Days til novel release: 182

Those of you who follow me on Bluesky, IG, or Mastodon know that I post daily(ish) small press book posts or #DSPBposts almost every day. Small presses keep book culture interesting and innovative and this is my way of supporting it.

For most of March, I've been concentrating specifically on Nova Scotia publishers because of the deeply stupid and counterproductive provincial budget cuts to the arts, museums, and heritage (and a whole bunch of other stuff like early childhood education, free bus passes for students, student summer jobs). Every $1 spent on the arts creates $29 in economic activity but our ding-dong of a premier thinks the arts are a luxury we can't afford, unlike the stuff that matters to him, like mining and AI programs and of course his own 29% raise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway support the arts! Buy some of the books I'm spotlighting this month.

News on the novel: you can now order signed copies of Aether and Ego through Bookmark Halifax (if you’re in Canada) or Bookshop (if you’re in the US). It’s a bit weird if you’re in the US: I can’t sign the actual book, since then you’d have to pay much higher shipping rates from Canada and possibly tariffs, so just email me your address letting me know you’d like a bookplate and I’ll send it to you in September, to stick inside the book.

New writing: three erasures in manywor(l)ds: “alienation echo,” “Competing with churches for the imagination of present-day” and “metamorphosis (chrysalis).”

Currently writing: The less said about the robot Emma I’m struggling to wrap my head around, the better, but I’m also toying with a short story about ripping off my boobs, so I have that going for me.

Currently reading: Alan has gotten me into the Dungeon Crawler Carl novels, which probably everybody on this list has already heard about, so I won’t review them here. I’m also reading Jon Tattrie’s To Leave a Warrior Behind, which is a biography of the sword and soul pioneer Charles R. Saunders, author of Imaro, and very well worth reading if you’re interested in the history of the genre.

_{For full disclosure, if you buy any of the books linked above from Bookshop, I’ll get a tiny commission, which I promise to spend irresponsibly.}