Speakeasy Magick Secret delight Sneak in the back room It’s only at night
And the boys pick your pockets But the girls are in charge There’s a man at the piano His heart like a forge
There’s a devil at the table And he’s flirting in French There’s a geezer at the microphone Whose jokes make you cringe
And I’m not supposed to say it I’m not supposed to tell About the coins, the cards, the rubber bands Their neck tattoos, their clever hands Their secret rings and all those things That makes us clap until we bleed That makes us laugh because we need A world that still has magic
Speakeasy Magick Prosecco’s on me We lean in and laugh the same My hand on his knee
And the waiter’s adorable Their hair up in knots They haven’t slept for seven nights They’re ready to plotz
And this night is for wonders For tricks quick as light A handkerchief becomes a dove A dozen doves take flight
And I’m not supposed to say it I’m not supposed to tell About the coins, the cards, the rubber bands Their neck tattoos, their clever hands Their secret rings and all those things That makes us clap until we bleed That makes us laugh because we need A world that still has magic
Yesterday, we made our characters for a short-shot DND game my sister-in-law is DMing for us over the next few weeks. I’d never played a Druid, so I chose that class–Circle of Spores, baby! BECAUSE MUSHROOMS! (And decay!) (Thus, I named my character “Golden Chanterelle.” Possibly “Chant” for short. Or “Goldie.”)
And I love Changelings, so that’s the race I chose. I like shapeshifting, not only into animals but other things as well.
Background is “Feylost”–also a first for me. I love a girl who falls through a mushroom circle. And it’s sort of backwards for Changelings, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
So anyway, I figured I’d write today’s FAWMling song à la D&D, in the manner of my people. (My people being specifically… Dr. Mary Crowell, of “I Have Missed You at My Table” and “I Put My Low Stat.”)
I think I’ll spend the first half of the month writing lyrics, and then the second half of the month working up melodies or collaborating for them.
Golden Chanterelle
Whiff of nectar, golden-sweet Smell of honey, dripping mead Draw too near, you might find more Breathing in her cloud of spore
She is Golden Chanterelle Coat of moss and fairy bells Fell asleep and fell through worlds Now she walks, a wild girl
Under hemlock, under fir You might find a trace of her Look again, she’ll disappear Misty-stepping far from here
She is Golden Chanterelle Coat of moss and fairy bells Fell asleep and fell through worlds Now she walks, a wild girl
Giant boar and wild bear Tiger, spider, goat, or hare Chanterelle is girl and beast Isn’t anybody’s feast
She is Golden Chanterelle Coat of moss and fairy bells Fell asleep and fell through worlds Now she walks, a wild girl
BRIDGE
What can she protect? What can she preserve? Whom is she looking for? Whom will she serve?
Hungry to connect Afraid to be seen Shy in the shadows She hides in the green
She is Golden Chanterelle Coat of moss and fairy bells Fell asleep and fell through worlds Now she walks, a wild girl
Mary Crowell reminded Tina and me that it’s FAWM this month. I’ve never tried it before, so I signed up. I only sort of have a melody off that edge of my ears, but I like the lyric.
One of, hopefully, fourteen.
Imbolc, the Ice Moon
Across the Atlantic There’s something between us It isn’t the ocean
It rises mephitic Obnoxious, obscuring An impasse
You turn a cold shoulder At Imbolc, the Ice Moon The coastline is freezing
I’m dressed for the weather We’re no more than strangers It’s winter
Withdrawal as vengeance No chance for forgiveness It’s over, I see now
I acted too slowly Neglected your soreness It festered
It’s Imbolc, the Ice Moon The walls thick between us The wind whistles, lonely
As long as you’re warm now And safe in your home now It’s all right
As long as you’re warm now Your life flush and full now It’s all right
As long as you’re warm now With loves like I loved you It’s all right
I guess that was friendship And this is adulthood And it’s…
AAAUGHHH!!! At last I get to share this!!! THE FRENCH TRANSLATION of Desdemona and the Deep, with cover art by the glorious Anouck Faure is NIGH! (Instagram: @anoukfaure)
Éditions Argyll is bringing it out this April, along with The Breaker Queen this October! (Instagram: @argylleditions)
I am ECSTATIC! I love Anouck’s work so much! I’ve already framed her Desdemona art, AND made a decal for our window, and will do the same with her Breaker Queen art, which I cannot wait to show you!
