new website, exciting publication news, and con appearances in Europe

Well, let's just do this all at once, shall we?

Hi. I'm Arkady, I write speculative fiction when I'm not writing Byzantine & Armenian academic history or planning cities, I (currently) live in Baltimore with my wife Vivian Shaw -- it's weird having a fixed address, but I've got one now, and I rather like it -- and I have just sold my first novel, along with its sequel, to Tor Books, where Devi Pillai will be my editor.

I'd tell you the title of the novel if I knew what it was. Title of novel status: assailing Fortress Tor Marketing with a trebuchet loaded with water balloons. The titles go sploosh and dissipate rapidly. In hopes of loading the trebuchet with something a little more substantive I'm currently rereading Kalpa Imperial: the greatest empire that never was by Angélica Gorodischer, which has been gorgeously translated into English by Ursula Le Guin. I recommend it even if you aren't trying to find a title for your space opera about imperialism, the colonized mind, institutional memory, and plot-bearing poetry contests.

I do have some lovely press for it already, though, and that I can share: http://www.tor.com/2017/07/26/arkady-martine-debut-space-opera-announcement/ It should, god willing and the creek don't rise, be published in 2019.

I am currently engrossed in the first round of edits for said novel, which means that the fact that I am also leaving for two weeks in Scandinavia tomorrow evening is hilariously both wonderful and terrible: going to Scandinavia! Sweden -- for my very own Byzantium and SFF conference, Reception Histories of the Future! Finland -- for WorldCon 75, the first WorldCon I've ever been to!

but my edits! (I expect I will be editing on planes.)

Schedule of where you might find me:

UPPSALA, SWEDEN (AUGUST 4-6) - Reception Histories of the Future: a conference on Byzantinisms, Speculative Fiction, and the Literary Heritage of Medieval Empire

Friday August 4th

  • Opening Lecture
  • Panel - Space Empires: Roman or Post-Roman? AKA Rhomaioi and Barbaroi in Space

Saturday August 5th

  • Panel: Histories of the Future: Apocalypse as a Future-State, Ends of the World, and the Fall of Empires
  • Discussion: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem - or Byzantium to do with the 21st Century?

Sunday August 6th

  • Panel: Empire and its dissidents: reading the speculative fiction of empire and conquest through postcolonial eyes (moderator)
  • Panel: After the decline and fall - decadence in SFF

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (AUGUST 7, 8:30 PM) - An evening at the Nobel Museum - What stories does science tell? From psychohistory to planet-busting superweapons.

  • In which I get to moderate an amazing panel of SFF authors, including Kameron Hurley, Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, Fran Wilde, and Jo Walton.

HELSINKI, FINLAND (AUGUST 9-12) - WorldCon 75

Thursday August 10

  • Panel: Fanfic As A Writing School (10 AM)
  • Panel: Reimagining Worlds With Speculative Poetry (9 PM)

Friday August 11

  • Panel: Fantasy Warfare Not Based In Medieval Methods (10 AM)

And after that I'm just wandering around the con, having a lovely time!