EDIT: We have our two winners! David Poole wins the signed copy of Magic Skeleton, and Tania Del Rio wins the signed and annotated copy of Magic Skeleton –! Congrats!

It is my birthday. My second Quarantimes Nativity, as it were — technically, I’m turning a FORBIDDEN NUMBER, and given that said number is also the number of a rotten piece of shit president, and because I kinda feel like a year was taken from me anyway because of this dipshit pandemic, I’m gonna go ahead and claim this birthday as:

AGE 44, PART TWO.

*thunder rumbles*

And then next year I’ll just jump right to 46 and skip that other number.

As such, given that it is the day I was shuttlecocked into the world, I figure we can do a little bit of a gift exchange. Way it works is this:

You pre-order either The Book of Accidents (July 20th) or Dust & Grim (October 5th) from either an indie bookstore or Bookshop.org. You send me the receipt for that purchase to terribleminds [at] gmail.com, with the subject header: BIRTHDAY EXCHANGE. And then I enter you into a contest where I’m giving away two copies of You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton. Both of those copies will be signed by myself and the artist, Natalie Metzger. And one of those two copies will be annotated by yours truly throughout, in handwriting so bad you’ll think you’re summoning some manner of elder god just by reading it. Maybe I’ll even doodle in it to show you why Natalie is the artist for the book and I most decidedly am not! Who knows what heresies it will contain!

You have till Sunday, May 2nd, 11:59PM EST to enter.

It is available to US residents only.

On May 3rd, I’ll do a random draw of two names.

First name will win the signed copy of Magic Skeleton.

Second name will win the signed and annotated copy of Magic Skeleton.

Questions?

Ah, yes, you over there.

Why only indie bookstores and not, say, Amazon? Well, regardless of your feelings about Amazon, one thing I do know is that our indie bookstores are the lifeblood of the bookish community, so I’m hoping to gently urge purchases in that direction to support small business and to give some love to booksellers in a fraught time. Amazon and B&N are probably doing fine. Small businesses, not so much. So, this isn’t to willfully exclude them, but it is to serve smaller businesses in local communities. Ideally, your local community.

What’s that, you say? But you don’t have an indie bookstore near you? Ah, see, here’s the good-news-gospel for you: many indie bookstores ship. In fact, you want to order from my local, Doylestown Bookshop, they will mail it right to you. In fact, if you want, I can even sign and personalize copies bought through there, too. Many other bookstores, too, will ship. Powells, for instance!

Oh, no, you’re not in the United States? Well, normally I would open such a contest to all counties, and just shunt the shipping costs off on you if you’re international. My only issue now is, I’ve found the USPS becoming unreliable thanks to Louis DeJoy’s knee-capping of said postal service, and so some stuff has just… up and gotten lost. Not that it’s amazing in the states, either, but some shit just disappears overseas, and it gets a lot harder to track, then. Plus, costs are up to ship internationally. So, apologies, but for now this will remain a US-only contest.

Final question? What’s that? What if you pre-order both books, TBOA and D&G? Well, then yes, I suppose that can count as two entries, which can give you two chances to win, as they say. But no more than that. Let’s not get silly. I mean, sure, I’d love for you to pre-order 100 copies of each book, but that’s a lot of effort on my part to put those names in a comically large top-hat.

I think that’s it.

If you have more questions, drop ’em in the comments below.

Otherwise, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME PRE-ORDER MY BOOKS OR I DIE I mean ha ha ha what.

Hey! Who wants some updates. YOU GET AN UPDATE, YOU GET AN UPDATE, AND YOU GET a mysterious humming cube, don’t ask questions, just hold it close and tell it your secrets, AND YOU GET AN UPDATE OVER THERE.

Just a quick shotgun blast of stuff:

• Thanks all for checking out You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton (available here, signed copies at Doylestown Bookshop, just tell them you want it mauled with my monstrous signature). As always, if you liked the book, please go somewhere and leave a kind review. If you want to leave a negative review, that’s okay, too, just please camouflage it as a positive review to be sneaky.

• There is a Goodreads giveaway, literally ending today April 20th, for The Book of Accidents. They’re giving away 25 copies of the book — so make with the clicky-clicky and go get one.

