Liner Notes #13: Announcements and sundry
Each time I think, “Self, you’re so going to write a mailing letter in fewer than two or three months,” I prove myself wrong. I had so many things pass through this brain much the way water passes through a sieve, and alas! I did not write about them.
But there’s a reason, starting with the fact that KEY & VALE got an offer from Erewhon last December, which was such a relief and a thrill—except I couldn’t talk about it until the announcement! Which went up yesterday. It’s a mini announcement, with the heftier one to come later. At any rate, unburying the lede here, KEY & VALE is now titled The Memory Hunters, and it’s a real thing that’s happening, and it will be arriving next summer, say, around late August of 2025, and I will probably have so much mushroom stuff to accompany it.
Editing has gone smoothly; my editor and I get along great and we’re totally aligned in how we think about the book. It’s fabulous to be in sync. I can’t wait to talk about these characters with you all. My faves are problematic, and your faves will be problematic too. Bottom line is that I swore to myself I was gonna write a sapphic princess/knight adventure book, and I got that. Plus some extra stuff, like museums and heists and trippy mushrooms and things that scare the bejesus out of me.
The other reason why I didn’t send a mailing letter out over the summer was because I was teaching Dalcroze at Interlochen for six weeks. I never was able to go to Interlochen as a kid. Lots of obstacles were in my way. So I was thrilled to get to Interlochen on the other side. There are a few elite arts camps in the US; Interlochen is one. Tanglewood is another. (As an aside, Tanglewood, I’m available. Call me!) There was no way I was going to turn down the opportunity.
Interlochen is intense. I was tapped out for the whole six weeks. My entire day was taken up with teaching, or thinking about teaching, or lesson planning, or discussing teaching with my colleagues. There was no room in my brain for anything but eurhythmics the whole time I was there. Hence the lack of updates. The brain was learning and growing and being anxious and then growing some more and settling into a rhythm. When I put on my musician hat for the summer, I really do put it on and take all the others off.
One of the best things about Interlochen is the variety of musical groups that come through and perform. There are so many Interlochen alumni out there; Norah Jones is one, and so is Andrew Bird. So I availed myself of the concerts and went to a Lake Street Dive show, as well as Andrew Bird and Nickel Creek. I love small and medium venues, and Kresge is a covered amphitheater, so it was really the perfect opportunity to see these acts up close. Count me as a new fan of Andrew Bird, though I already knew of some of his work through the Muppet movie and other collaborations.
I also went to the student performances to support the kids. No matter how they act in the classroom, they’re always happy to see their teachers come out and support them, and it’s important as a teacher to ensure the students know we’re behind them all the way. We want all of them to succeed and to find joy in making music. Oh, and I made friends with a professional string quartet and went to their concert as well. Had a good time, listened to new-to-me music, and then a week later, I took their money at poker night.
See? The hold ‘em structure? I’ve tested it out extensively. I do love a good poker night.
While I was sweating my butt off in the Michigan heat, I did find enough wherewithal to look through some of the projects that are simmering in their slow cookers. And . . . I’m not going to lie, the fated lovers opening remains dear to me. So I think I’ll drop that excerpt here as an apology gift for leaving this mailing letter neglected for so long. That’ll be below.
To sum up, this summer of music/listening has held:
Lake Street Dive
Andrew Bird
Nickel Creek
A lot of string quartet repertoire
Norah Jones, 311, and Old Crow Medicine Show overheard from my dorm window
Saints of Storm and Sorrow audiobook—Y’ALL, IT’S SO GOOD, I ALMOST CRIED WHEN I HEARD DANICE’S TIA VOICE, AND THEN I FREAKED OUT OVER DANTE BASCO’S FIRST CHAPTER
Here’s the link to the Erewhon announcement page: https://www.erewhonbooks.com/announcing-mia-tsai-the-memory-hunters
And now, the prologue to the fated lovers.
Until next time. Catch you on the B-side.
This is the ending where they live.
