Paper Fruit

I didn’t do an end-of-year wrap-up for 2022, and now all of a sudden it’s August 9th, 2023.

Well, there’s no time like the present–not the least because I’m attending the World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City this October, and they threatened to look at my website for up-to-date information on me. So I should put some up here!

Part of my absence here has been due to just being busy! That, and I do monthly writing updates over at my Patreon. If you’d like to keep current on what’s going on in my life, that’s probably the better prospect, along with my social media: I’m on Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram. Facebook too, but I don’t accept a lot of requests over there unless they come with a message.

So, what’s been going on? Late last year I was asked to read for the Kitschie Awards, which was an absolute gas. I read loads of books, which was a wonderful experience, and I was thrilled by the short list and the winners, which can be found at that link.

Also last year…I edited a lot of manga for both Viz and Seven Seas (just did my 75th rewrite for Seven Seas, actually!), restarted my novel (again, la!), and wrote and published a novelette in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction called “Les Chimères: An Ode,” which I think is probably the best thing I’ve written to-date. I also published a short story in Phase Change: Imagining Energy Futures.

This year…has been busy. My reading for the Kitschies ate a lot of time in the first few months. I’m in a new D&D game that is a real ripsnorter, I’m playing an Air Genasi Warlock. My cat was sick, but he seems to be doing better…he’s 16, so he’s a slower guy than he’s been in the past, but apparently he can recover from just about anything. I was invited (to my surprise) to the Sycamore Hill Writer’s Workshop and wrote a novelette for that, which after attending I revised into something that’s between a novelette and a novella. That limits its sale prospects, but it’s out on the market currently.

Now I’m back to work on my novel, and I have a whole plan for finishing it before WFC. We’ll see if I can do it.

Tinkerty-tonk,

-Molly

March again, hmm? Well, it might not feel like it, but a year has definitely passed. Last March, I worked up the nerve to submit a novelet to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and this March… it’s in the issue! I’m so overwhelmed and full of gratitude.

Here’s the lovely review from Rich Horton over at Locus Magazine, who was kind enough to make it one of his Reccomended Stories:

‘In the Garden of Ibn-Ghazi’ is a fine mysterious, horror-tinged piece by Molly Tanzer. The narrator is a writer who mentions having read a story with that name, in which an attempt is made to duplicate the powder from Lovecraft’s ‘‘The Dunwich Horror’’, but no evidence of such a story can be found. Then an invitation comes from a man named Upton De Vries, to a performance of an obscure 17th-century play written by a French noblewoman, the Marquise de Sevigny. This performance will be at an obscure estate in Pennsylvania…. We are treated to a journey to this strange place, to the play, to a memoir by the rather rackety Marquise, and to an unexpected invitation not just to see the play but to act in it. Because we know this is Lovecraftian, we know that strange and sinister things will result, and so they do. The conclusion is a nice twist from what I thought at first.

That’s right, I surprised Rich Horton with the *ending*… of a Lovecraft story!! (That’s because it’s not really a Lovecraft story, it’s a story about a Lovecraft story.)

Reader, I am pleased.

You can find F&SF on bookstore shelves or on their website.

I’m pleased to announce Creatures of Charm and Hunger has made the 2020 Locus Recommended Reading List! Please click through to see all the amazing novels, stories, editors, and artists in the various categories.

Anyone can vote in the Locus Poll! You don’t have to be a subscriber. So, if you’d like to help me out by voting for Creatures of Charm and Hunger (in the Fantasy Novel category), please click here. It’s ranked choice, so you can vote for a lot of the fantastic books you read last year.

Thanks, and hang in there everybody!

What did I publish this year? Not a whole heck of a lot. And that’s okay.

In the early months of 2020 I realized I was experiencing textbook symptoms of burnout. Writing–my refuge, my obsession, my passion, my life!–felt hard and sometimes even aggravating. I avoided it for no reason. I wasn’t happy. I was looking forward to seeing my trilogy conclude once and for all, given how fraught it had been for me creatively, emotionally, and publishing-wise. I started working on my dream project (still am), but it wasn’t gelling. I pivoted to working on a novella, which I set aside. And then the pandemic hit, and nothing felt good… except for when I turned my eyes to my manga adaptation work. There, I could let go. I could freely compose and correct without the same sort of anxiety I was experiencing when working on my own stuff. It was glorious weightless, like floating in a warm deep bathtub.

