Feb 2023 – One month to go!

The Faithless is almost here!

Hi everyone!

The Faithless is almost here! In fact, for some folks, it’s already here—check out this final copy Danial Roman has. It’s in good company, too. Lots of faith happening in books this year…

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I haven’t gotten my boxes of final books yet, but I did get my ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) right before I left for Australia! I might even have a spare one to give away at random to one of you subscribers…

Okay, to business. This is a long one, so please feel free to skip to what feels most relevant and interesting to you.

Preorders

You still have time to preorder The Faithless at your store of choice and enter your receipt in this form here if you want to get access to the secret digital art and the sticker pack (as long as supplies and postage money last). If you have already submitted, go ahead and make sure you’ve given permission to use your address for GDPR reasons.

A few places to get your book:

Gay’s the Word (London, UK): My local and one of my favorite places. If you pre-order from them, I’ll go sign the book personally before they ship it out to you. If you like, you can request specific personalizations in the notes field. They also ship internationally! (They also have a consistent stack of signed The Unbrokens.)
Portal Bookstore (York, UK): Not local to me but a great supporter and a great shop that focuses on not just queer books but SFF. They will have signed bookplates to match The Faithless!
The Bookish Type (Leeds, UK): I stumbled upon this queer indie shop when I was roaming Leeds for unrelated reasons and it was awesome, a hidden gem. They will also have signed bookplates. (You might have to email them about preordering online.)
Tubby and Coo’s (New Orleans, US): Another queer-owned indie bookshop (sensing a trend here?) and longtime supporter of my work. Follow them for book clubs and readalongs—they even partner with Portal Bookstore above for Over the Rainbow events.
Bookshop.org US or Bookshop.org UK: A solid Amazon alternative that gives kickbacks to authors or indie bookshops if you buy “under” their store—including me!

Of course, you can also get your book at any shop you like, ebook or audiobook or print. Request it from your libraries, too!

Illumicrate

Yes! There will be an Illumicrate edition of The Faithless, so you can get your matching sets all of you who snagged a special edition of The Unbroken. It will have sprayed edges and some foil under the hood. I also just finished signing the whole lot of the tip-in pages, so you know they’re extra special. ;)

EDIT: According to the website, general pre-sale will open Feb 16, 3 PM GMT!

Events/Appearances

Samantha Shannon and Saara El-Arifi, Feb. 24 7 PM GMT: As many of you will know, I’m a massive fan of Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree, so being asked to help celebrate the release of A Day of Fallen Night (the standalone prequel to Priory) is a massive honor. I’ll be opening for them (like a band!) by reading a short passage from The Faithless. Though the tickets to the physical event are already sold out (they sold out in literal minutes), they’ve opened a livestream version as well. So see me read and then watch what promises to be an amazing interview between two brilliant authors while I stay out of it.
Me and Elijah Kinch Spector in Conversation, March 16, 5 PM GMT: I really enjoyed talking with Elijah when his book Kalyna the Soothsayer came out back in August, so I’m excited to have the tables turned on me. While you wait for our talk, you should go read Kalyna. I’m sure we’ll talk about the similarities between Kalyna and Touraine and Luca and Dugmush and you won’t want to be left out.
TBRCon: You can catch my panel on Hidden Gems of SFF and my reading from The Faithless with a short Q&A on YouTube now!

There will probably more events and podcasts in the near future, so keep an eye out.

Awards Eligibility

It’s been a relatively quiet year, publication-wise. That’s not something that bothers me. Some years are for planting and tilling, some are for reaping. I’m still very proud of the pieces I did put out, one essay and one novelette.

“The Crosses We Bear: The Butch Martyr in SFF” at Tor.com - eligible for Best Related Work/nonfiction categories
“Your Eyes, My Beacon: Being an Account of Several Misadventures and How I Found My Way Home” at Uncanny Magazine - eligible for Best Novelette categories

Miscellaneous

Books & Butches: Defying Gender Roles: I partnered with Google Books to show off a list of books I love with butch women (or in some cases, nonbinary or genderqueer, but there’s nuance within the narratives so I’ll leave that interpretation up to you and the authors). If you have an Android phone, use the google play app or whatever, because it’s optimized for that. I do believe it is US only, though, so if you don’t see it, that may be the issue. (Change your Google setting to US to have a peek. ;))
Book 3, aka Codename: The Sovereign: The first draft is done and I’ve been doing another pass on it to nail down some particular plot points that eluded me the first time. And may continue to elude me, but that’s what the editor is for. I’ll send it to her hopefully by end of February, just in time to move on to launching The Faithless and working on my next projects… 👀 (We will also soon see if The Sovereign will go from working title to Final Title!)
Next Projects?? Stay tuned for an announcement in the near future. All I can say is…think small.

What am I reading?

Honestly, it’s quite hard to read right now between revising one book and launching another. I’m getting the most traction out of audiobooks, but! A couple things I have read recently or am spending my evenings with as I wind down:

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (still, yes, it’s a big book)
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay: A classic of the genre and I’ve only recently gotten into Kay thanks to my agent and my partner, but I fell in love immediately. I feel like I have a lot to learn from him, and so this year I think I’m going to work through his bibliography, partly for enjoyment and partly in study.
Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree: Travis shook the world with his cosy, low-stakes fantasy (I dunno, I could argue that he was working with the highest of stakes, our heart’s dreams and hopes) Legends and Lattes and I finally read it and adored it absolutely. I’m lucky enough to have an ARC of his second book on my Kindle, so that might be just the right speed for me next up.