Tag Archives: reading

January 13, 2026 · 7:40 am

Not Yet Dawn, 13 Days into the New Year

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.

You can play it here on itch.io and rate it on the showcase here!

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!

“body my house
my horse my hound”

Without, the world is afire.

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.

BEST! Some of our darling, erstwhile Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours—Amal and Caitlyn!—BOTH have books coming out!

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 Iron from 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!

Oh, and…

We are taking Negocios Infernales on tour!

The INFERNAL TOUR!

Don’t know about Negocios Infernales?

It’s diceless, GM-less collaborative roleplaying game! The tagline: “The Spanish Inquisition… INTERRUPTED by aliens!”

You can find it at Outland Entertainment: https://outlandentertainment.com/products/negocios-infernales?variant=43864282497160

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!

I’ve also just finished Haralambi Markov’s The Language of Knives and other Bodily Ruins, forthcoming from our beloved Mythic Delirium.

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.”

And so, with that, I leave you, friends—

Yours Truly,

C. S. E. Cooney

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December 9, 2025 · 8:05 am

December: The Reflecting Pool, The Icy Mirror of a Year.

Crossposted from my Substack newsletter.

Dec 09, 2025

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

‪

When? Thursday December 18th

What time?
December 18th, 7 PM GMT / 2 PM EST—MY TIME! / 1 PM Central / 12 Mountain / 11 AM Pacific

Join Caskey Russell of the AMAZING The Door on the Sea and myself as we explore the “Bravery of Hope” in Fantasy worlds in crisis.

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.

About Door on the Sea:

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.

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June 11, 2025 · 9:33 pm

Poets for World Central Kitchen

Logo for C. S. E. Cooney’s Twitch channel created by Brett Massé

Dear Community,

Recently, my friend Liz Pino Sparks and I slid into our DMs to share some of our local joys and goings on, and also to lament the world horrors we all have been witnessing. We wanted, so badly to do something.

So we decided to host a night of poets reading their work: to raise our spirits, and more: to raise awareness and funds for World Central Kitchen, which does such great and good and beautiful work in communities “impacted by natural disasters and humanitarian crises.”

We named a night: Friday, June 27th, from 8 PM to 10 PM, Eastern. (7 PM-9 CENTRAL, 6 PM-8 Mountain, 5 PM-7 Pacific.)

I’ve known Liz and their spouse Ethan since our high school days at Arizona School for the Arts. Ethan and Liz know many poets from their years of art and education. I, too, know many poets–mainly speculative ones!–and we reached out broadly to ask them to read with us.

I’m so happy to be meeting some of these wonderful people for the first time on Friday, June 27th, and so excited to introduce my poet friends to Liz and Ethan and their poet friends!

And I am so, so fiercely glad that we are setting a goal: to raise $500 for World Central Kitchen that night.

I set up a page–https://donate.wck.org/poetsforwck–since WCK is so kind and made it so easy, both through their website, and a lovely responsive email to my query.

Look! We’re already a 10th of our way to our goal!

We will stream this event live on my twitch channel: twitch.tv/csecooney, and you don’t need a twitch account to stream us. But! If you want to join the chat, and applause in words and emojis, and type out all your favorite lines as you hear them (I love doing this), please grab yourself a twitch handle, and join us!

And now, I am pleased to introduce you to our poets!

Erik Amundsen is an author and poet whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Apex, and Jabberwocky. He has been removed from display for being biologically improbable or terrifying to children.

Allisa Cherry, author of An Exodus of Sparks and the 2024 Wheelbarrow Books poetry prize winner, has work in journals such as EcoTheo, The McNeese Review, TriQuarterly, and The Penn Review. Based in Portland, she teaches classes and workshops for immigrants and refugees and is a poetry editor at West Trade Review.”

Find Exodus of Sparks here! https://msupress.org/9781611865219/an-exodus-of-sparks/

Drs. Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman are folklorists, teachers, and writers who co-founded The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic, where they teach creative souls how to re-enchant their lives through folklore and fairy tales. They also write an absurd amount of poetry together, which you can read in Uncanny, Star*Line, Clarion, and many others.

Gerald L. Coleman is a philosopher, theologian, poet, Science Fiction & Fantasy author, Co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, and a Fellow at the Black Earth institute. His poetry and essay collections include Nappy Metaphysic, On the Black Hand Side, and the forthcoming Incendiary. His novels include the epic fantasy series, The Three Gifts. Follow his Patreon and his website.
Patreon: https://geraldcoleman.com/patreon-and-projects
Website: https://geraldcoleman.com/

C. S. E. Cooney is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author whose books include Saint Death’s Daughter, Saint Death’s Herald, Dark Breakers, Desdemona and the Deep, The Twice-Drowned Saint, and Bone Swans: Stories. Her Rhysling Award-winning poem is found in her poetry collection How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes. She is also game designer, an audiobook narrator, and the singer-songwriter Brimstone Rhine. Find her on social media via her LinkTree https://linktr.ee/csecooney.

