I’m delighted to announce that In the Watchful City is on Publishers Weekly‘s Best Books of 2021 list! Publishers Weekly (PW) is a trade magazine that reviews over 9,000 books a year, mainly for an audience of publishers, booksellers, librarians, and others in the book publishing industry. The Best of 2021 list includes 150 books, seven of which are science fiction/fantasy/horror.
I’m honored by the company I’m in—Arkady Martine, Joanne M. Harris & Charles Vess, Tasha Suri, Nnedi Okorafor, E. Lily Yu, and Rivers Solomon, wow! I love how diverse this cross-section of speculative fiction authors is, a sure sign of how the speculative fiction landscape has been growing and evolving.
In the Watchful City was never meant to be an easy book to read, in any sense of the word. The fact that it’s resonated with people, that people have devoured the worldbuilding—and often call for more!—has been so heartening to see. Thank you so much for your support!
Buy:
I will be attending the virtual portion of World Fantasy Convention on Saturday, November 6, 2021! Find me on the following programming items (all times in UTC-4):
Reading
1:30 pm @ Outremont 5
I will be reading an excerpt from In the Watchful City.
Stereotyping in Fantasy
3:00 pm @ St Laurent 6
Stereotyping imaginary races has been a mainstay of the fantasy genre, both in print and multimedia applications, from movies to merchandise to video games. Is it necessary? Is there an underlying human psychology of fear of the Other? Does employing it perpetuate the problem of real racism? Or is it a useful tool to expose the flaws of racially motivated interactions?
with Summer Hanford, T. L. Rese (moderator), and KT Bryski
Where do we go from here?
6:00 pm @ St Laurent 6
The ultimate question in genre fiction: Where do we go from here? What happens when a genre plateaus? How does it evolve or how does it die?
Panelists explore current and upcoming trends in fantasy literature and explore what happens when readers stop engaging with subgenres and other trends.
with Julie C. Day, Laurel Annel Hill, and Dr. Gillian Polack (moderator)
To find out more and register, visit the WFC 2021 website.
Lastly, I’ve been making some behind-the-scenes changes on my website, including migrating my newsletter service from Substack to self-hosted MailPoet, in hopes of integrating everything into one platform. My apologies if you receive any duplicate or glitchy emails. Please feel free to let me know if you encounter any bugs or issues. Thank you!