Every year, I forget how much I love September, because I so obviously KNOW I love October.
But the sky changes, you know? It’s still summer for three more weeks, but it’s LIMINAL summer. It’s HARVEST summer. It’s a summer yearning to be FALL ALREADY.
There’s a breeze coming through my window. It’s cool but not cold. It’s not an August breeze at all.
Left to write: Bill, Carlos, Amy, and Dani at TwentySided Store in Williamsburg. (We had a Cynthia and a Lauren, but they could only stay for part of it.)
We are home now, after a month away on our Infernal Tour! I want to write a whole other newsletter just to show you all my pictures and give you the blow-by-blow, but for now, I will let you know a few of the things happening in September!
Last weekend, we went to Twenty-Sided Store in Brooklyn, to be the spotlight for their “RPG SideQuest Adventures” series. We met new friends Lauren and Cynthia, hung out with good friends Dani, Bill, and Amy, and ran a game of Negocios Infernales!
This coming Saturday, Carlos will take part in the Latinx Storytellers Conference.
He’s on one panel, and will also be giving a reading. He loves friendly faces, so if you’re there, go up and say hi!!!
Saturday September 12, 2026: LKBF Latinx Storytellers Conference
10:15-11:15 CRAFT: Crafting Stories that Hook the Most Reluctant Young Readers 12:30-1: READING: Carlos Hernandez reading
The NEXT Saturday, I, Claire, and my beloved Carlos will be personning a table, selling our books and games at the Brooklyn Books and Booze Author Book Fair.
There will be… Signing! Chatting! Hanging out! Speed-dating with agents! Panels with publishers, agents, publicists, oh my!
Saturday September 19th, 2026: Brooklyn Books & Booze Author Book Fair
11 AM – 5 PM
This is at Industry City, Building 6 at Barrow’s Intense Ginger Tasting Room.
86 34th Street Brooklyn, NY 11232
Sunday, October 4th, 2026: Witchy Reading!
3PM-5PM Eastern Standard Time
Coming up in October, I’ll be hosting a VERY COOL WITCHY READING on Twitch! So far, our illustrious readers are:
I am on a major deadline (next week?) (EEP!) for the third book in my trilogy, and I really shouldn’t be doing anything like seeing theatre, going to game nights (playing Brindlewood Bay for the first time this Saturday!), dragging friends to brunches, attending magic shows, recording audiobooks, or WRITING NEWSLETTERS, but I’m doing all that as well as finishing my novel revisions, and that’s just life.
What’s also life: mourning yesterday’s passing of a family friend whom I’ve known since before I was born (one of the honorary uncles), visiting another friend in the hospital after they had a bad fall, keeping up with an in-law who just had heart surgery, learning that another friend from my past has cancer, and commiserating with a friend over publishing woes. (These come in many flavors, just like publishing WOAHS, which are far more fun.)
As I write this, I feel like I sound pretty glib, possibly because I haven’t sat down with my journal and my pen and processed any of it, or written letters of condolences, or cards of comfort, or done anything of use, really.
I haven’t even gotten to talk to my mom, dad, or stepmom on the phone about our friend’s death, just back-and-forth texts, and I know their hearts are hurting. I want to listen to his music and cry for a long time. He sings so many of my dad’s songs—like “Wings of Dawn: Psalm 139,” on the album Safety Harbor, a song that my dad wrote in his early twenties. The melody (and Gary’s voice) has been running through my head all day. (Genre: liturgical music. My father, Gary, and my stepmom, like so many of their friends and peers and extended community, are liturgical musicians.)
In fact, excuse me, since I found the aforementioned song just now, I’m just going to sit here and listen to it, though it derails me.
A thunderstorm of feelings. Lightning striking every which way.
For happier facets of today’s dark gem:
I’ve been recording a cozy mystery audiobook all week, the latest of T.C. LoTempio’s Purr N’ Bark Pet Shop Mystery Series.
I love Rohan Studios where I record. It’s an easy commute from my house, either an hour’s walk or just 3 stops on the subway plus walking. I’ve made friends with the married engineers, Pete and Judy, since getting to know them during Covid Times. They have an adorable little dog Rosie, who wags her tail every time I pop my head out of the booth, and follows me to the bathroom, and is just so. dang. sweet. We like to howl together. For we are PACK.
More happiness:
Carlos and I try to take a walk every night after dinner, which has resulted in such generative, tender, and hilarious conversations.
…tentative happiness?
My book revisions for Saint Death’s Doorway are very pleasing so far, and I’m having so much fun; I’ve laughed out loud a lot, which I think is a good sign. I just wish (always) I were faster.
…because if the SECOND draft is this good (so far anyway), what would happen if I had 12 MORE DRAFTS and AS MANY YEARS to write them… like with the first book?!? GLORY! (But not, like, any way to operate a career.)
All that, and we’re planning a month-long tour when we take Negocios Infernales on the road! We’ll be running games at game shops throughout the Midwest, and running salons at any library who’ll have us, and we even have an event booked at the Twenty-Sided Store in Brooklyn in September. We’ve got a deal more planning to do before taking off, but I’m sure that will get done. In between revisions.
I leave you with two beautiful things: I got to chat about audiobook narration with TWO OTHER AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS/AUTHORS, Tren Sparks and Andrew Hiller, with host Dr. Gregory Wilson: a professor, DM, streamer, and writer on twitch.tv/arvaneleron.
I loved talking narration with other narrators. It made me sohappy. Like, actor happy. It’s a particular feeling, and one I don’t get very often, since these days I’m usually writer happy. I wanted to share it with you, to keep you company when you’re doing dishes or something.