Jennifer Crow‘s poetry and prose have been published in a wide range of venues over the past quarter-century. Her poems have appeared in Analog, where two were finalists for the AnLab reader awards; Asimov’s Science Fiction, Uncanny Magazine, and others. Curious readers can learn more about her and her work on Patreon, where she posts under “Poetry from a Crow.” Find here: https://www.patreon.com/c/poetrycrow/posts

McKenna Deen (she/her/hers) is the Editor-in-Chief of boats against the current, a poetry magazine that highlights the voices of women, LGBTQ writers, and poets from underrepresented backgrounds. Her chapbook Ever Yours, Vincent — about the life and art of Vincent van Gogh — was published by dancing girl press. Her poems have been published in several journals and poetry magazines, including The Poet, The Los Angeles Review, and Ekphrastic Review, among others. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two cats and loves photography, fresh flowers, and wine.

Adam Deutsch is the author of a full-length collection, Every Transmission (Fernwood Press). He has work recently in Poetry International, Thrush, Puerto Del Sol, Alchemy, Broken Lens Journal, and South Dakota Review, and has a chapbook called Carry On (Elegies). He’s a Professor in the English Department at Grossmont College and is the publisher of Cooper Dillon Books. He lives with his spouse and child in San Diego, CA. AdamDeutsch.com

Blas Falconer is the author of Rara Avis (Four Way Books 2024); Forgive the Body This Failure (Four Way Books, 2018); The Foundling Wheel (Four Way Books, 2012);  A Question of Gravity and Light (University of Arizona Press, 2007);  and The Perfect Hour (Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press, 2006).  He is also a co-editor for The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity (University of Arizona Press, 2011) and Mentor & Muse:  Essays from Poets to Poets (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010).


Gwynne Garfinkle lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of a novel (Can’t Find My Way Home) and two collections (Sinking, Singing and People Change), all published by Aqueduct Press. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in such publications as Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Uncanny, and Escape Pod.

Gwynne is hosting the SFWA open mic this Saturday at: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/1198649.html , with Marissa Lingen as featured reader.

Tina Hyland holds a Ph.D. in Literature, an MFA in writing and teaches at the Culture, Art & Technology program at UCSD.


Grant Leuning is a poet and visual artist. He is the author of two books of poetry, I Don’t Want to Die in the Ocean and Little Bird, among other things.

Caitlyn Paxson is a writer, performer, and historical interpreter. She has worked as an artistic director of storytelling performances, a book reviewer for NPR Books and Quill & Quire, a fiber arts consultant, a legal document and poetry transcriber, a 19th century jack of all trades, and a shepherdess. She currently interprets haunted historic house museums on Prince Edward Island and moonlights as a fake spirit medium. Her debut novel, A Widow’s Charm, is forthcoming from Del Rey, Doubleday Canada, and Quercus Books in 2026. You can also find her on Instagram or join her monthly newsletter, Book & Bramble.


Silvatiicus Riddle (He/They) is a 4x Rhysling-nominated Dark Fantasy/Speculative Fiction Writer & Poet haunting the bones of an old amusement park on the edge of New York City. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Enchanted Living, Eternal Haunted Summer, Spectral Realms, and Creepy Podcast, among others. He combats despair and entropy with his newsletter, The Goblin’s Reliquary. For all available works, please visit: http://linktr.ee/silvatiicusriddle

Julia Rios (they/them) is a queer, Latinx writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Latin American Literature Today, Lightspeed, and Goblin Fruit, among other places. Their editing work has won multiple awards including the Hugo Award. They’ve narrated stories for Escape Pod, Podcastle, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. Find out more at juliarios.com.


David Sklar is thrilled to have survived this long but isn’t sure what to do next. His work has appeared in some journals you’ve heard of, some journals you haven’t, and some that might somehow be both. You can learn more about David at http://davidsklar.blue


Ethan W. Sparks is a graduate of the UCSD writer’s graduate program, a graduate of the USC Rossier School of Education, and a public school teacher practicing inclusive and activist methodologies of teaching.  They are a father of five, a published poet and musician, and a survivor of homelessness spanning the cityscapes of Los Angeles, CA, Cleveland, OH, and Phoenix, AZ.  Their writing focuses on the human diasporic moment of separation from safety in personal and collective apocalypses, on the injection of love as decolonizing affect into education, and on the personal growth that surviving traumas inspires. Ethan’s work has been featured in The Allegheny Review, UCSD’s New Writer’s Series, Now That’s What I Call Poetry reading series, Amor Forense: birds in shorts city, una antologia de cuerpos escribiendo en san diego, and is the author of the chapbook, How to Home from Boats Against the Current magazine.


Liz Pino Sparks is a cross-genre writer, legal scholar, teacher, musician under the name Liz Capra, and a parent of five. They have made homes in: Post Soviet Russia, next to the steel mills of the Cuyahoga River, in the Sonoran Desert, and next to the Pacific Ocean. Liz is a proud grandchild of an Isleta Pueblo grandmother, a Sicilian immigrant grandmother, and generations of New Mexican Rancheros. They hold an MFA from San Diego State University, a JD from CWRU School of Law, and an LLM from CSU. Find their recent collection Generic American Household at Boats Against the Current.


Adam Stutz is a neurodivergent poet whose work has appeared in various print and online publications including The Equalizer: Second Series, White Stag, The Cultural Society, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Prelude, Be About It, Deluge, Dum Dum Zine, The Pinch, Where is the River, Dream Pop, Cover, and Ghost Proposal. He is the author of the chapbook Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017) and The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018). He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.


