April 2021 Newsletter
One month-ish after The Unbroken release!
Howdy everyone!
It’s been just over a month since The Unbroken came out and by all accounts, things are going as well as we can know right now. I’m so grateful for all of you who are getting the word out there about this story. If you’ve read the book and liked it, I’d appreciate you telling all your friends, enemies, colleagues to grab it, too, and to leave reviews/ratings on sites like Amazon/Goodreads/Storygraph/etc. Requesting from libraries helps, too! And if you’ve already reviewed it, thank you! It really does make a difference; word of mouth is one of the biggest ways people hear about new books, so it’s a big help. Especial thanks also to the bloggers who posted reviews!
Here is me on my first trip to see the book in shops after lockdown! This weekend, S and I ran down to Forbidden Planet and tada! (If you’re in the London area and want a signed copy…might want to move fast.)
New (Free) Reads (but subscriptions are great)
If you’ve finished reading The Unbroken, I also had a few more things come out in the past month you might be interested in:
- A short story, “The Captain and the Quartermaster,” about…well, a captain and a quartermaster and their romance that gives the army hope to fight on against a tyrant. It’s also in audio.
- An essay, “The Fiction of Peace, the Fantasy of War,” in which I meditate on how and why we write about war in fantasy (and science fiction) and to what effects. If you’ve read any of my work, you’ll know that this is a topic I’m especially interested in, and while I don’t think I’m done mulling it over, not by a long shot, I am proud of this essay.
Awards Noms!!!
In other great news, I’ve been shortlisted for a few different awards, either for my own work or my work as part of the PodCastle team! If you like our work, I’d appreciate your consideration and your votes!
- “You Perfect, Broken Thing” - Shortlisted for Best Short Story in the IGNYTE Awards. ANYONE CAN VOTE. (yes, even you, Mom.) So please vote!
- PodCastle - Shortlisted for Best Fiction Podcast in the IGNYTE Awards. Again, ANYONE CAN VOTE. (yes, still you, Mother.) Please see our voting packet here. We will also have a downloadable ebook style document soon, but all of our work from 2020 is available for free in audio wherever you get your podcasts and to read on the website.
- PodCastle - Shortlisted for Best Semiprozine in the Hugo Awards (A HUGO!!). Only people registered for WorldCon 2021 are eligible to vote in this award. Same voting packet!
Upcoming Events
While I’m recording a few panels in advance of undetermined releases, one event is coming up!
I’ll be on a panel at Cymera Festival with R.F. Kuang, author of the awesome The Poppy War trilogy, which just concluded last year with The Burning God. I’m so so excited about this because I love Rebecca’s work and what she’s doing with history and with the protagonist, Rin.
Fighting the Good Fight with C.L. Clark and R.F. Kuang: Caught between morale, politics and love, how can you be sure what to fight for?
Event details: Saturday, June 5, 2021 7:15 PM - 8:15 PM BST
Tickets: £3/£5 (plus 50p booking fee)
Fan Art!!!
One really great thing about the reception of The Unbroken has been the fan art that’s come out. I can’t express how amazing it feels to have artists spend their precious time on my characters, and to get to see the characters through someone else’s eyes. Obviously, I want to share those with you. DO feel free to show them to other people, but please don’t separate them from the artists’ names—credit where credit is due, after all.
(This above one is for people who’ve gotten to the end…IYKYK. I def didn’t cry when I saw it.)
(And this one is amazing because it’s Touraine arm wrestling Gideon from Gideon the Ninth. I’d love to see that match-up in real life. 👀)
A Brief Update About Book 2
The Unbroken 2 (among other things, I call it #CrankyMagicPrincess) is underway—my editor has a draft of it and I’m puttering on some ideas for revision and doing some supplementary research. I hint at some teasers here, in my Instagram Live with the folks at Illumicrate, namely new point of view characters, magic, and whether there will or will not be more kissing.
Overall, though, I’ve found most things authors say about writing the second book in a trilogy while the first one is coming out and you’re doing promo, etc., etc., are true. Which is to say—it’s hard.
What I’m reading
- The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. I’ve yelled about this book a lot on Twitter, but I love it and it was really cool to listen since I’ve been playing AC: Valhalla
- Hild by Nicola Griffith, which is a dense book that really immerses you into the world and the politics of an older England, not too far off from the England of AC:Valhalla (you see a trend, I think?)
- Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton, because it also fits into the above category and I wanted some sword lesbians and have been nostalgically craving the mass market paperback feel of the fantasy books of my youth—heavy bricks with tiny print—and I found this when I was signing books in Forbidden Planet. (You can see it in the picture above. Yep. Bought that one.)
- Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon is also part of my Book 2 research process. As well as life research. I highly recommend everyone read it for no better reason than giving the world we live in some context.
I am reading all of these at once (except TWH, which I finished a bit ago but still moon over). I don’t advise it, but it’s how I used to read and I’m feeling more nebulous than anything these days. Any reading at all is a victory, so I’m embracing that.
That’s all I’ve got for now, but as usual, you can find the most up-to-date happenings on my Twitter @C_L_Clark. Until next time…
Stay sharp, my friends.
Cherae