C.S.E. Cooney

I received an email early this morning, telling me that when they clicked on the link to see the first two Dark Breakers novellas on Amazon (The Breaker Queen and The Two Paupers), the link was broken.

I had expected this, as I recently took those books “off the shelf.” I thought the process would be a relatively simple thing: I click “Unpublish,” and no one will be able to buy them anymore.

I wanted those earlier versions to be out of print for a while, so that I would have a chance to refurbish them. Because I’d made Desdemona and the Deep a standalone novella for Tor.com–and because of the many discoveries and maturities of world and characters that occurred in the writing of it–there were a few structural changes I wanted to tinker with in the first two, so that all the pieces fit more beautifully together.

However.

I did not expect the next thing the email writer said: that, remembering that they had already bought the first two books, they opened their Kindle app–and discovered the books they had bought were gone.

Now, I remember something like this happening in early in the Kindle publishing era . . . but I also remember there being an uproar amongst Kindle users, people who’d bought their books and rightfully owned them, to discover that they’d just disappeared.

This was not my intention. I don’t want to take anything away from people who have supported me and bought my work in the past. People have the right to their out of print copies and first editions! Just like I have the right to take my books off the market for a while! But just like I’d never sneak into someone’s house and steal their OWN BOOKS off the shelves, I’d never have intentionally taken away these older copies from them.

I have written to the KDP people, and hope to have a satisfactory answer for you. As for what I can do personally–if your copy of The Breaker Queen or The Two Paupers has gone missing, please email me at csecooney (at) gmail (dot) com, and I will email you a PDF of the older, out of print version.

Meanwhile, The Breaker Queen (a fully realized but slightly older version) was reprinted by Lightspeed Magazine here: Issue 89, October 2017. And Rich Horton reprinted The Two Paupers (again, the older, original version) in his Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016. Both are still in print. Desdemona and the Deep comes out with Tor.com this coming July.

I am really sorry for all this trouble. I will try to fix it. I am hoping to get to the refurbishments in June. There won’t be much to them–just enough that I didn’t want any more people buying them until I had a chance to look at them again.

As you can probably tell, my few tentative forays into self-publishing did not make me an expert; if I’d been one, I’d probably have known this would happen, and would have already tried to find a workaround. Please forgive me.

— C. S. E. Cooney

When I was in high school, I took a trip to San Francisco with my mother to visit a friend of hers, the DJ Lee Baby Simms. We went on a ferry ride. I was very romantic. I stood on the deck and sang Loreena McKennitt songs very loudly to the waves.

Gradually, I became aware of being watched. A young fellow–but older then me. We struck up a conversation. He was German, from Stuttgart. I was from Arizona.

“Which part?” he asked.
“Phoenix,” I said.
“Which part?” he asked.

I paused, thinking, MMMN. HOW COULD THAT POSSIBLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO HIM? HE LIVES IN GERMANY! . . . maybe I shouldn’t say anything more.

He explained, “I was an exchange student in Phoenix.”
“Oh, in that case! The Metrocenter area.”

He was a college student, studying law. I was possibly going into my senior year? In any case, we decided to be pen pals. Email pals, really, but such lovely long emails.

Anyway, it was Loffer (his nickname was Loffer) who told me that as a writer, I really ought to have a fountain pen. “All true writers have fountain pens.”

Since he was European, and older, and wrote a damn good email, I decided he was probably right, and I announced my intention to the world that I needed a fountain pen.

The world (my mother) heard. She bought me my first pen–a blue marbled Phileas Waterman. I loved it. (Here is what it looked like. This article makes fun of its looks, but the writer loved it anyway. I rather loved its looks.)

After years of use, I somehow lost it. And then, knowing me, LOST it.

I probably wailed, probably to the internet, and to all my friends. Was I no longer a real writer now that my fountain pen was lost???!!! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!

I was maybe 22, 23 at the time.

Again, the world (my friend Janet) heard. Again, I was given the gift of a Phileas Waterman. And I’ve cuddled it close ever since. (Almost 15 years now.)