Hanna Tawater is the author of the poetry collections VOID (White Stag, 2022) and Reptilia (Ayahuasca, 2018). She completed her MFA in writing with focus on interdisciplinary poetry at UC San Diego, where she now teaches. Her work has appeared in various publications, both online and in print. She lives in San Diego with entirely too many cats.


Jessica P. Wick is a writer, poet, and editor. She co-founded Goblin Fruit with Amal El-Mohtar, a quarterly e-zine of fantastical poetry, and is a passionate advocate for the reading aloud of poetry and fiction. Her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling Award and received honorable mentions in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies. Her short fiction can be found scattered across the internet, and her experience as an editor runs the gamut, from full-length novels to short fiction, poetry collections to magazine articles, academic papers to audio works. She also reviews books for NPR. She currently lives in Westerly, Rhode Island.

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May 5, 2025 · 7:28 am

May: So Far… A Play! A Talk! A Poet!

This one is mirrored from my Substack newsletter, so… enjoy it twice! Or pass it on by…

Last month’s book launch

I’ve said this in a couple of places already, but it bears repeating like a prayer: my book launch weekend of April 24th-27th was so dear. 

My mind was weirdly uneasy in the days preceding the launch, assiduously working its hamster wheel. Would my busy New York friends make it out all the way to Queens? Would any of my Rhode Island or Connecticut friends have the time to come to Westerly? Would anyone show up to the virtual launch? What if I didn’t get the calendars done in time? What if the weird Costco cake ordering method didn’t actually work, since there’s no way to VERIFY IT??? Aaaugghhh! (Et cetera, ad infinitum.)

But each of the three book launch events was pretty much perfect. Friends not only came in from the far reaches of New York City, they came from out of state (and Su Bristow came from England!) to attend the physical launches. (Su is abroad to tour her own book, The Fair Folk, but she came way out of her way to attend my launch in Queens!) Some friends came whom I hadn’t seen in years—because of the pandemic. I got to HUG THEM! And so many, many sweet comments from folks I knew in the chat during my virtual launch. 

Oh, and then! The care and love and time and thought that Cass Khaw, Christa Carmen, Caitlyn Paxson, and of course Carlos Hernandez poured into their interviews with me felt like the most profound gift. I loved that best of all. I never want to do a launch where I’m the only one on stage ever again. It’s just BETTER in CONVERSATION!

It was like three birthday parties in a weekend, and it wasn’t even my birthday! It was Herald’s! We even had cake. And, hobbit-like, we gave everyone presents: calendars, featuring Phoebe Ashcroft’s fan art of the 12 gods of Quadiíb. Carlos helped do the graphic design, and Carla Kissane came over on Wednesday to help me staple everything, which was so joyful and playful. I’m so happy.

First, Contact: a new 10-minute musical at the Sound Bites XII Festival

At Boskone this year, Carlos and I did a Brimstone Rhine concert. He played ukulele and auxiliary percussion with the occasional solo (some “glub glubs” some “snicker snicker snacks” that sort of thing), and I sang the set we’d done at Heliosphere:

  • Apex Predators (Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir) – always good to START with this one, because it’s FUNNY, and it’s cute, and it’s a good story about Carlos and me.
  • Fox Girl Song Cycle 1: Carnivora (Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir) – it’s damn fun to sing, though a tongue-tangler in spots!
  • The Lysistrata Strut (Alecto! Alecto!) – this one can be practically CHANTED, but it’s more fun with some kind of drum or percussion; we’ll see if Carlos wants to bring his cajon.
  • Scylla on the Rocks (Alecto! Alecto!) – this is REALLY fun with the audience singing the “blub-blubs” on the refrain. A STANDARD!
  • Sisters Lionheart (Ballads from a Distant Star) – a good chorus to sing along to! Also, I get to talk about the project!
  • The Jub-Jub (Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir) – always good to END with this one: ROUSING FUN for the WHOLE ROOM!

We also stayed long enough to hear Romie Faienza’s set. Romie is a self-described “mild-mannered nerd bohemian,” screenwriter, director, and poet (she’s the poetry editor for Strange Horizons), and—as we found out in February—a WONDERFUL musician!

We got to talking after the concert and she says, “Hey, I may have an interesting opportunity for you in New York in April. Let me check on a few things and get back to you.” 

Then she GOT BACK TO ME. And the opportunity was a role (“Social Media 3”) in a short musical called First, Contact, a collaboration between Romie and a composer named Chris Blacker. 

For all that I had a play produced in the Estrogenius Festival in NYC years before I moved here, and mounted our own SFF folk musical in 2023, I’ve not done any other theatre here myself . The most theatre I’ve ever done in my life was during the time I lived in Rhode Island and worked with Connecticut’s Flock Theatre. And that time is now (gulp) eight years gone.

But in New York, I’ve seen a lot of theatre. I’ve supported/workshopped other people’s new work. I’ve been to Broadway shows, and off-Broadway shows. And I’ve been filled with all the concomitant longings. 

But though I am a professional actress (I keep telling myself that), I’m a voice actor. And not even one who does, like, commercials and video games. I’m an audiobook narrator. It’s a… distinct genre. Kind of like the one I write in.