• I’ll have some cool blurbs rolling in for TBOA and Dust & Grim soon…

• I’ll also soon be announcing July virtual events for TBOA. I’m also noodling on how to put together an in-person event somewhere. Not sure where, or how. Or even if it’s too soon! But it feels like if you did one outside, nicely spaced, masks-on, with a request for vaccinated folks to show up, that could work. Requires more thought, and, of course, a willing bookstore partner and a willing audience. Are people ready to go out into the world? I am. Maybe not to a whole-ass convention or anything, but I really yearn to do a bookstore event. Which is odd, because I hate people and am a monstrous hermit! GET OFF MY LAWN, I once would cry, except now I yell, WAIT NO GET ONTO MY LAWN, I WILL SIGN YOUR BOOK, ANY BOOK, THE PHONE BOOK, THE HOLY BIBLE, JUST GET OVER HERE AND LET ME TALK AT YOU.

• Speaking of vaccinations — got my second dose of Moderna on Sunday. Team Dolly Parton 4EVA. Feeling good. Had worse effects from first dose. Still felt a little hungover? Also I have a face tentacle now? His name is Jerry.

• There will be signed copies of TBOA available, too, for order. I’m signing a big-ass batch of them for both the US and UK. More info there as I know it. Did I ever show y’all the Del Rey UK cover for The Book of Accidents? No? It’s at the bottom of this very post, then. My bad! My brain is a sieve!

• The Wanderers sequel, Wayward, is now… at 165k, and will be at 180k next week, when my deadline is. Ha ha, except there’s no way the book is done yet. I anticipate it being roughly the size of the first book. What’s old is new again because this is exactly what happened last time: by the time of my deadline, I was at 180,000 words, and then added another 100k onto that before sending it off. Thankfully, I have Tricia Narwani as an editor, who is a good enough editor to say, “I want the book when it’s done,” not, “I want the book tomorrow, just get it done.” Should be out next year, barring any unforeseen circumstances like a Second Pandemic. Ha ha oh shit!

And I think that’s all the updates that are fit to print.

More as I know it!

My life is weird.

So, the last four-ish years were somewhat ridiculous. Not in a good way, either. Ridiculous in a good way is, WOW HEDGEHOGS CAN TALK NOW, THAT’S CRAZY, AND ALL OF THEM HAVE DEEP, COMPLICATED THOUGHTS ABOUT SPACE TRAVEL, HOW RIDICULOUS. Ridiculous in a bad way is, DONALD TRUMP IS PRESIDENT AND THERE’S ALSO A PANDEMIC COMING.

Further, being on Twitter during this time was just magnifying the ridiculousness (which I originally types as “ridiculocrity” which is not a word but maybe should be), because we were all ants under the sun-touched magnifying glass of our own collective rage. It was just, we were angry. All the time. I was too, I’m not saying it to blame anyone. It was hard not just to want to bite your phone every day.

At the time, there were people who would do daily affirmations and motivations and such, Maggie Smith comes to mind, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and they were great and lovely and genuinely nice in that stop here and rest kind of way. It’s dangerous to go alone, take this! So, I wanted to do that, too. To be additive more than subtractive, to put something nice into the world, even if it was silly or cringe or what-not. Of course, given that it’s me, I couldn’t really leave it alone at “nice,” and so I would take nice motivations and mutilate them in my twisting grip until they were something, uhhh, different. Something weird. Something often at least a little bit monstrous and occasionally in all-caps.

I had no end goal for this. I know some people feel that tweets like these are performative, but I mean, yeah? Obviously? The fuck do you think I’m doing on social media? Once upon a time Twitter may have been a water cooler but it has for a good long while now become a stage, and we’re all on it. Thing is, the performance so to speak was always an earnest one. I did it because I liked it and I hoped other people liked it too. That was the only aim.

Fast forward to a year into doing it or so and, an editor at Rizzoli Books, Jessica Fuller, called to say, and I’m paraphrasing, THESE ARE FUN THEY SHOULD BE A BOOK. She probably said more words. And they definitely were not in all caps. But I mean, yes? Yes! Hell yes. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but she said she wanted art.

And I said, I think I know the artist. Like, I didn’t merely know a potential artist, I had… really one artist from the get-go who I felt was destined to draw this book.

