spaghetti noodle clinging stubbornly to the wall, and even though I know I’m lucky to be on the wall and the floor could rush to meet me at any moment, it nonetheless doesn’t feel great. (I have published books with five publishers, so nothing I say here is meant as a criticism of any publisher; it’s a cumulative effect.)

To a degree, those emotions have carried over to my writing life too, but I think that was mostly burnout, and now the writing is slowly coming back (I’m not pushing myself, because I have a very busy writing-focused day job, and copy edits to do on The Realm Invisible, and promotional events to do for Mercutio, and I think my status is very analogous to recovering from injury and I don’t want to have to start that recovery all over again.)

I’m not currently on contract for anything. (I’m very slowly finishing up a novella I wrote thanks to a Canada Council grant, but it hasn’t yet been sold.) Whether I publish more books after Realm or not, it’s important to me to find ways to remind myself of the joy of publishing. To enjoy it, for what it is, not be miserable because of what it isn’t.

I worked so hard to get here, after all. My first published novel came out when I was 41 years old; I’d been actively trying since I was 19, and I have 5 unpublished books in the trunk. I don’t remember a time before I wanted to be a novelist.

Publishing any book does come with a lot of not-great emotions for me, like anxiety, loneliness, disappointment, self-doubt and a general feeling of shame and worthlessness (related to the amount of investment and shouting the publishing industry deems me worthy of, and, connected to that, the reception or notice the book gets.) I feel like I’m letting the book down by not being thinner or prettier or younger. I feel, simultaneously, like the book is probably meh anyway and I’m just the only one who doesn’t see it; there must be something wrong with me for thinking this is good writing, or else more people would think it’s worth reading. Plus, of course, guilt for feeling all the above when I’m so lucky to have had so many book deals.

But it’s also a really amazing thing to be able to do. It’s books I love, not capitalism.

I love working with my agent and my editor and my publicist and all the wonderful people at my publishers and agency, and collaborating with cover designers and audiobook narrators, and sharing it with readers.

I love the process of getting a book ready for publication. My copy edits for Realm just arrived, with a style sheet. I love style sheets, because they list the weird words and terms in a book that require decisions about spelling and hyphenation. The style sheet for Realm includes, among others: charivari, elflocks, gallwater, gittern-player, letter-locking, night-soil men, tear-stained face, Tric Trac board.

I love talking about writing and reading, on panels and podcasts and one-on-one with readers.

Tonight, I am preparing my stamps, newly replaced archival-ink stamp-pad, pens, bookplates and bookmarks for the events I have coming up. I buy a new stamp for every book (for example, the one for The Swordmaster is a gargoyle, because Paris > Notre Dame > gargoyle). Every time I stamp and sign a book and hand it back to a reader, it feels sacred and wonderful. That never, ever, ever, gets old. The one time I had to sign thousands of tip-in sheets (for The Embroidered Book) I was grinning the whole week.

I love the book as object.

I love books. Books are great. I love making them and I love reading them. It’s an honour to have my work on the shelves next to the amazing novels being produced today (this week, Wickhills by Premee Mohamed came out, and it’s fantastic. Do check it out.)

So this newsletter has been an exercise, for me, in reminding myself how much I love about being a maker of books — not just the writing part but also the sharing part. It’s a reminder I needed, so thanks for listening, and thanks with all my heart for reading.