Old trees and new worlds

The September 2022 Newsletter 🌊 🏔

Hello, sweet newsletter friends, and welcome to anyone who’s new here! Please settle in and make yourself at home.

I’ve been on some adventures since the last time I wrote you. My husband and I flew to New Zealand, which really is as glorious as the Lord of the Rings movies make it out to be. Everyone else on the South Island was there to do some skiing, but we hired ourselves a campervan and headed into Fiordland National Park. We had the place to ourselves, and spent every day hiking along lakes and winding up mountains. It was simple and quiet and just what I needed. It reminded me how much getting out into the world and under trees fills my well and fuels my writing. Ideas flowed as we hiked, filling in some of the gaps in the story I’m writing, helping me get a little closer to its heart.

Speaking of writing… have you ever heard of Second Book Syndrome? Google it and you’ll find this definition: a writer fails to write a second book as good as their first one. For authors, though, it’s more like the fear of it. That fear swirls around as you draft, making you doubt, making it hard to move forward. We worry we can’t recapture the specific magic it took to write the first book, let alone do it (for the first time) on deadline. Second books, it turns out, are a phycological mine field. But I’ve written enough stories to know that as long as you keep showing up, the magic will be there. So every day, I sit down and wrestle myself into drafting, spilling Nightbirds’ sequel onto the page. Are those words perfect? No, but I’m excited about where these characters are taking me. I can’t wait until you’ve read the first book so I can hear what you’re excited to see happen next.

Australia is slowly turning from winter to spring. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to Australia’s seasons, flipped from those I grew up with in Virginia. Christmas here is hot, but I still feel the urge to rug up and cut out paper snowflakes. July is freezing, but I feel a desperate compulsion to eat watermelon and wear jean shorts. October in Australia is spring, but inside my heart it’s autumn, and I’m dreaming of crunching leaves and pumpkin carving, fire-colored foliage and smoke on the air. Luckily, this year, I’ll be able to enjoy it in person. I haven’t been home to America since late 2018 – the longest I’ve ever gone without returning – and I’m looking forward to dipping my toes into home soil.

---

Meanwhile, on Pub Dates…

Over on Pub Dates, the podcast where Amie Kaufman and I are documenting our books’ paths to publication, we’ve recently published two new episodes. The first is all about NIGHTBIRDS’ amazing cover! My cover designer, Jess Jenkins, talks to me about how the cover design came together, from initial concept to final version. If you’ve ever wondered how a book cover gets made, then jump in.

Listen to A Cover Up

The second episode, Building a World, has Amie and I talking about research: what kinds we do when we’re building a fantastical world and how we use tidbits from history to inspire us.

Listen to Building a World

If you’re into sneak peeks - and I know you are, since you’re reading this - make sure you check out the Pub Dates newsletter. It’s chock full of photos, including some that show you how NIGHTBIRDS’ cover evolved. This is super behind-the-scenes stuff right here!

---

Recommendations

Music I’m currently writing to…

Anything by Ruelle. Her music is lush, dramatic, and a little bit dark. It’s a vibe, and I’m digging it.

Podcasts I’m listening to while I do dishes…

What’s Her Name podcast. The way Olivia and Katie talk about women in history is forever an inspiration to me. Informative, inspiring, and immersive, they find such creative ways to highlight the life and times of a woman from history you’ve probably never heard of. Elevated by music and interviews with experts, each episode is like discovering a hidden gem. If you don’t know where to start, I’d recommend the episode on Adelaide Herrmann.

What I’m reading…

I’m re-reading The Killing Code by Ellie Marney, which has just hit shelves! This YA historical novel is atmospheric, compulsive, and occasionally dark, which means it’s a perfect book to kick off the spooky season. And given it’s all about WWII female codebreakers in Washington, D.C. - yes, they existed - it’ll introduce you to a slice of women’s history you might not know much about. If you like murder mysteries, great fashion, diverse casts, and girls punching the patriarchy (and also sometimes kissing each other), then this one’s right up your alley.

Ellie’s joining me over on The Exploress to talk about the real-life female codebreakers who inspired her novel, as well as life for women in wartime D.C. in the 1940s, so wander over that way when it drops next week.

I’m also devouring The House with the Golden Door, the sequel to Elodie Harper’s historical novel The Wolf Den, and I’m extremely engrossed by it. There’s fierce friendship, forbidden love, and courtesan intrigue: I think I might be loving the sequel even more than the first. Set in ancient Pompeii, it follows the fraught life and times of Amara, an enslaved prostitute who will do anything to get free and carve out a life of her own choosing. Which makes for a harrowing read, but Elodie does an amazing job of showing us the realities of life for women in the ancient world without dwelling for too long on the horrors they experience. I won’t tell you anything else, because spoilers, but I highly recommend you listen to my interview with Elodie to get a feel for what the series is about.

What I’m sewing…

When I’m not writing, I like to unwind by crafting things with my hands. Mostly I give these things to friends, but lately I’ve gotten very into making myself clothes. And look, you’re probably not here for my me mades, but I have to show them to SOMEONE, you know? And so I present: the closest thing I’ll ever wear to a Hawaiian shirt and my best-fitting pair of homemade jeans thus far.

---

Sneak Peek

Image (and the final maps) courtesy of Sveta Dorosheva

When I was young, I loved vintage maps - I still do. They always felt like portals into other worlds. As a teen, they became anxiety inducing: I just couldn’t figure out how to read them. Which was as problem in a time before we had things like iPhones and digital navigators to shout at me to Turn Left and redirect me when I didn’t turn in time. My family and friends found it pretty amusing when I got my first editorial job, which involved editing maps and travel guides. But that job got me to fall in love with maps again, because they’re such interesting objects. Even the modern ones are beautiful: a visual representation of the world, told through a certain lens, and as a means of understanding how different parts relate to each other. I started collecting old maps and hanging them up as art pieces. I fantasized about seeing the world of NIGHTBIRDS brought to life in that way.

And then it was. I was lucky enough to have my world turned into maps (yes, PLURAL) by the incredible artist Sveta Dorosheva. And now, for the first time, I’m going to show them to you.

[Please pardon my slightly shaky hands. I needed coffee. Or maybe I’d already had too much?]

I gave her a digital sketch of Eudea and Simta, with all the relevant place names and locations important to the story. I wrote out what each area was like, culturally and geographically, and told her what the heart of my story was about. And then she went away and HAND DREW these incredible treasures. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the way they both turned out.

If you want to hear me talk about the process of how these maps came into being, check out the Pub Dates episode called Mapping a World.

That’s it for this month! Leave me a comment, why don’t you, and tell me about some of YOUR favorite fantasy maps.