So I feel like I’ve been, you know, batting out of my league this last month. My co-actors are all much closer to their theatre training (mine’s 20 years in the past), and have put it into practice much more often and recently. And their voices are huge and laser-like and soaring. And they take to choreography like gorgeous bendy things.

Theatre always makes me feel big, raw feelings, and dang. Have I been feeling them. Two days ago I came home crying. Which is not to say I haven’t been wildly happy, engaged, beamed in. I want to do this every night.

I’ve been thinking about how being in a play in New York City is like being in two plays: one is the play I’m in. The other is the play in which I’m an actor going to rehearsal in New York City. The whole city’s like a set piece. Or maybe it’s just that we’ve seen it used that way so much, as well as set pieces made to look like it. Reality and unreality collide in the hyper-real, I guess. 

Anyway! The show is tonight! The Sound Bites XII Theatre Festival, produced by Theatre Now New York. Tickets here: https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/tnny/4464

Upcoming Events

I’ll write more about these individual events later, but this month, we have two virtual events on my Twitch platform. (twitch.tv/csecooney)

Friday May 16th, 8-10 PM Eastern: Combined Reading and Interview with Mike Allen.

Mike Allen, editor and publisher of Mythic Delirium, has been a friend for a long time. He and his wife Anita are also responsible for publishing my books Bone Swans: Stories, Dark Breakers, and The Twice-Drowned Saint, in addition to my short stories “Braiding the Ghosts,” and (with Carlos, our first collaboration) “The Book of May” in Clockwork Phoenix 3 and 5 respectively. Not to mention lots of poems, back when Mythic Delirium was also a ‘zine.

Mike’s also a poet and writer—mainly, of horror—in his own right. Oh, and a journalist. The man does it all. And this year is such a year for him! He had his novel Black Fire Concerto (revised and reissued) come out with Ruádan Books, and he has another—Trail of Shadows—in the pipeline with Broken Eye Books. A banner year for him!

Since I got to NARRATE the audiobook of Black Fire Concerto a few weeks ago, and since Mike was so kind as to read Saint Death’s Herald over the last few weeks, we’re going to be interviewing each other as long-time friends and, I guess, co-workers/collaborators. And we’ll be reading from our work! It would be lovely to see you!

Then, on Monday May 19th, from 7-8 PM is our next Fiction: Impossible, this time with the poet novelist Mary Soon Lee! Definitely more on that soon!

Thank you for reading. Take care of yourselves and each other out there. There’s howling all around us. And so many teeth.

Yours truly, 

C. S. E. Cooney

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April 8, 2025 · 8:38 pm

April: Month of the Herald

(Friends, sorry if you subscribe to both my blog AND my newsletter. You’ll get some mirrored content, though not all! This is one of the duplicates!)

I want to write about a lot of things, so I’ll do a little ToC at the beginning here to keep my thoughts organized (and so you can skip to whatever might be of most interest).

  1. Upcoming FICTION: IMPOSSIBLE episode with James Ryan, co-hosted with Carlos Hernandez
  2. Zig Zag Claybourne’s forthcoming Amnandi Sails, sequel to Breath, Warmth & Dream.
  3. Our final actual play—live!—of Hearthglow, a D&D campaign DMed by Dr. Greg Wilson
  4. My month of recording six dang audiobooks! AAUGH!
  5. Saint Death’s Herald—launch at Kew and Willow in Queens! A signing in Westerly, RI! Followed by… drumroll… new to this newsletter… a VIRTUAL LAUNCH!
  6. A few Herald-related awesomenesses: an essay, a cocktail, some blurbs… ya know
  7. In May: In conversation with Caitlin Rozakis of Dreadful in celebration of her forthcoming book The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association

Okay. That’s good. Seven is good. I’ve been busy. 

FICTION: IMPOSSIBLE with James Ryan

Monday April 21st! 7 PM EASTERN, on twitch.tv/csecooney

This will be is our second-ever episode of Fiction: Impossible: a show on Twitch wherein Carlos and I talk about what games we’re playing, what we’re reading, and also have a conversation with an author—usually one who’s just had their book out this year, or will have one shortly forthcoming.

This coming episode, we’ll have guest James Ryan on to talk about his book Statues to Silence, a mystery thriller with fantastical elements. 

I bought my copy a few weeks ago, and will be reading it the MOMENT I’m done with my next (and last, for a few weeks anyway) prep script for the slew of audiobooks I’ve been narrating this month! 

Apparently, James’s book is chock full of monsters and art history. What’s not to like? Yay! 

Zig Zag Claybourn’s Amnandi Sails!

The back cover copy of Zigs’ forthcoming Amnandi Sails, sequel to Breath, Warmth & Dream reads as follows: 

The end of one journey always begins another. As 17-year-old Amnandi Khumalo nears the completion of her oceangoing apprenticeship under the majestic Captain Maab, everything once ordinary spirals into nightmare. The raging madness of a false king pushes a ragtag crew ever outward, through seafolk and shapeshifting ravens…to the very notion of gods themselves.

A ship. A crew. A whisper. A witch.

I’m so excited for this! This is book two of the Khumalo trilogy, and Zig Zag was writing it at the same time I was writing my own sequel in a trilogy, Saint Death’s Herald. We were solidarity buddies, and would text each other “words I like today” for the last year and a half. 

