two weeks until A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is released
There will be launch events. There will be so many launch events, and I can’t wait.
virtual telepresences
Telepresence — WebEx or Zoom or the endlessness of Microsoft Teams work video-meetings — will never not make me think of William Gibson’s The Peripheral. We’re not quite there yet: no Wheelie Boys attending meetings in our place, with our projected faces superimposed on their screens. But right now it certainly feels as if we’re about to get there.
Which is all to say: like everyone else, I’ve been staying at home for the past nine weeks while the world slipped out of phase. Plague year, my coterie of writer-friends have taken to telling each other. This is a plague year: all bets are off.
I haven’t known how to write about good things, and I’m desperately bored of writing and reading about the pandemic and how it makes us all feel (let us simply leave it as: timelessness is a terrible thing to experience psychologically, and also timelessness is what we need to sit with right now). So I haven’t written newsletters. And now I am realizing that I … haven’t been telling anyone about the lovely things I am very grateful for, or how you all could stare at me via your computers (or your Wheelie Boy, if you are slightly deeper down the apocalypse curve than the rest of us. You do you.)
So. I will now tell you, with what feels like nearly unbearable awkwardness. Here we go.
NEBULAS, HUGOS, & THE COMPTON CROOK AWARD
I have the absolutely amazing and somewhat terrifying honor of reporting that A Memory Called Empire has been nominated for both the Nebula and the Hugo for Best Novel.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the nominations. I’m so glad that this book has found an audience that wants to honor it in this way: these are the genre awards I grew up paying attention to. I’m so immensely proud of the book I wrote, and it is a profound joy that so many of you found it worth nominating.
I also was utterly delighted to learn that A Memory Called Empire has won the 2020 Compton Crook Award, which is given by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society for best first novel in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. I will be the Compton Crook Guest of Honor at Balticon (the BSFS annual convention) for the next two years — which, because Balticon, like everything else, has gone virtual this year, will be 2021 and 2022.
Speaking of virtual Balticon (and virtual Nebulas), though…
MORE TELEPRESENCE! THIS TIME WITH PANELS!
I’m participating in both virtual Balticon and the virtual Nebula Conference in the next two weeks! If you’re signed up — or want to sign up — this is what you can see me talk about:
BALTICON - MAY 22-25 (ALL TIMES IN EASTERN)
Friday May 22 — 9 PM - So You Want to Build a Galactic Empire (panel)
Saturday May 23 — 12 PM - Kaffeeklatch (open discussion chat)
Saturday May 23 — 7 PM - Science Fiction Has Always Been Political (panel)
Sunday May 24 — 5 PM - Reading
Monday May 25 — 1 PM - Turning the Starship of State: Government in Science Fiction (panel)
NEBULA AWARD CONFERENCE - MAY 29-31 (ALL TIMES IN PACIFIC)
Friday May 29 — 2 PM - C is for Conlang (panel)
Saturday May 30 — 8 AM - Urban Development: the evolution of cities in the 21st century and beyond (panel)
Saturday May 30 — 5 PM - Nebulas Red Carpet (in which I wear a pretty dress)
Saturday May 30 — 7 PM - Nebula Awards Ceremony
Readercon Schedule, Late Summer Events, & What's Next!
Hello all of you! First of all: the launch and first few months of having A Memory Called Empire out in the world have been amazing: really a thrilling, enormous, and wonderful experience. Thank every single one of you who has bought a book, come to an event, and/or talked about the book to your friends and community. Please do keep doing so.
READERCON
This coming weekend (7/11 - 7/14), Viv and I will be headed up to Boston for Readercon, which I’m very excited about — we go to this convention almost every year, but this year will be the first time either of us gets to be on programming. If you’re at the con, this is where you can find me (if I’m not in the bar…)
THURSDAY @ 9 PM - Reading (Salon C)
FRIDAY @ 3 PM - Panel: ‘The Horrors of Being Female’ (Salon 4)
FRIDAY @ 4 PM - Panel: ‘Why Does Space Get the Opera and Cyber the Punk?’ (Salon 3)
FRIDAY @ 8 PM - Panel: ‘The Etiquette of Criticism’ (Salon B)
FRIDAY @ 9 PM - Autographing (Autograph Table)
SATURDAY @ 2 PM - Panel: ‘I Don’t Know Why I’m On This Panel’ (Salon 4)
SATURDAY @ 3 PM - Panel: ‘You Know, It Kinda Grows on You’ (Salon B)
LATE SUMMER EVENTS & WHAT’S NEXT
On August 6, I will have the absolutely delicious pleasure of spending the evening with Max Gladstone at Housing Works Bookstore in Manhattan, talking about his totally brilliant new novel Empress of Forever and my Teixcalaan books. Expect us to get into the weeds on rulership, ethics, science fiction, and immortality.
Max Gladstone & Arkady Martine at HousingWorks
AUGUST 6, 2019, 7 PM. Event is free! But click through and get yourself a ticket.
I also have a story coming out in a new anthology from Saga Press called The Mythic Dream - release date is September 3, and I am incredibly pleased, because when else do you get to write a space opera/cyberpunk remix of the Hymns to Inanna? My story is called ‘Labbatu Takes Command of the Flagship Heaven Dwells Within’, and it is both extremely on brand and, ah. Much filthier than my usual linguistic register, but hey, Inanna is the goddess of sex and war, okay?
THE MYTHIC DREAM. Out on September 3rd! Contains me, as well as stories by Amal el-Mohtar, Sarah Gailey, Rebecca Roanhorse, J.Y. Yang, John Chu, Ann Leckie, T. Kingfisher, Carmen Maria Machado … amongst others!
