New story out, er, yesterday! I’ve just returned from travel and am still a little behind, but Nature Futures put The Bursar out into the world anyway! It’s perhaps not what one might call light and fluffy fare, but I hope you find it interesting all the same.
Tag: publishing
We just keep trying
New story out today in Lightspeed: Until the Cure is about eldercare, exhaustion, and supporting each other through the worst of it. It’s feeling appropriate in my extended family (thankfully not in my household) today, but then I think, well, when wouldn’t it, that’s kind of why I wrote it….
Virtual book event!
Come on out–in the privacy of your own home, with your own mug of tea and your own comfy clothes–to a virtual book event Wednesday! Friend and fellow Horned Lark Press author Jo Miles and I will be discussing our recent books, with our publisher Kevin Hearne as our host!
Join the clamor
It’s today! My novella A Dubious Clamor is officially out in the world today! If you find yourself in the mood for a fantasy novella full of harpies, opinionated weapons, and a ragtag bunch of allies taking on the fash, you can just have it whenever you want. Which is just wild from my perspective, after so many months of work. Lots of ordering options here.
If you’re going to be in the Twin Cities area Thursday, please do come to my book launch party, which is 6 p.m. at Moon Palace Books. There will be cake after (including gf and vegan options because that is how we roll), and I will have a lovely conversation with my friend Naomi Kritzer for everyone’s enjoyment (plus audience Q&A and signing and, as I said, cake).
If you’re not going to be in the Twin Cities, or if you prefer virtual events, or if you just can’t get enough of me flapping my yap, there will be a virtual event on Wednesday, September 23 (not tomorrow, the Wednesday after that) at 6:00 Central. It will feature friend and fellow Horned Lark author Jo Miles, and we’re hosted by our publisher, Kevin Hearne. Free to attend, reserve a spot here.
Still want to hear more from me about this book? Check out the Big Idea piece I wrote about it for John Scalzi’s blog, or My Favorite Bit for Mary Robinette Kowal’s! Or here’s an interview with blogger Rob McLennan!
Launch party!
I’ve already told you about my upcoming novella, A Dubious Clamor, coming September 15 from Horned Lark Press. But now, please come to a party about it!
That’s right, Thursday, September 17–two weeks from when I am posting this!–at 6:00 p.m. at Moon Palace Books, 3032 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis, Naomi Kritzer will join me for a book launch event. I hope you join me too! Free event with free cake! Not free books, you’ll have to buy one if you want one, but still, free event with free cake sounds pretty good.
If you’re not going to be in Minneapolis and are sad about missing it, don’t worry, the information for a virtual event will be coming soon. But in the meantime, Thursday the 17! 6:00! Book and cake!
Good company
I’m happy to say that one of last year’s stories, “And Every Galatea Shaped Anew,” will be appearing in Neil Clarke’s Best Science Fiction of the Year 2025. You can see the full table of contents and how to preorder here!
Made glorious summer by this….
I’m in Michigan visiting M’s family when what should show up in my inbox? OH HI:
What’s this? Why it’s the Publishers Marketplace announcement of next year’s book! I’m doing edits on That Fatal Discontent now, to bring it to the world next summer! Something else to look forward to!
Since I’m traveling, I’m in an unfamiliar format that is not making it clear whether there’s alt-text, so in case you can’t read the image, it’s all text, and it says, “PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE Deal Report. Category: Sci-Fi and Fantasy. August 13, 2026. THAT FATAL DISCONTENT by Marissa Lingen. Imprint: Union Square & Co. Poet and short story author Marissa Lingen’s THAT FATAL DISCONTENT, pitched as a Shakespearean-inspired sci-fi exploration of disability justice, rebellion, and survival aboard a generation ship as two sisters–a ‘shipsider’ genetically unsuited for life on the gravity-bound colony, and the ship’s dazzling and ambitious new captain–lead battling factions after the death of their reckless third sister throws the ship into chaos as it hurtles toward the end of its centuries-long mission, to Ardyce Alspach at Union Square & Co, for publication in summer 2027, by Kurestin Armada at Root Literary (world).”
Ghost story with tomato soup
New story out in Strange Horizons today! Scarcely Gone is a thing I haven’t done much of: it’s a ghost story. In this case it’s a ghost story with a John Denver title: “he’d rather play his banjo in the morning when the moon is scarcely gone” from “I Guess He’d Rather Be in Colorado.” That makes this one of a random series of stories I’ve written from fragments of my dad’s music, which are not linked in any other way except that their titles came from singing artists Dad loved around the house.
(This is why, incidentally, “the story behind the story” is often so hard to write: because “how did you come to write this story?” often has a beginning like “well, when I was preverbal my parents listened to a bunch of James Taylor, so….”)
Anyway, hope you enjoy my foray into the world of ghost stories!
You of all people know I take joy in this
New essay out today in Uncanny! Middle-Aged Love: Rereading in Your Forties and Beyond. I think we need to have a lot more conversation about the evolution of readerly identity with time, life changes, phase of life, and this is my upbeat start on that. No suck fairies here! Hope you enjoy!
Planting a seed
Good morning! I hope you had nice dreams last night! Here’s a new story from Sunday Morning Transport, The Seed of a New Dream. May you find your own dreams…and your own way to work around them….