If you don’t know already, I dedicated Saint Death’s Herald to Zig Zag Claybourne—for this reason, and for so many others! And now—soon—he’ll be crowdfunding to put this beauty out into the world, from his exquisite and thoughtful press, Obsidian Sky.

Sign up to be notified here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidiansky/amnandi-sails

And if you haven’t read it already, pick up Zig Zag’s gorgeous Breath, Warmth & Dream(that’s the link where you can buy it directly from the author), 

Want to know more about it? Check out the Kickstarter video for Book 1. But here are just a few of the effusive, wonder-struck, awe-filled responses about this book:

Author Cerece Rennie Murphy calls it: “So delicate and expertly held and told.” 

Author Meg Elison says, “Claybourne has turned out a jewel-toned adventure, full of mischief, mirth, and murder. 

And author Jeffrey Ford writes: “With the same unique vision, narrative energy, and humor Zig Zag Claybourne brought to the genre bending Afrofuturist space operas The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan and Afro Puffs Are the Antennae of the Universe, in his new fantasy, Breath, Warmth, and Dream, he spins a tale of magic and witchcraft set in a wholly original imaginary realm. Different, deep, and fun.”

Hearthglow: Live… The Final Episode

Well, our year of doing a D&D actual play is drawing to a close. The final episode of Hearthglow, based on the campaign setting The Forbidden Library, by Dr. Greg Wilson, (also our DM) will be a live performance at Sacred Heart University! 

Sacred Heart boasts as one of its student body our own Adam Petrosino, poet and playwright (I mean, IRL too, although he also plays a bard in our game), who is ROCKING his higher education experience with a double major in English and Theatre Arts. HE WILL NEVER REGRET IT. I speak as One Who Knows. 

For more about Hearthglow, and the podcast episodes thus far, go here: https://www.arvaneleron.com/hearthglow/

Where? The Schine Auditorium at Sacred Heart University

When? Friday, April 11th, 2025

What time? 4 p.m. Eastern

A Six-Audiobook Month

…is the reason I haven’t been posting much. And why I’m so slow at reading for blurbs and reviews… because I’m reading ALL THE PREP SCRIPTS! Oh, and I get to be in a MUSICAL on May 5th… but maybe I’ll save that news for a different newsletter. 

Thus far this month I’ve narrated: 

Dying to Read, by Lynn Cahoon for Tantor Audio

My own novel Saint Death’s Herald, for Recorded Books

The Spirit Moves by Carol J. Perry for Tantor Audio

The Black Fire Concerto by Mike Allen for Ruadán Books! (Well, I’m in the middle of that one, actually. Today was Day 2 of 4!)

Next week, I’m narrating  A Formal Fatality by Lynn Cahoon for Bookmark Audio

And then in a couple of weeks (yay BREAK!) (my voice says THANK YOU!) I’ll be narrating A Side Dish of Death, by T. C. LoTempio for Tantor Audio!

I dressed up every day to narrate Saint Death’s Herald. I’m doing the same thing for Mike’s book, Black Fire Concerto, since I have a LONG friendship with Mike, and with this book! It’s full dark fantasy body horror, and an EXCELLENT adventure to boot, with awesome FOX PEOPLE called VULPINES, and a lot of really icky monsters. I mean. Like. FLESHY. 

I had so much fun prepping Mike’s script, I leapt up and cosplayed with it in the middle of prepping it. No, it was NOT procrastination. I was still READING it. I just found myself reading it while swathed in a black cloak with a tea light burning in a glass skull vase, that’s all. Here’s me, with Mike’s book: 

SAINT DEATH’S HERALD Book Launch Week!!! AAUGGHHH!!! 

I’ve already posted about this! But I’ll say it again here: 

Thursday, April 24th, 7 PM at Kew and Willow, in Kew Gardens, NY

Friday, April 25th, 6:30 PM at Martin House Books in Westerly, RI

Sunday, April 27th, a VIRTUAL LAUNCH FOR THE REST OF YOU! 7 PM at twitch.tv/csecooney! COME AND JOIN US!

Herald-Adjacent Awesomeness

OH, AND HERE ARE SOME BLURBS! From Cassandra Khaw and Angela Slatter OMG! 

And I wrote this wee little essay on Writing Sequels that Fantasy Hive in the UK picked up! Thank you, Fantasy Hive! 

On Writing A Sequel – GUEST POST by C. S. E. Cooney (SAINT DEATH’S HERALD)

And then, today, this wonderful reviewer on Bluesky posted their review of Saint Death’s Daughter on their YouTube channel! Here it is: 

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/UyybNktrUxE?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

At first, I was reluctant to watch it, because WHAT IF THEY HATED IT? 

(I make it a habit not to go searching for reviews of anything I write because if it’s sufficiently awful then I get disheartened and stop writing for a while whilst I imitate Thomas Chatterton upon my fainting couch… But in this case, I was TAGGED. When I’m tagged I can hardly help myself, can I?)

BUT THE REVIEWER LOVED IT INSTEAD! They called it: “A sumptuous poetic necromantic fantasy, a book I long anticipated and deeply loved. Charming, deep, effervescent. Pure magic!” 

EEEK! YAY YAY YAY! Best of all? They concocted a COCKTAIL for Saint Death’s Daughter called “PANTHAUMA” that has ALL THE CITRUSES! 

