I have gotten essentially no fiction writing accomplished during this Intersession. My university contract says most of January is a period of non-responsibility so each year I can usually get a lot of writing done in those weeks. But this year, my mentally ill adult son was hospitalized for the first time in four years.
I’m not going to write about his mental illness diagnosis or experience. As my wife would say, that’s not my story to tell. But the impact it’s had on our family does feel like my story to tell. And I think it’s important to share, because many people shy away from talking about mental illness in our society because they’re ashamed. The demands his chronic illness put on our family may be less visible, but they are very real.
For the past two years, he’s lived independently, though fortunately close enough that either my wife or I can visit daily. We had expressed growing concerns and uneasiness for several days before he was hospitalized and tried to provide nearly round-the-clock support. I stayed with him during the day and she stayed with him in the evening, including hanging out on his couch one night. But, in the end, after about three days, he still needed to be hospitalized.
This is the fourth time he’s needed hospitalization over the past seven years, but this is the first since he began living independently with his emotional support animal. While he is hospitalized, care for her has fallen to my wife and me — in addition to following his care, ensuring all of his professional supports are coordinated and, of course, one of us going to daily visiting hours to see how he’s doing and (struggle to) stay connected.
For me, taking care of his young dog is a genuine pleasure. She’s a little weird, but boxer dogs are always a little weird. On the one hand, boxer dogs are so similar to one another, they might as well be clones. But, on the other, they all have unique idiosyncrasies. She is adorable, and I love her to pieces.
That said, it’s been hard. Trying to keep track of another set of needs is almost more than I can handle now. Despite masking everywhere, my wife has a bad cold that’s interfering with her job. It’s been rough.
Still, I have managed to accomplish a few things. I submitted my application for the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat. My article about bookselling, How to Hand-Sell Books for Fun and Profit, appeared at Planetside. I’m scheduled to read from A Familiar Problem for the Straw Dog Author Showcase on January 31. And I got my university course website published on schedule, one week before the start of classes for Spring 2026.
Yesterday, due to the massive winter storm, I could not safely attend visiting hours, so I used the time to install FreshRSS and take a nap. I also managed to write a story fragment for @wss366. I’ve only managed about half the days since this all started.
Every day of hospitalization is a trial in multiple ways. The dog — and all of us — want my son to be ready to come home. We’re doing the best we can for the moment, making sure she gets lots of love and walks and treats. But it’s hard for her and hard for us. And still will be for weeks after he does return to his place, as he recovers. She is ready to do her part doing what she does best, providing unqualified emotional support. She is ready.
I spent a snowy afternoon setting up FreshRSS at my hosting service. It was a snap. It really only took me about a half hour once I got started and made me wonder what I’d been waiting for. I’ve only just started exploring it’s capabilities, but it seems great so far.
One of my fellow authors at Water Dragon Publishing shared a bit of news at the Discord and indicated she would be providing further updates to her blog, if people wanted to follow her journey. I had been meaning to set up a new RSS feed reader for a couple of years and so this was just the prompt I needed to kick me into gear.
I was an avid user of Google Reader and then, for many years after, ran an instance of TinyTinyRSS (TTRSS) as a feed reader on my home server. At some point, however, TTRSS began to require Docker. When I tried to set it up, it didn’t work right — probably because I got something wrong in the Docker configuration — and I said, “#@&% this!” I wasn’t going to teach myself Docker just so I could play at being sysadmin.
I tried a few other app-based feed readers, but I really wanted something server based. Otherwise, you really can only check your feeds from a single device and I switch among three devices pretty much constantly. I had identified FreshRSS pretty early on as a good candidate, but I wasn’t sure it would play nicely with my hosting service. I had tried to install TTRSS there and that hadn’t worked (which is why I had been running it on my home server).
In the end, I just did it. I downloaded the source, checked the documentation, and got started. I re-used the domain name “feeds.bierfaristo.com” that I had created a few years ago and added hosting. I scp’ed the tar file, untar’ed it, and the pointed my browser at the URL. Bam! I was in business.
I had saved an OPML file of my old feeds, which I went ahead and imported. It was a trip down memory lane. A lot of the feeds were dead, but a surprising number are still good. I’m looking forward to being more intentional about keeping up with feeds again.
At Worldcon, I got the chance to chat with Roxana Arama, the editor of Planetside (formerly the SFWA Blog). We had a great conversation and she encouraged me to write a pitch for an article.
Upon reflection, I decided to pitch an article about hand-selling books for authors as a kind of Bookselling 101. Since I had time in August (and was likely to have less time once the academic year started), I went ahead and drafted the article even before my pitch was accepted, figuring I would post it to my blog if it didn’t get accepted.
My pitch was accepted, but with a modification: They wanted a Bookselling 201 article and were most interested in having my expand on the aspect about pitching and hand-selling books. I made the necessary revisions and the article, How to Hand-Sell Books for Fun and Profit, is now live at Planetside.
I thought it would be fun to share the rest of the Bookselling 101 article I wrote here.
Where to Sell
There are a large number of opportunities where you might be able to sell your books directly to an audience. Perhaps the most important are the national and international conventions, like Worldcon, Dragoncon, and Comicon. Regional and local conventions are also worth attending. Additionally, there are often a vast number of local events that will welcome an author selling their books, including festivals, artisan markets, and holiday markets.
Conventions usually have a “dealer room” where most of the bookselling happens. Dealers pay a charge to have a space in a room with other dealers where they can sell their wares. For an individual author — especially a beginning author — the charges for a table may be higher than are warranted. But there are sometimes ways to share the cost. It may be that your publisher will already have a table. Or will pay to have the table, if you volunteer to help staff it to sell your books and others from the publisher. Some groups, like Broad Universe and Small Publishing in a Big Universe (SPBU), offer tables that multiple authors may join and share. Many conventions also offer other opportunities for individual authors to sell their books, in an “author’s alley” or via book-signing events.
Your Personal Brand
Presenting yourself and your books effectively makes a good first impression. Branding works. Many authors use some props to create a distinctive author appearance: a distinctive hat, like Tobias Buckell’s beret, or a T-shirt with a graphic design that evokes or aligns with your brand. A tablecloth and tablerunner, or banner, with branding are worth having to give your bookselling operation a polished, professional appearance.
Branded giveaways are useful to remind people about your books after they’ve walked away from your table. A business card, with a QR code linking to your website, is a no brainer here. But there are a lot of other easy and fun possibilities. Bookmarks are an obvious choice. Stickers can be good, although they’re more expensive and some venues ban the distribution of stickers. Some conferences use badge ribbons and, if you can think of a catchy hook, they have the added advantage that other attendees may see other people wearing the ribbon and will come to your dealer table because they want to get one of their own.
