This has been a big month for me, so far.

The RiverBank game officially released, and I’m delighted with it. I have no idea what the sales look like, in part because I don’t know what to ask about numbers for a game that started out crowdsourced. There isn’t a first-week flurry because many of the folks who would buy it in the first week, already did, as part of the initial Backerkit. There have been a couple of fantastic reviews:

TTRPGfans.com gave it a 19/20, and said, “Kij Johnson and Kobold Press have created something quietly revolutionary: a game about manners as mechanics and chaos as comedy.”

Paper Phoenix Ink called it a “a delightful mix of social encounters, emotional twists, and low-stakes adventures.”

So, yay for all that!

I also was the guest for a writing festival at Collin College Frisco Campus in Texas. I talked about games, gave a master class on story openings, and delivered a keynote. This is almost the first time I’ve done one of these that I felt I nailed it—usually I feel as though I could have somehow done better. (Is that true? That’s just how it feels.)

I’ve also gotten into the happy swing of writing at least one haiku nearly every day, and posting them over on Bluesky. Daily poems was a practice of mine many years ago, when I was first working on The Fox Woman, because I wanted to be as comfortable writing short-form observational poetry as my characters were. It’s even more pleasurable now. There are no hopes or expectations of this making me rich or famous, and I don’t know that it will have a direct impact on my prose these days. And maybe that’s what I like so much about it: this scrap of creativity can’t be tainted in my mind by economic or educational goalsetting.

So, I’m thankful for all these, and for a lot of other things. It’s a scary and hard world in a lot of ways, but when I narrow my aperture to my own life in the here and now, I feel safe or, what is almost as good, competent to handle any crises that arise. I trust friends and family. I’ve had the time and focus to get a bit stronger and healthier. This isn’t likely to be anyone’s Best Year Ever, but I hope that we all can look at our lives and see at least something we have changed for the better.

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Publishing

If you haven’t already, go buy RiverBank!

Bugwick is the next game I am designing, to be published by Kobold, I expect. I’m currently enmired in Chapter One.

I also took a freelance contract that really interests me. (Details when I can talk about it.)

As part of that project, I’ll be exploring how solo journalling games work, which I think I want to take a stab at. My friend Barbara says that the format is what I have been prepping for my entire life, and she’s not wrong.

Fiction...hmm, that’s harder, because I’ve never gotten my mojo back after the Small Beer trouble. Without ongoing interactions with readers and/or money and/or contracts, it’s hard to stare at a screen until words come out. I wrote three flash stories in July, but flash is hard to place (especially SF/F flash), and I have gotten a few rejections, alas.

Appearances

I hope I see some of you at the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo in Philly in January! I’ll do talks and demo games.

I still hope to get to the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, in Orlando in March. However, I might have to step back from this because of my duelling deadlines in the spring.

I will definitely be at Constellation, in Lincoln NE in March. My friend Chris McKitterick will be the writer guest of honor there.

There’s an upcoming June event that hasn’t been announced yet. Details soon.

Teaching

Summer workshops are a GO! We have confirmation that we will have housing in Lawrence KS next June/July.  

Also a GO: Fit & Finish microwriting masterclass online in late March. This will be offical in a week or two; meanwhile, write me if you are interested.

Stay kind, be cool, support artists.

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Join me over on my Patreon! You have no idea how much it matters to artists (or me, anyway) as a reminder that we are doing something worthwhile. https://www.patreon.com/c/kijjohnson

Or check out my website! https://kijjohnson.com/

Or my bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kijjohnson.bsky.social