After you do dishes and listen to us nerd out about audiobooks, you can do some laundry and listen to the VOD for our “Poets for Amnesty International” event, where a group of poets read our poetry online, and tried to raise awareness and funds for Amnesty.
I hope we did some good then, and I hope our poems in the air keep doing good in small waves and ripples. We’ll have another sort of poetry fundraiser come the fall. “There must be something to set against all this,” as Charlotte Gray says.
“Poets for Amnesty International” featured Lisa M. Bradley, Allisa Cherry, McKenna Deen, Gerald L. Coleman, Carlos Hernandez, Anne Hills, Julia Rios, Liz Pino Sparks, Adam Stutz, Hanna Tawater, Ali Trotta, and myself. Please enjoy!
Yours truly,
C. S. E. Cooney
P. S. And if you haven’t yet, you really SHOULD OUGHT to read Carlos’s story “Focus” in the latest Clarkesworld Magazine! And subscribe!
P. P. S. If you’re curious about our game, Negocios Infernales, you can buy a copy here at Outland Entertainment! There will also probably be copies at Studio 2’s booth at GenCon this year!
Also, If you have a game store you love, or a library you’re connected to, and you’re within a day’s drive of NYC, let us know! We’d love to come and run a game for you, or talk about game-making!
Traveling the World (well okay, a bit of Canada & the Midwest), Finishing a Novel (1st draft anyway), Reading, Blurbing, Poetry Panel, Narration Podcast, you know…
A Widow’s Charm Tour with Caitlyn Paxson
I wrote extensively about our tour dates and stops in an earlier newsletter, so this one’s mostly pictures. What an adventure! This is what they mean when they say “time of your life.”
Caitlyn and I have been rising authors together for almost twenty years. It has taken decades to build our careers to this point, and the most important thing I’ve learned is to CELEBRATE OUR VICTORIES WHENEVER THEY COME, BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY.
I am so so so happy to celebrate Caitlyn’s incredible success with her. I LOVED being her conversation partner, and just GLOWING at her the whole time!
This is outside Hopeless Romantics in Toronto. I dressed to match the store.
This was at Artemis Books and Goods in Traverse City, Michigan. We were their FIRST AUTHOR EVENT.
They have LOTS of signed books—both mine and Caitlyn’s—if you wanted to order a signed one from them! Maybe mention you’d like a signed one, so that they know!
This was a great event, at CityLit Books in Chicago. SO MANY OF MY CHICAGO and CHICAGO SUBURBS friends came—in a torrential downpour!!! with tornado warnings!!!!—and I got to meet some old family friends of Caitlyn’s while we were there too!
Oh, and JULIA RIOS showed up, on their way to another state. They made sure to have a layover in Chicago, JUST TO COME TO THE EVENT! They’re the greatest.
I was so so happy.
Finishing (the FIRST DRAFT of) a Novel
Yes, it me.
I finished the first draft of Saint Death’s Doorway.
Yes I did.
HEE HEE.
Now I gotta git gud. Due date’s July 17th. Eep. Not much time.
“I’ve always relied on the kindness of beta readers.”
Poetry Panel and Narration Podcast
The poetry panel with Ali Trotta and Connecticut Poet Laureate Antoinette Brim-Bell was pretty awesome. They were both so insightful and passionate about poetry, and I got to brush off my performance piece “The Sea King’s Second Bride”—memorized, no less!
This is what I wrote about it: “Ali Trotta’s Offerings for Ordinary Gods is a merge of witchcraft, myth, love potion, and grief memoir. Feminist, fervent, and at times forlorn, this poetry collection champions female figures who have been done dirty by history and myth’s trad narratives (as well as present day voices of the #MeToo movement), dispenses wisdom to the lonely and hurt from unexpected sources, and warns of dire curses awaiting those who do harm. Many of these poems are love poems, and none so deep as the love poems to a lost mother, for whom the poet’s yearning sounds the very depths of a siren’s sea.”
And Antoinette Brim-Bell’s website is full of her collections and collaborative art projects—including ballets based on her work! I suggest “Freedom is Red,” found here, among some of her others: https://www.antoinettebrimbell.com/poems
The narration podcast featured Andrew Hiller, whose comedic noir novella “Hornytown Chutzpah” recently came out with Atthis Arts. Andrew and his sister did the co-narration for that book. The podcast also featured Trendane Sparks, a renowned narrator of many BattleTech and Shadowrun audiobooks!
The incredible cover artist is Anouck Faure, whom I adore. And the incredible translator is Anne-Sylvie Homassel! I am so happy! So honored! I have to see how I can order a copy! I want to hug it!
Carlos made me a decal of the cover for our living room window, and then we had the wrap-around version of the color printed out so we could frame it.
And… just WAIT till you see Anouck’s cover for Anne-Sylvie’s translation of my novella The Breaker Queen! It’s currently my desktop wallpaper, but it’s not for public consumption yet.
I mean, say no more. Except, I will. Or maybe I should let the creators speak for me:
Imagine Milton’s Paradise Lost, except God is an alien overlord, Satan is a bitter divorcee, and Eve is a feminist icon. Throw in drag queen space demons, cosmic rock anthems, and a mysterious substance called Space Jelly, and you have the irreverent new musical, Paradise Lost in Space.
