At the World Fantasy Convention in Maryland This Weekend

I'm in Baltimore, Maryland this weekend for the World Fantasy Convention. It's a lovely convention packed with brilliant writers. I'll be out in public as much as possible, and I'll also be on a special panel Saturday afternoon.

Monsters and the Monstrous

Saturday, 4:00 PM

Hannah Strom-Martin (Moderator), Julie C. Day, Aliette de Bodard, Teresa Frohock, John Wiswell

Monsters have existed as long as humans have made myths. But what makes a monster truly horrifying? A look at the lines between myth, horror, privilege, class, gender, and more. Discuss the panel online using the hashtah #MonsterMonstrous.

Hope to see you all here!

Catching Up

This is the first year my sister has hosted Thanksgiving dinner, and God has decided to celebrate by sending a blizzard for my drive. While there's much I should blog about, I'd like to catch up on five dear topics:

1. The World Fantasy Convention was wonderful.
When I got home, several things I don’t care to write about fell on me at the same time and I never got to write up what a lovely time I had at the WFC. I got to spend an hour digging into what makes Max Gladstone’s fantastic world work, and to gush at Ted Chiang and Guy Gavriel Kay. My God, the number of fascinating people I met. Seeing VP classmates was a blessing each time, even when I couldn’t hear anyone over the noise of the bar. It’s one of the finest publishing conventions I’ve ever attended, and I will do my damnedest to attend the one in Saratoga Springs next-year. Join me?

2. io9 Likes Me?
So in the middle of everything, I was quoted for a full paragraph in an io9 article called “7 Worldbuilding Tropes Science Fiction and Fantasy Needs to Stop Using.” James Whitbook appreciated my old essay on the vast potential of Fantasy to stretch beyond visions of Fake Feudal Europe. It was a lovely thing to wake up to that morning. I stand by the essay, too.

3 “Wet” is now available for free.
Earlier this month my short story “Wet” was published in the first issue Urban Fantasy Magazine. With the magazine now out there, they have posted “Wet” for free on their website. While the magazine is Pay-What-You-Want and very slickly designed for e-readers, anyone who prefers browser reading can click right through. I’m very proud of this little story, which is about a ghost, and the patience only an immortal can have for her. I’d love your feedback on it.

4. What do you think happened in this airport bathroom?


5. Start Thinking About Best Reads 2014.As December approaches, I'm reflecting on the splendid books I've this year. I'll be hosting the annual Best Reads blog hop again this year, probably starting right after Christmas, giving anyone who wants in enough time to check their shelves. Any books, published at any time in human history, that you read for the first time this year, and that struck you the strongest.

So, that's four. I've got to get the family lasagna together. What have you all been up to?

Gearing For ChiCon Workshops

Today I’m doing one of the hardest things I’ll do all year. I’m putting my current work-in-progress on the shelf at the 50,000-word mark in order to complete one more draft of my previous 110,000-word novel. Beyond the anxiety of abandoning some beloved characters right before something terrible happens to one of them, there’s the anxiety of having two weeks to return this book and turn out the new draft.

All the beta and theta readers have returned their copies, the family is out of the house, and in mid-July the ChiCon workshops open for submissions. If I’m lucky I’ll have this book in front of three incredible authors for a sit-down in September.

On the plus side, the feedback has been pretty glowing and I know how to accommodate just about everything. Every individual criticism, that is. In writing both of these novels I’ve found the biggest anxiety actually comes from an irrational sense of scope, of looking at the mountain of work rather than the individual bits. I know I can do all of this, I have done all of this before, and yet my lizard brain views it as impossible. It seems like the hardest thing in the world.

Of course, five minutes calling my cousin Will or looking up the latest from Syria disproves that notion. But it’s a notion.

I’ll apologize in advance of some Bathroom Monologues in the next few weeks are inspired by a book you can’t read yet, or if my Twitter feed turns into a stream of consciousness on the process. Feel free to jab me if I devolve too rapidly.

And thank you all, in earnest, for your support. I think I’m pretty close to rendering this the best thing I’ve ever written.