The inevitable heat death of Book Week
Hey, folks! MACHINE came out in US/Canadian ebook yesterday and comes out in UK and Ireland ebook and paperback tomorrow, and it feels a little weird to be...
MACHINE launch day!
Hey, friends! It’s US ebook launch day for MACHINE (the first of three, because it’s 2020 and nothing can be simple) and I invite you to both read this...
It's Book Hype Week.
We will return you to your irregularly scheduled intermittent newsletters shortly.
B minus 7 days. Also, a virtual Salon.
Hey friends, Just a brief note to remind you that Machine will be out in the US in ebook on October 6 and in hardcover on October 20 (Covid printing issues...
September Book Club
Howdy, fellow pandemic endurers! It's time for the second edition of the Throw Another Bear In The Canoe book club, where we all talk about what we're...
The perfidy of major appliances
It’s becoming increasingly obvious, dear readers, that this is a farce as well as a tragedy that we’re living through. A farce probably written and...
A very cheap audiobook of Ancestral Night!
Does what it says on the box.
Some Russian and a short delay...
Hey, folks, and welcome to the newsletter I’ve been procrastinating on all week! Email is a thing that I tend to put off and put off some more, especially...
You better get it 'cause it's going soon!
Today, for one day only AFAIK, Ancestral Night is a Kindle Daily Deal in the US! (I think it’s USA only; sorry overseas folks; different publishers here and...
Announcing the Throw Another Bear In The Canoe Book Club
Hey, folks! First of all, an acknowledgement: I'm totally borrowing this idea from my friend Stephanie Burgis, author of The Dragon With The Chocolate Heart...
A journal of a journal of a plague year
Hey, friends, So in the past few months, like many other people, I’ve read both Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year and John M. Barry’s The Great...
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy Table of Contents.
Does what it says on the box. Click on this hot hot cover image to pre-order!
Nostalgia is easy like Monday morning...
Hey, folks, A friend (Hi, Celia) was pointing out yesterday that since a lot of people are still holding on to the idea that the Covid-19 pandemic will be a...
Therapy is work, but it's worth it.
Hey, friends, A couple of folks have dropped me emails and comments recently thanking me for being open (now and in the past) about my diagnosis of bipolar...
There's a joke I love about there being only two kinds of people in the world...
…those that subscribe to false binaries, and all the other kinds. We writers, in general, love to sort ourselves into camps—plotters versus pantsers being...
thank you
Hey, you stuck around. There are some pretty wild allegations flying around right now about my husband and me, and I wanted to address them and say,...
Nobody is the secret master of all publishing.
I’ve heard three different stories lately of people peripherally attached to science fiction publishing setting themselves up as sort of the mayors of tiny...
Now the quiet freakout...
...that the Internet is going to fall on my head for that last post. Oh well. If it does, it does. It only smarts for a few days!
This is an open letter to my friends and acquaintances in the publishing community who have been outed as serial harassers, and to the ones who still think they're getting away with something.
Dear friend, Hey there. I know you’re having a rough time right now, and I’m sorry to say you earned it. I wish I had known about your behavior sooner; I...
The longest river
Greetings, friends. As I write this, America’s four year experiment in governance by denial seems at last to be grinding to its inevitable conclusion....
Podcast Sign!
Hey, it’s me on the Intermultiversal Space Podcast with Gareth Jelley, being longwinded about politics, classic science fiction, and generational trauma,...
The nasty bits: shortages, resourcefulness, and keeping yourself well-fed.
Howdy, pandemic buddies, I’m coming to you live from my couch, where I am recuperating after putting in so asparagus and rhubarb plants that I will hopefully...
Now it can be told...
Hello, apocalypse buddies. I hope everybody is staying as safe as possible, and is bunkered down and resupplied for a long haul. We’re going to be at this...
Sustainability: on preserving, and self-preservation, and planning for the future
Hey, folks. Happy Monday. (checks: yep! Monday!) How are you holding up in The New Normal? Is it starting to feel a little more routine? A little less like...
NONE DARE CALL IT HUMMUS: substitutions and stretching
Phew. Well, we’re well in it now, and in between panic attacks I’m starting to feel a little more normal. Settling in. My town closed its hiking trails,...