At a time when the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people are being challenged, we wanted to reclaim Western culture’s foundational creation myth, to make room for the true, queer beauty of our diverse experiences. Revitalizing this old story as a campy space opera, Paradise Lost in Space has the power to entertain and connect audiences
I really loved it. I laughed my ass off. It came out of a piece of queer ritual theatre at a fairy festival, and you could feel the holiness right there the whole time, with all the sacred and profane together.
Cumulo, by Emily Batsford is a “nonverbal puppet piece explores our accumulation of self and the experiences that shape us. Soar with Plum as they free-fall through the sky, meeting weather and whimsy along the way.”
Yeah, that’s what the text said, but the experience was beautiful and harrowing. I thought it was going to be like the cotton candy they were serving at the concessions stand. No. No. It was… a nightmare in free-fall. It was thunderous. I can still feel it in my chest.
I love the puppet designer, Yuliya Tsukerman, both as a poet and a mask-maker as well as a puppeteer. I highly recommend you follow her on Instagram and Patreon!
This is me in the onboarding portion of Cumulo. It only LOOKS soft and pink. But watch out for the monsters.
This was an awesome immersive theatre experience. Imagine going to a family party, where the family has been mariachis for GENERATIONS, and ALL the drama is going down. You are fed tamales, chat with the actors, and are encouraged to gossip about what’s going on in the other rooms.
Theatre Now New York runs the Sound Bites Festival of 10-Minute Musicals. I was in it last year! This year, they were in Symphony Space, which was a great place for them.
I love any new plays festival. It’s like reading an anthology; you may not like everything, but you love the work as a whole, and the high level of the work individually. And the ones that ring in you, SING IN YOU.
Books I’m Blurbing
These are all blurbs for novels and novellas forthcoming THIS YEAR! Keep an eye out for them!
The Asterist by A. T. Sayre.
Pre-order it on Bookshop, B&N, Amazon, or at your friendly indie bookstore!
What I wrote about it:
What do you get when you take a bitter, demoralized loner finishing up his last tedious job in space and introduce him to a flash-frozen alien who’s just crash-landed on his asteroid? A.T. Sayre’s The Asterist. What a hero’s journey: to watch a grumpy curmudgeon strip off decades of bleak ennui to reveal complex layers of competence, scientific curiosity, excitement, and affection, as he learns to communicate with this wanderer in his midst. Fans of Murderbot’s blistering sarcasm and Project Hail Mary’s last-ditch problem solving will thrum to the themes of The Asterist. Pretty damned satisfying.
These next two are novellas coming out this year, but I don’t have pre-order links for them yet. I’ll get them to you as soon as I do!
A House of Perfect Safety (novella) by Virginia Mohlere
What I wrote about it:
When a book so singularly focused on healing meets the current tropes of SFF, it might easily be relegated to the sub-genre of “cozy fantasy.” And while A House of Perfect Safety by Virginia M. Mohlere is deeply comforting, radiant with care, I would not call it cozy. There is such ferocity in its desire for the safety and well-being of its characters, such passionate fury at the cruelties of a world that inflicts harm on the poor, the weak, the low of status, and such profound acknowledgement of pain, that every flicker of light, every new growth, every step towards freedom, is an enormous victory against the powers that seek to break us. Mohlere’s magic and invention call to mind Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle, but the deep work undergirding her prose sounds an alternative to LeGuin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, entreating us not to walk away from suffering, but to serve to alleviate it instead—and not only that, but to end it at the source, both individually and in community, for once and for all.
A River Wide (novella) by Amanda J. McGee
What I wrote about it:
Like Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic, and Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots, Amanda J. McGee’s novella A River Wide taps the bonds of sisterhood, survival, and power, and floods the senses with river water and witchcraft. McGee’s characters have a deep, Dillard-esque, and—dare I say—holy bond with the Appalachian landscape, which can be capricious, cruel, generous, or tender in turns, much like the prose itself. A River Wide wanders deftly into various creeks and hollows of genre: thriller, ghost story, romance, family drama, and a middle-of-life coming-of-age. It moved me, deeply.
A young woman undertakes a terrifying journey—and a terrifying transformation—in this genre-blending speculative suspense novel set in South Korea and the US which mixes fantasy, gothic vibes and queer longing, with a shot of feminist body horror.
Fairytales are for children.Until the day we awaken in a place full of monsters, being softly enveloped by the dark.
Nineteen-year-old undocumented immigrant Hee-Jin lies on the floor of her cramped Seoul apartment, listening for footsteps.
But the knock on the door isn’t the police finally coming to deport her to North Korea. Instead, sprawled on the doorstep is a disfigured, bird-like corpse—and it has her eyes. Her younger sister, artist Hee-Young, is meant to be on an art program in America, not dead of a strange overdose.
But in Hee-Young’s pocket is a plane ticket and US passport. Seeing her chance for freedom, Hee-Jin steals her sister’s identity and takes her place, determined to uncover what really happened to her.
But the deeper she dives into the program’s strange workings, the closer she gets to the monstrous secret at its heart.
A page-turner of a mystery filled with gorgeous, creepy Korean folklore and imagery, Aviary, written by critically acclaimed Korean American author Maria Dong, is also a story about power, violence, exploitation—and transformation. And, above all, it’s about the choices women make from within a system where all the available options are bad ones.
IN THIS QUEER POLITICAL NECROMANTASY, A SECRET MARRIAGE PACT FOR SURVIVAL COULD UNDO A KINGDOM . . .