May Appearance with Caitlin Rozakis for The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association

A few months ago, I read Caitlin’s book Dreadful and laughed my butt off. A Dark Lord who’s memory-wiped himself and then has to con everyone into believing he’s still utterly evil when he’s really just… NOT!

Then I went to Kew and Willow Books for a book talk that she and my buddy Randee Dawn were doing together for their forthcoming novels. I loved that. 

And NOW I get to do a book talk with Caitlin! For her forthcoming book The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association! I’ll be getting an ARC soon to wallow in, which pleases me greatly. 

(I’ll probably read it AFTER I prep that last audiobook in May. Phew. I still have two blurbs outstanding for a couple poetry collections by friends due this month. Must do those ASAP. Then… I think I’m good for blurbs for a while. PHEW.)

When? Saturday May 31st

Where? Word Bookstore, Jersey City

What Time? 7 PM Eastern

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for reading this far, and, just so you know, I LOVE WHEN YOU COMMENT. Thank you to the ones who do. I love to be in conversation with you. 

I do occasionally have other thoughts than SCHEDULES, and I’m trying to figure out a way to express them here… hmmm… succinctly. 

Yours truly, 

C. S. E. Cooney

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March 17, 2025 · 7:47 am

Day 1 in the Studio: Saint Death’s Herald… the Audiobook!

In 2022, when I got to record Saint Death’s Daughter the audiobook, I realized it was my moment to celebrate. Twelve years of writing that thing. Twelve drafts. The great agent hunt. My late twenties. All of my thirties. All those other works I wrote while writing it, each of them making that work better. All of the headaches. The teeth-on-concrete feeling of “this will never end, and it’s still not good.”

Whatever the book ended up being–big, weird, flawed–it was done. And it was mine.

All these celebrations were in the making, all these reviews and blurbs were coming in, but I didn’t quite know how to feel about it. My feelings rocketed around, wouldn’t settle. It was hard to feel like it was all real.

But my friend Mike Allen–the Mythic Delirium publisher who helped me make Bone Swans, and Dark Breakers, and The Twice-Drowned Saint a reality–taught me this phrase: “I stand by the work.”

Those two weeks in the studio, recording Saint Death’s Daughter, were my time to step back from a decade (plus) of doubt and despair and struggle–with this thing that I always loved but often didn’t like. Now was the time to look at work and say, “Thank you. I stand by you. Here, I pledge my voice on it.”

There’s some hoopla attending a book launch. Some press. A launch. A few signings if you’re lucky. You also get a lot of, “I always knew you’d do it,” or “I always had faith” or “it was obvious to me you’d be a success.”

It’s very sweet. It’s also… as if all those moments where I very nearly did not do it, all those fragile threads on the verge of tearing, somehow didn’t count. Were somehow, I don’t know, rendered negligible in the face of an inevitability.

What that book did not feel like was inevitable. But at some point, about midway through the 12-year process, I looked at all the years I’d already spent on it, and I thought, “If I don’t finish, what a waste of my own resources. Of my time and energy.” It would have been perfectly fine for me to trunk that manuscript. I’d trunked several others, juvenilia that I was (and am) still quite fond of). I had other books in me.

But for this one, even though I was still years away from publication, I couldn’t bear the idea of waste.

Anyway. 12 years of this kind of thinking, this back and forth, and I could finally rest. The book was being published! INCONCEIVABLE.

In early 2022, I was just only starting to recover from my deep internal fatigue since turning in the final galley proofs for Saint Death’s Daughter. What I wanted then was a celebration more intentional, more private, and much longer-lasting than a book launch and a few readings. Readers, after all–for whom I wrote this book to begin with!—could read, in a few days, what had taken me years and years to write. And then ask for the next one.

So, when I went into the studio to start recording the audiobook, I did my best to elevate the experience. My dad talks about the difference between “feast days” and “mundane days.” On a feast day, a holiday, how do you know it’s different than any other day? You dress up. Not just yourself–you decorate the space around you. For example: there’s regular dinner. And then there’s the table you spread for a holiday dinner: you use a different tablecloth. Cloth napkins. Maybe a candelabra or a bouquet of flowers or fancier dinnerware. You dress up in your best. Special shoes. Maybe you put a hat on. You make the day different. You endow it with meaning.

That’s what I did to record that week. I thought about the chapters I’d be recording that day, and I dressed to match. Now, no one looking at me would know that was what I was doing. After all, I still had to wear quiet clothes. (I call them my “ninja clothes,” but another audiobook narrator took one look at me and accused me of wearing pajamas).

But I’d put on a piece of “endowed” jewelry (Carlos got me bone jewelry to celebrate my book about necromancers), or wear a perfume oil that had a citrus note as its base (since citrus is the smell of the god of death). Every day as I walked to the studio, I’d reflect on how I was so grateful to be doing this. That I couldn’t have imagined the privilege of recording this audiobook, even though I read countless drafts of it to countless friends and family.

Today, in a few minutes, I’ll get ready to go to work. I’m recording the audiobook of Saint Death’s Herald. Funny, it doesn’t feel like it’s three years since Saint Death’s Daughter came out. But at least it wasn’t TWELVE.