Until last week, in Orlando.

ICFA was a beautiful conference, certainly one of the most relaxed. I had a gorgeous time. I had beautiful long conversations with people who are important to me for various reasons; I had writing time with Carlos; we had an amazing reading together with two other very, very fine writers. I got to dress up!

And the day of our reading and signing, I wore my Waterman tucked oh so sweetly into my bosom (NOT for the first time) (not by a LONG shot) for easy access. (See earlier “cuddled close.”) I even had occasion to use it! It always surprises me when people want things SIGNED.

That’s the last memory I have of my Waterman.

Probably while I was undressing for sleep, it slipped away from my multiple layers of sartorial splendor and rolled under the bed. Or I could have left it on the signing table. Or a hundred thousand other iterations of fate. In any case, it was not in any of my backpacks, purses, or pockets when I (finally) unpacked from ICFA two days ago.

O WOE (like WHOA) WAS ME!

It’s not that I need a fountain pen to remind me of my identity. But by this time THAT Waterman was more like a friend. I’d had it even longer than the original. It was my go-to pen, my letter-writing pen, my travel pen.

I do have a second, cheaper travel fountain pen too, that I used more devil-may-carely so as not to risk the Waterman. And I also have The Most Special Fountain Pen Ever, which is hand-carved from wood, decorated in gold, and looks like something one buys from Garrick Ollivander in Diagon Alley. (That never leaves the house except on super SUPREMO occasions wherein we are, for example, signing our wedding certificate in front of the Justice of the Peace).

But it was my . . . dear pen. If that makes any sense. It wrote like a dream. It was full of Yu-Yake, a burnt-orange ink that Amal El-Mohtar gave me as a present.

Anyway. I know it’s just a thing. An object. But. The melancholy.

Yesterday, after recording the latest quarterly issue of Fireside Magazine in Brookly, I went to meet Hernandez after he got out of his classes. We were going to go eat SPICY RAMEN. But on the street, he stopped, and looked at me, twinkling, and said, “You know, if you can wait to eat a while . . . we’re right next to the Fountain Pen Hospital.”

Oh. He loves me.

They told us there, in no uncertain terms, that the Phileas Waterman had been discontinued, oh, 15 or so years ago. The burn! The pain! If I’d bothered to look around at OTHER brands (which I did later), I’d have seen that there were blue-marbled-with-gold-accents fountain pens in various vitrines all over the store. They were also in the $300-$500 range. So I’m glad I didn’t see them. Instead, the first thing we did was go straight to the Waterman case for a sense of continuity–if not of style, then of brand.

And I chose this slender gold and silver thing. It looks light, just right, just the thing for a travel pen. We got a converter cartridge, so I can use my inks. And Carlos bought me a new bottle of turquoise-blue Ama-Iro ink for more quotidian use (burnt-orange is good for poetry, letters, signing books extravagantly).

There will always be a blue marbled Phileas Waterman-sized absence in my memory that my beloved pen-friend (well, pen-friends, if you count the first one) used to inhabit.

But my own even MORE beloved Hernandez, who loves to fix things, gave me a brave new pen to counter that lacuna. Because he is a darling. Because I am very, very lucky. VERY LUCKY. PRIVILEGED in my family and friends.

(Remind me to pass on the gift of a fountain pen to a young writer . . . or, I suppose, I could save up and buy some kid a computer, you know? I know which one SOUNDS more romantic, but also, let’s face it, practical is good too.)