As the daughter of a foreign ambassador, Rissa hoped living abroad would protect her from home’s puritanical customs where women are forbidden to walk at night or use magic except to support a necromancer’s dual identity. Alek, the youngest prince of the Memric Isle, hasn’t yet taken his Second body. Fearing he’ll be accused of sin and his body claimed as a Second himself, Alek lives piously while studying abroad, even though he’s distracted by magic—and his handsome roommate, Gable. When Alek meets Rissa by chance, his quiet life is thrown into chaos. One of Rissa’s fathers has been abducted, and Alek and Gable are witnesses. Alek and Rissa form a secret alliance to find her father and uncover the truth behind the conspiracy, risking life and freedom as they follow clues straight to the heart of the Memric Isle’s government.
Artists I Love
I was at the Nyack Street Fair last Sunday, and stopped in my tracks for two things: the artist Amy Ackerman and a Bloody Mary Mix by a chef-artist named “K.”
I don’t even like Bloody Mary mix, but I loved K’s instantly. Hand-made, small batch, BIPOC owned.
It’s so good. SO GOOD. I got some for Carlos, both the Original and the Deep Heat. It’s award-winning, and really… just worth it.
As for Amy Ackerman, I was just strolling by, and then this picture caught my eye.
It’s the one on the bottom left, a woman being embraced by a horned shadowy creature and a translucent ghost creature. And then, the more I looked, the more I fell in love with the art. Instead of spending ALL my budget on a big piece of art, I bought several cards to spread the love to my friends. B
ut… really. I loved so many pieces SO MUCH.
This is exactly what I saw when strolling by Amy Ackerman’s booth at the Nyack Street Fair:
A Horror Reading with “The Sinister Six” authors from Ruadán Books’ anthology Sinister Societies: Six Novellas of Secrets and Horrors
Who is?
Cindy O’Quinn is an Appalachian writer. She grew up in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. She writes fiction, nonfiction, and speculative poetry, which all lean heavily into the horror genre. She is the author of Dark Cloud on Naked Creek. It was Cindy’s fifth Bram Stoker Award nomination that garnered her the prestigious award. Her poetry has been nominated for the Elgin, Rhysling, and Dwarf Star awards.
Errick Nunnally was born and raised in Boston,Massachusetts, he served one tour in the Marine Corps before deciding art school would be a safer—and more natural—pursuit. He is permanently distracted by art, comics, science fiction, history, and horror. Trained as a graphic designer, he has earned a black belt in KravMaga/Muay Thai kickboxing after dark, and first prize in one hamburger contest. Errick’s writing includes: the novels Blood for the Sun, All the Dead Men, and Lightning Wears a Red Cape; a comic strip collection, Lost in Transition; and a short novel The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile from upstart publisher Clash Books. The following are some magazines and anthologies that he has appeared in: Galaxy’s Edge; Fiyah Literary Magazine; Lamplight; and Nightlight, a Black Horror Podcast. Eventually, Errick came to his senses and moved to Rhode Island with his two lovely children and one beautiful wife. Visit erricknunnally.us to see more of his work.
Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears red lipstick, and poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of numerous works including Darling, the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, Pretty Little Dead Girls, Detritus in Love, and Nameless. She is a three-time Bram Stoker Award winner for Little Dead Red, Love is a Crematorium, and “Fracture.” Mercedes lives and works in Las Vegas. You can find her at mercedesmyardley.com.
Michael Burke is the co-founder of the Eisner-award-winning comic and collectible store Comicazi in Somerville, MA. When not sorting the comic stacks at work, Michael can be found at home, releasing the hobgoblins of his mind into story form. He has had several short stories published both online and in print, including The Horror Zine, Monster Fight at the O.K. Corrall, and the ‘80s-themed anthology, Totally Tubular Terrors. He also has a weird western novella, Last Sunset of a Dying Age, in Crystal Lake’s Dark Tide series and a small sword and sorcery collection, Fragments of a Greater Darkness, from Tule Fog Press. Michael is a member of the New England Horror Writers’ Association and lives outside of Boston, MA with a patient wife in a house with more books than he can possibly read, which doesn’t stop him from acquiring more. He continues writing every chance he gets.
Tom Deady‘s first novel, Haven, won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. He has since published several novels, novellas, a short story collection, and the first book in his middle grade horror series. Most recently, he released The Rack II, a follow-up to the popular anthology The Rack, themed around celebrating the bygone days of mass market horror paperbacks. He has a master’s degree in English and Creative Writing and is a member of both the Horror Writers Association and the New England Horror Writers Association. You can find out more about Tom and his work at www.tomdeady.com.
Sarah Read is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, Out of Water, Root Rot & Other Grim Tales, and The Atropine Tree. She lives in northern Wisconsin where she works as a public librarian, knits, and collects stationery and pretty rocks. Visit her at authorsarahread.com.
A Horror Reading with many of my Dark-Arts Friends! With bonus COVER REVEAL of Haralambi Markov’s upcoming short story collection The Language of Knives
Who is?
I’ll post their full bios later as we get closer to the event, but here are the stars:
St. John’s University’s second Storytelling event: The Power of Poetic Imagination in Our Time, a discussion moderated by me featuring poets Ali Trotta, C. S. E. Cooney, and Antoinette Brim-Bell
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:
Happy eve of All Hallow’s Eve. It’s a blustery, silvery one out there today.
I’ve been looking forward to this day for more than a month, because my best friend Mir and I have been trying to find a way to see each other in her busy, busy schedule and tonight is the NIGHT!
We are going to the Great Jones Spa, which my friend Judy the Engineer introduced me to earlier this year. I love it because it has WATERFALLS. And a HOT TUB. And Mir is a MERMAID, so I like to give her water things whenever I can. Especially when she’s been working one billion hours a week.