Anouck tells me the translation is by Anne-Sylvie Homassel, who is amazing, with a high sensitivity to prose, and I cannot wait to experience it! My esteem for human translators cannot be measured in jewels, gold, or even words.
First letter of the New Year. (Mirrored from my Substack Newsletter.)
The Burger Meme Personality Test
Dear Readers,
I will begin by upholding the shining beacon of mi esposo, Carlos Hernandez—YEA EVEN HE OF SAL AND GABI FAME! HE OF MARVEL AND DISNEY AND THE ASSIMILATED CUBAN’S GUIDE TO QUANTUM SANTERIA—who currently has a bonkers, hilarious game currently entered into the “Interactive Fiction Short Games Showcase 2025.”
It’s called “The Burger Meme Personality Test.” It’s a satire.
So far my favorite responses to his game are “I think it was designed by three Harvard Lampoon students in a trenchcoat.” And “LMAO what did I just play?”
You can play—AND RATE!—this game—AND OTHERS—at the links above! Go! Play! Have fun!
Within, we strive to remain engaged, stay informed, do our work, help where we can.
I’m still getting back into work habits that hosting for almost a month of (wonderful) holiday house guests (I include my birthday as the first holiday) had interrupted.
I work on my novel. I read books to blurb, and also for pleasure (when I can!). I narrate audiobooks when the work comes my way. I love it all.
I had been taking voice lessons the past two years with Kiara Duran of Sing by Feel. She’s given me so many incredible tools to enrich this curious instrument of mine! So many joyful noises we make. So much breathing into the strange sea creature of our secret selves. I’m on pause for the moment, but I love taking all I was taught and trying to apply it, not just to singing, but being in the world.
But also to singing. Trying to sing old songs in new ways.
What does the year look like from the vantage of January?
Of note: I am officiating two weddings, one in May, one in December. (It’s like a TROPE!)
I have a book due in August—the third of the Saint Death trilogy. The completion of eighteen (?!) years’ work.
Amal El-Mohtar, C. S. E. Cooney, and Caitlyn Paxson: an iteration of the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours at Ottawa’s The Mercury Lounge in 2014
The books? Amal’s collection Seasons of Glass and Ironfrom Tor, and Caitlyn’s A Widow’s Charm. I’m gonna hop over to Canada and be Caitlyn’s conversation partner for some of her DEBUT TOUR!
I think Amal will be traveling abroad at the time, and her US tour is mostly West Coast this year, but we live in hope of crossing paths at some point. FaceTime must sustain us!
Or… you COULD bat your eyes at your local game store and ask THEM to carry it?
Would you? Would you, please?
Carlos and I are hoping to make a lot of mini-road trips this year on our Infernal Tour, traveling to places where we have gamer friends who have even MORE gamer friends, and ALSO hopefully a good relationship with their local game stores.
We’d love to RUN Negocios Infernales for them (for YOU? Potentially?) as their (YOUR?) sort of Living Rulebook
In Negocios Infernales, there’s no GM, as the game is collaborative, but we can guide people through their initial play. And, hopefully, get local game stores excited to carry it and talk about it!
I’m taking a break from cons this year—with the exception of the GenCon Writers Symposium. We’ll be doing writing SFF panels by day, running Negocios Infernales by night.
Therefore, the Midwest portion of our Infernal Tour will probably both precede and follow GenCon. It’ll probably consist of something in that general Indiana area, as well as the Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul areas, where more community (and game stores!) abound!
Plans are still fluid. If you’re in those areas, and love to game, let’s talk!
Falling in Love with Reading, Again and Again
Currently reading: an arc of Rym Kechacha’s The Apple and the Pearl, out at the beginning of next month from Penguin Random House.
I am so moved by it! The time signature of it—an interwoven character-and-mood pace that builds the plot out of many small tensions and drives!
And the weird, interstitial magic of a road-world, a train-track-world, that picaresque place between the Earth we know and all the realms we don’t.
And the Crow! And the ghosts! And the hungry Fae! The smell of peaches…
And the deep-dive into each character so you think THEY’RE the protagonist—and they are! It’s a TRUE ensemble piece!
And the whole phantasmagorical MIASMA of its ineffable ambience.
This book is INFUSED. Like HBO’s Carnival meets The Night Circus meets Something Wicked This Way Comes, but like none of those. Like nothing else!
