A few of the things that cancer taught me
Eat right, exercise, and die anyway.
We judge because we're scared
A little bit of housekeeping: I will most likely be moving this newsletter to a different platform in the New Year, but ideally that move will be seamless...
Publishing and marketing is sure a thing right now
Hey, folks, So I was mentioning in my last missive how anxieties and tensions are running high in the writer world, and how a seismic shift seems to be...
Substackers against Nazis
I am not one of the drafters of this open letter, but I endorse its message wholeheartedly. Dear Chris, Hamish & Jairaj: We’re asking a very simple question...
"Does any of this matter? Is this thing even on?"
When I was a kid, there used to be catalogues of text-only T-shirts with often off-color but sometimes profoundly philosophical sayings on them. This is a...
Unthrilled
I’ve realized in the past week or so that I’m really tired of thrillers. This is a weird place for me to be, as somebody who has at various points in her...
WRITE SCIENCE event at the MIT Museum
I should have posted about this before now, but the holidays and family stuff got away from me! So anyway…. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow! I'll be at the MIT...
on the importance of fallow time*
*even when it pisses you off to be doing nothing. I finished my first draft of Angel Maker this week, which, because of the way I work in iterating passes,...
The City is the Forest
What follows is an essay I wrote over a decade ago or so for, if I remember correctly, Realms of Fantasy magazine, which I am posting because (a) I think...
Two anthologies and a WFC peopling hangover walk into a bar...
Hey everybody! I am not yet home from World Fantasy Convention and afterwards visiting family, so this will be brief as I am on the questionable hotel wifi...
The worst habits you learn in writing workshops and how to unlearn them
Scott and I just got home from teaching the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop, and boy am I tired. (I have a covid test cooking right now, as has become the...
Quiet on the northwestern front...
Hey folks, I’m just about to head off to teach Viable Paradise tomorrow, and things have been busy around here with preparations to travel for most of the...
Audiobook sale!
The audiobook of An Apprentice to Elves is on sale for 60% off! (An Apprentice to Elves is the third book in the Iskryne series, after A Companion to Wolves...
When you are afraid to jinx it, but for the first time in a long time, the writing is going really well.
For years, I’ve been struggling with brain fog, exhaustion, health challenges, and just being kind of burned out, honestly. I’d forgotten what it was like to...
Heads up about a very cool Ukrainian SFF Anthology!
“Embroidered Worlds presents a living snapshot of imaginative fiction in Ukrainian culture today, including stories that span and cross the speculative...
A poem for autumn
Grief Hard wings at the heart beat to beat to beat within: a buffet of feathers a buffet of flesh— the buffet of fire, of a rising wind. A cold wind redolent...
Happy cancerversary to me?
Hey, folks, So it’s two years ago today that I got my breast cancer diagnosis and began the scary and painful course of treatment that has, for now, left me...
On the edge of autumn
Greetings, fellow humans, I hope this missive finds you well and alive, or at least hanging in there. It’s the season of harvests, but I find myself in a bit...
Horror anthologies discounted deeply! One day only!
The fabulous Ellen Datlow-edited anthologies SUPERNATURAL NOIR and LOVECRAFT UNBOUND are on sale in ebook for a mere $1.99 each! Get them at the links above...
I'm off to Gencon next weekend. And an infinitely customizable cobbler recipe you can make with whatever fruit you have lying around.
does what it says on the tin