After that, things get slightly puzzling — I’m in the middle of applying to new jobs, having acquired my master’s in city planning, and we may or may not be moving, and oh also I’m about ten thousand words from the end of A Desolation Called Peace, AKA Teixcalaan #2. All is transition! All is liminal! Help, etc.!
But it’s great, too. I have many, many interesting plans for what comes next from here…
A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE - BOOK LAUNCH & TOUR
In approximately 48 hours, A Memory Called Empire will be released into the world at large, for your reading pleasure. I am incredibly excited and horrifically nervous all at once. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it; I hope it sticks with you and makes you think; I hope it is something you find beautiful and disturbing and pleasurable to read.
LAUNCH PARTY: Tuesday 3/26/19, 7 PM at the Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore, MD!
(There will be Teixcalaanli objects for you to consume and/or take home. Plus readings from me and Vivian Shaw, from both of our work plus a new project we’re working on together…)
WHERE I WILL BE - BOOK TOUR
Between March 26 (release day!) and the end of May, I am going to be in ... places. Many places. This is the current list, as best as I know it, but you can always check out the Appearances & Events tab above to see an updated list of where I'll be next and specifics on times and schedules. But here’s the tour as it stands!
MARCH 26 - BALTIMORE - The Ivy Bookshop - 7 PM - Launch party and reading, followed by discussion with Vivian Shaw on creative partnerships.
MARCH 28 - JERSEY CITY - WORD Jersey City - 7:30 PM - Ancestral Night + A Memory Called Empire:Elizabeth Bear and I will read from our new books, then have a conversation about the legacy of women who have written space opera and the state of the genre today.
APRIL 3 - NEW YORK CITY - The Strand - 7:30 PM - Come to the second floor art department of the Strand to hear me talk about A Memory Called Empire with Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M.
APRIL 4 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - Solid State Books - 7 PM - "Political Protest in Speculative Fiction", a discussion with Malka Older.
APRIL 13 - SAN FRANCISCO - Writers With Drinks - a reading & performance, m.c.'d by Charlie Jane Anders, featuring Saskia Vogel, Peng Shepherd, Arkady Martine, Michelle Cruz Gonzales, Mike Chen, and Susannah Breslin.
APRIL 17 - NEW YORK CITY - KGB Bar - 7 PM - reading at the Fantastic Fiction monthly series at the KGB Bar, alongside Nathan Ballingrud.
APRIL 24 - BALTIMORE - Charm City Spec - 7 PM - a reading, alongside Sarah Pinsker and Justina Ireland.
APRIL 26-27 - LITTLE ROCK - Arkansas Literary Festival - appearance at the 16th Annual Arkansas Literary Festival in Little Rock (further details to come!)
MAY 11-12 - MINNEAPOLIS - Wordplay Festival - appearance at the first annual Wordplay Festival (further details to come!)
MAY 18 - GAITHERSBURG - Gaithersburg Book Festival - appearance at the Gaithersburg Book Festival (further details to come!)
MAY 24-26 - BALTIMORE - Balticon - I'll be on programming at Balticon 53 (further details to come!)
Please do come to any event near you, or if I'm not coming to somewhere near you, I hope to see you in the future when we do coincide.
... also, if you come to these events, you might be able to walk off with entertaining prizes ...
Conventions, Appearances, and Some Slight Foreshadowing
Exceedingly long time no blog. I blame — oh, a multitude of things, beginning with ‘I spent a week in Mexico City talking about risk communication with people from the World Bank’, followed by ‘having your wisdom teeth out at age 33 is horrible’ and proceeding to ‘spent the summer in New York City working for the Mayor’s Office and writing some short stories and Teixcalaan #2’. I am often sleepless but never bored.
However! I return to blogging to tell you of where you may witness me in person. And to bring you some … intimations. Oracular intimations.
Appearances & Conventions, Remainder of 2018
September 28-30: First off, we’ve got the Baltimore Book Festival, this coming weekend in the Baltimore Inner Harbor! I will be at the SFWA tent all three days, and I’m on (or moderating!) the following panels:
9/28 (Friday) @ 12 PM: ‘My Muse Is My Day Job’
9/29 (Saturday) @ 11 AM: ‘…In Space!'
9/30 (Sunday) @ 1 PM: ‘The Future of Cities, the Fantasy of Cities’ (M)
October 5-7: I’ll be at New York Comic Con! I have a signing and ARC giveaway session at the Tor booth at 11 AM on Saturday the 6th, and possibly I will exist at some other locations to be determined! Details when I’ve got them, but it should be a fun time — I’ve never done a comic con from this side of the table before.
October 11-13: I’m going to Denver for the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association conference, to chat with booksellers about A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE. I’ll be on a panel on SFF on Friday the 12th, if you happen to be there…
November 1-4: And lastly, I’ll be at World Fantasy in Baltimore the first weekend in November. Programming isn’t out yet, but I’m hoping to be able to give a reading or be on some interesting panels!
foreshadowing
In the next week or so, you’ll see me talking about a new project on Twitter — one which grew out of an adventure in microfictional cities that was inspired by Cassandra Khaw. You’ll have an opportunity to be involved in it — in several ways — but to begin with, here’s a city, and here’s an opportunity to ask a question that will help shape this project:
It is possible, the citizens of Nahal claim, to live a whole life without ever setting foot on the land: humans were never kind enough to the earth, and it deserves some peace, bothered only by a crowding of ships in faint view, a city in exile waiting to come home to ground.
Now ask, if you would — imagining that you are consulting an oracle — any question you wish, thinking of Nahal. Your questions will be answered, in one sense or another.