I am so grateful. So happy. I will write many letters. I will write many things. I will probably even still wear it in my bosom, sometimes. But I will say to myself every time:

“Self, there is a pen in your bosom. Remember that and soyez-sage!” Which will, naturally, fix everything.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hated it as a teenager. Loved it in my late twenties. Now have very fond memories of my late twenties. And very confused memories of myself puffed up on feelings of superiority and loathing at the age of 15. Where did that even come from?
2. Black tea with honey and milk. I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t like it. But my friend and former boss Katie assured me that when I started working at her bookstore in my early twenties, I scoffed at the idea of hot black tea with things in it. (I always drank iced tea straight.) Um. I now drink hot black tea with honey and milk or almond milk every day. WHAT WAS I THINKING?
3. The second half of Stephen King’s IT. I realized upon a later re-read that it’s not so much the second half. I just like all the parts with the kids in it better. But those parts sort of flow through the adult parts.
4. Cussing. Oh, how infinitely superior I felt, flinging pure purple lightning streaks of Shakespearean-level insults at my friends instead of using the more common vulgarities of the four-letter word variety. Now I just like it all. Deadwood maybe does it best.
5. Jim Carey. I mean, dude was everywhere, and everyone was talking like him, and everything you heard was “Allrightythen” and “Do NOT go in there!” and I maybe sort of projected my weariness with imitation and repetition onto the actor. But then I read an amazing article by Steve Martin on the physical comedy genius of Jim Carey, and I realized I was being a jerk IN MY OWN HEAD.
6. Jeans. I still only own one pair. But I think they’re COOL. I put them on when I want to feel incognito, but with a hint of adventure and do-anything-ness.

I’m sure there were more things. So much more. But it’s nice to know I’ve grown up some by age 37.

It is March 1st, and I am 420 pages into my new revisions. Out of 670. 250 left. I’d like to get through them in 20 days.

That’s 12 and a half pages a day, which doesn’t seem like much considering it’s revisions. Not, like, an entire rewrite. Right? Except for some chapters. A lot of them. And most sentences. You know.

I also have copyedits due for DESDEMONA AND THE DEEP . . . soon. Three days? Must look. Oh, and acknowledgements! Well! Today’s the day I print that MS out, just watch me. March crept on fast. I’ve been busy making lasagna, I guess.

We also have a launch party to plan. That’s next week. For Carlos Hernandez‘s SAL AND GABI BREAK THE UNIVERSE. The launch is on Thursday, March 7th. His book comes out on Tuesday.

Rick Riordan had the most FANTASTIC idea for the Sal and Gabi Book Birthday. He said everyone who has a copy should dress up as their ALTERNATE SELVES and take SELFIES! I’ve been thinking–who’s my alternate self (or one of them) and what would they wear and what would they even THINK of Sal and Gabi???

The whole thing’s got me thinking about my own book launch for DESDEMONA. Carlos and I had the idea of throwing a Gentry Moon Masquerade somewhere, and everyone can come dressed up as their Gentry/Goblin/or fabulous human haute-couture selves. When? We don’t know. Sometime in July, most likely. Book is out July 23rd. Where would we even hold such a thing?

!!! Hey, hey, hey–I JUST saw in the Twitterverse that Amal El-Mohtar got her advance copies of her and Max Gladstone‘s book, THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR. That’s also out in July. CANNOT FRIKKIN WAIT! Have I pre-ordered yet?

Snowing outside today. Really pretty.

Somewhere in the other room, Carlos is playing with his new rubber chickens! Now he’s brought them in here and is jumping and dancing. Hold up–pics happening!

I was at the tail-end of my illness at Boskone, and spent a lot of time napping and blowing my nose. However. By Saturday I felt so much better than I had in a fortnight, and by Sunday (today) really well!

I loved singing songs from my three Brimstone Rhine recordings with Faye Ringel and Carlos Hernandez. I perforce made Carlos a bit tardy for his Danes are Delicious playtest on the Gaming Track, having failed to inform ops initially that he’d be playing with me. I hope people forgive him his 15 minute tardiness and place all blame squarely on my head!

Anyone who came to the Brimstone Rhine concert who is interested in listening to MORE music and reading along with the lyrics can find everything I did here: BRIMSTONE RHINE ON BANDCAMP!

I adored reading with E. C. Ambrose, Ken Schneyer, Cerece Rennie Murphy, Clarence Young, and Carlos Hernandez in our Unlikely Imaginarium group reading. Here are some places you can find our work:

Zig Zag Claybourne, AKA Clarence Young, read from the sequel to his The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan.