The studio I’m recording Saint Death’s Herald in is in Times Square–not the one I normally go to in Elmhurst. My commute will feel different. I picked out my clothes. I’ll wear felted tiger rug earrings that Caitlyn Paxson made me, based on the character of Stripes, and a bronze raven pendant that Carlos recently got for me at Boskone. There aren’t many blackbirds in the sequel, but the shadow of the Blackbird Bride is ever with Lanie. If I get to write book 3, she’s a major player there. My shirt will be orange: one of the colors of necromancy.

It’s raining today. In the first chapter of Herald, it’s also raining. Solidarity with my protagonist… though I shan’t be raising any sweet yearling does from the dead today. Well, I will. But only with my voice, all alone in a little black box. Talking to myself. Tell future-you a story that past-me wrote for you.

It’s pretty badass.

There’s a lot of text. I have six days to do it. I’m going to be very tired by the end of the week, but I’ll have the weekend to recover and finish up next week. Wish me luck.

I’m so happy. And I’m so nervous. And so happy.

As things get darker outside the landscape of my own head, I want to share some of the things I’ve been reading:

Rebecca Solnit’s Meditations in an Emergency.

Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American

Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water

Anand Giridharadas’s The Ink

Robert Hubbell’s Today’s Edition Newsletter

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October 26, 2024 · 9:50 am

HallowEEK! Sale

I’m still trying to navigate between what I write here and what I write on my Substack newsletter.

For now, I wrote a HUGE newsletter called “Read, See, Hear, Know: A Week and a Half of Awesome Things I Absolutely Need You to Know.”

So if you’re curious about that, it’s here: https://csecooney.substack.com/p/read-see-hear-know

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!

You can pre-order it here: https://tanith-lee-tribute.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

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 into The 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.”

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October 23, 2024 · 4:22 pm

On Scratch Maps and Map Scraps

My friend Doc is reading The Twice-Drowned Saint. This is thrilling. I AM THRILLED whenever anybody reads ANYTHING of mine, and doubly thrilled if it’s one of those books that I uneasily think is “not for everyone.” (That’s pretty much all of my books.) (Not that ANY book is for EVERYONE.)

Don’t get me wrong. I adore The Twice-Drowned Saint. It’s the book about which my editor, Mike Allen, taught me one of my most useful phrases: “I stand by the work.” That’s hard to say. Harder to do. So many doubts. SO MANY DOUBTS. But I know… I know that I learned so much writing it.

Our gorgeous cover by artist Lasse Paldanius!

I know that it was, at the date it was written, one of my most ambitious structures. A novella that grew to be too big for its britches, but nonetheless still felt like a novella rather than a novel at 65,000 words. That liminal, boundary-defying darling. I know that I did so much research for it–about building with salt structures, about ice, about alpine rescue; I even interviewed someone who used to do it! Robert Peterson! The absolute darling! He read over the work and let me know what I needed to tweak.

My friend Magill, who knows everything about movies and the history of movies and about filmmaking helped me with some of the cinematic stuff. I structured every chapter as different shots of a camera, since the main character thinks in movies.

But I also think the work is dense. And maybe I let some threads fall? I don’t even know! Every time I read it I’m pleasantly surprised it’s not the mess it was just two drafts before. That’s the thing about final drafts. They’re not the ones that LIVE IN MY HEAD.

I am rambling. What I meant to say is: Doc is reading The Twice-Drowned Saint, and was interested in making a map of Gelethel. He asked me if I had one. I mean… I HAD one. I could almost remember it. The trouble is… which notebook is it in?

Thankfully, I’d digitized that one. So after a search for “Twice-Drowned Saint Notes and Cuts,” I found it, copied and pasted into that document! Thank you, past Claire.

The most glorious Phoebe Ashcroft’s fan art of Alizar the Eleven-Eyed from The Twice-Drowned Saint.

But in the search for that map, I found several others.

You all probably know by now that most of my stories, short and long, take place on the same world Athe. But depending on where you are on the world, and when you are in its time line, it’s going to have different rules, different gods, different ways of operating. If one whole continent, and the different countries on it, shares certain magical or religious beliefs, even with variations, it will operate more cohesively than a continent of scattered city-states that worship vastly different deities. Like, say, a city that, for example, is run by angels who went and murdered their god. (Ahem, The Twice-Drowned Saint.)

I didn’t intentionally do this when I started writing short stories. I just thought it was funny. Little secret giggles for myself. I didn’t think, twenty years later, there’d be interconnected novel worlds that I’d then have to justify to CLOSE READERS. Sorry, mi enjambre. I’m just not that awesome a tactician. More of a practical joker, but mostly playing jokes on myself.

Anyhow, I thought I’d share these bad maps with you. Because they’re hilarious.

Rough map of Gelethel

Yeah, I don’t know why I wrote “S” when I meant “E” for east, but that’s my scrap maps for you.

The city of Gelethel is diamond-shaped, but I made a square because that was easier on grid paper. I just turned it slightly so the top of the square was North.

And what is that shape in the middle? Is that the salt palace? What was I thinking? I probably made the map during an early draft anyway. Maybe things changed.

Map of Seafall, Drowned Lirhu, Doornwald, Amandale, etc… from Bone Swans, Dark Breakers, The Witch in the Almond Tree, my WIP Fiddle, and my short story in Uncanny Magazine: “From the Archives of the Museum of Eerie Skins, an Account.”