If people purchase several books, it’s convenient to be able to offer a bag to help them carry their books away. Be aware that in some localities, disposable plastic bags are outlawed, so paper bags are safer. The bag is another opportunity for branding: A rubber stamp works well, but stickers or labels can do in a pinch. Alternatively, you can purchase some branded reusable bags to sell.
Practical Concerns
Books are heavy, so a collapsible cart or wagon can be invaluable for moving your books and other materials during load-in and load-out. Stout cardboard boxes are ideal for protecting your books. But high quality reusable grocery bags with a flat bottom are convenient too and have the added advantage of handles. Book stands are also useful for standing up just a few books to highlight. (They’re also useful for when you’re a participant at a panel, to show your books while you present!)
It’s fun and easy to also sell books at outdoor festivals and markets, but you need some additional resources. You will probably want a collapsible 10×10 foot tent. Some are much easier than others to transport and setup by single person, so consider those factors when making your selection. Also, be sure to get some weights so that your tent doesn’t blow away in the wind. (Ask me how I know this…) You’ll need a table and some folding chairs. Usually tables and chairs are provided in dealer rooms, but for most festivals, you’re on your own. An 8-foot folding table works well. But two smaller tables — or just an additional table — can provide some flexibility.
Hand Selling Books
The most important thing I’ve learned about bookselling is that a concise, polished pitch for your book greatly increases your chances for making a sale. My article at Planetside, How to Hand Sell Books for Fun and Profit, goes into more detail about this.
Financial Concerns
Before selling anything you should make sure you have your financial ducks in a row. If you are selling on behalf of another organization, like your publisher or SPBU, they may have taken care of these details beforehand. Otherwise, you should consider setting up a separate bank account for you to keep the finances of your bookselling operation separate from other activities.
Honestly, if you’re a professional author, you should already have a separate bank account for business income and expenses. But, if you’ve resisted that up to now, stop resisting — you really need that, if you’re going to be a book seller.
Before you start selling, you will probably need a Tax ID number in order to collect and report sales tax. The rules and the amounts can vary widely depending on the locale. The rules for this vary from state-to-state or even city-to-city, so be sure to check the laws carefully in your locality.
You will need to accept payments. There are a few payment processors that offer inexpensive integrated systems you can use as a Point-of-Sale terminal. Many cell phones now can accept NFC (tap) payments with one of these using a card or phone or smart watch. There are also inexpensive devices that can accept tap payments, but allow someone to also insert a chipped card. These systems generally impose a 3-4% charge, which you will need to price your products appropriately to cover.
Different events bring people with different preferences for how they want to pay. Most transactions are usually via credit cards but, at some events, many people will want to pay cash. An envelope containing small bills is useful and that can also hold the cash collected. I usually start with $100 in one, fives, and tens to make change. I can then easily calculate the additional cash collected by the end of the event, to confirm it matches the transactions recorded in the payment processing system. Some events and populations prefer yet other payment systems, like venmo or paypal. It’s useful to be able to accept payments using whatever system the customer prefers.
I’ve generally found it convenient to price products at even dollar amounts that include the taxes and payment processor charges. Remember that, if you price something at $11, you will need a large number of ones and fives to make change, if you have many cash sales.
I’ve found that printing price tags on florescent card stock is useful. I have a template with prices along the edges that I can cut in half and then cut between the tags. These are easy to tuck in between the pages of books, so they stick up and are highly visible. You can use the different colors of tags to indicate various things: e.g. price range or genre. People like to know how much things cost. If you don’t have price tags, people will need to ask you, which will deter sales.
So, that’s it. That’s pretty much everything I know about selling books. Yep, that’s pretty much it. Oh, except you need some books to sell. You should probably go write some books now.
Wandering Shop Stories, a prompt for writing microfiction on Mastodon and Bluesky, begins its third year in 2026. It has grown modestly from having three to six curators and nearly 200 followers. Every morning, at 5am Eastern, a post appears on both services with a prompt for the day that proposes an ordinary word with multiple meanings that invites people to write a short piece of microfiction that includes the word and to tag the post so that everyone can follow along.
Starting this year, we decided to add a new wrinkle. Until now, we just selected a word based on the day of the year (day 1 to day 366 — on leap years). This year, we decided to track calendar days and holidays, to allow us to consider specific words for special days. This isn’t to say that we necessarily will, but we added the infrastructure to make it possible.
In technical terms, our new curator Gary created a new column in our spreadsheet with the dates and then we repurposed the “explanation” to column to list holidays. I added in a few US and Japanese holidays. (For several years, I’ve been subscribed to a Japanese holiday calendar in my daily calendar, which has been a source of great enjoyment and enrichment.) Then Nara and others went through and added a bunch more holidays from various calendars.
Once we had the structure laid out, I modified the python script that actually makes the posts. I reworded the post slightly and added a conditional to only identify the holiday if it is a holiday. When I made the change, I got the syntax slightly wrong so, this morning at 5:00am, the script ran and failed with an error. When I woke up a few minutes later, I checked and, seeing the post hadn’t gone, logged into the server to check the error log. I had forgotten a colon (well, two actually). So I added them and ran the script manually.
I really love our little #wss366 community! I love writing to the prompt every morning myself as a creative warm-up for the day. Furthermore, it’s been a real joy for me to see other people engage with the prompts and to read the contributions they write. And every quarter that our little group of curators has met via zoom to chat has deepened my appreciation for our quirky little community. Thank you both to participants and curators for investing your time an energy to bring our little community to life. Here’s to another successful year of Wandering Shop Stories.
I’ve been reluctant to admit it, but I’ve been having trouble finishing books. Or, indeed, even starting books. I’d heard of “writer’s block” but is there such a thing as “reader’s block”? It perhaps began even before the pandemic — certainly since then — that I’ve struggled to make myself read whole books. Over the past few months, I’ve checked out perhaps a dozen books from the library and returned them all unfinished — some unopened.
I decided recently that I was going to make myself start reading again. I spent some time thinking about it and realized one problem was that, for various reasons, I didn’t have a place to read anymore. So I set about to create one.
My office had gotten taken over, at one point, as a storage room, and was choked with boxes. Buried in them was an old antique chair, so I extracted the chair and banished enough of the boxes to make a space. Then I went to the store and bought new floor lamp, so I’d have enough light to read by. And I set up a side table to hold my TBR pile and a coffee cup. And then I started to read.
On my last trip to the library, I had checked out Katherine Addison’s The Tomb of Dragons. It was wonderful! I enjoyed reading it a lot. And I finished it. After reading it, however, I realized something else.
I read books differently now that I’ve written books of my own. Rather than becoming purely immersed in the story, I find myself frequently distracted by observations on the craft of the author. Why did they choose to include this detail? Why did they select a conlang term for this item and not that? Why? Why? Why? I think that was part of what was making it hard to read books. Now that I’ve recognized it, I can adapt.