Natalie Metzger.

Natalie said yes.

Jessica put together the tweets she wanted for the book.

We edited the text.

And now it’s here, in your hands. Or, maybe it’s not in your hands, but it damn well could be, if you’d dare to summon it with the matter of your willpower and currency (or library card).

It’s so weird that it exists. I’m really very lucky as a writer and I’m honored to get to do what I do and to have my… brain spasms somehow spawn things like this into the world.

The art is wonderful, and really, is the reason to show up.

I hope you check it out and enjoy it. It makes a good gift! As long as the person you’re giving it to has an, umm, slightly tweaked sense of humor and doesn’t mind profanity. Or possums. Or giant eye-butts. Because there’s a giant eye-butt in the book. That’s just how it is, I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. (Seriously, awooga, awooga, this book isn’t for kids, despite the fun cartoons.)

Anyway, your options for procuring a copy include but are not limited to:

Doylestown Books (ask them to see if I can sign it, and I might be able to swing by and do exactly that, and in fact I may be soon in possession of bookplates also featuring Natalie’s signature).

Let’s Play Books

Indiebound

Bookshop

B&N

Amazon

Rizzoli

Obviously, buying from an independent bookstore is good for the bookish ecosystem and also your soul. Many ship! Including my two locals, listed above.

Enjoy the book.

Become the cosmic possum, the cyborg pterodactyl, or the magic skeleton you wish to be.

DID YOU KNOW, ahem ahem, cough cough, that next week is the release of YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, MAGIC SKELETON, a very silly book of monstrous motivations by me and artist Natalie Metzger? Well, it’s true. It comes out next Tuesday, and as a result, I’m gonna be bopping around this ol’ Internet, polluting your brainwaves with whatever hot shit wants to come out of my fool’s mouth.

Let’s go through it, shall we?

Already Up:

Gabriela Pereira is one of my most favorite people, and I am never not happy to be on her podcast — the conversation always feels informal and fun and it’s one of those where I’m never looking at my watch except at the end, when I am forced to believe that our time is already up. In this one, we get into Magic Skeleton but a whole buncha other stuff too, should you care go give it a listen — Episode 352 of DIYMFA.

April 13th:

Quarantine Book Club, with Natalie Metzger, hosted by Mike Monteiro. I’ve been on QBC before, and it’s a blast — so this time being joined by Natalie Metzger is gonna be an absolute delight. Grab a ticket now.

April 16th:

Lehigh Valley Book Fest, in an event called — *checks notes* “Wendig After Dark.” It sounds sexier than intended, but I do not plan to be doing this conversation in a sultry, seductive voice. Unless you want that, but it costs extra. Anyway! I’ll be in conversation with Rob Dougherty. It’s run by Let’s Play Books, and you can order Magic Skeleton directly from them! They will ship.

April 24th:

Jeff Vandermeer, in conversation with, well, me. He’s got a book out, Hummingbird Salamander, which I found really brilliant — sharp, serious, David Fincherian stuff. A mystery, a puzzle, a warning. It’s really something else and it reads like a descent, like you’re falling into it. Anyway! Join us at the virtual Elliott Bay Book Company, won’t you?

Do I have any other news?

Maybe? Probably? I’ll be back Tuesday to remind you about Magic Skeleton.

Wanderers is out in France, and is… maybe doing well?

More as I know it!

POOF.

*Taps the mic* Hello, everybody! Can y’all hear me? Yes? Okay — *deep breaths* — here we go:

The Pixel Project, a 501(c)3 anti-violence against women nonprofit, has been running our Read For Pixels program since September 2014 when Chuck himself, Joe Hill, Sarah J. Maas, and nine other award-winning bestselling SFF and YA authors answered our call-to-action to help us reach out to their fandoms about violence against women (VAW) and raise funds to keep our anti-VAW work alive.

That inaugural Read For Pixels livestream author interview series (where Chuck, Joe, Sarah and co took to their webcams to speak out against sexism, misogyny, and VAW) and fundraiser was a smashing success and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Over 160 authors, 14 campaigns, and almost eight years later, we have a steadily growing resource of recorded livestream interviews and panels with authors. These are easily accessible on our YouTube channel to parents, teachers, kids, readers, writers, and fandoms worldwide who can either watch the videos to learn more about VAW while fanning over their favorite authors or use the videos to start conversations about VAW in their communities. Authors and publishers have also helped us raise approximately $10,000 per year by providing exclusive goodies as ‘thank you’ treats for readers, fans, and book collectors who donate to support our work.

