What's in a Week - Vol. 59
A fun week in publishing news, a cooldown, and renewed energy.
Stars and Sabers Publishing Slate
We have a publishing slate! Have a look on our site for more details, and scroll on down in this newsletter to see our latest deal info:
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Please note: we are CLOSED to unsolicited submissions currently, and we will only open more broadly to literary agents in January 2025.
We reached our Stars and Sabers Publishing anthology deadline! Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers, is arranged by theme and ready for our additional edits, before we hand it off to a copy editor for final proofreading.
We're still crowdfunding publishing costs, and there are great reward tiers, from $5 on up, with acknowledgements in the books, book swag, and different formats of the book, among other great rewards, so do check that out here:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Publishing-Imprint-News-and-Opportunity-H2H2XH2SN
New Stars and Sabers Publishing Book Deal!
We are thrilled to announce that we have signed SFF author Ren Hutchings for the surreal roadtrip novella, The Legend Liminal!
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We are also delighted that both Ren's and Eugen Bacon's deals are featured in the prominent publishing magazine, The Bookseller!
Here's Eugen's:
Katie Fraser
Here's Ren's:
Katie Fraser
It's incredibly exciting and rewarding to reach these phases of our new imprint, and we cannot wait to share the books by our wondrously talented authors in 2025, 2026, and beyond!
Visiting Books Kinokuniya
This past Friday, as you can see in this newsletter header, I visited a new (to me) bookstore, Books Kinokuniya, which is a Japanese chain. This one is inside the Shops at Santa Anita in Arcadia, California, which is, by the way, the best mall EVER: full of all the classic mall shops and eateries AND a Ranch 99 market AND a staggering selection of international restaurants, including the famous Din Tai Fung, and countless others. We'll be spending lots of time exploring this mall, and honestly it's such fun to find a proper mall again.
As for Books Kinokuniya? Well, I'm obsessed with it, and here's why:
All the manga, Gundam, washi tape, art supplies, pens, gifts, an entire Studio Ghibli section, AND a Godzilla section? It's like it was made to trap me. I told my teens they can just to straight there for all my future Christmas and birthday presents. 😜
By the way, you can order all current my books from them!
On the Screen
Slow Horses, the spy show about the UK's most notorious group of spies, is back and exceptional, of course! Love, love, LOVE this show and its cantankerous and extraordinarily flawed characters. While the characters are a wreck, the cast is superlative. Plus, we have Gaius Baltar this season! I mean, actor James Callis, in the role of smarmy and [seemingly] clueless First Desk, Claude Whelan. Jackson Lamb (played magnificently by Gary Oldman) brings his reeking, dour, jagged-edged attitude up against Diana Taverner (played with ice-dagger chill by Kristin Scott Thomas, and whose entire coat wardrobe makes me seethe with envy even as I sweat in SoCal) at every turn. They're united in the goal of protecting the interests of their government, but they couldn't be more different. Aside from these two, the chaotic full cast bumps against each other constantly like a game of pinball on a global stage, and it's a wonder to behold. There is mirth, acid wit, high stakes, terror, intrigue, and honestly, if you're not watching this show, get your life right.
The Rings of Power returned this week absolutely dripping in Tolkien lore, and we're beginning to feel the inevitable gravity well of Sauron's backdoor manipulation as the seminal rings themselves are made and used. He's putting his thumb directly on the scale now, all in the guise of ethereal Annatar, and even though I know how the long con ends, it's filling me with dread just the same. No small feat.
On the Page
In my novel rotation: Johannes Cabal: the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard; The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard, and skimming back through the appendices of The Lord of the Rings to refresh my memory about the Second Age (in which the aforementioned The Rings of Power largely takes place).
Writing Update
This was not the best week for writing, but I did write an insanely fun chapter for The Secret of the Sapphire Sentinel, sequel to The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern. Back in high school in this chapter, Gen (Gentian) Lightworth comes up against familiar faces she did not expect, and something begins to feel quite off in the seaside town of Glimmerbight. I'll be diving in to write several thousand words this week, putting pockets of dread and delight wherever I can.
The edits for Doomflower, my Heathers/Mean Girls meets Day of the Triffids/The Thing campy horror romcom, have come back, and I incorporated all that made sense and sent the final version back. We should have polished review copies very soon, and cover art as well!
I've seen the full cover layout for Atacama, my thriller/horror/sci-fi book out next May, and it looks incredibly striking, unlike any cover I've seen before! Cover reveal happening soon...
The Week Ahead
It's science writing deadline week, in which I craft a rather complex newsletter to go out to many thousands of subscribers. That will take up a good chunk of Monday/Tuesday work.
I'll be writing, as mentioned above, and also working on autumn and holiday art. Commissions are open if you want anything in watercolor or pen and ink! Reach out if interested.
Thank you for your support and following along!
Write on!
Jendia