Also, because… one of the reasons Mir’s so busy is that she’s DIRECTING MY PLAY!
Well, that and she ASLO works two incredible jobs: at LaMama Experimental Theatre Club as Community and Educational Coordinator; and at DVP—Dances for a Variable Population—as Program and Events Manager. (DVP, by the way, has one of my favorite mission statements of all time. I love what they do.)
Oh, Mir’s full name is Miriam Grill, by the way. The Notorious, Infamous, ILLUSTRIOUS Miram Grill. She’s a hotshot director. Yeah, baby. And a genius. So that’s awesome.
Mir and I went to high school in Phoenix together lo these 20 years ago. Then we both had many adventures and lived many places. Me, in Chicago and Rhode Island. Her, in China and Taiwan.
Back in the 20-teens, Mir moved to NYC to go to graduate school at Columbia University for Directing, and I moved here to marry Dr. Doctorpants (Carlos Hernandez). So for the last eight years, we’ve FINALLY been living in the same city (and country). We even lived together during the heart of the pandemic, which was hilarious—in its idiosyncratic, often difficult, but very dear way.
But even living in the same city, it’s STILL super hard to see each other, because these little islands with their little boroughs are actually QUITE VAST and MISCHIEVOUS, and they often like to tangle with the space/time continuum IMHO.
But back to my play!
I wrote Hey Nonny Nonny! off a prompt from the Red Bull Theatre short play festival, on the theme “Defiance.” While it didn’t make the cut there, it still brought me great delight to defiantly take the only four female characters from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and give them a little something more to do.
(Something more interesting than wallowing in virginal victimhood and furious helplessness.)
Call it a missing scene. Call it a feminist revision. Call it an invocation of Diana the Huntress 400 years later. As you like it.
In 2024, the SlayFest won New York City’s “BEST SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL” award. This year, it’ll be held at the Atelier at TheatreLab NYC.
It’s sexy. It’s subversive. It’s SKULLDUGGALICIOUS. What can I say?
It’s also free. Tickets have SOLD OUT. This is great. You know what’s also great? DONATIONS! If we get enough, we can mount FULL PRODUCTIONS, not just staged readings, NEXT YEAR.
Now, I know you’re sad that you won’t be able to make it this year. Well, some of you can’t. Probably most of you. That’s okay. Like Delia Sherman likes to say, “We cannot live all lives”—a phrase I’ve found VERY USEFUL as an adult, and also as a New Yorker.
But I wanted to say that one of the other playwrights from the SlayFest—Martin Jude Farawell—as well as Grant Leopold Cartwright, the SlayFest’s Artistic Director, and the FABOOSHIEST Carla Kissane, Producing Director—will be joining me on my TWITCH CHANNELthis coming MondayFOR A PANEL!
You know all the info from our previous invites—but Imma tell you anyway!
This is Carla Kissane’s and Isaac Raz’s “Sonnets and the Self” show, another jewel of the SlayFest—and NOT to be missed!
I can promise you the panel will be be lively and informative, and possibly HILARIOUS. I’ve not yet met ANY of my fellow playwrights, so it’ll be a treat for me to chat with Martin.
Also? I ADORE Carla and EVERYTHING she does. And I’m pretty sure I love Grant too, though I’ve only met him a few times. But I mean, come on. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE???
I hope to see you there on Monday night! If not, I’ll report back after the SlayFest and tell you ALL!
Plus: Plus a “Catch-Up” date, Upcoming Appearances, and William Alexander in New York!
(This is mirrored from my newsletter, so please forgive the repetition if you get both of them.)
Dear friends—
Goodness, how the month has flown!
The Storyteller event in Baltimore’s Ivy Bookshop, and Marty’s launch of Audition for the Fox at the Thespis Theatre. were equally really lovely.
Baltimore
I took the Amtrak in to Baltimore and walked from there to the Baltimore Museum of Art . The onboarding experience there was very ludic, with “social sculptures” of usable gaming spaces, encouraging interaction and participation, all while being surrounded by images and objects from the history of human games.
But my favorite thing was the special exhibit there called Black Earth Rising. There’s an article about it here: https://artbma.org/exhibition/black-earth-rising, if you’re interested! I loved the work of Firelei Báez and Teresita Fernández particularly, but everything made me stare until my eyes hurt.
There were also two side-by-side exhibits: one, Malcolm Peacock’s “A Signal, A Sprout” (it looks like a massive redwood trunk made of all hand-braided synthetic hair); the other, “Heavy with History: Devin Allen and the Baltimore Uprising,” featuring the throat-catching, heart-hammering photography of Devin Allen.
I followed all kinds of new artists on their various platforms after my visit! And I left the musuem incredibly impressed by BMA’s collection: their beautifully and ethically curated African art room, especially.
The Fox LAUNCHES
Marty’s book launch took place at the Thespis Theatre—which is SUCH A PLACE! It resides within the Hellenic Cultural Center, which has so many statues of Greek Gods—anatomically correct, ahem, except for those few missing a few… pieces—a Greek Orthodox chapel the size of a parlor, completely with full stained glass windows, a theatre, and a black box! I loved this place. I want to live there.
Marty himself was wonderful; he said he’d been nervous all day, but had decided to view the book launch as a warm hug. He actually knew everyone in the audience by name—except for our friend Ben, whom Carlos and I had invited. We read an annotated section of his novella together, and then I did a Q&A with Marty before we opened it up to questions from the audience.
