Happy April, everyone! The flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, the weather is... pouring rain. I did move to Oregon on purpose; I just have to remind myself of that. The rain is necessary for all the greenery! (I complained about the weather when I lived in San Diego; I can find a way to complain about it here.)
Anyway. Hey, guess what? I have a book coming out next week!
We are less than a week out from the release of Hunters of the Lost City, and if you haven't preordered it already, you can take advantage of Barnes & Noble's huge preorder sale from today until 4/22: get 25% off of your preorder with the coupon code PREORDER25.
That's a damn good sale! Preorder a bunch of other books while you're at it. Preordering books is good for authors and good for you, because it's like getting a nice little present to surprise your future self. I myself am going to go order as many future volumes of MXTX books as are listed, because I am an adult and I do what I want, and what I want is to fill my bookshelves with over-the-top epic danmei about men with swords falling in love.
While we're on the topic of Hunters of the Lost City: I will be at the LA Times Festival of Books this Saturday, April 23, for a panel about middle grade adventure stories. The panel is titled "Middle Grade Fiction: Extraordinary Kids, Extraordinary Adventures," and I'll be there alongside Lisa McMann, Melissa de la Cruz, and Jonathan Hunt. We'll be on the YA Stage at 10:30 AM Saturday.
Go to the festival webpage for event info. It's a huge event that just swarms the USC campus with book lovers, and there is something for everyone to enjoy. Check it out if you're in SoCal this weekend!
And one more thing: Hunters has been selected for the Kids' Indie Next List! This is a first for me! The Indie Next lists are recommendations from indie booksellers across the country. I love the these lists, love seeing what booksellers are hyped up about. Booksellers know and love and support books so much, in ways that are vitally important to authors. To be included on their recommendation list is so exciting.
This is what one bookseller has to say:
“Hunters of the Lost City is a story that will keep you enthralled until the very last page. Full of friendship, mystery, magic, and monsters, this story of a strong young girl trying to save all she loves is a ride you won't ever want to end!”
—Marielle Orff, Towne Book Center & Café, Collegeville, PA
Finally, the big news for this week: Dead Space has won the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award!
This is such a huge surprise. I didn't think there was any chance I would win, not with so many great books and authors nominated. I was so certain I wouldn't win that I forgot about the announcement and had to be reminded twice by friends to watch it, which I did while helping them paint their dining room. Not as glamorous as an in-person event would be, but at least nobody expected me to give a speech, because I promise you: I never would have prepared a speech.
I am just… so ridiculously honored that the panel of judges chose Dead Space. Honored but still, honestly, so very surprised. I am not an award author. I am not a list author. I don’t mean that in a self-deprecating way; I think I write pretty good books and stories. I like writing them a lot. It’s my favorite thing to do. I’m going to keep doing it and you can’t stop me. I especially like writing about people dying horrible in space.
But I also know that my books and stories aren’t super popular and might not ever be. Especially not in adult SFF, where I barely have any presence at all in the community, on the recommendation lists, in the conversations. I mean, just to use one example, if I had a dime for every time Salvation Day and Dead Space have been left off a very confident, very authoritative “every single recent sci fi book with queer protagonists! all of them! every one!” list I would have enough dimes that it would be very awkward to count, like, perhaps not enough dimes to buy a candy bar, but enough to make me wish I could buy a candy bar. I do know that doesn’t mean anything except that those lists and the like are not comprehensive and should not claim to be, but I keep looking because I apparently like inflicting pain upon myself, like those rats that give themselves electric shocks in lab experiments. (“Every single recent sci fi book written by laboratory rats with weird hobbies!”)
What I mean is, I'm not used to anybody noticing, not really, not to this extent. The fact that the judges found my book and loved it and chose it is astonishing to me. It doesn’t feel real, but I am truly, truly delighted.
You can buy Dead Space in paperback, ebook, and audio formats in all the usual places.
Normally I would finish this newsletter by rambling about something or other that’s on my mind, but honestly it has been an exhausting month and I don’t have anything interesting to say. I’ll just let the good news stand on its own for now. I hope these days are treating you well.
Congratulations! Dead Space deserves all the love...and the lists. Maybe I should make one of my own in order to include it 😉.
I have to admit, your first name was much of the reason that I checked Dead Space out of the local library. And I just gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. It was a great read. You are a credit to our name!
Congratulations on the Philip K. Dick award. Well deserved.