So we live in a house...
as many people do. It's the first house I've ever owned, and after a peripatetic life where the longest I ever spent in a single residence was four years,...
There's probably not going to be a coup, but if there is, we can handle it.
Several friends have asked me, "Sir..." Wait, I'm being handed an envelope. It appears that I am not Donald Trump, and can relate an anecdote without puffing...
A virtual appearance and a new story next week!
Hey there, friends, it’s been a hell of a ride, hasn’t it? I’ve gotten so unused to good news that I feel a little dizzy, but in the past few days we’ve seen...
November book club post, a virtual appearance, and a meditation on how surreal it feels to get good news.
Hey there, friends, it’s been a hell of a ride, hasn’t it? I’ve gotten so unused to good news that I feel a little dizzy, but in the past few days we’ve seen...
The Long 2020 isn't over.
Congratulations, America. We did it. Our institutions held. Our military has not taken to the streets to support a would-be tin-pot dictator. We just managed...
On Deradicalization
The people who have been historically oppressed in the United States are not fragile; not convinced of our own superiority; not weak or overemotional. The...
I have some feelings about queerness being commodified, and they're complicated.
Feeling one: It is absolutely great that there are a lot of mainstream books with queer characters in them being queer and imperfect and having adventures....
The internet is full of things, and also I sold a couple of novels.
Hey, folks! Some more stuff to share with you today. I have reached the end of Act II in The Origin of Storms. Finally. I just have to write this one...
That David Bowie song about the apocalypse, but make it days.
You know, that one. Well, folks, it's the homestretch here in the US (we hope) and then if we are at all lucky and manage to beat the interference of foreign...
Cover reveal and interview
Hi, folks! First off, we have the cover for "On Safari in R'lyeh and Caroca with Gun and Camera," and a publication date! This will be out November 18th at...
Straw poll
Who’d be interested in some kind of community Discord chat thingy?
MACHINE US Hardcover Out 10/20!
Hey folks! I promise this is the last book launch for the rest of the year! Um, I think. There’s a novelette coming out at Tor.com though. Shhh. Anyway, does...
October Book Club
Greetings, subscribers! I admit it, I haven’t been reading as much as I’d like to. I’ve been trying very hard to get this damned overdue novel rolling up the...
Surprise! It's book day all over again!
I’m thrilled to share some news that it has been killing me to sit on, which is that there is now a second mystery novella featuring Sub-Inspector Ferron of...
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...