I am stoked to report I’ve turned in a complete draft for THE EMPIRE’S EDGE, the second book in my Mage and Empire series.
Around September of last year, I’d sunk into the dark depths of writer despair. The first third of the book worked just fine. I also knew the ending, or so I thought. But each iteration of the middle left me with a raging headache from frustration. Too complicated. Too implausible. Too convenient.
So in January, I went on a mini-vacation to Alaska. In between drinking Alaskan beer, walking around on frozen rivers, and a splendid visit to the Arctic Circle, I finally realized where the plot had meandered into the swamp, and how to rescue it.
In the last month, I’ve laid down 18K new words and met my deadline. The middle section needs expanding, and the second half could do with a lot of polish, but oh my gosh, I am so happy with how the story ties together.
So. This has been a rather chaotic year for me, both personally and professionally.
Personally? I found a new therapist and life coach, who is helping me make the transition from full-time software developer PLUS author to…full time author. I’ve learned techniques to overcome anxiety, and I’m working on making my living and work spaces at home into ones that bring me joy. This is all very good.
Professionally? I had not one, but TWO novels released this year. The Hound of Justice is the second installment The Janet Watson Chronicles and came out from Harper Voyager in July. An SF/Political thriller with Watson and Holmes, re-imagined as two black queer women, in a US divided by a second Civil War. A Jewel Bright Sea, which came out in September from Rebel Base Books, is a completely different kind of book. Epic fantasy with a strong romantic element, set in the same world as my River of Souls trilogy, 500 years earlier.
But! But! That’s not all!! I won an award!!!!! A Study in Honor (book #1 in The Janet Watson Chronicles) won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery. I still can’t quite express how amazing that felt, when the announcers read out my name at the awards ceremony.
Which brings us to next year. I’ve learned over time not to make overly detailed plans because something always, always upends those plans. I do need to finish the sequel to A Jewel Bright Sea. I also want to get this proposal for my NotMansfieldPark novella off to my agent within the next few weeks. Beyond that, everything is possible.
…re-magined as a sprite, by the lovely and talented A. C. Adams. You can buy them one coffee for a sprite version of yourself, or three coffees for a sprite version of your character. (See here.)
Today we’re joined by Alma Alexander. Alma’s life so far has prepared her very well for her chosen career. She was born in a country which no longer exists on the maps, has lived and worked in seven countries on four continents (and in cyberspace!), has climbed mountains, dived in coral reefs, flown small planes, swum with dolphins, touched two-thousand-year-old tiles in a gate out of Babylon. She is a novelist, anthologist and short story writer who currently shares her life between the Pacific Northwest of the USA (where she lives with her husband and two cats) and the wonderful fantasy worlds of her own imagination.
Available from Book View Café, 26 November 2019
What do you suppose would happen if a perfectly ordinary
human being somehow seized a moment in which an extraordinary ability blossomed
to face a crisis or an adversity… and turned themselves into a literal
‘superhero’? In the introductory story of the Val Hall books, the founder of
the place talks about Superheroes First Class (they can’t help it, they’re
gods, and that just comes with baggage…) and Superheroes Second Class (rich
mortals, effectively – people who can use their wealth to create a superhero
persona or trick themselves out with ‘special’ abilities, people who need zero
help from the rest of us…) and then there’s Superheroes Third Class, people
just like you and me, people who might claim to have done a single extraordinary
thing that changed the world.
Available from Book View Café in January 2020
Val Hall is there to help these people, when they get too
wounded, or too old, to care for themselves. This is home, the last home of
all, the place where you come to find your kind and to be loved, respected,
even venerated, but never patronized or belittled or treated like you’re no
longer important or necessary. Val Hall is the Retirement and Rest Home for
Superheroes, Third Class. A place to find sanctuary when the world moves on
from your own moment. A place where such legacies are brought to be remembered,
and appreciated. A place that will find you
when you need it – a sort of Hogwarts, which will send you an invitation to
take your place amongst the deserving when the time comes when you have a need
for it.
All the tales from the first two volumes, plus four new stories. Coming soon from Book View Café.
You might think that there is very little to be said on the
subject of decrepit, ancient, geriatric ex-heroes in a nursing home in the twilight
of their lives – but you’d be wrong. This is the wisdom of the elders. These
are the superheroes you will remember.
There are no high-speed chases here, or “shazam”
moments, or ‘Deus-ex-machina’ gods, or aliens. We aren’t going to Wakanda, or
Gotham, or that place that almost shares the name of my refuge, the
“other” Valhalla. You’re coming home, with me, with all of them, with
Eddie the orderly who has his own secrets and who cares for them and loves them
all and is so fiercely proud of them all. You’re being given a rare privilege. You’re
invited to talk to a superhero. One on one. You’re invited to find out what makes
them tick, what makes them unique, what makes them special… and how you can use
all that as a mirror to find out where you’re special, too.
Superheroes are us. They always have been.
Welcome to Val Hall.
The Val Hall books, and other novels by Alma Alexander, can be purchased as ebooks at Book View Café or as paperbacks on Amazon.
Today we’re joined by Heather Rose Jones. Heather is the author of the Alpennia historic fantasy series: an alternate-Regency-era Ruritanian adventure revolving around women’s lives woven through with magic, alchemy, and intrigue. Her short fiction has appeared in The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, Sword and Sorceress, Lace and Blade, and at Podcastle.org. Heather blogs about research into lesbian-relevant motifs in history and literature at the Lesbian Historic Motif Project and has a podcast covering the field of lesbian historical fiction which has recently expanded into publishing audio fiction. She reviews books at The Lesbian Review as well as on her blog. She works as an industrial failure investigator in biotech pharmaceuticals.
