I'll cut right to the chase and reveal what has been in the works for the past three years or so: my debut novel will be published by Knight Errant Press, and is now up for preorder.
Even if you've mainly liked my critical writing and essays, I think my general sensibility is fairly consistent across fiction and non-, and there's hopefully enough intrigue to tempt you...
The extremely sick cover was done by the comic artist Lily Blakely, whose graphic novel Gristle has the same tone of ominous, encroaching, and maybe weirdly appealing grossness that I was trying to go for, so I was really thrilled when she agreed to do the illustrations for front and back.
Here's the back-of-book blurb:
Dumped, broke and stranded at her mother's house, Amy has few options for escape. Hanging out with her ex comes with getting to know his new girlfriend, someone who looks suspiciously like Amy's younger, straighter doppelgänger. Strapped for cash and desperate to be out of her mother’s home, she ends up babysitting the UFO-obsessed kids of the hot working mom down the street. Over a dull, torrid summer in the Pennsylvania suburbs, strange lights linger on the horizon, and subterranean connections reach out their tendrils in the dark, signalling another, otherworldly possibility...
To me, it's a book about the transformative power of seeing the world in an alienated way, but also how cool aliens are. My partner very generously describes it as "Clarice Lispector's Teenagers from Outer Space," and when I've been looking at it too long I just start thinking it's some bog-standard romcom. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Here's some other great quotes from early readers:
With a handful of characters, More Bugs portrays the alienation and agonies of returning to small town suburbia with a constant cynical love and wit, mixing observational comedy with a sprinkle of science fiction juice.
— Freya Campbell, author of Winter, The Tower, and Good Writers Are Perverts
More Bugs never stops being first and foremost a slow-paced, melancholic, existentialist character study about what it means to feel alienated as a human being, and how important it is that we reach out to one another even though true understanding may remain forever beyond our grasp.
–– Briar Ripley Page, author of The False Sister and Corrupted Vessels
...a well observed and smartly droll novel about stagnation and growth, pleasure and self; about the trembling sensitivity of everyday alienation... and maybe some actual aliens too!
— Jennifer Giesbrecht, author of The Monster of Elendhaven
I made a goofy minisite to collect all the info on the book, preorder links, and the upcoming events, like the Cymera festival in Edinburgh where the book will be officially launching, and WorldCon 2024 in Glasgow, where the press will have a table in the Dealer's Hall. You should also be able to request the book at any local bookshop (in the UK anyways) if you have a particular favorite.
OTHER STUFF:
Plaintext Distro had a great day out and successfully debuted four new zines at GZF this year! I will be dropping some of our spares off on consignment at Good Press and Typewronger over the next month, both of which do mail order, in case you aren't lucky enough to live in Glasgow :)
Domino Club also had another rather sporty outing, with the Bodies in Motion Jam drop of games hitting the web last month. My own entry, Horses Are Now Obsolete, won the PETA award for "A Humane Alternative to Equestrianism"... Guess you'll have to download and play it to know exactly what that means.
In general, life is good! I am still recovering from my long-awaited radical breast reduction in March, though it's mostly managing frustration that my energy levels and range of motion don't suddenly match how much more natural my body feels. Last weekend was the first hint of genuinely warm weather to hit Glasgow, so we hung out with the cows and tadpoles in Pollok Park and went to go see the IMAX 3D mushroom documentary narrated by Bjork at the science center, both activities I would highly recommend!
Lately I have been listening to Big Clown (in terms of new music) and The Velvet Underground's Loaded (in terms of old stuff). I've been reading a healthy mix of Thomas Bernhard and Sei Shoganon's The Pillow Book. The most recent movie that blew me away was Chameleon Street, which we watched in Zone.