See Kywit’s Grove on there?

See the Six Realms in the Northeast corner? I don’t know that I ever call them the Six Realms in the Saint Death book, maybe because I kept thinking I’d SURELY come up with a better name if I tried, but then it didn’t become important because they’re not, at present in the Saint Death books, unified at all, but that’s where Liriat, Rook, Quadiíb, Damahrash, Leech, and Skakmaht all are.

See the bottom right–Southeast–that says “Eastern Bellisaar”? That’s where “Godmother Lizard” (Black Gate Magazine), “Life on the Sun” (Bone Swans), and The Twice-Drowned Saint take place. It’s also where, if I ever write it, Zilch: A Tale of Nea the Nephilim will take place. (Or was it “Nea the Knighter”? All I know is that the main title is called Zilch, and it’s about Nea, who makes a brief but important appearance in The Twice-Drowned Saint.

Speaking of the so-called “Six Realms” see below. (Dang it. Now I HAVE to think of a better name for that continent. Once it’s unified. I wonder when THAT happens in its long history? Does it ever become a democratic republic, do you think? Or a meritocracy, like Quadiíb?)

…But, look. I can read my own map (sort of). If you count Kalestis and Umrys-by-the-Sea, as well as LOWER Quadiíb, it’s more like NINE realms anyway. DO I ever count Kalestis? (I remember using Kalestis for SOMETHING, but maybe that was in a former draft, or a WIP. I shall have to do a search.)

In the Saint Death books, Damahrash is still sort of a Rookish satellite anyway. It would be considered part of Rook? Maybe Kalestis is formed later? And Quadiíb is thought of as just Quadiíb, at least by the Lirians, even though Higher and Lower Quadiíb are very different entities, governmentally speaking.

So I suppose it COULD HAVE BEEN six, and later in the timeline becomes nine. Or vice versa.

Why even, fantasy novel?

I don’t really sit here answering questions about the world until a certain stage in a given draft.

Except books are… cumulative. And one’s oeuvre becomes this great spiraling accretion disk, with yours truly as the black hole at its center.

At some point, for Saint Death’s Herald, I had to figure out how far the character could travel in a day, and what each square of the grid represented, mileage-wise. Then I had to answer the following questions: “How fast does an undead flying tiger rug fly?” “How fast does a dragon fly?” “How fast does a sky house fly?” LOL.

And, obviously (it’s just becoming obvious to me now), between the Bone Swans/Dark Breakers continent and the Saint Death continent, there’s not just those weird squiggle mountains, but also “The Glistring Sea.” It must be so, because I’ve written it in.

Seriously, smalls, don’t take these maps to heart. Like the pirate says, it’s “more what you’d call ‘guidelines.'”

But I’ll leave you with ONE LAST ONE. I didn’t end up using this one as much. It was EARLY Saint Death’s Herald draft for Witch Queen’s City, in Leech. In fact, my research led me to model it off Castellfollit de la Roca in Catalonia, but here’s the map before the research:

Early ideas for Witch Queen’s City, in Leech (now called “Taquathura” to be respectful to the skinchangers who live there).

Anyway. That’s all. I just wanted to share it with you. It’s funny… looking at them all together like that. These are scraps from ACROSS THE YEARS. I am very haphazard about this sort of thing. And only when someone like Anthony John Woo approaches me about adapting my world for his 5e D&D campaign, or Doc wants me to make me AN ACTUAL MAP do I start considering the notebooks and notebooks full of this stuff.

So there. Have a present.

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January 29, 2024 · 8:54 pm

Sitzfleisch Poetry Hour

Tonight is our Sitzfleisch Poetry Hour–the first of the New Year.

It’s the one night a month a group of poets I know (all sorts! they might be different every month!) gather for a silent zoom and dedicate that hour to writing poetry. I’d love to make it a weekly occurrence, but maybe this is what I can manage for now.

I just drafted a very early idea for a poem called “The Victorian Hair Metaphor” longhand in my journal. Now I think I’d take the rest of the hour to type out here a poem I drafted long-hand in my journal last August. There are a few things in it I like.

And… I’m thinking of both my grandmothers today.

We had news last Thursday that my father’s mother passed away. There’s probably a poem in there too, but not now. And maybe not here. In fact, I will pause and text my papa here, just to let him know I love him.

Teasdale in the Mist

I read a poem today, too quickly
a Teasdale, on Sappho
no lines remain, just a fragrant mist
I retain no elegant mechanics–
nothing of what worked on me
until my heart turned puppetry
the poet, some Geppetto

next, my mother texted a self-portrait
all lines and shadows in her face engaged
all grays and rainbows
and that shocking crone’s corona
awesome as platinum
dark eyes her own mother would recognize
from her cradle days

my mother, today, is a poem
her mother might forget tomorrow
the mist is seeping, the matriarch sleeping
her long mornings through
and though the books she reads are fewer
and her birthday cards are in my mother’s hand
all is not lost, all is not yet lost

her past is deep, will disappear last
our well-documented beginnings
safe in their dusty boxes
our origins and old photographs
her daily prayer

a year from now, I will have forgotten
writing this
encounter it abroad, in some online mist
count myself lucky, perhaps,
to read that old Teasdale poem again

(started August 2023, finished(?) January 2024)

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