Anyway, I went through the house and collected together my whole TBR pile(s) and, while I have the holiday and intersession before me, I plan to try to make plenty of time to read.
My first appearances of 2026 have been scheduled! Some of these are still preliminary and may change, but I wanted to get them out in time to share in my January newsletter.
At Arisa 2026 (January 16-19), I am scheduled to moderate one panel and serve on four others:
Manga 101: Introduction to Japanese Comics Kendall Square Saturday, January 17, 2026, 10:00 AM EST
Don’t Know Much About Geography–But You Should! Porter Square A Saturday, January 17, 2026, 5:30 PM EST
Artist, Craftsperson, Maker, Crafter, Hacker – What’s in a Name? Central Square Saturday, January 17, 2026, 6:45 PM EST
Your Fat Friends Porter Square A Sunday, January 18, 2026, 10:00 AM EST
Isekai 101: Surviving Your Time In Another World (moderator) Harvard Square Monday, January 19, 2026, 10:00 AM EST
There is still a chance I will get an opportunity to read at Arisia. The schedule is still being finalized.
Later in the year, I’m tentatively planning to attend Watch City, the Nebula Conference, and Readercon again. I’m also proposing myself to be a participant at Worldcon. I’ll post further updates as we get closer!
Writing is easy. Getting published is hard. Getting published again is harder. And it’s easy to get discouraged.
During the 2025 Nebula Conference, I attended a workshop by Becca Syme of Better Faster Academy about career longevity among writers. Up front, she delivered the startling statistic that 80% of writers give up within three years. Her presentation focused on helping people set more realistic expectations and persist in the face of adversity. (Note: Her presentation, The Longevity Blueprint: Building A Career That Lasts, was really excellent and is still available to watch, but only for Nebula or Quasar attendees — or SFWA members. Note: you can still join SFWA or register for the upcoming Nebulas to gain access.)
The worst thing about publishing is that it’s stochastic. Outcomes are largely decoupled from inputs. You can do everything right and still not get published. Until you recognize that and internalize it, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Getting rejected really only means that this editor didn’t need this manuscript this time.
Still, I’m reminded of the Stupidity Demotivator: Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.
The real question, I suppose, depends on what one means by “winning”…
Many, many years ago my brother and I discussed career paths. His approach was to work at a job he hated, but which paid well, with the goal of saving enough to be able to retire early so he could do whatever he wanted. He retired around age 50 and has been “doing whatever he wants” for more than 15 years now. By contrast, my approach was “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I found a career that was meaningful and satisfying and, although it was a lot of work (I aimed for 50-55 hours per week), it was work I generally enjoyed and found rewarding.
For me, my authorship is the same. I don’t write aiming to make a lot of money. I do it because I find it satisfying. I love to write. It makes me happy.
I’m sad, however, when I think of all the people who’ve crashed out. Who came to the party with high expectations and ended up going home alone. I wonder where you’ve gone and what it might take to get you to come back.
As I move toward full retirement, I’m devoting an increasing amount of my effort to trying to build sustainable communities to support writers. Straw Dog Writes, Wandering Shop Stories, and my work for SFWA all fall under this category. But they only address one side of the equation.
The money is harder. Economic forces are squeezing the publishing industry — and writers even more. Sociocultural shifts have resulted in fewer people buying and reading magazines and books. And now, Generative AI is flooding the marketplace with slop, making it that much harder for a new author to get discovered among the noise.
I remember Elizabeth Bear commenting that writers aren’t competing with one another: writers are all competing with the six-pack of beer at the party store for a purchaser’s dollar. I liked that way of looking at it. One of my goals for the coming year is to spend less money on beer and more buying books and then writing about them. Look for that here in the coming year. I hope you’ll still be here.
When I awoke before dawn on the solstice, I checked the weather (there is a weather station at the Computer Science building, about a quarter mile from my house). The temperature was already above 39°F and I thought, “Ya, know. I could get up, have a leisurely cup of coffee, and still go to watch the sunrise at the UMass Sunwheel.
Both my brother and I have always been intrigued by sun-aligned structures. I still recall getting up very early to drive from St. Louis to the Cahokia mounds to watch the 1991 winter solstice sunrise with him and his wife. I have previously visited a number of indigenous sun-aligned constructions when I was a young man. Serpent Mound in Ohio appears to have sun-aligned components. When my wife and I were in Mesa Verde, we visited the Sun Temple. And many others over the years.
The Sunwheel project had started in 1992-93, and was just getting sited when I arrived at UMass in 1996. I remember I took my young children to one of the solstice sunrise presentations there. But I hadn’t been to a sunrise for a long time.
A Crowd Listens AttentivelySteve Schnieder Explains the Seasons
I arrived a few minutes before sunrise and joined a crowd of forty or fifty people who had come to watch the sunrise. I was pleased to see a colleague I knew from way back was there to do the presentation. He did a fantastic job of explaining how the axial tilt of the earth produces the change in apparent movement of the sun across the sky. And, combined with the elliptical orbit of the earth, results in the changes in times of sunrise and sunset around the solstice. As he joked, he wishes people a happy solstice and perihelion during the season. He introduced the Sunwheel and told us a bit about it’s history. He pointed out other standing stones that showed moonrise and moonset. For extra credit, he also explained how the precession of the orbit of the moon results in changes in where the moon rises and sets relative to the sun. He ended up, pointing out the stone that marks where the star Sirius sets, which the ancient Egyptians used to mark the flooding of the Nile.
As he finished, the sun began to peek above the horizon. I took a few more pictures, chatted with a few people I knew, and then took my leave. It was a great start to the winter solstice, when the sun finally begins it slow passage back to the north.
It’s become nearly impossible to avoid “AI” which is increasing shoehorned into every corner of our lives. I’ve lived through a bunch of the tech bubbles and this is by the biggest and most intrusive. The tech-bros are convinced that robot slaves will print money for them so they can do away with all of these inconvenient human resources, impoverish them, and make them traffic their children for sex. Or, maybe, that’s just what they want you to think — to keep the bezzle going. But the fact of the matter is that today it’s nearly impossible to do anything using technology that hasn’t been tainted by so-called AI.
It seems apparent to me that the techbros have been intentionally enshittifying tools (like search) to force people to become dependent on AI. I suspect they are also using the huge pools of venture capital at their disposal to literally pay companies (cough Mozilla cough) to put AI into everything so that it becomes impossible to avoid.
It’s becoming harder and harder to define exactly what is AI. Some people distinguish between analytical and generative AI. Or what the model is trained with. Or where the model is run. I’m quite sure that almost no-one, outside of narrow specialists really has a good understanding. I think it’s all worth avoiding.
