Max Gladstone's Third Place
Hello! Stay a while and listen!
In case you’ve stumbled here by accident, I’m Max Gladstone. I’m a Hugo and Nebula Award winning writer. I write books for the most part, most recently Empress of Forever and, with Amal El-Mohtar, This is How You Lose the Time War. I write in other forms too—games, interactive tv, short fiction, a comic book.
I may be talking about any or all of those projects here. I have an announcements-focused newsletter, which you can also subscribe to on my website. That isn’t what this is. Now, when I’m getting ready to launch a book or a major project, if you’re subscribed to this newsletter you’re likely to hear about it. But there’s a kind of reader who only cares to hear from authors when the next book’s out, and rather than flood such a person’s already stuffed mailbox with analysis, reading lists, recipes, ruminations, Star Wars jokes, and whatnot, I’d prefer to give them their space and start a different sort of thing.
A third place is a place that’s neither work nor home. That’s what I hope this will be: a place that’s not published and is not my diary. A place to think for people who want to hear what I’m thinking about, and chat in a civil way.
This isn’t going to be a how-to-write sort of newsletter, at least not a definitive one, since my own thoughts on what makes good writing evolve all the time and attempts at definitive how-to-write advice make me feel itchy. With every project, I end up learning that some truth I once thought was bedrock, isn’t. I try to stay flexible. I don’t like the notion that I might tell someone how it is, and they’d march off bright-eyed thinking they know the truth, when in fact all they know is what I think, right now. It’s all a journey.
I do think a lot about writing, so I’ll probably end up thinking about writing here, too. But also history, film, cooking, games, books I’ve read recently. Most posts will be free, and most comments sections will be paid-subscribers only. At least, that’s the current plan. I’m figuring this out as I go—isn’t everyone?
Welcome. And whether or not you stay: take care of each other. And work for the liberation of all sentient beings.
In the meantime, tell your friends!