It was hard not to get angry with myself. “I used to have so much to say, what happened!” “What’s wrong with me, everyone else is cranking out pages and pages of prose!” “I have so much time on my hands, what am I even doing with it all!?” These sorts of thoughts did not help me at all, of course. And they weren’t even true, not really. When things clicked, when I was hard at work on my new novel, I felt great. But I couldn’t stay in that place. I fell out of it so easily. The world was the world, endlessly distracting and dismaying.

It wasn’t until I hurt my high hamstring that I finally realized I’d been missing a piece of it all. To rehabilitate my hamstring, I had to take time off to let it heal, and then I had to get back into yoga slowly, gently, compassionately, without judgment, without pressure. I had to notice when I was in pain and back off immediately, baby the injury, and then try again when it felt better. Because I did all that, I’m back on the mat–with caution–and feeling good. My high hamstring still gives me guff, but I can work with it and work around it. And I’m doing better at incorporating supportive therapies too, like walking and pilates.

Thinking about all of this made me wonder if I could apply this process to my brain, too. At first, I resisted a little–my hamstring is a physical part of my body, it can’t be reasoned with. But the truth is, my mind is a physical part of my body too.

I have a lot of things coming out next year–the re-release of my backlist through Word Horde, a novelette in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a bunch of manga adaptations. I hope to finish my ongoing novel, and to get back into regularly working on shorter fiction. But we’ll see what happens. I thought I had plans for 2020 but really it was 2020 that had plans for me. So I’m approaching 2021 with caution.

Anyway, my two original fiction publications this year were:

Creatures of Charm and Hunger. John Joseph Adams Books/Mariner, April 2020.

“Summer Camp Would Have Been a Lot Cheaper.” In Evil in Technicolor, edited by Joe M. McDermott. Vernacular Books, October 2020.

Manga-wise, you’re seeing it. The Drifting Classroom, vols. 2 and 3, Levius/est vols. 6 and 7, and Super Mario Manga Mania.

See you in the future, y’all.

I know I’ve not updated this website for nearly two years… but part of that was I was finishing up my trilogy, The Diabolist’s Library, with the third and final book: Creatures of Charm and Hunger. It’s out now. You can buy it anywhere books are sold… that is open. Huzzah!

Creatures of Charm and Hunger has received a starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and raves in Booklist and Kirkus. I’m really happy it’s out in the world. I’m also happy to now be moving on artistically… the series is final, and it’s time for me to look to the future. So, I’ve been doing that too… all during, you know, coronavirus.

The other big piece of news (other than the like 13 short stories I had to add to my bibliography, boy I am trash at keeping this site up to date) is that I now have a Patreon: Toad and Typing. If you’re a fan of my work, please consider checking out my mostly Toad-based rewards (though at the M E G A C H O N K E R level, I’m doing a few readings of my WiPs.)

Honestly if you want updates on a regular basis I’d follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Patreon, and on my Facebook but I do keep my FB pretty locked down so please do introduce yourself.

While many of you much appreciated pre-orderers will have already received your copies of Creatures of Want and Ruin, today is the official release date of the book!

The book has been getting a pleasing number of thumbs-up, from Publishers Weekly, from Booklist, from io9, from Barnes & Noble (who were kind enough to call me “one of the most distinct voices in contemporary SFF”), and lastly from Apple Books, who also named it one of their Best Books of November. And a few little birds have told me some other accolades are forthcoming, too!

Even so, if you’d like to, you can help Creatures of Want and Ruin find its audience. If you like the book, or think it’s worthy of attention, please consider helping it (and me!) out with one of the following direct actions:

• Talk about it. Word of mouth is still the most effective form of advertising. If you think about it, chances are a large percentage of the books you read every year were personally recommended to you, so please let people know if they ask what you’re reading!
• Signal boost online. Social media is also very effective at promoting works of art and literature. Please let your social media contacts know about the book’s release and if you enjoyed it!
• Tell your local library. Even if you already bought a personal copy, please mention the book to your local librarian to get it on the shelf there next time you go in.
• Leave a review. Reviews matter to authors. Amazon in particular relies on review volume to decide which books to promote to their readers. A brief but enthusiastic review on any review site, be it a seller like Amazon or B&N.com, or Goodreads and other places like your own blog, will definitely help!

But really, the book is meant to be read and enjoyed, and if you’re doing that, that’s wonderful. Thank you, and happy page-turning!