As an author, I strive very hard to stay away from AI. I don’t use any of the AI chatbots. I’ve used ChatGPT exactly one time. I want my writing to be unequivocally my own. I certify as such when I submit a manuscript. Toward that end, I don’t use computer operating systems with AI installed (I use Pop!_OS and an older version of the MacOS.) I have managed to retain the Google Assistant, turning off Gemini whenever they turn it on. I use the NoAI Duck Duck Go search engine. I have all of the AI bullshit turned off in Firefox. I do most of my writing in a text editor that doesn’t have AI (although there are AI plugins you can install). I’m using the wp-disable-ai plugin for WordPress to remove the interface elements that are based on generative AI. I turn off the AI Companion in Zoom. etc, etc, etc.
That said, I also use tools where it is nigh-on impossible to completely avoid AI, like Google Docs. Or Google Image Search. Or Google Maps. As Philip Brewer commented to me:
You know, it’s just about impossible to do anything on the internet and not end up using LLMs. If I use Google to check and see if there’s already a company with the same name I’m thinking to use as the name of a nefarious company in my story, Google is going to give me an AI-fied version of the search. If I read that, and then (depending on the result) either go with my fictional company name or else change it to some other fictional name, is my work now a work that used an LLM?
I don’t avoid AI only because of my authorship. I also want to make sure I’m using my brain and not becoming dependent on machines to think for me. I suspect people will discover that it is exactly like with GPS systems: There is “concrete evidence supporting the abstract contention that the rising technical order of GPS systems is dissipating human mental order in those who come to increasingly use and depend on it.” (From J. Robbins, “GPS navigation…but what is it doing to us?,” 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, 2010, pp. 309-318, doi: 10.1109/ISTAS.2010.5514623 — see A. Hutchinson, “Global Impositioning Systems: Is GPS technology actually harming our sense of direction?” The Walrus, Oct. 14, 2009. [www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/1...](http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/432651)). This is not to say that I never use GPS systems, but I try to minimize my use — using them only when absolutely necessary— because becoming dependent on them causes the parts of your brain that do that work to atrophy. Literally.
I also avoid the commercial AI systems because their creators and operators are manifestly untrustworthy. You can’t know whether the results they’re presenting to you have some hidden bias. Or an overt bias. Sometimes that bias may be as simple as, “This restaurant paid us more money to have them show up in your Google Map results.” But there are a lot of other far more subtle potential biases that be intentionally programmed in for political or ideological purposes. I would much rather be able to inspect the underlying data directly and make my own decisions. Search engines allowed us to do that. AI summaries do not.
People are going to need to come to their own decisions about what kinds of AI use are acceptable and unacceptable. I recognize that I tend toward one extreme. But others may reasonably tend toward another. Context is important.
It is not just a slippery slope. I remember many years ago, I went bicycling with my brother on the KalHaven rail trail, that runs from Kalamazoo to South Haven, on the Lake Michigan shoreline. We rode out, making good time, and feeling great. Then we turned around and the ride back was a terrible slog. It felt like we were riding into a strong headwind. Upon reflection, we realized that although the rail trail looked perfectly flat, it was not level. The rail trail is all downhill from Kalamazoo to the lake. And all uphill going back. You’d never know that standing on any particular point — you can’t see the slope. I think AI is like that: it’s a continuum and it’s going to become harder and harder to know exactly where you are on the slope. Unless you have a GPS.
Note: WordPress would lurve for me to use an AI assistant to generate an image for this post. I considered doing that — just for the lulz. But, no. It’s my own, original artwork. Made by me: a human being.
With the end of the semester, I decided to update early to Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS which just became available. I wanted to give myself as much time as possible if it failed or had serious problems. But, knowing System76, I needn’t have worried. The whole process only took a short while and went very smoothly.
At first, I was bit worried when I checked the requirements. My laptop, a 2018-ish System76 Oryx (oryp3) has an NVIDIA graphics card, so I assumed I would want to use the version for NVIDIA. But that version required a 16xx card or higher. The oryp3 only has a GTX1060. Luckily there was a separate generic upgrade that supports this class of hardware.
The biggest difference is that System76 has developed a new desktop interface called COSMIC. I’ve never been particularly happy with GNOME and actually preferred the previous Unity interface quite a bit more. The main reason I wanted to update, however, was to jump to the newer LTS release of Ubuntu upon which it’s based, to make sure I’ll be able to stay current with security patches. And I didn’t want to have to update during the middle of the semester when there might be time pressure if things went south.
So far, I’ve encountered only a handful of minor differences from the previous version. Some of the utilities are different. I needed to install the third-party packages I had installed separately (e.g. Zoom and Pulsar). And some of the configuration options are slightly different. But I’ve not encountered any showstoppers. Everything just works. My audio works. The Camera works. My portrait monitor is seamlessly supported. I can put the dock where I want it. All of my apps just work, including the X-windows app (Digikam) that I run from my home server. I was even able to easily make a screenshot (see above).
Note that the wallpaper is not from COSMIC, but rather is the cover graphic from my new book A Familiar Problem — Buy your copy today!
Kudos to System76! I never fail to be impressed with the high quality of their hardware and software.
As I reflect on my year of writing in 2025, it was a somewhat discouraging year. I did quite a bit of fiction writing, but almost none of it got published. I wrote 26,000 words of short fiction and did 20 submissions. Zip.
I also worked on longer fiction. I finished the 19,000 word manuscript for Ecorozire! the third novella sequel of Revin’s Heart.) It’s not clear when they might ever see the light of day. I also finished a 43,000 word rough draft of my new novel The Ground Never Lies. It still needs a lot of work and fleshing out, but haven’t managed to get to revising it.
The high point was that my first novel, A Familiar Problem finally came out. I wrote it in 2022 and it was rejected five times before being accepted for publication. I signed the contract in 2024 and the original scheduled publication date was December 2024. But it was delayed, first until January and then June. And it finally came out December 10, 2025. I had planned to use 2025 to promote it and scheduled myself to appear in conventions. But, over and over again, I was going without the new book to promote. This was rather discouraging.
I also had the discouraging interaction at Worldcon that left a rather bad taste in my mouth. I ended up having to interact with the other author again at LOSCon. If I hadn’t already made the arrangements to travel to Los Angeles, I probably would have canceled going. We got through it, but it really raised the tension — at least for me. I otherwise had a good time. I had many other positive interactions and, uncharacteristically for me, I managed to meet a lot of new people. And it was fun to unbox A Familiar Problem. Having a new book come out counts for a lot.
So, not everything this year was discouraging.
I did write a lot of blog posts — more than 80. Most are about stuff I was doing. A few were about news or writing. I wrote an Awards Eligibility post. OK. That was a little discouraging.
I also wrote an article about bookselling for SFWA Planetside that is scheduled to appear in January. I have a companion blog post that I will release at the same time.