Oh, and we had Matt Kressel as our virtual guest on Fiction: Impossible, which is now archived on YouTube here! (In case you missed it and you want company some night while you’re, you know, doing dishes.) (Dishes are endless. Good news is: so is short-form entertainment!)
THE MOST EXCITING NEWS EVER!!!
My darling, beautiful, wonderful BRILLIANT FRIEND, Caitlyn Paxson, has her DEBUT NOVEL out NEXT YEAR, and this week they did the COVER REVEAL!
BEHOLD IT AND TREMBLE! (Tenderly!) (Ardently!) (Amorously!) (For it is a ROMANTASY! With Necromancy! So it is, as we like to call it… NECROPANTASY!)
Here are the two covers: one is Canadian and one is United States. It’s also coming out in the UK but I don’t know what cover goes with that. DON’T YOU WANT TO EAT IT UP! WITH THE SKULLS AND EGGS AND THE POISONED MUSHROOMS AND THE CANDLES AND THE PISTOLS OF IT ALL???
Here is the synopsis:
Here’s some alt-text for that description from Del Rey:
“In this witty fantasy romance, a widow blackmails her rakish necromancer neighbor to bring her husband back to life and save her home-only to find herself falling for him instead.
“Witty, whimsical, and deeply kind, A Widow’s Charm is beyond charming—it’s wholly enchanting.”—Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Everlasting
Lady Hildegarde Croft is accustomed to changes in position. After all, she rose from maidservant to lady of the manor when she married Lord Thorgoode Croft. But when he drops dead quite unexpectedly, the plans that would have protected her and the people of Croftholde from her malevolent brother-in-law die along with him. What’s a widow to do?
Fortunately, potential salvation arrives in the form of Lord Erol Elmwood, who is fleeing the consequences of using his forbidden Charm to raise the dead and save his own life. Now he’s injured, destitute, and miserable, stuck hiding out at the neighboring estate.
For Hilde, blackmailing Lord Elmwood to resurrect Thorgoode seems like the perfect solution. For Elmwood, beautiful Lady Croft seems like the ideal distraction from his troubles. The problem is, all she wants from him is the horrifying power he knows he can never use again.”
AAAUGGHHH I CANNOT WAIT OMG OMG OMG! And Alex frikkin HARROW blurbed it? Couldn’t you just GOAT FAINT??? I could!!!
Upcoming Virtual Appearance
This Saturday, September 27th, I get to be a guest poet for the Science Fiction Poetry Association! I shall read you SO MUCH POETRY! But I won’t be the ONLY ONE! It’s an OPEN MIC, yo!
I think you need a membership to Nebula Conference 2025 online, or be a SFWA member!
Tachyon’s 30th Anniversary Virtual Reading and Q&A
Oh, and I wanted to remind you of THIS, coming up on Thursday October 2nd! ALSO VIRTUAL:
ACCLAIMED GENRE PRESS TACHYON PUBLICATIONS CELEBRATES 30 YEARS IN 2025
Join us for a night of virtual readings and Q&A on Twitch TV with some of Tachyon Publications’ team: Jaymee Goh(editor), and authorsAuston Habershaw, Josh Rountree, Kimberly Unger, Naseem Jamnia, Mary G. Thompson, Mia Tsai, Pat Murphy, Sam J. Miller, andSamantha Mills.
We’ll be hosting our friend, National Book Award Winner William Alexander for the New York leg of his tour. He’ll be doing one virtual and three in-person events that I know of.
Who is William Alexanders?
Well, you probably already know Will, but for those of you who DON’T:
William Alexander is the author of Goblin Secrets (McElderry) and other unrealisms for young readers. His work has won the National Book Award, the Eleanor Cameron Award, the Librarian Favorites Award, the Teacher Favorites Award, two Junior Library Guild Selections, and two CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year Awards. Most recently he wrote Sunward—his first novel for grownups, forthcoming from Saga Press in September of 2025—and co-edited the middle grade anthology Starstuff: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Celebrate New Possibilities. As a small child he honestly believed that his Cuban-American family came from the lost island of Atlantis.
Will’s New York Tour!
Monday, October 20th, 7-8 PM: online, on Fiction: Impossible!
Carlos and I will be hosting Will Alexander as our Guest Star on Fiction: Impossible. Will will read a bit from Sunward, we’ll ask him some LEADING QUESTIONS, and then we’ll all talk about books and games we’ve liked recently. Join us on my Twitch stream twitch.tv/csecooney
After that, Will’s coming down from Vermont, and we get to HOST him at our HOUSE! “The Week of Fantastic Fish” we’re calling it, since we’ve decided to ONLY EAT SUSHI while he’s here.
Simon and Schuster describes Sunward thus:
A cozy debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning writer William Alexander, this story of found family follows a planetary courier training adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon.
Captain Tova Lir chose a life as a courier rather than get involved in her family’s illustrious business in politics. Set in humanity’s far future, hiring a planetary courier is essential for delivering private messages across the stars.
Encouraged by friends, Tova begins mentoring baby bots, juvenile AI who are developmentally in their teens, and trains them how to interact within society essentially becoming their foster mom. Her latest charge, Agatha Panza von Sparkles, named herself on their first run from Luna to Phoebe station. But on their return, they encounter a derelict spaceship and a lurking assassin, igniting a thrilling chase across the solar system.