Cover reveal is TBA! (Publisher Mike Allen cheated and showed me early though. I know. I’m SO LUCKY.) I do have my blurb I wrote for it, and that is this:
“Haunted and horny, melancholy and mysterious, Haralambi Markov’s The Language of Knives and Other Bodily Ruins is occasionally like being flayed on the inside of your eyelids, but in a good way. So weird. So queer. So nauseating. And so, so beautiful.”
But if you don’t, I’ll tell you again, with GREAT GLEE AND WHIMSY AND HUMOR AND WISDOM AND AWE.
Oh, wait. I’m just describing Zig Zag’s writing now!!!
And THIS MAN? ZIG ZAG? He’s gonna be our next guest star on FICTION: IMPOSSIBLE. Stream his glory live—Monday night, December 22nd—at 7 PM EASTERN! On my Twitch channel: twitch.tv/csecooney
I love him as a human, as a leader/teacher/poet/master of the SFF community, and as an artist. Even his Facebook posts are art. Even his Bsky posts. He’s just like that. He just walks the Earth like one of those giants you read about other people standing on the shoulders of.
Oh, and?
Sometimes I dress up like his books:
Do join us—either live, in the chat! Come with questions! Come with enthusiasm! Or watch later on YouTube!
You wanna catch up with previous Fiction: Impossibles? This is where they usually land:
My virtual event with “Solaris Presents” THE BRAVERY OF HOPE with Caskey Russell just ended. How delightful and pleasurable! How smart and kind he is!
I finished his book THE DOOR ON THE SEA, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I hope it is a movie. I hope the book and audiobook sell a billion copies. I hope there is ALL THE FAN ART! (Mostly of Raven eating salmon and crapping on people.)
Anyway–for those of you who missed it–WEEP NOT! You can watch the replay! It’s free for all! An hour of entertainment for when you’re doing dishes or folding laundry or falling asleep.
And if you want: Caskey Russell recommended some of anthropologist Swanton’s work on Tlingit sacred texts, which I googled as he was talking about it. Here’s the link to that too:
It is dove-blue dawn, and I’ve just come from the monstrous turquoise tome that is my handwritten journal, having bulleted out the events of the last several months, possibly in an effort to explain to myself why it had been so long since my last entry.
The list did the work; I was satisfied that it wasn’t laziness, at least. I would like to do better. More handwritten journal entries, more letter-writing, and more writing and reading poetry. These carved-out pleasures. These slow-glass tasks. Things that take space and can’t be crowded. Things that require fewer piles at the periphery.
Meanwhile, awards eligibility posts abound, as they should at this time of year. A friend (Cat Valente? Amal El-Mohtar? One of “them goblin girls.”) once called such posts “good housekeeping,” which tickled my fancy at the time. I would’ve been in my mid-twenties, and learning more about the chores of a career, versus a life in art.
But housekeeping? I could do that. Somewhat cheerily, even. If sloppily.
What’s the best, best line from Howl’s Moving Castle? It’s about Sophie, housecleaning: “She was remorseless, but she lacked method.”
Re-framing an awards post as a necessary chore, rather than an unsightly boast was helpful.
(Just like re-framing a selfie as an act of, I don’t know, honesty, self-expression, feminism, the female gaze. That was helpful. One would hear a lot of grumbling about solipsism and self-concern and “kids these days.” But that was long ago, at the start of smart phones. Ha—like Charlotte from A Little Night Music: “Dear Miss Armfeldt, do regale us with more fascinating reminiscences from your remote youth.”)
I suppose I could just stick the “awards post” housekeeping here, in the middle.
The only thing that came out this year from me was Saint Death’s Herald.
THE THUNDER SAY TA-DA!
This fall has been a waterfall of travel: Phoenix for my Mima’s 95th birthday, New Mexico to house/dog/cat/guinea pig-sit for Tiffany Trent, New Orleans for Penny Shaw’s wedding, Philadelphia for PAX Unplugged; and of welcoming guests to New York: my aunt and uncle and cousins in September, Will Alexander for his Sunward tour, Jessica Wick’s visit to see Patrick Wolf in concert for his Stations of the Sun tour; and of events—readings, panels, running games.
Then, in late November I was hospitalized for acute pancreatitis.
I say “late November” like it wasn’t just a few weeks ago.