That’s what Teya thinks as she lies beside Isi, her eyes closed, careful to put a small pause at each end of her breaths so Isi won’t suspect anything. She repeats it to herself even as she considers the mostly empty glass of water beside the bed and how easily she could break it, drag its transparent fineness across Isi’s neck before the other woman can finish flinching herself awake. Just as easily, Teya could slash that edge down her forearms and join Isi in the spiritual cloud beyond the physical world, waiting for the dual comets to once again light the sky, heralding their return.
The pain wouldn’t even register. It’d be a small thing, a speck against the unfathomable, infinite hollow that would be a life without Isi. Teya can imagine herself doing it: two movements, efficient, fast, driven by the conviction that the only anguish worse than learning your loved one is dead is the knowledge that you struck the killing blow.
But this is the ending where they live. Isi, too, is thinking this as she reaches out for Teya, her pale, theorem-tattooed arm coming to a rest on Teya’s sun-darkened shoulder. Isi’s apartment is thirty-four stories up, with a big picture window that overlooks the carved dunes of the Sea of Sand bordering the city. The theorem she etched into her left arm speaks of space and time and gravity, of how simple a task it would be for Isi to divert the ground’s pull from Teya so that she could be lifted, how Isi could hold Teya in her arms, then crash through the window, manipulating mathematics so intricate as to be magic to triple their weight, streaking swift and final to the ground before Teya can call the wind spirits to her and fly.
Teya opens her eyes and turns her head to face Isi. She skims her fingertips across Isi’s skin, following the line of her arm to her shoulder, then her collarbone, then to the thin, single-link hoviren chain on which a coin of skyglass is strung. Teya takes the coin between her fingers, watching as the glass brightens from space-black to azure. She remembers it: the old magic and how Isi wielded it so many lifetimes ago, reborn each time with her like a breath upon an ember.
“We live,” Isi whispers. Her chest aches. “The stars have seen it.”
Once a diviner, always a diviner. Teya returns the coin to Isi, pressing it against her skin, where it darkens to a star-speckled black. “I want you to be right.”
Isi threads her fingers through Teya’s, squeezing hard enough for it to hurt, bone meeting bone. “The sun is almost above the horizon. If we don’t get a call in the next five minutes . . .” She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Teya already knows: Peace will have been brokered. Teya won’t be called to the front lines to be a hammer for Onorria. Isi won’t become the Farundian anvil Teya will strike over and over and over again until they’re both ruined and left to try again in the next life. Until they lie beside each other, much like the way they are now, eyes locked on eyes, watching the other’s life gutter and fade.
“Five minutes.” Teya doesn’t disguise the hope in her voice. She brings her hand, still entwined with Isi’s, to her lips, and kisses their knuckles. “Watch the sun rise with me.”
As they did thousands of years ago at the turn of the new year, sitting in the doorway of their tent while the river of stars that swept away the Cloud grew thick and drew the Mare, her head tossing, toward the heavens. As they have done in all their lifetimes since, each time waiting for the signal that spells their mutual doom.
“Do you remember that one time . . . ?” Isi concentrates, and the star map caught in the skyglass coin brightens.
“I remember every time.” It’s their fate to know, before the end, who they are. To find each other right before the last of the sand falls through the hourglass. So many lifetimes together, and yet the time they’ve spent in full understanding of who and what they are would total only one. Teya is so tired of the cycle. Isi is too.
“Four minutes,” Isi whispers, then kisses Teya. “We should go back to the Holy Pillars.”
“Oh, that time,” Teya replies, smiling. Dimples appear in her cheeks. The light in the room strengthens. Normally, at the turn of the year, there would be a gathering at the Holy Pillars, but this year, both their countries are on edge, and the festivities have been muted. “That was wonderful.”
Isi kisses Teya again, the shyness that she so often displays in front of others disappearing completely. Three minutes, Teya thinks, kissing Isi back. If they must die, then Teya’s going to do something she’ll never regret.