Happy 2023, all! I hope the holidays gave you some joy, some solace, a chance to love and be loved, or at least, however briefly, to rest.
This year will be a big one for me. The main public event, I expect, will be the debut of the Craft Wars project, with Dead Country dropping on March 7. Preorders are always golden, especially in these times of supply chain interruption, printer and ink and paper shortages, and so on, when rapid second print runs might be a little less rapid than usual. If you’ve already taken that step, thank you, so much, for being a supporter. (And here’s a Bookshop link if you haven’t yet preordered but are so inclined!)
Meanwhile I’m hard at work on the next stages of the project—it’s dangerous to commit to dates in public, but I’m hoping to have Book 2 through line edits in March, ahead of Dead Country’s release, and to have reached a major milestone on the next book at about the same time. There’s a lot more I’d like to say, but I’m frankly not sure how much it would make sense to say now! (I really should check with my editor.) It’s odd and wonderful getting the gang back together in these books; I didn’t expect to have been so long away, but we’ve all grown, these characters and me, since we were last together. I feel a bit like I’m getting ready for a big party—a bit of a fraught feeling after COVID, but a joyful one too, because—well, because books are just great.
I imagine that most of you don’t need to be convinced of this! But every year, in the vast profligacy of media engagement and hashtag-content, I find myself more grateful that books exist. For a reasonable price (or for free, thanks to libraries and the public domain!) I get to dance with someone else’s brain for hours. Books can teach, they can soothe, they can provoke or tempt or enrage or seduce or tickle, they can transport. They’re concentrated care—and they invite care in return. A good book is Aquaphor for the soul: it covers over the cracked and broken bits, and your own spirit wells back up in response. Not to mention, books load instantly, your save is never overwritten (okay maybe my toddler runs off with my bookmark every now and then), they don’t get pulled off your shelves at the whim of some media CEO somewhere (unless by ‘media CEO’ you mean ‘my toddler’)…
At any rate, I hope the new year brings you some wonderful books. Here’s a (slightly redacted) list of what I read last year across all formats. Most are new to me, but a decent number are old. I love how books jump across time. Some of the items on this list I can’t believe I read for the first time this year—some I’ve read a handful of times and feel fresh on each revisit.
Also, while it hardly needs my boost, I loved Cat Valente’s recent essay Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media. I was never a part of Prodigy or AOL, but Cat nails to the wall the weird tangle of life on the internet: folks trying, again and again, to live our lives and talk to our friends and find new ones, in this space that looks like a village green but is actually a tilting yard for giants.
That’s what I have for now. Take care, all. Read, drink tea, and enjoy the light returning.
Happy 2023! Hope you are well!
I am very excited about Dead Country :)
Your list has made me think of my own reading. So much of it is online, but for Christmas, I specifically asked for physical books, and am forcing myself to spend at least a few minutes each day turning pages. It is so far one of my favorite new habits for the year.