Hugo noms, preorders, and panels (oh my)
It is finally SPRING here in NYC, which means a dizzying back-and-forth between beautiful, bright, warm days that you long to spend sprawled out in a park with an open picnic basket, and gloomy rainy weeks where you leave the house only with enormous reluctance and resentment.
Is this an accurate description of the weather? Is this a metaphor for my mental state? Probably both.
Updates
- The Hugo Award Nominations were announced yesterday, which means I can publicly yell that FINNA was nominated for a Hugo in the Best Novella category. The whole ballot is SO good, and it’s cool to see my publisher Tordotcom sweep the whole Novella category.
- We are less than one week away from DEFEKT‘s publication date. If you haven’t preordered it yet, you can do so here. I’ve got some fun stuff planned for publication week, if I can get the time to do it.
- This is my first newsletter from Buttondown! I migrated here from Substack, but everything should be more or less the same. Please remember to mark this as Not Spam, so it doesn’t get caught in your filters.
Events
- I will be at Flights of Foundry this weekend! I’ll be doing a panel about developmental editing with Mike Allen, LaShawn Wanak, Jordan Ifueko, and Kate Maruyama Saturday at 8PM EST, and a reading on Sunday at 7:30 AM EST, where I will be partly asleep and drinking tea as if my life depends on it.
- On 4/21, the day after DEFEKT‘s publication, I’ll be doing an interview at the Second Life Book Club. If you are not a Second Life user, you can also watch the livecast on Youtube.
- I had a great conversation with Hilary Bisenieks over on Tales from the Trunk, about composting failed stories, processing critiques, and stories that never see the light of day. That should be out Friday, but I encourage you to dig through earlier episodes and subscribe; Hilary was a fantastic host and excellent conversation partner.
What I’m reading/watching/listening to
I finished Honeygirl by Morgan Rogers, and am working on a gushy review of it. It’s a perfect blend of a queer romance and quarter-life crisis coming of age. I cannot wait to read everything else Rogers writes.
I started A.K. Larkwood’s The Unspoken Name a couple days ago and am already halfway through it. It’s been a while since I’ve read epic fantasy, and this is a perfect reminder of what I love about the genre: imaginative settings, infinitely readable action, and complex character arcs that play out over years. I wish to be cradled in Csorwe’s hot, beefy, awkward arms.
The Magnus Archives has ended and I don’t know what to do with myself. Probably start listening to the second season of Unwell.
Nibs and I started watching Jujutsu Kaisen and it hits EVERY SHONEN ANIME TROPE that we both love. Himbo protagonist whose superpower is friendship? Teacher/pedagogy feelings? World-building info dumps that happen mid fight sequence? Body horror? Hell yes.