Tag: publishing

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!

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).”

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!

New poem out in Not One of Us! It’s called “Evolution,” and it’s about, uh. It’s about fairy tales. If you read it the title will make sense! I hope! Or at least as much sense as fairy tales are supposed to….

Hello, friends. I’ve got something to show you

It’s a book cover! In fact it is my book cover! Because…you can preorder my novella, A Dubious Clamor, directly from the publisher or from an assortment of bookstores of your choice! In ebook or hardcover editions! Isn’t it pretty? Isn’t it appropriate for the book?

Okay, so you can’t know whether it’s appropriate for the book yet. But you can trust Naomi Kritzer, friend and multi-award winner, who describes this book as, “No war but class war; also, harpies!” (She also says it’s “delightful, unique, and frequently hilarious,” in case you were wondering.) Some other awesome people describe it as things too! Wonderful people like authors Ruthanna Emrys and Davinia Evans and critic Paul Weimer! Do you want to know what those things are? You can see them on the pre-order page!

But wait! there’s more. (You did the right voice in your head for that, right?) If you preorder, you can not only get this lovely novella (ooooh! aaaaah!), you can also get a really cool sticker of a skeptical sword! You can put this on your laptop, phone, water bottle, small child, or other sticker-bearing device! Be the envy of your friends and neighbors, or at least those of your friends and neighbors who are cool enough to like sword stickers. (As for the other kind, who cares what they think? You are a discerning individual who knows the value of sword stickers, and that’s what matters.)

Don’t go yet! There’s still more. Sadly we currently live in the timeline that has class war but no harpies. (I have improved on this in the novella! Which you can read on September 15 if you preorder it now!) But do you know what our timeline does have? It has harpy eagles. Harpy eagles are so cool. And the lovely people at the World Wildlife Fund allow you to donate to support their habitat. Every person who preorders will be entered into a drawing (subject to sweepstakes laws in your jurisdiction) to win a harpy eagle plushie that also supports harpy eagles in real life! For each hundred pre-orders, we will add another harpy eagle plushie (and its attendant habitat support) to the drawing, so your odds of winning an awesome harpy eagle plushie to be your new cuddly pal and mascot will never be less than 1 in 100. Or you can pass it on to be the cuddly pal and mascot of someone else you know, that part is up to you. Similarly you can also preorder copies of the novella and not read them, if for some reason you’re opposed to opinionated weaponry, fictional operetta, and cake in your reading life. I will warn you, there is much cake.

So here it is! Pre-order today! or also other days, that’s fine too!

I’ll be doing my usual recommendations for short stuff other people have read at the end of December, when I’ve had a chance to read the things that are still coming out in December, but I think I’ve seen the last of my new publications for the year, so here’s what I’ve been up to!

…a year turns out to be a long time. One of the reasons I think it’s good to do these year-in-review posts is that the sense of “oh wait, was that this same year???” is strong. I feel like my tendency to put things I’ve accomplished in the rearview and focus on the next thing is generally really useful to me, but it does tend to lead to a “what have you done lately” mindset. When it turns out that what I have done lately is a pile of stories. There were more SF than fantasy stories, which surprised me, it didn’t feel that way…more on why I think that is in a minute. In any case, here’s the 2025 story list:

The Year the Sheep God Shattered (Diabolical Plots)

Her Tune, In Truth (Sunday Morning Transport)

If the Weather Holds (Analog)

Disconnections (Nature Futures)

The Things You Know, The Things You Trust (If There’s Anyone Left)

All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt (Lightspeed)

Things I Miss About Civilization (Nature Futures)

A Shaky Bridge (Clarkesworld)

What a Big Heart You Have (Kaleidotrope)

And Every Galatea Shaped Anew (Analog)

The Crow’s Second Tale (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

Advice for Wormhole Travelers (The Vertigo Project)

She Wavers But She Does Not Weaken (The Vertigo Project)

The Torn Map (The Vertigo Project)

So yeah! Stories galore! And with a very satisfying variety of publishers, with the exception that The Vertigo Project was a focus of a lot of my attention this year. Which makes sense! It’s a pretty big deal. All the poetry I had published this year was with The Vertigo Project as well, although I have a couple of poems ready to come out in 2026 from other places. Here’s the list of poems:

Club Planet Vertigo (The Vertigo Project)

Greetings From Innerspace (The Vertigo Project)

On the Way Down (The Vertigo Project)

Preparation (The Vertigo Project)

The Nature of Nemesis (The Vertigo Project)

I only had one piece of nonfiction out this year, The Stranger Next Door: The Domestic Fantastic in Classic Nordic Children’s Literature (Uncanny). But it’s a topic that’s very close to my heart, and I’m glad I had the chance to wallow in it. Er, I mean, share it with you.

I suppose the other thing that could be considered nonfiction is that I wrote journaling prompts to help people with vertigo process their vertigo experience through creative writing. I also wrote a group workshop format for the same general ideas, and I ran the first of those workshops in November. It was lovely and seemed to be very meaningful to the people involved–and that’s one of the things that’s nice about the facilitator (that is, me) being someone with vertigo, it meant that I was talking about our experiences rather than their experiences. The Vertigo Project has been the gift that keeps on giving all year, and there will be more of it yet in 2026. What a great thing to get to be involved with. I’m so pleased to have done this work with these people.

I was also a finalist for the Washington Science Fiction Association’s Small Press Award, for one of 2024’s stories, A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places. I got to go to Capclave and hang out with a bunch of friends and enjoy being a finalist.

I think the main reason that I felt like I was doing equal parts fantasy and SF this year is that I wrote approximately half each of two novels, one fantasy and one SF. Both are still going strong. We’ll see where they take me. I’m also working on some more short work in both categories. While I published a lot more short SF, my biggest news in recent months is that I sold a fantasy novella to Horned Lark Press. A Dubious Clamor features harpies, politics, operettas, pastries, and complicated friendships, and it’s forthcoming in 2026. A lot done this year, a lot to look forward to!