It's been a year.

The last time I sent one of these out was July 2021. We were still calling it "hot vax summer" back then, not thinking we'd still be hot and cold a year later. I was visiting a new baby with an old face on the East Coast. 

And now I live here. 

I moved across country the week of the spring solstice. The air was mild in California, but I got buried under inches of snow in Santa Fe. I made it through pelting rain in St. Louis and slid on snow in the Alleghenies. I came to the opposite coast, to Maryland, where the trees had begun to shed pollen faster than anywhere I've ever lived in my life. My eyes swelled shut and I was home. 

Home now is a queer communal house with my girlfriend and her wife and two kids. The oldest is a teenager who still thinks I'm cool (that can't last) and the baby is tall enough now to put his chin on top of the dining room table and calmly repeat "fuckface" after I've said it to the three-legged cat. 

I could tell you that a lot has changed. I could tell you that this pandemic is raging on and on. I could scream at the SCOTUS from here and they could probably hear me. I could tell you that it's been a hell of a year. 

But you were there. 

And where was I? I've been working for Uncanny Magazine, editing nonfiction and writing editorials about the body. I've been publishing fiction— I even made it into Best American Science Fiction again, with Rebecca Roanhorse in the driver's seat. 

I've been doing the last few things to prepare for my next novel to drop. "Number One Fan" comes out on August 30, right before World Con in Chicago. I'm doing launch events in Chicago and in Riverside, CA. No events in DC yet, because building relationships with booksellers is a whole process and I haven't been here long enough to be a local. I'm still surprised by the whole crabs business. 

People often ask where they can buy my book (my sixth! book!) that does me the most good, so here's the scoop: what helps the absolute most is preorders. You get the book on the day that it drops, I get good numbers on release day. It's good for everybody. I would love to see you folks at one of my launch events, but if you can't get it from my hot little hands in a store, buy it online and make my fucking day. Respond to this with your address if you'd like me to ship you a signed bookplate— I bought another box of them when this pandemic entered its third year. 

What's "Number One Fan" about, you ask? It's about waking up in a stranger's basement and hearing him say he's your number one fan. It's about parasocial delusion and what a creator owes their audience. It's about fiction and fanfiction and the way that something you create takes on a life of its own. And its not a gentle ride— but when have I ever offered you one of those? 

Ok, I can at least point you in the right direction. I read "The Ballad of Perilous Graves," where songs come to life and a Great Magician has to save the magically familiar city of Nola. I have never read anything like this, and I think you will love it. 

I have read several books like "The Book of the Most Precious Substance," frankly because I love books about sex magic, books about occult books, and books about the spooky happenings that surround a Book That Should Not Be Read. It reminded me of some of my favorites in this subgenre, but more focused on sex magic for women than the vast majority of the ones you might be thinking of. It's a delicious, sticky read. Take it to the beach and let people cock an eyebrow at that cover. 

It's been a year. Let's do this again before so much time has passed, before so much more has changed. 

Yours in 2022, 

Meg