Tova and Agatha’s daring actions leave Agatha’s mind vulnerable, relying on Tova’s former AI pupils for help. As Tova starts gathering her scattered family around her, she is chased through the solar system by forces who want her captured and her family erased. This debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning author William Alexander is a must-read for fans of Becky Chambers and Ursula K. Le Guin. Lovers of poignant science fiction, where the bonds of found family, the evolution of AI, and the building distrust of centuries of bias, come together in this visionary look at humanity’s future.
Meet Will Live!
Thursday, October 23rd at 7pm Kew & Willow Books Authors Will Alexander, Carlos Hernandez, and C. S. E. Cooney discussing Will’s new SF novel Sunward, as well as writing in the SFF genre ! (More info on this as it comes) 81-63 Lefferts Blvd. Kew Gardens, NY 11415-1728
Friday, October 24th at 6pm Books of Wonder Authors Carlos Hernandez, Eliot Schrefer, and Will Alexander discuss Starstuff: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Celebrate New Possibilities.
Saturday, October 25th at 2 PM-3:30 PM King’s Bay Library: authors Carlos Hernandez and Will Alexander discuss Sunward, Starstuff, the state ofadult SF and kidlit, for the edification of ALL OF BROOKLYN! 3650 Nostrand Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11229
In a thrilling follow-up to Tasting Light, ten best-selling and award-winning masters of the form use the possible—and the premise of hope—to explore how science and technology can reshape our world and defy assumptions.
At once a collection of hard science fiction for curious middle-graders and an antidote to despair in the face of dystopian uncertainty, these ten horizon-bending stories may seem unreal, but all follow the rules of physics and biology as we understand them today. These tales of space junk, multiverse navigation, an asteroid named Doomsday, and bees and marmots in space pulse with honesty and optimism. Whether home is a planet, a moon, a space station, or a fleet starship, relatable protagonists of different genders, classes, nationalities, ethnicities, and orientations face challenges—some harrowing, some hilarious—true to their moment in time and space. Brisk plots, resonant themes, and scientific rigor define these forward-facing stories by leading middle-grade authors. Taken together, the tales champion youth agency through characters who approach science in adventurous ways, underscoring that we are all, indeed, made of the same luminous stuff.
That’s all for today’s newsletter, friends! Beautiful work is pouring out into this world. “Something,” to quote Charlotte Gray, “to set against all this.”
TONIGHT! Tonight, friends, Carlos and I are so excited to present the newest episode of FICTION: IMPOSSIBLE, our monthly Twitchcast (except when it’s, you know, summer) featuring authors with new books out this year!
We host it on my Twitch channel, twitch.tv/csecooney, in a virtual space we like to call The Phoenix Quill Tavern.
Why the Phoenix Quill Tavern?
Because, friends, we want STORIES WRITTEN IN FIRE!
We hope to make this a space for sharing all kinds of stories—fiction, games, music, art—and all the delicious, liminal spaces between!
Tonight’s guest star on FICTION: IMPOSSIBLE (hosted by writer and game designer Carlos Hernandez and yours truly, C. S. E. Cooney) is our good buddy Matthew Kressel—author of Space Trucker Jess!
Who is Matthew Kressel? HOLD YOUR HOSSES! I’m about to TELL YOU!
Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominated author and coder. His many works of short fiction have appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Tor.com/Reactor, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many other publications and anthologies, including multiple Year’s Bests. Eighteen of his stories are included in his debut collection, Histories Within Us, which came out earlier this year from Senses Five Press. And his far-future adventure novel Space Trucker Jess is just out from Fairwood Press. His Mars-based novella The Rainseekers is coming from Tordotcom in Feb 2026. Alongside Ellen Datlow, he runs the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan. And he is the creator of the Moksha submissions system, used by many of the largest fiction publishers today.
We will be TOTALLY GRILLING him about his SF book, Space Trucker Jess, which we both read and loved, and about what he’s been reading and playing lately.
He’ll also read an excerpt, which, my friends, will truly BLOW (THE SOCKS OFF) YOUR MIND(FEET)!
What’s Space Trucker Jess, you ask? I (and the person who wrote the back cover copy) HAPPILY answer:
Jessian Urania Darger is a kick-ass take-no-shit foul-mouthed too-smart-for-her-own-good sixteen-year-old girl with a chip on her shoulder. She and her daddy have been grifting their way across the verse for years. But when her daddy gets arrested for running crypto-credit scams, Jess is forced to get a job on Chadeisson Station as a roachrunner, fixing starships to survive.
She dreams of a better life, away from her corrupt daddy, so she’s been saving up to buy a Spark Megahauler, a huge cargo ship, ever since she saw one in a printer catalog. She wants to run the long hauls, to sail alone into the black and never look back.
But when her daddy goes missing from prison, Jess realizes she just can’t let him go, and she makes it her life’s mission to find out where he’s gone. In an odyssey that takes her across the galaxy, Jess encounters vanished planets, strange societies, inscrutable alien gods, and mind-bending secrets that may change humanity’s path forever.
When is this amazing show?
Why… TONIGHT! Monday, September 15th, from 7 PM–8 PM Eastern!
I already know you’ll love Matt, because he’s smart as hell, incredibly community minded, and just an all-around renaissance mind. You can also subscribe to Matt’s newsletter here, if you can’t get enough of him tonight!