I feel like it was a life-changing event, but of course it’s too soon to say.
Let’s say then, I have been intent on making life changes. And the follow-up appointments aren’t done yet. So… we’ll see. How kind everyone has been. How sweet and urgent and supportive. How I love this community of friends and family and far-away folks I only know through the net. (The great spider weaves us all.)
Tonight my mother arrives—at midnight, the Witching Hour. The heat turned off in our apartment last night. The hot water tap ran icy cold. Of course, on the coldest day of the year. When else should it fail? I hope it returns for her visit. If not, the electric blanket! The hot water bottle!
I’m more than a third through writing the first draft of Saint Death’s Doorway. Such a different experience from writing either of the first two books in this series!
I’ve been trying to make it as LUDIC as possible, and taking delight in the weird process of writing rather than, as I’ve done in the past, being tortured by it. Ah! Writing in my 40s! What a difference!
I challenged myself to write a locked-room murder mystery/courtly politics drama thing. But then it got MUCH weirder than that. Keeping myself entertained, at least!
My friend Carla recently brought me a Literary Oracle Deck, with each of the cards being characters and their archetypes. (For example: Jo March as “Passion.”_
The one I drew for Saint Death’s Doorway? Frankenstein’s Monster as “Creature.”
It was such a perfect card for this absolutely bonkers book that I laughed out loud. And yet, for all my knotty plotty machinations, I’d never even CONCEIVED of the major Mary Shelley vibes running through this book.
But of course they must! As they must through any major work of necromancy in fantasy and horror! Ha!
Thank you, Saint Mary Shelley, Maker of Monsters. You deserve a Secular Saint candle for this one. And a prayer of your own.
As for upcoming events, dear New Yorkers and New York-adjacent. There’s next week:
In Person: Brooklyn Books & Booze at Barrow’s Intense
Where? Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur NY Tasting Room: 86 34th Street Brooklyn 11232 (Industry City)
When? Tuesday December 16
What Time? 7-9 PM
Readers: Yours truly C. S. E. Cooney, Georgia DAy, David Gerrold, and Keith R. A. DeCandido
Virtual: The Bravery of Hope, with C. S. E. Cooney and Caskey Russell
Where? Crowdcast! Watch FREE wherever you are in the world. Live or on catch up geni.us/SPCSECCK
About the Author:
Caskey Russell is from Seattle Washington, and has lived in Oregon, Iowa, Wyoming, and New Zealand. He is a father, a professor, a musician, and an enrolled member of the Tlingit Nation (Eagle / Kooyu Kwáan) of Alaska.
The first in a new fantasy series inspired by the folklore and culture of the Tlingit tribe of Alaska, The Door on the Sea is the Indigenous answer to fantasy epics such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, in which a bookish young man must lead a mismatched crew on an adventure to retrieve a weapon that could save the future of their people.
Carlos and I are SO happy that our game—NEGOCIOS INFERNALES—is available at PAX Unplugged this year at Studio2! Booth 2951! They have the NICEST, most HELPFUL staff! We love working with them!
We’ll also be running our games through GAMES ON DEMAND in the RPG section of PAX U: Rooms 106-107, on Friday from 2-6, and on Saturday 10-2, 2-6!
Published by Outland Entertainment, August 2025, NEGOCIOS INFERNALES is a light, GM-less, collaborative TTRPG with no pregame prep. Use a spooky Oracle deck—la Baraja del Destino—to decide your fate and inspire mayhem.
Short Description
The Spanish Inquisition INTERRUPTED by aliens! You play wizards who bargain for weird powers from aliens you think are devils. Use your “magic” to save your country & if there’s time, your own soul!
Long Description:
The nation of Espada is about to begin something like Earth’s Spanish Inquisition. Some well-meaning aliens, however, arrive in time to stop Espada from going down the path of zealotry and religious persecution. Players play wizards who think they have sold their souls to the aliens in exchange for powers. The core of the game is the “Deck of Destiny” (“La Baraja del Destino”), a custom deck of 70 cards. Much like a fortune teller reads cards to tell the future, the players interpret the cards they draw to determine their magos’ successes, failures, and fates. Together, the magos quest on behalf of Reina Resoluta to save Espada—or, depending on the luck of the draw, just to save their own skins. Great for new roleplayers and old hands alike! Create, collaborate and laugh your heads off with us!
C.S.E. Cooney 