Cerece Renee Murphy read from her book The Wolf Queen.

E. C. Ambrose read from an unpublished piece, but check out her Dark Apostle series!

Carlos read from Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, out from Disney Hyperion on March 5th. Preorder now!

And I read from my novella Desdemona and the Deep, forthcoming from Tor.com. Preorder now!

… Pardon my imperatives. I just get excited

I was on a panel about music in fantasy, and one on the future of audiobooks. The panelists and moderators on both pretty much blew my mind with the range and depth and force of their knowledge.

Carlos’s last panel today on Exploring Interactive Fiction 101 likewise. High point of my con! My brain was like SCUSE ME CANNOT KEEP SPLODING HOLP PLEEZ! And, honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to five smarter panelists talk about ANYTHING than Carlos Hernandez, Max Gladstone, Erin Roberts, M. C. DeMarco–Moderator–and Andrea Corbin talking about coding, games, narrative, awareness, audience, text, visual arts, and the interactive fiction market. It was ELECTRIFYING!

Perhaps most special (and close to my heart) was the workshop that Carlos and I co-taught (I sort of wrangled him into teaching with me last minute, and I am so so so so GRATEFUL for his graciousness and generosity in doing so!) this morning. I’ve taught it with Caitlyn Paxson twice (and Amal El-Mohtar once), and once by myself at different Readercons, and this summer I’ll teach a variation of it with Martin Cahill at Readercon. I call it “From Page to Stage: Reading Aloud for Writers.”

I see such a need for so many writers who did not have the benefit of any theatre training or even drama class growing up, but who find themselves having to read in public without any tools. If I–and other performance-minded writers–can convey even a few tips and tricks to make this very difficult thing a LEEETLE easier for our fellow artists, I COUNT MY HOUR WELL-SPENT. Five people came, and I think we all benefited from a small, informal, friendly workshop size. So happy. Teaching is not me at my most comfortable–but that just makes me more empathetic towards my students!

Anyway, a concert, a reading, a workshop, two panels! Any time I do more “other stuff” than “panels,” I’m a pretty happy camper. Especially if “other stuff” means reading aloud and singing. Which, in this case, it did.

Thank you, Erin Underwood, Brenda Noiseux, and all the Boskone ops people for all the hard, intricate work you do.

It is my honor to appear in the BEST OF UNCANNY, along with many other fabulous fabulists. Go to Subterranean Press to preorder your copy today!

Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas have co-edited and co-published Uncanny Magazine since its launch in 2014. They brought readers stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative nonfiction by writers from every conceivable background, including some of science fiction and fantasy’s most fabulous award-winning and bestselling authors. In its first four years, Uncanny Magazine won the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award three times (2016, 2017, 2018), Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas won the 2018 Best Editor—Short Form Hugo Award for their work on the magazine, and numerous stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards– including the novelette “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu) which won the 2016 Best Novelette Hugo Award and the novelette “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay” by  Alyssa Wong which won the 2017 Best Novelette Locus Award.

When I was a teenager, forever devouring and re-devouring such books as, for example, Winter Rose, and The Riddle-Master Trilogy, I never, not even once–not even when I thought I’d grow up to be a famous author by age 30 (didn’t happen) and have a book out a year (ha!) or two in a good year (double ha!)–ever CONCEIVED of Patricia “A is for AAAAAUUGGGHHH!!!” McKillip blurbing any book of mine.

And since I never got that far, envisioning this gorgeous cover art was so utterly beyond me that teenage-me might have exploded like a confetti bazooka if she tried.

Kinda like I’m doing now.

THIS! COVER!

THIS!!! COVER!!!

With the ANTLER CROWN, my goblins! And the VINES! And the TINES! And the TYPEFACE!

Did not Alyssa Winans (artist) and Christine Foltzer (designer) rock this like a METEOR SHOWER???!!!

And PATRICIA AAAAAAUUGGGGHHH MCKILLIP BLURBED ME!!!

