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Hello hi happy day after Equinox

Yesterday was the Autumnal Equinox where I am, and for most of my friends Equinox is a “yay entry into a happy season” time. Even if they have allergies! (Which, as an allergy sufferer myself, I echo.) For that reason, even if I’m in my skeptic mindset, I love celebrating the magic of Equinoxes.

The week prior to Equinox brought our area a lot of rain (thus the web above) plus some storms and falling trees in the preserve behind our house. I had no idea how accurate the “tree falling” noise is in Stardew Valley! Luckily, it hasn’t been too rainy this week, so the leaves are finally becoming vibrant. Check out some pretties:

Just the Tiniest, Eensiest Morsel of News

If you’re not following me at my Nora Shear socials, my book No Dream Like Forever is now available in PAPERBACK on Amazon.com! I got a few proof prints and I just ran around the house hugging a copy and giggling.

And then I did it again a couple of days later. It’s really something when you have your work as a physical thing in your hands. I didn’t expect that to be such a dopamine rush.

Sadly, that’s about it where writing is concerned. I’m still working on the next book in the Descendants series, No Sky Like Midnight, and I’m looking forward to sharing more…

wait.

WAIT.

My brain is so foggy I forgot that I haven’t shown you the COVER omg Risa what the heck

Check out this vivid beauty!

I have got to get better at promoting. Oh, but I did take a workshop at:

Flights of Foundry!

This past weekend I had the great joy of participating in Flights of Foundry, the best global virtual spec-fic conference out there! Run by Dream Foundry, it has become my only ‘must attend’ conference, not only for its global nature (there’s literally programming for every time zone) but also because the commitment to accessibility is fierce. When there was a missing accessibility function this yr, they jumped on it and got a vendor in a hurry - no excuses. No deciding they’d just bail because the platform had an issue. (Side-eyes WorldCon.)

I adore these folks.

This year I won spots in two workshops. The fantastic Val Evermech showed a bunch of us the different methods of marketing and led us through some simple tricks, which is what reminded me to add this to the newsletter. After that, the extraordinary Anaea Lay laid out the business side of freelancing. Both unbelievably useful in different ways for my little self-pub venture.

I was a speaker on one panel (Gender? I hardly knew her!) and a moderator on two others (first for Stay on Target: ADHD Creatives Talk and then for Disability Futurisms). Each one held such magic and beauty and I’m deeply honored to have shared time with everyone who was part of this¹.

Unfortunately, due to illness and timing I was only able to attend two other panels, but they were both well worth it. I jumped on a chill and chat with the brilliant and fun D.A. Xiaolin Spires (her lovely book Ellipses is available for pre-order) and a panel on microphone technology with Eric Valdes and Alex Neumann. I’m hoping to use the latter for making my promotional work a little more interesting.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s con, and I’m hoping to promote Dream Foundry’s fundraisers as they come up!

Do You Remember…

Hey, since this week containes a beloved musical reference? If you have HBO Max, I highly recommend you check out the documentary Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World) - it’s pretty amazing.

And?

I have two for you this month! Have a cat:

And have a puppy:

With love and weirdness,

~Risa