I was re-elected to a full term as Secretary of SFWA. The difference between service last year and this year is striking. When I joined the Board, SFWA had lost essentially all of its leadership and staff. With fresh leadership, we hired new staff who hit the ground running and really engineered a transformation. The Board has been able to return to developing strategy. Whereas, last year was all frenetic activity, this year has been more relaxed. That’s not to say there haven’t been moments of controversy and high drama (like yesterday). But, no matter how bad it’s been, it’s been better than last year.
My service to the Straw Dog Writers Guild continues. I run Straw Dog Writes and serve on the program committee. I ran the online meetup nearly every week for the second — going on third — year. The regular group is small, but lively, with a mix of less frequent participants. On behalf of the program committee, I invited and hosted several talks during the year. I also served on a committee to review candidates to potentially update the website. I was excited and encouraged to draft the recommendation that was taken to the Board but, unfortunately, nothing ever came of it. Maybe that was another discouraging thing.
Wandering Shop Stories is an ongoing pleasure. We have 168 followers on Mastodon and 69 on Bluesky. Asakiyume frequently boosts and offers thoughtful comments on contributions. We’ve held genuinely enjoyable quarterly meetings aligned with the major solar events (solstices and equinoxen). And we’ve brought on one or two new curators. I write to the prompt most days, although occasionally I use snippets of works-in-progress or even bits of published works. It’s a great creative warm-up exercise in the morning. And reading the contributions by other authors and interacting with the small community that has sprung up around the project is always a treat.
I also participate in a number of other writing prompts on Mastodon and Bluesky, including #WritersCoffeeClub, #WordWeavers, #PennedPossibilities, #ScribesAndMakers, #Writephant, #LesFicFri, #WIPSnips, and probably others. The community of writers on Mastodon is particularly strong and supportive.
The year was also the middle half of my phased retirement. It’s weird to think I’ll teach Writing in Biology just once more this spring. I’ve been teaching this particular class since 2002 and am ready to be done. It’s been hard to keep it fresh and, honestly, seeing the end of the road ahead, I haven’t tried very hard. I realized recently that, when I fully retire in August, I will have spent 30 years — basically half my life — employed by the University. That seems like something that calls for further reflection — and should probably be the subject of its own post.
It was a slow year for me. Although I wrote a lot and submitted a lot of stories, the only work I published this year that is eligible for awards is my novel A Familiar Problem.
Brewer, S.D. 2025. A Familiar Problem. Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose. 202pp.
I had another story accepted for publication last spring, for which I’ve signed a contract, but it’s not going to appear until sometime in 2026.
On December 10, 2025, A Familiar Problem is finally available for purchase. It’s been a long, weird road to publication. But I’m very grateful it is finally available and I hope people enjoy it.
In May, 2022, I had an idea for a story. I sketched out a rough outline and then, in just a couple of hours, wrote the first chapter. It was a simple idea: A young man who is supposed to get his magical familiar, instead is captured as the familiar of a powerful demon that intends to train him up to enter him in an illegal familiar-fighting contest.
Over May and June, I wrote the rest of the novel. With a rough draft, I passed it it along to my beta readers. They offered a lot of helpful comments about story structure and pacing.
I had an epiphany while revising. I had originally drafted the story to end at a particular point when the main conflict of the story was resolved. But, while I was revising, I kept thinking of fun, funny things that the characters could do after the end. Eventually, I realized that, as I was the author, I could just keep writing more. In the end I wrote two more fun-filled chapters and created a far more satisfying ending.
During July, I fleshed out the rough draft: I added richer descriptions and worked to make sure that the timeline was consistent. My records indicate I submitted the manuscript for the first time on August 1st. I got five rejections before it caught the attention of an editor and was accepted for publication.
It’s a somewhat strange book. Like all of my writing, it doesn’t fit cleanly into a single genre I had tried to pitch it to one publisher as a “cozy fantasy.” They rejected it saying
We were concerned about the overt themes of sexual abuse and sexual coercion. […] While we recognise that abuse can be a theme in cosy fantasy, a synopsis whereby the protagonist ultimately marries into their abusive situation is more fitting for dark fantasy than cosy.
Currently, I’m calling it a “cozy, dark fantasy.” It does have dark elements but, overall, it’s a story about a young man who discovers that it can be better to want what you have than to have what you want. It’s also about finding the middle way when presented with a seemingly binary choice.
I was super excited to have my first novel published. I scheduled myself to hit the convention circuit during 2025 to promote the book. Then the problems started.
The book was originally scheduled to be released in December 2024. But the release date got pushed back to mid-January ― after Arisia. Then the cover artist artist got sick. Boskone happened. Then the editor ended up in the hospital. The book wasn’t available for Watch City. Or the Nebulas. Or Readercon. Or Worldcon. Finally, in late August, the book production began moving again.
I had hoped it would available for the Northampton Book Festival. Or LOSCon. And, finally, on the morning of the last day of LOSCon, I was able to actually put my hands on a paper copy of the book.
On December 10, 2025, A Familiar Problem hits shelves. Or would, if any brick-and-mortar stores were carrying it. But you can find it online at all of the major book sellers. I hope you’ll buy a copy.
My wife saw a poster in a local restaurant advertising yet another writing group in the Pioneer Valley which I hadn’t heard of: The Western Mass Writers Guild. I poked around their website and saw they had a Discord Link, so I joined it. And then I saw they had a meeting scheduled for today: Support and Accountability for Novel Editing (the first Saturday of each month at 3:30pm at the Forbes Library in Northampton), so I decided to give it a try.
I had seen that several of the regulars were unable to attend, so I wasn’t sure if anyone was coming. But after a few minutes one person showed up, and then another. Two of us were new, but one was familiar with the organization and could give us some background.
The organization began as the Western Mass regional group for NaNoWriMo. But, after the collapse of that organization, they decided to reorganize as the Western Mass Writers Guild. Originally, they were primarily focused on novel writing in November.
They’re mostly a quiet working group: a little socializing and mostly just working on writing together. They don’t do readings or critiques, as a rule, but people can self organize relationships with members if they want to form critique groups.
Most of the activity is on the Discord. There are a number of channels where people can ask questions. They also have a channel where people share useful links to resources.
I stayed for a bit more than an hour and got to show a copy of my new book (A Familiar Problem). Then, I needed to leave. But I will probably attend again, sometime.
With an hour to kill at LAX on my way home from LOSCon, I thought I’d take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. It was generally good: my travel arrangements went well (at least so far) and the accommodations were satisfactory. And in spite of a family member coming down with a cold before I left, I did not become symptomatic during the convention. We’ll have to wait to see whether I managed to dodge the bullet again after I get home.
I had a light schedule this time, with three panels in total, one for each day of the convention.
I was a participant for the first: Biology in Science Fiction and Real Space moderated by Jane Shevtsov. She did a presentation just before the panel which gave me an opportunity to learn more about her. She hadn’t contacted us beforehand, so we didn’t have any sense for how the panel would be organized. But it went reasonably well and I was able to think fast enough on my feet to feel like I made reasonable contributions.