So often the focus on women in
fantasy novels is on the exceptions, the extraordinary women who break past
whatever limitations are placed on their gender within the setting of the
story. And we need those larger than life women to change boundaries and
expectations. But what of the women who challenge gender limitations by pushing
forward, day by day, in more ordinary lives? Women whose support for each other
is what enables the world to keep turning?
Each of the central characters
of my Alpennia series so far has been exceptional in some way. But there is one
way in which they follow the expectations for women in early 19th century
European society: they have lives that are primarily populated by other women.
For the most part, their friends, their enemies, their allies, their rivals,
their closest loved ones are all other women. In every age when the genders
have lived segregated lives, this has been the case. Men might have influence
over the larger course of your life, but women were the heart of your
existence.
When I began creating the social
world of the Alpennia stories, I embraced this concept and promised myself to
write as if women mattered. As if they could build communities and social networks and power
structures that could drive the plot of an entire series without ever needing
to center men in the narrative.
Some of them are directly
challenging male institutions in the process. Margerit Sovitre’s frustration
with begging for scraps of learning at the university drives her to found her
own women’s college. Antuniet Chazillen pushes past the barriers to women in
science by hard work and stubbornness. Luzie Valorin recognizes the subtle ways
in which her male mentors have discouraged her work and stops letting them hobble
her dreams.
None of them could have
succeeded without alliances to other women whose work might not challenge power
as directly, but does it just as effectively. Jeanne de Cherdillac is my
archetype of the “social fixer”–the woman who knows all the undercurrents in
society and knows how a word here and a hint there can move mountains. A woman
who knows what people want and how to use those desires to build bridges.
Barbara Lumbeirt knows exactly which rules can be effectively broken and which
must be subtly bent. Over them all, Princess Anna Atilliet knows how to turn
these women’s talents to her own advantage in ways that a prince couldn’t have
commanded.
But in the newest Alpennia
novel, Floodtide, we see women whose
alliances and concerns operate at a more immediate level and can be a matter of
life and death. For laundry maid Rozild Pairmen, her enemy isn’t the footman
who is jealous of her relationship with her fellow maid, but the housekeeper
who holds the power to dismiss her at a whim. Her second chance comes not from
the priest whose judgment she fears, but from the dressmaker who understands
her desperation and knows what favors to call in–favors carefully collected
and hoarded from the women who are her clientele.
Roz cements her position in her
new household via the other female servants–men are a hazard and unreliable.
Her dream of learning dressmaking would be far more difficult if not for
weaving a friendship with Celeste, the dressmaker’s daughter, and Roz in turn
sets herself to fulfill Celeste’s dearest dream.
When women matter, it isn’t only by riding out on quests or fighting battles or breaking rules. Sometimes it’s being a confidante, knowing who to turn to for help, and holding the lantern for another’s work. The heart and the core of the Alpennia series is that thought: that whatever women do matters, and that they can change the world.
2019 marks the first year where I’ve had two novels released in a single year. Both books are available in both electronic and print form. If you’re reading for awards and need a copy, please let me know.
The Hound of Justice (Harper Voyager, July 2019) is the second book in The Janet Watson Chronicles, set in a near future US divided by a second civil war. The first entry in the series, A Study in Honor, won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery. In Hound of Justice, a drone kills fifty people and injures hundreds more, and people speculate on a potential presidential assassination. Holmes and Watson are reunited to unravel a plot that has been concocted by one of the greatest enemies they have ever faced.
“O’Dell movingly portrays a proud woman struggling to regain her professional skills in a country still plagued by racism. Readers will hope this inventive series has a long run.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A Jewel Bright Sea (Rebel Base Books, September 2019) is the first book in Mage and Empire, an epic fantasy series set in the same world as the award-winning River of Souls trilogy. It was her talent for tracking magic that got Anna Zhdanov sent to catch a thief. A scholar’s daughter sold as a bonded servant, she has no desire to recover the Emperor’s jewel for herself. But a chance to earn her freedom has driven her to the untamed Eddalyon province, awash with warm breezes, lapping waves, and more danger than she could possibly guess.
“This is a fast-paced sword-and-sorcery pirate adventure filled with magic and double-dealing and high stakes for the characters, and I enjoyed it a lot.” —Martha Wells, New York Times bestselling author
So much has been going on these past two months. A Jewel Bright Sea released into the world. My first ever Comic Con, complete with a panel and book signing, and the lovely chance to people-and-costume watch. I’ve also signed up with a new therapist, who is also helping me with life coaching. My progress on the last has been somewhat erratic, but mostly in the forward direction.
In less positive news, I have my first ever case of writer’s block, which in turn means a possible delay with The Empire’s Edge. I’m taking a short time away from writing so I can 1) clean the house, and 2) come back with fresh eyes to the manuscript. I still love this book and these characters. I just need to find the right way to tell their stories.
It’s been such a busy month, I forgot to mention that I will be at the New York Comic Con! I’ll be at the events below, plus I will be signing stock at the Harper Collins booth on Friday, October 4th. In between I will be roaming the floor and taking in all the sights. This will be my very first Comic Con, so I’m extra excited.
“This is a fast-paced sword-and-sorcery pirate adventure filled with
magic and double-dealing and high stakes for the characters, and I
enjoyed it a lot.” —Martha Wells, New York Times bestselling author
“If you want rousing adventure with capable heroines and mysterious
heroes, along with magic, swashbuckling, romance, and pirates, Claire
O’Dell delivers the goods. I highly recommend A Jewel Bright Sea and can’t wait to read more!”
—Darlene Marshall, award-winning author of Castaway Dreams.