You’re probably thinking: “Cool! I’ll go check it out. So why the guest post on Chuck’s blog?”

The answer: the [insert your cuss word of choice here] COVID-19 pandemic.

Like many small nonprofits, The Pixel Project has experienced a drop in donations due to the pandemic. This is a double whammy for women’s organizations like us as this is happening on top of decades of scarce funding for the overall women’s rights movement. So, with our current Read For Pixels fundraiser moving at the pace of a hobbit wading through the malodorous mud pits of Mordor (it’s been a month and we’re stuck at $3,220, which is only 67% of the way to our modest $5,000 goal), you can imagine our growing alarm. While we are 100% volunteer-staffed, we need to ensure that we can keep our campaigns, programs, and services running, especially now, when rates of VAW have been spiking so badly the UN calls it “the shadow pandemic”.

Chuck noticed our predicament and, being the mensch that he is, pinged us to offer to boost the signal for our fundraiser.

So here I am, on the first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and our seven-day flash donation drive, presenting five reasons why you should consider donating to our fundraiser to help get us to our $5,000 finish line by the April 15^th 2021 deadline:

Reason to Donate #1: Treat yourself while doing good!

From signed books to goodie bundles to flash fiction/poetry written especially for the donor, we have something for every donation level.

And while you’re enjoying your goodies, also enjoy the fact that your donation will be going towards keeping programs like our daily helpline retweet session on Twitter which tweets out domestic violence and rape/sexual assault helplines for women in over 30 countries worldwide from 8.00PM to midnight Eastern Time, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Reason to Donate #2: Get expert eyes on your writing while doing good!

We have a stellar line-up of acclaimed authors who have donated critique bundles for WIPs (works-in-progress), including Adriana Herrera (Romance), Alaya Dawn Johnson (Fantasy), Anna Stephens (Grimdark Fantasy), Bec McMaster (Paranormal Romance), Brigid Kemmerer (YA Fantasy), Jeannie Lin (Historical Fantasy), and Toni L.P. Kelner aka Leigh Perry (Mystery/Crime).  Some have a post-critique video chat workshop bundled in; others allow for three to five questions from the donor about the critique; still others offer to look at a query letter draft in addition to your WIP.

All these authors are willing to take time out of their packed schedules to help you when you help keep programs such as our annual 16 For 16 campaign alive. Through 16 For 16, we have built an ever-growing archive of almost 180 resource articles to date about everything from how to stop street harassment to lists of organizations tackling everything from child marriage to MMIW (Missing and murdered Indigenous women).

It’s totally win-win!

Reason to Donate #3: Chat with your favorite author while, did I mention, doing good!

It’s good to talk… and even better to talk with your favorite author in the name of supporting a good cause. For this fundraiser, Alyssa Sheinmel (Contemporary YA), Jodi Meadows (YA Fantasy), Julie E. Czerneda (Science Fiction and Fantasy), Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Fantasy and Poetry), Meg Gardiner (Crime/Thriller) and Tasha Suri (Fantasy) are all happy to spend some quality 1-to-1 time on a video chat with donors to natter about everything from books and writing, to gardening, stubborn rabbits, and geeky hobbies.

While you’re chatting, we’ll be working on our Fathers For Pixels program which provides dads worldwide with a variety of platforms (blog interviews, panel sessions etc) for sharing their ideas with other dads about raising kids and engaging with their peers and communities about sexism, misogyny, and VAW.

Reason to Donate #4: Treat someone else while… wait for it… doing good!

Do you have a friend or family member who has a birthday coming up? Do you see a Read For Pixels goodie offered by their favorite author available on our fundraising page? Donate to snag that unique treat and delight them.

Bonus: You’ll have an interesting story to tell them about where the gift came from. It might even be a great springboard for chatting with them about VAW.

