What's in a Week - Vol. 54
A week of writing, art, downtime, and anticipation.
This was a challenging week. I had important family obligations, and addressed them while enduring a four-day headache. So it wasn't the most fun, but I am so glad I was not traveling! All is much better now.
Only 8 Days Left on Indiegogo Crowdfunder!
For our first cross-genre anthology, Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers (publishing in February 2025), we are crowdfunding. Help us reach our goals to fund this book, pay our authors, and get it out into the world to readers. There are two resources to do so.
Via Indiegogo:
Currently we are 20% funded for this LIMITED campaign, with 8 days left. This is a more typical backer campaign that we made by popular request. But it is quite limited. We appreciate any shares!
This is the link for the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers.
Via Ko-Fi:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Publishing-Imprint-News-and-Opportunity-H2H2XH2SN
This is an ongoing campaign. Money donated goes directly to paying our authors and for expenses in the making of the book. It also ensures we can make more anthologies! We have two more planned for 2025, which are themed. Thank you for your support.
We've Begun Acquiring Books for Our Imprint
In the next few weeks, we will have an official announcement via Stars and Sabers Publishing, about our very first single-author work. We're absolutely thrilled to have this book and this author to begin our next publishing phase.
Note: we are closed to unsolicited submissions. We chiefly will work with literary agents for most of our long-form acquisitions. We will have brief open short story calls in 2025 for our themed anthologies.
Author Features on the Stars and Sabers Site
This week we featured two more of our anthology authors!
Read about KC Grifant:
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And stay tuned for more author features ahead!
On the Screen
I finally watched the film Atomic Blonde (2017) and whew, I loved it. The stage is 1989 Berlin, right as the Berlin Wall is about to come down. This is a kinetic and badass spy flick, with Charlize Theron navigating the labyrinthine and dangerous final days of the Cold War to retrieve an asset that could reveal the world's secrets. Peril looms constantly, and you're constantly trying to guess who's on which side. Theron is, quite simply, a tour de force. The fight scenes are astounding. I must also say that Atomic Blonde has one of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to.
And the cinematography is extraordinary. But who am I kidding: you watch this movie when you want intrigue and to see Theron in full action mode. It's awesome.
Fun fact! Our anthology contributor, Antony Johnston, wrote the graphic novel that Atomic Blonde was based on, originally titled The Coldest City.
Read more about Antony Johnston on our Stars and Sabers website here:
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On the Page
I'm currently reading an advance review copy for an author I'm interviewing in a couple of weeks on my YouTube channel. I'll speak more about the book then!
Writing Update
I was glad that I front-loaded the week with novel writing, since I couldn't return to it later in the week. As such, I put a lot of words on the pages of two novels while I could.
The first one is sequel to my Nebula & BSFA finalist book, The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern, titled The Secret of the Sapphire Sentinel. It's fun to be back in that future, night-living Lunarpunk world I created, full of both science and magic, ominous happenings, mysterious newcomers, fast friendships, wacky animals, and even some romance blooming among the teens known as the Fireflies. It's about 1/6 along in progress.
The second book I'm working on is the science fiction/fantasy mystery novel. That's also an interesting world, drawing inspiration from some of the cityscapes I love and giving everything a nice twist of science and magic as well. I have begun querying this book. It's also about 1/6 along in progress.
Atacama Update
My 2025 thriller/horror/sci-fi book Atacama, which publishes May 2025 via Sley House Publishing, is still garnering review blurbs. I've also seen the latest update to the cover art, and it is absolutely phenomenal. This will also be the first published book that contains my own illustrations; those in are in the form of chapter header art. I will eventually make prints of that art to sell.
I'm in a holding pattern on some other works floating around out there, but should know more soon, hopefully with official announcements in the very near future.
The Week Ahead
It's back to some semblance of normal and putting more words on the page. Here's to building worlds, one word at a time.
Write on!
Jendia