“If Philip K. Dick had a vision of a protagonist as gutsy Katniss Everdeen hyperdriving her way through a Gibsonesque cyberpunk galaxy, he might have imagined Space Trucker Jess—minus the humor and voice that are singularly Matt Kressel’s. Wild, philosophical, inventive and totally unpredictable, Space Trucker Jess is a recklessly paced slow burn that will take you on a journey through a warts-and-all universe where the stakes couldn’t be higher, nor nearer to the human heart. — Carlos Hernandez, author of Sal & Gabi Break the Universe
Here’s what I wrote:
“Like its titular protagonist, Space Trucker Jess is foul-mouthed, funny, hungry, lonely, and tripping balls. It’s poetry and philosophy and science and religion and friendship, streaking by at light speed, a radioactive burn in the black. Matthew Kressel’s slangy prose sucks you in like a black hole, and like a black hole, is singular in the ‘verse.” — C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Saint Death’s Daughter
Not in that newsletter, but something I did yesterday: I received and completed my copyedits for my story “Moons Over Sea” in the forthcoming Tanith Lee tribute anthology: Storyteller.
I LOVED WRITING THIS STORY. I love my demon Embrae, her four beautiful human brothers, their Fish Mother, and their Bread Mother. I love that thing about wishing wells. And that other bit about mills. I love the end especially. I CANNOT WAIT TO HAWK THIS ANTHO FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE. Embrae made me LAUGH OUT LOUD TO WRITE HER!
At the bottom of that newsletter, I talked about this sale at Solaris Books, but I’ll just post it here as a piece of good housekeeping: https://rebellionpublishing.com/sale/
The sale goes from today till November 4th! Saint Death’s Daughter is only $0.99, but look at all the other ones that are on sale.
I can PERSONALLY RECOMMEND: The Witness for the Dead, and The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison: set in her Goblin Emperor world. The third book is releasing soon! SO NOW IS THE TIME TO READ THESE INCREDIBLE FANTASY MYSTERY NOVELLAS!!! AAUGGH I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!
Here was my blurb for The Witness for the Dead:
“Is there anything greater than discovering a genius in our midst? Granted, I’m last to the Katherine Addison party, but this band is so swinging, I’m just glad to be here. I adored The Goblin Emperor, and Witness for the Dead—also set amongst the elves, airmen, goblins, and ghouls of that world—packs another lightning-fisted literary wallop. High fantasy, murder investigation, ghosts, gods, and the opera: it rocks all my hot spots. Addison lavishes her ardent readers with adventure, new friendships, invisible enemies, and rewards us with her uncommon depths, subtleties, and kindnesses.”
If you’re in the mood for a haunted house novel, there’s A Theory of Haunting. And if you’re in the mood for a haunted HAMLET novel, read The Death I Gave Him, which I got to blurb!
Welcome to Elsinore Labs, where talking to your murdered father’s ghost is the least weird thing a death-obsessed young man might do before embarking on a night of violence and mystery. For anyone who loves Shakespeare, a haunted-house escape room, and a plot full of tenderness, philosophy, brazenness, and terror—as well as the unexpectedly erotic—Em X. Liu’s The Death I Gave Him is the book you never knew you’ve always wanted.
I’ve not gotten to read A Broken Darkness or Beneath the Rising yet, but they’re both by Premee Mohamed, so I WILL. I mean. She’s just. I mean. Phew. I DID read her Siege at Burning Grass, not on offer here, but snatch it up anyway, would you? Here was my blurb for Siege, so you know I’m serious:
“I plunged intoThe Siege of Burning Grass knowing nothing except that Premee Mohamed wrote it. What more did I need? And yet, it astonished me. A colossal work of fiction and philosophy, Siege is something like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind meets The Things They Carried by way of The Brothers Karamazov. I loved Alefret, Mohamed’s monstrous man of peace, instantly and wholly. I feared for him, I suffered with him, I raged alongside him, all against a backdrop of gorgeous and lonely immensity. I wanted nothing for days but to be reading this book.”
Here’s a StoryBundle for YOU! “The Twisted Folklore Histories StoryBundle!”
Here is the blog with all the relevant details ($5 for 4 books, $20 for all 12), which books are bonus, and so on. It is curated by none other than our own Mike Allen of Mythic Delirium!
I read Shadow Atlas in 2022 and thought it was so beautifully put together! I’ve read several Eugen Bacon stories, and loved every one. I’m gaga for anything Angela Slatter aka AG Slatter, as you probably know by now. And that ISOBEL YAP COLLECTION OMG.
And look–in addition to some of my books, there are my Mythic Delirium publishing buddies: Theodora Goss, Barbara Krasnoff, and Yukimi Ogawa! Also very excited to see Elwin’s collection! I mean! AMAZING STUFF!
HERE’S THE FULL LIST OF WHAT YOU’LL GET!
Chasing Whispers, Eugen Bacon (Raw Dog Screaming Press) Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas, Carina Bissett, Hilary Dodge and Joshua Viola, eds. (Hex Publishers) Dark Breakers, C. S. E. Cooney (Mythic Delirium Books) The Twice-Drowned Saint, C. S. E. Cooney (Mythic Delirium Books) Dance on Saturday: Stories, Elwin Michael Cotman (Small Beer Press) The Collected Enchantments, Theodora Goss (Mythic Delirium Books) The History of Soul 2065, Barbara Krasnoff (Mythic Delirium Books) Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn, eds. (Raw Dog Screaming Press) Like Smoke, Like Light: Stories, Yukimi Ogawa (Mythic Delirium Books) A Feast of Sorrows, Angela Slatter aka AG Slatter (Prime Books) Blood Mountain: Stories, Brenda S. Tolian (Raw Dog Screaming Press) Never Have I Ever: Stories, Isabel Yap (Small Beer Press)
C.S.E. Cooney 