Dear all,

Don’t worry, I have not been routed on the field of battle. I’m beginning this from my little desk in the wilds of Pennsylvania, on a writing retreat with a lovely group of fellow authorial misfits. The fictional misfits are misbehaving as scheduled, and out in the grounds a small passel of cows from the neighbouring farm have decided that fences are really more of a suggestion than a rule - they have paid a visit three of the past four days, much to the amusement of the congregating authors.

EndeavourCon: In October, I will once again sally forth to do battle from the panelist’s stage - I kid, my compatriots all seem lovely. If you pick up a ticket - I’m told there are a small number left - you can join us on October 10th just south of Portland at the Milwaukie Masonic Lodge, where I will be opining on how to “Raise the Stakes & Heighten the Tension.” (Murder is great for this I find. Just, you know. A thought!) Endeavour is a small con in its first year, a little baby redwood twig growing from the stump of OryCon, and hopes to support the Endeavour Award (and speculative fiction overall) in the Pacific Northwest for years to come. Perhaps I will see some of you there - if so, please say hello!

The Joys of Blurbs: We are just now beginning the grand dance of Planning our Blurb Request Strategy, which is a very fun exercise. You sit down with your editor and agent and fill a pivot table with every single cool author friend you’ve ever talked books with - and then they come back with something terrifying, and you’re forced to confront the very real possibility that some time in the not so distant future your novel might get read by Alix Harrow. Or (gulp) T. Kingfisher. Or maybe not! Surely they are very busy people and need not participate in the mortifying ordeal of forcibly ejecting my poor little book from the nest…

But! Speaking of Reading Material… Friends, I am overflowing with delightful books to talk to you about. Well I say that. And then I am forced to confess that I am following last month’s Dark Archives with the instant I-must-track-down-everything-else-he’s-written Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, which is a viscerally grotesque medieval horror novel set in the middle of the bubonic plague in which a fallen knight reluctantly squires a young woman he only barely decided not to allow his bandit buddies to rape* on what probably isn’t actually a quest from God’s angels to cross France in search of Avignon. But! It is also full of profane and slime-filled (lots of slime) monsters, and extremely fun corruptions of chivalric jousts, and endless gorgeous thoughtful moments between characters. Buehlman is fantastically good at drawing people; he’s also magnificently surreal at all times. The Tor re-issue is also so pretty I hunted down a friend who works there and harassed them into sending my adulations to the layout designer…

In my defense I did also begin (and am loving thus far) The Bear & the Nightingale so not everything I read requires the guts to end up on the outside. Although. It is Russian… Well. No one spoil that for me! Any disembowelment shall have to be a surprise!

Hopefully your Septembers have treated you well, and may your Octobers prove welcoming,
Macey

_{* Content note on that front: the averted rape is the first main scene and does not actively come into play again / is not a hanging threat across the book.}