Apocalypse Chow: How to make yogurt and stay sane.
Hey, folks. Hanging in there? Getting some sleep? Staying hydrated? Exercising an abundance of caution? Limiting news dumps? Fantastic. Good job. I woke up...
How to entertain yourself while you're sheltering in place...
Teach your cat to play skeeball Pretend you're a character in the Aubrey and Maturin books; this will make the monotonous diet seem more fun. Use hoarded...
The part you throw away
Because everything is better with a Tom Waits reference. Hey, folks. Well, today, I’m not doing so great, as I made this mistake of reading an article by a...
Food is love in a time of coronavirus, fried rice and emotional labor.
Hey, folks, Here’s a moment to breathe. In, out, in again. Check in with your body. Think about the weight of your body pressing you down into your chair,...
Adapt, improvise, overcome. And some strategies for coping with that cabinet full of shelf-stable STUFF.
Hey, folks, I’ve been working on the page proofs for Machine, which are now a week late due to apocalypse delay, and (sadly) cancelling my guest of honor...
The coming singularity is here.
Hey, folks, It’s been a week or two, hasn’t it? It seems like over the past seven days, everybody who hadn’t already realized that a Major Problem was...
Can't get away from the book sales and cover reveals.
Hello, folks, First up, The US cover for Machine has been revealed, and it’s a doozy! The full post is up over at The Book Smugglers (a fantastic site) with...
Food is love in a time of coronavirus, part two.
Hi, friends. First things first, apparently my novel Dust (Jacob’s Ladder #1, first book in a series that takes place several hundred years before Ancestral...
Food is love
Hey, folks. This is not going to be the suddenly-obligatory How To Work From Home opinion piece, because I’ve never personally found working from home...
Before apocalypse, chop wood, carry water...
During apocalypse, cover art still shows up. As a brief distraction from building a fortress out of ramen noodles, I offer the UK cover art for MACHINE,...
It never rains but it pours manuscripts.
Hey, folks! Everything is going on here and not much of it is “news,” I’m afraid. Spring is arriving ahead of schedule and the cats are thrilled by the...
What a long strange month it's been.
Hey, folks. I have no excuse for not having written in so long, I’m afraid, other than being overwhelmed and exhausted. Mid-life brain chemistry changes are...
The Best of Elizabeth Bear is out today!
Out today! Don’t delay!
No Sleep Til Brookline
Hello, friends! A brief note to let you know what’s going on! First, a public appearance: I’ll be at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline MA on Friday at 7...
Memoirs of a Space Traveler
MIT Press asked me to write a foreword for this new edition of Memoirs of a Space Traveler, by Stanislaw Lem, and I was very pleased indeed to do...
Received wisdom and shibboleths.
This post is brought to you by the fact that, this morning (which will be, oh, about a week ago by the time this newsletter goes out), I crouched down to...
The Best of UNCANNY is out now!
Does what it says on the tin and you can read all about it right here.
If I'm not shitposting on twitter all day, do I actually exist?
Hello, friends! Today I want to talk about one something I struggle with as a freelance writer, as a person who works alone on the sofa with a cat or two for...
Fuck multitasking
Hello, friends! It’s natural, as the year winds down, to find one’s self taking stock and contemplating changes in habit for the new year. Of course the...
Persistence and vision.
Staying in the game until you spot your opportunity.
Lyrical writing requires self-discipline
Hello folks, and thank each of you for being one of the select few who are subscribing to and sustaining this newsletter. So when I was breaking in to...
Relevance without trendfucking
a manifesto
UK (and Europe?) Deal of the Day!
Hey, folks. Well, I’ve been traveling, and having more fun while traveling than intended, as I have a terrible head cold and also we got to spend an extra...
Hypervigilance is bullshit.
Oi. Maybe it’s the holiday season, and maybe it’s who-knows-what, but I am writing just to complain about PTSD and the fact that apparently my brain is in...
Self-care rather than self-discipline
Hello friends, and happy holiday season. I’m coming to you from a very cozy little Airbnb above a cactus shop (!) in Minneapolis, and if I weren’t taking a...