Meanwhile, your donation will support our Inspirational Interviews series which has been running for a decade and counting. This blog series shines a spotlight on anti-VAW advocates, activists, and organizations worldwide with a focus on how they are changing the world for women and girls as well as their ideas about what people can do to help stop VAW in their communities and countries.

Reason to #5: Just do good.

Donate to our fundraiser because you believe in supporting efforts to prevent, stop, and end VAW. Whether you can give us $5 or $500 to help us reach our $5,000 goal, every cent counts.

(And when you donate to us, please also consider donating either cash or supplies to your local women’s shelter or rape crisis center. Like us, they need all the help they can get.)

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

*

Interested in checking out The Pixel Project’s anti-violence against women work? Visit us at http://www.thepixelprojectnet.

Interested in checking out our Read For Pixels fundraiser and making a donation to help keep our work alive? Go here.

*

Regina Yau is the founder and president of The Pixel Project, a virtual volunteer-led global 501(c)3 nonprofit organization on a mission to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women at the intersection of social media, new technologies, and popular culture/the Arts. A Rhodes Scholar with a double Masters in Women’s Studies and Chinese Studies, she has a lifelong commitment to fighting for women’s rights. In addition to running The Pixel Project, Regina also teaches English to middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, writes stories about cheeky little fox spirits and terrorist chickens, and bakes far too many carb-and-sugar-loaded goodies.

In an epic fantasy unlike any other, two women clash in a world full of rebellion, espionage, and military might on the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire.

Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.

Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.

Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.

***

I learned a language.

The idea for The Unbroken came when I was studying French in university, specifically when I was studying Francophone African literature. The authors wrote about their experience with colonialism, including the experiences of writing in French instead of Arabic. At the time, I wanted to learn Arabic for academic/career reasons, like getting a degree in Franco-colonial studies, but Arabic is hard to pick up on your own with nothing but a few Google guides for drawing letters. A few years after my failed attempt at learning on my own, and abandoning the idea of a PhD, I found myself in my last year of an MFA in fiction with a few extra course credits to spend and a novel I wanted to research properly. I tried again.

Arabic is a beautiful language, a language of poets and artists and some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. It’s both intuitive and simple and as complex as mathematics. There are multiple dialects and my rotating cast of teachers made sure that I had exposure to all of them–resulting in an odd accent that earns me a lot of teasing anytime I’m not speaking formal Arabic.

I learned that a language is so much more than a language.

The better I got at Arabic, the more people I could speak to. The more people I spoke to, the more stories they told me. More than a combination of syllables and rhythms, language is stories, and stories are histories. A language is food and customs and traditions and religions. The right language, even the right accent, is power and privilege. It unlocked moments of parallel understanding and sparked lifelong friendships. And just like learning more and more French exposed me to the underbelly of a chic European nation’s glittering reputation, learning more Arabic gave nuance to a stereotypical at worst, and homogeneous and incomplete at best, picture of the Arabophone world I was exposed to by American and European media.

I learned that learning a language is not enough.

I got to speak with Moroccans and Algerians (at least partially; there was a lot of fumbling on my part) on their own terms, in their preferred languages, about what it’s like living in a post-colonial country. Despite having pretty decent schooling, though, I was at a steep disadvantage in my understanding of the history of the Arabophone world. That meant doing more research. It meant interrogating my own assumptions–what’s the difference between Israel and Palestine? an ignorant American kid might ask–well, here’s a Palestinian journalist. What about the French? Well here’s The Wretched of the Earth. The more research you’ve done, the better you understand complex situations, and the better you understand complex situations, the better you can support the people working to better those situations.

If you do it right, learning a language is empathy. It’s a radical act in learning to listen and understand someone else, which is difficult at the best of times, and it’s an act that native English speakers are so rarely called upon to do.

If you do it right, writing is empathy.

It’s a radical act in learning to listen and understand someone else, which is difficult at the best of times, and it’s an act that those with more privilege are so rarely called upon to do.

I learned that the Sahara really is cold at night.

Really cold.

***

Cherae graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA. She’s been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as she travels the world. When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and [post-]colonial history. Her short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, FIYAH, PodCastle and Uncanny.

C.L. Clark: Website | Twitter | Instagram

The Unbroken: Indiebound | Bookshop | Powells | B&N | Amazon