I am so excited, I am CENTER JUSTIFIED!

Er. So . . . Yeah.

Please see Tor.com for more information!

Dear Everyone who is going to Boskone, and SUNDRY!

I am excited about this year’s Boskone. I really had to train myself to like panels, because they make me feel VERY VERY NERVOUS, but I LOVE and ADORE giving readings and singing in public–both of which I get to do!

Not only that, but Carlos and Faye are both playing with me for the Brimstone Rhine Concert; we even rented a car to haul synthesizer and CAJON! Can we do Lysistrata chant-style, with a drum box? WE’LL SEE, WON’T WE?

I am particularly bouncy re: that first reading there, because look at that LINE-UP! Zig-Zag, Hernandez, Queen Cerece, E. C. Frikkin Ambrose, and my darling Ken–whose Hobbit party I once attended, colorful vest and all.

The workshop I’m teaching I’ve gotten to teach with both Caitlyn Paxson and Amal El-Mohtar before at Readercon–twice, I think? And maybe once on my own. It’s always been very fun and useful, I’ve felt, and I hope it will prove so to a few budding writers who are nervous speaking in public. It will meld really nicely with my audiobook panel.

. . . You know, I find being on panels about audiobooks so much EASIER than ones about writing, because my actor brain loves EVERYTHING and my writer brain is just SCARED. Why is that, Hivemind?!!!

So, here’s my schedule below. See you at the con.

Brimstone Rhine at the Arts Cafe Mystic, 2015

The Unlikely Imaginarium: A Reading

Format: Reading
16 Feb 2019, Saturday 10:00 – 10:50, Griffin (Westin)

Authors E. C. Ambrose, C. S. E. Cooney, Zig Zag Claybourne, Carlos Hernandez, Cerece Rennie Murphy, and Kenneth Schneyer gather around the dark bonfire of their collective imagination to tell stories of women, wolves, woods, bones, enraged ninjas, AI toilets, the end of the world, and basically, the whole entire multiverse. Or maybe something completely different. Attend our wild and rambunctious reading to find out for yourselves!

Me, reading at World Fantasy 2018. By Kathleen Jennings. Live!

Music in Science Fiction

Format: Panel
16 Feb 2019, Saturday 12:00 – 12:50, Marina 2 (Westin)

What part does music play in science fiction? We hear it in films, videos, and even games. What about fiction — how does music enhance the reading experience? Is there a special connection between music and SF that other genres lack, and that goes above and beyond mere sound effects? Let’s talk music and its special interplay with the SF genre.

Newest Brimstone Rhine album, released 2018. Find us on Bandcamp!

Concert: Brimstone Rhine (C.S.E. Cooney)

Format: Concert
16 Feb 2019, Saturday 16:00 – 16:25, Lewis (Westin)

Yup. That’s me and cutiepants Carlos Hernandez, giving a concert at the Thunderbird Arts Center. Phoenix, AZ 2017.

Reading Your Fiction Aloud: From Page to Stage

Format: Workshop
17 Feb 2019, Sunday 10:00 – 10:50, Lewis (Westin)

Award-winning author and performer C.S.E. Cooney leads a workshop for writers with little to no public performance training in reading their own work aloud. To people! In public! You’ll learn tips and tricks to captivate your audiences. (Aimed at writers who have had little or no public performance training.)

I first taught this workshop at Readercon with writers/performers Caitlyn Paxson and Amal El-Mohtar. Together (with a few others) we were known as “The Banjo Apocalypse Troubadours.”

The Future of Audiobooks

Format: Panel
17 Feb 2019, Sunday 11:00 – 11:50, Marina 2 (Westin)

Audiobooks are a hot-and-getting-hotter way of enjoying stories. Join our panelists to discuss audiobook ups and downs, tips for listening, how to choose the ones that are right for you — and what the future holds for the new (and very old) experience of reading by ear.

Serious Audiobook Narrator Face. Truth is, this is probably as still as my face ever gets in the recording booth. Otherwise, it’s cartoonclownface ALL THE TIME.