I was the moderator for my second panel: Poetry and Songs in Speculative Fiction. This was a panel I had proposed. I had noticed the one of the participants was on my previous panel, so I made a point of introducing myself. The other two were on another a poetry panel the previous day, so I attended that one to hear them speak and, again, to introduce myself.
There were a couple of disappointing outcomes. The venue was half of a room separated with a divider and the session on the other side was extremely noisy. The con staff made some attempt to ameliorate the noise, but it was still pretty bad. The attendance was also quite poor. The poetry panel on the previous day had also been poorly attended, so I wasn’t surprised. But it was still disappointing.
I had forwarded to them a set of questions the previous week:
Please introduce yourself and, since we mentioned Tolkien in the panel description, was there a poem (among the ~60 or so) in the Hobbit or Trilogy (or elsewhere) that particularly resonated with you and why?
Poetry and meter were probably memory aids for stories in an oral tradition that carried over to the earliest written stories, cough, Gilgamesh. What other reasons do authors use poetry?
Songs present unique difficulties to represent on the printed page. What are some of the challenges to using poetry and songs in fiction? What are some ways it can fail or miss the mark?
Do you write poetry and songs yourself to include in your fiction? would you like to share some?
Movies provide a more natural medium for including music and song. How do their uses differ from printed fiction.
If we haven’t mentioned KPop Demon Hunters yet, what were particularly effective — even revolutionary — uses of song in that movie?
What are other authors and stories that use poetry and song particularly effectively?
They each brought interesting and unique perspectives on the questions. I was surprised that one of the participants had never read The Hobbit or Trilogy. And two of them had not seen KPop Demon Hunters. I was really surprised by that. But we had a good discussion about the topic and I learned a lot.
The last panel I served on was Developing a Creative Habit. This was a great panel. By this point, I had seen all of the participants and so I had a pretty good sense for how the panel would go. My main objective was to present myself as the anti-habit. Although I’m pretty settled in terms of my daily schedule, I’ve learned from long experience that my productivity is extremely variable. I used to stress about it and wanted to encourage others to not worry about it. I described my approach which is to have multiple projects and just write whatever I want whenever I feel like it — or not. This earned the comment, “You, sir, are a weirdo” by M. Todd Gallowglas, which I warmly accepted in the spirit in which it was intended. I also manage to mention Structured Procrastination and Philip’s essay about being routinely creative. And a lot more.
I balanced the rest of my time between other panels and working at my publisher’s table in the Dealer Room. Sales were rather poor — and not just with us. All of the other dealers seemed pretty disappointed by sales.
I was excited to finally get to put my hands on some copies of my long-delayed book A Familiar Problem. It didn’t arrive until Saturday evening, so I could only try to sell them on Sunday. By the time the Dealer Room closed, I hadn’t sold one. That’s how it goes sometimes.
I had several hours between when we finished load out and time for my flight. I decided to leave the hotel and spend most of the time in the airport. I’m kind of glad I did because the traffic to get the one mile to the airport from the hotel was miserable and it took almost an hour. Then, going through security, they had to call over some specialist to check the personal oxygen concentrator I need to fly. That took another half hour. But I got through fine and had more than an hour to spare.
And I’ve finished this post at 10pm with just a few minutes before boarding. Ojalá, I will be back home tomorrow before noon.
When I checked into the hotel for LOSCon, I noticed that there were four courtyard gardens on the floor where my room was. In fact, the room had a sliding-glass door that opened into the one where the pool was located. But the others looked interesting — in particular the Japanese garden. Japanese gardens are a particular passion of mine. The first night, I was exhausted from 14 hours of travel, so I only visited the pool (well, actually the hot tub), but when I went to peek into the “California” garden, I noticed the sign in the hallway now called it the Malibu Garden.
I wondered what that might bode…
This morning, I finally around to visiting the other two. They have been similarly renamed. What used to be the Spanish Garden is now the Pasadena Garden. And the Japanese Garden is now the Hollywood Garden.
Plaza and planters in Pasadena GardenPlanter with cycads and flowering shrub in Pasadena GardenArea for dogs to relieve themselves in Hollywood Garden.
Discouragingly, they were all generically similar. They had large open areas with planters and tables with ashtrays. And trashcans with ashtrays. They seemed to be intended mostly to be a place for smokers. They’re not unattractive, but I was disappointed to not have any defining characteristics to distinguish them.
My disappointment was mostly just due to seeing the original names and imaging that they might once have been differentiated thematically. Well, with one exception.
What used to be the Japanese garden is now the place where they’ve sited an area for dogs to relieve themselves. When I first spotted it, I wondered if maybe it was a putting green or something. But then I saw the post with the bags for dog poop. And, if that wasn’t enough of a giveaway, there was actually some dog poop that a dog owner had not picked up.
I debated whether it was more offensive to turn a Japanese garden into a dog park. Or to use the Hollywood garden for that purpose.
Still, it is nice to have a place for the doggies to do their business, rather than to make them go all the way down to the street.
Back in July, I pitched a panel for LOSCon. It turns out that my panel was accepted! On Saturday, I will moderate a group of panelists to discuss Poetry and Songs in Speculative Fiction. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve got some idea for questions. I reached out to the panelists, but haven’t gotten much back yet. I think it will be easy to talk almost endlessly about the theme. It’s a fascinating topic.
On Sunday, Developing a Creative Habit. This is kind of a funny topic for me, since my pitch is really the anti-habit. I wanted to talk about how, while many authors love to develop a habit to be productive, I would rather just let my creativity happen randomly. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t.
My publisher is going to have a table in the dealer room. My new book, A Familiar Problem, is scheduled to come out Dec 9, 2025 — too late for the convention. But there’s a chance a few copies will arrive in time. I’ve got my fingers crossed.
I usually suck at meeting people at conventions. But I’m going to make a particular effort to meet people involved with organizing the coming Worldcon in Los Angeles. Or, rather, Anaheim. Wish me luck!
The Straw Dog Writers Guild arranged a table at the Northampton Antiquarian Book, Ephemera, and Book Arts Fair where authors could sell and sign books. I attended and had a two-hour shift at the Straw Dog table. Although I didn’t sell any books, I met some new people, reconnected with others, and had a great time.
The event was held at the Northampton Center for the Arts. It’s a fantastic building with many interesting spaces. The Straw Dog table was right in front of a counter that would have been great as a bar for a reception. Unfortunately they weren’t serving.
Most of the vendors were dealers in antiquarian and rare books, but there were a few literary organizations and specialty presses. As a group of current authors, Straw Dog was not a particularly good fit and few of the visitors seemed that interested in current work. It reminded me a bit of Boskone, where many attendees want to see books by Heinlein and Asimov, rather than new authors they’ve never heard of. And, at this event, what they really wanted were signed first editions.