For a while now, “readers” of this “blog” will have noticed a popup at the top claiming I had a newsletter. Well, about a year after setting that up, I finally have scheduled my very first! I hope to use it monthly, which let’s be honest, given the state of this blog, is ambitious, but we’ll see. I like the personal nature of the newsletter, and MailChimp is fun to play around in. So, if you’re curious about stuff I do, please do sign up. I’m trying to make the newsletter a mix of professional news (books, short stories, appearances) and personal hobbies such as my home canning adventures and also my baking and such. I’ll also try to always provide at least one picture of the Toad.

Other than that, it’s been… well, it’s been. I finished the page proofs for the forthcoming Creatures of Want and Ruin (now you can pre-order!) am working on a new short story, and am easing back into the now-announced third book in the series, Creatures of Charm and Hunger.

Yep, there will be a third! The quick pitch is “teen witch murdering Nazis” but of course said witch is a diabolist and there’s more to it than that, but… if that sounds like something you’d like to read, you won’t be disappointed.

Thanks for sticking with this blog, and with me, and see you (hopefully) in newsletter form soon!

For the first time ever, I’m typing up an official Awards Eligibility Post for 2017. I had a few things come out, but I’d really like to use most of this space to promote the stories in Mixed Up: Cocktail Recipes (and Flash Fiction) for the Discerning Drinker (and Reader).

As for me, I had a novel come out:

• Creatures of Will and Temper, through John Joseph Adams Books/Mariner. It’s available for SFWA members in the SFWA forums.

I also had three short stories published for the first time:

“Nine-Tenths of the Law,” available for free on Lightspeed. I don’t usually write SF, so this story is special to me. It’s also about sex, consent, and the lies we tell ourselves when we’re falling in or out of love. Also Denver International Airport conspiracy theories.

“Cognac, Communism, and Cocaine,” which was co-authored with Nick Mamatas, and appeared in Through A Mythos Darkly, ed. Glynn Owen Barrass and Brian M. Sammons.

“The Language of Flowers,” in Dark Discoveries #37 (Supernaturalism). This story links with Creatures of Will and Temper. 

Then there’s Mixed Up. Mixed Up is a hybrid work, part cocktail guide with recipes, part flash fiction anthology. It is out now through Skyhorse in hardcover. I was the cocktail editor; Nick Mamatas handled curating the fiction. I suppose as a whole, that would make the book a Related Work for some awards categories? In reality, it is a gift book, but there are plenty of individual stories worthy of note while you nominate this year. Mixed Up has fiction to please everyone (crime, slice of life, and some scifi, fantasy, and horror) but here are ones with a fantastical or science fictional or supernaturally horrific element for the genre awards circuit:

• “Eat the Wyrm,” by Elizabeth Hand
• “The End of the End of History,” by Nick Mamatas
• “Hot Night at Hinky-Dinks,” by Will Viharo
• “Bloody at Mazie’s Joint,” by Benjamin Percy
• “Gin is Stronger than Witchcraft,” by Dominica Phetteplace
• “But You Can’t Stay Here,” by Tim Pratt
• “There and Back Again,” by Carmen Maria Machado

I think that about wraps it up for my year of publishing. Thanks as always for reading, and happy new year!

It’s true. Creatures of Will and Temper is out! It’ll be in your local B&N, or your local bookstore, hopefully, or definitely online at one of the links I’ve put up on the sidebar.

The critical response to the book has been very good so far. It’s gotten kind reviews in Publishers Weekly (starred!), Library Journal, Booklist (link is to the reviewer’s expanded review on her own blog), Fantasy Faction, and a few other place so far. This BookPage review really knocked my socks off.

I’m doing a Reddit AMA on 11/14, when the book drops on r/fantasy. Come and see me, ask me something! Anything!

Also on the 14th, I’m doing a reading at the Denver Tattered Cover, the LoDo location. Details at the link, show starts at 7.

The following Monday, the 20th, you can find me at the downtown Powell’s in Portland, OR. I’ll be reading there at 7:30!

I’ll try to update things here as the book comes to life, but obviously I always go way too long between updates. If you’re super invested in hearing about what’s up with Creatures of Will and Temper I’d suggest following me on Twitter @molly_the_tanz, or on Insta @molly_tanzer. I consider FB friend requests a lot more carefully if they come with a note, but I also keep that account a lot more locked down than my public social media.