I arrived very early, in hopes of getting a parking space and was rewarded by getting the very last one. I suspect that not arranging for vendors to be able to unload and park at a distance to let attendees use the limited parking probably limited the number of visitors a lot. But, at least, I didn’t have to schlep my books a vast distance when it time for my shift.
I used the two hours before my shift started to wander through the whole space and see everything. There was a lot of really cool stuff. I love old books. The fact of the matter is, however, that I would be a very poor caretaker of them, so I never buy anything like that for myself. But it’s fun to look.
In addition to books, there were other interesting things. One artist had a book made with interesting handmade papers. There were various kinds of manuscripts (old property deeds and log books). One was printing with old type that had been recovered by the Yiddish Book Center. It was all fascinating.
When my shift started, I set up my books. I only brought a few copies, since I wasn’t expecting strong sales. But I also had a sign-up sheet for my mailing list; and cards to give away for myself, A Familiar Problem, and my proposed Amherst Book Festival. Plus some Airship Pirate stickers.
I spend the most time talking to the author next to me at the table. She was easy to talk to and we swapped stories while we waited for people to stop by. We would trade off talking to people that expressed interest in our books. I ended up buying a copy of the book she was promoting, Jingle These Bells, an inclusive holiday-themed romance anthology. Her story sounded fun.
Jennifer Weiner, writing for the New York Times, describes a glaring omission in the coverage of the Epstein files. Her point is that most of the coverage has little or nothing about the victims.
[…] we’ve heard endless details about the predators and the men in their social circle, we have heard far too little about — and from — the victims.
There’s another omission, however, that I haven’t seen anyone talk about, which is the economic inequality that leaves women vulnerable to becoming victims of sex trafficking. Why is no-one talking about that?
The young women who get roped into sex trafficking do so largely for prosaic reasons: usually money. The 17-year-old girl who had sex with Matt Gaetz did so for money to pay for orthodontic work. If we had an effective social safety net and universal health care, young women would not be nearly at the risk for falling victim to these kinds of nefarious schemes.
Make no mistake: the wealthy pursue the policies they do in part in order to have a large population of vulnerable people that can be exploited. It makes no sense to pursue justice against particular perpetrators without pursuing the larger goal of fixing the conditions that lead people to become victimized.
Unfortunately, that’s not a story that the media, which is mostly owned by the same wealthy people, is ever likely to report.
Not only did people crave A.I. intimacy, but the most engaged chatters were using Kuki to enact their every fantasy. At first, this was fodder for wry musings at the office. […] Soon, however, we were seeing users return daily to re-enact variations of multihour rape and murder scenarios.
I realized as I read this that my fiction writing is similarly very much about enacting my fantasies — or, at least, fixing them in tangible form — though perhaps not every single one.
When I was young, I would lose myself in fantasies every night before going to sleep. And at any time during the day, might find myself woolgathering, imagining all sorts of fantastic things.
I fantasized about all sorts of stuff. Some fantasies were pretty ordinary: I remember at point having fantasies about building a large enough model airplane that I could fly in it. But a lot of fantasies were pretty weird and highly sexualized. I started having these sexualized fantasies at a very young age: 6 or 7 or 8. These were a staple of my life throughout my youth.
When I was a doctoral student, I suddenly lost my ability to fantasize. I realized eventually it was because I was confronted with a problem I didn’t know how to resolve. My dissertation was like a mountain range. I spent a year going back and forth in front of the mountain range, looking for a pass through the mountains. Eventually, I realized there was no pass, and so I started climbing up one mountain and then the next and then another. In the middle, I couldn’t see any end: there were mountains in every direction as far as I could see.
During this time. I was caught on the horns of a dilemma: I couldn’t engage in a fantasy that didn’t involve either having finished my dissertation — and I didn’t know how that could happen — or having given up. And I wasn’t going to do that! So I was stuck. It was horrible and I remember worrying at the time that the effect would be permanent.
Eventually, years after I finished, I gradually began to be able to fantasize again.
During the pandemic, I found myself constantly tormented by negative thoughts. I called it the Hamster Wheel of Doom: one negative thought led to another and another and eventually back to the first. I rediscovered finding refuge in fantasies. And I began writing fiction primarily as a way to fix one part of the fantasy so I could move onto the next part.
As I read that article, however, I began to wonder how different my indulging in my fantasies to write is different from using one of these chatbots. Like them, I’m just playing with my ideas. The only difference is that I play all the parts myself, rather than having some kind of assistive support. But is it really all that different? I dunno.
Minimally, I’m not sharing my fantasies with some faceless corporation. I’m sharing them with the public. And on my own terms. So there’s that.
On November 9, I got to host James Cambias doing a presentation about Worldbuilding for the Straw Dog Writers Guild. He wanted to do a face-to-face presentation, so I reserved the newly built North Amherst Library Community Room. It’s a great venue with a large-screen display, four tables, and maybe 30 chairs.
Unfortunately, not many people came. He pointed out that if the number of presenters outnumbered the audience, we were obliged to take the presentation to bar and we avoded that, but only barely.
But it was a fantastic presentation and I’m sorry more people didn’t attend.
Here’s the little introduction I wrote:
Hello. I’m Steven D. Brewer and I would like to welcome you to Worldbuilding 101 with James Cambias presented by the Straw Dog Writers Guild.
Straw Dog is a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to the craft and transformative power of writing, designed to serve writers throughout the region by promoting individual growth, community outreach and enrichment, and community building.
Our mission is to support the writing community by strengthening, engaging, and connecting writers at all levels of development.
Some upcoming events
Tonight: Everyone Reads Second Sundays Open Mic
Wednesdays: Straw Dog Writes
Nov 13: A Writer’s Night with Linda Cardillo at Longmeadow Adult Center
I first saw James Cambias at a reading with Elizabeth Bear and Max Gladstone at the Odyssey Book Shop in South Hadley. Since then, we’ve crossed paths at science fiction conventions in Boston, like Arisia, Boskone, and Readeron, where we’ve done readings and served on panels together.
Born in New Orleans, educated at the University of Chicago, James has been a professional science fiction writer since 2000. Among his novels are A Darkling Sea, Corsair, Arkad’s World, The Godel Operation, The Scarab Mission and his most recent, The Miranda Conspiracy. He also designs roleplaying games, and is an advisor to the Center for the Study of Space Crime, Piracy, and Governance.
This afternoon, he’s presenting Worldbuilding 101: In science fiction and fantasy, the strength and depth of the author’s world building can make the difference between a forgettable story and a classic. He will breakdown how to make convincing and interesting worlds for your stories, while still respecting realism and scientific accuracy.
And, with that, please welcome James Cambias for Worldbuilding 101.
James provided a brief preamble: Worldbuilding is a form of storytelling, in itself: An act of literary creation. That said, story considerations should remain paramount. When building a world, the purpose is to support the story. And he offered his own test:
The Cambias Test: Any alternate world needs to support adventures/stories that you can’t do here.
In other words, if your story can take place in the regular or historical world just do it. Don’t go to a bunch of extra work: just do the work that is necessary. Sometimes you have a setting that already exists (like shared worlds — I write stories set on the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy) and you can just look up the necessary information, but he encouraged the audience to fit the story to the world.
He challenged the audience to consider what motives and conflicts that the setting supports. He cited Aristotle who proposed desire, fear, and honor (or, as we might say conviction, today). This reminded me a bit of the four F’s of animal behavior: Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, and Reproducing. In science fiction, survival is clearly one motive.
He proposed to look for “signature events”, that is things that happen there that don’t happen on Earth. The terminator on Mercury moves at walking speed. For sandboxes and shared worlds: what are some signature events there that nobody has done. Find a new angle. Take it seriously or don’t do it. And for the real world, take is seriously — Do the research! You can often use the results to add details that will contribute to the verisimilitude of the story.
He then let the audience in an exercise in worldbuilding, to design a world and its alien inhabitants. He offered a worksheet that indexes planet size against temperature to help determine the characteristics the world will have. What kind of planet do we want? How habitable? Can humans live there?
He began with the star in terms of size and brightness (luminosity, which describes the brightness as compared with the sun). Large stars frequently don’t last long enough for the establishment of a stable biosphere within its solar system.
He then moved to the planet. It’s characteristics include distance from the the star, the size and density, which together determine the gravity.
Running short on the time, he touched on life. Isaac Asimov wrote an influential article, Not as We Know It: The Chemistry of Life that provides a good introduction to what is required for life: a liquid, a solvent, and some kind of information molecule. (Personally, I would approach defining life differently, not in molecular terms.)
Aliens don’t have to be from the planet the story is set on. They can play a variety of roles: as people, a threat — as individuals or a society — as victims, or a mystery. And can transform: from a mystery to a threat to people.
Aliens can be of a variety of types. Talking beasts, super brains, an elder race, warriors, hive minds, or weird things. These often come with implied roles: for example, talking beasts are generally threats and weird things are generally mysteries.
It was a fantastic presentation and got me to think a lot about my own writing. In my writing, I’ve generally felt that aliens are extremely unlikely to have a compatible biology to our own. So the idea of “away parties” visiting alien worlds and talking to aliens… I just don’t see it happening.
Becoming a powerful demon’s familiar might be the best thing ever. But what’s the catch?
Rory Soletsa is supposed to find his magical familiar, but he doesn’t want something trite, like a cat; or stupid, like a bird; or ugly, like a toad. He wants something cool and powerful that can be an ally in a fight. When he’s captured and made into the familiar of a powerful demon — who presents as a voluptuous, beautiful woman — he’s amazed as he begins to discover how much more powerful his magic is with her. And he’s ecstatic when the demon offers to train him in advanced offensive and defensive magic. But just what is she training him for?
There’s a small chance my new book, A Familiar Problem, will be out by then. But I will also have copies of my other books, as well as stickers and ‘zines.
Etymologically, November was originally the ninth month of the year before the Romans messed everything up by adding January and February. But nov- is also the root for “new” in Esperanto, so let’s go with that. Because I’ve got some new stuff coming up.
Although I still don’t have a new release date, A Familiar Problem is moving forward again. I’ve approved the illustration for the cover and, behind the scenes, the wheels and gears are (hopefully) grinding forward.
Once again, I’m planning to do WritingMonth during November. I did this also last year and wrote 23,100 words toward The Ground Never Lies. This year, I’m planning to work on the sequel to A Familiar Problem. I’ve got some notes and a rough outline, so its a project I think I can make some good progress towards. I do have a lot of other obligations, so I don’t know how work I’ll be able to get done, but it’s nice to have a goal.
On November 2nd, I’m scheduled to attend the SFWA Winter Worlds of Giving Kickoff Event. And afterwards, I will probably attend the SFWA Writing Date, which I haven’t been doing as much as I should.
On November 8, I am scheduled to sell books at the Mill District Holiday Arts Market. And the next day, November 9, I am hosting James Cambias for Worldbuilding 101, a face-to-face Straw Dog Writers Guild event at the North Amherst Library Community Room.
On November 15-16, I am attending SFWA Quasar where I will be on a panel on Sunday “Science Fact in Science Fiction: Getting It Right in SFF”. This is the first year that Quasar has been offered, so it’s new for everyone.
Finally, over the weekend of Nov 29-Dec 1, I will attending LOSCon 51 in Los Angeles. I am listed as a participant, but I haven’t yet seen the final schedule. I haven’t attending LOSCon before, so it will totally new for me.
There is a new scam going round. WriterBeware called it Nigerian Prince Redux and I’ve gotten now a half dozen or more examples. They arrive as emails (or comments on my website, though mostly emails) that present as book clubs that are really excited about one of my books. Or as services to help market my books.
They’re not that hard to recognize. When you look at the emails, they have obvious misspellings in the names. And the people they mention and organizations they refer to don’t exist.
I’ve gotten things like this from when my first book came out. The earlier examples were crude and had all the lure of a bare fishhook. What’s new is the use of AI to create overblown language to try to fish you in. It’s just… Ugh.
The messages use sycophantic language to rave about the book:
I came across Revin’s Heart and was immediately drawn in by its premise, airship pirates, identity, and the courage to follow one’s true self. It’s rare to find a story that blends adventure, steampunk atmosphere, and emotional discovery with such nuance.
Seriously, that blend of steampunk adventure, social tension, and emotional awakening? That’s not writing, that’s alchemy. You didn’t just create a world; you forged one. The war, the class divide, the moral tug-of-war between duty and desire, it’s like you built a literary airship powered by empathy and intellect.
Your novel, with its blend of realistic emotional journey and gentle mystery, appears to be exactly the type of story that resonates deeply with readers who enjoy character-driven fiction with a touch of the speculative. My role is to design and implement a marketing strategy that connects such works with their ideal audience.
They also sometimes rave about me:
And then I look at you, Steven D. Brewer, professor, linguist, environmentalist, IT whisperer, Japanese culture enthusiast , and I realize: of course this story came from your brain. You’ve got the curiosity of a scientist, the soul of a poet, and the mischief of a pirate captain. (I’m convinced you’re secretly running a floating lab over Massachusetts right now.)
They’re just scams, written by AI, and mostly operated by people outside the country, looking to prey on vulnerable people using flattery and deception. But there’s always a small part of you that wishes you could believe all those things.
I’m reminded of the Charlie Brown Halloween special.
Lucy: I got 5 pieces of candy!
Violet: I got a chocolate bar!
Patty: I got a quarter!
Charlie Brown: I got a rock.
If I wanted to have AI rave about me and my books, I could just ask it to do that myself. So, no thank you.
