Nowhere Special is out TODAY! Clockwork Revolution is Coming!
Also: Books for Kids Are Under Attack, so That's Fun
Hey, folks! Yes, you are indeed still subscribed to my often neglected newsletter, and I thank you for that.
Today marks the release of my new middle grade novel, NOWHERE SPECIAL, which is out from Katherine Tegen Books and Harper Kids. It’s available pretty much anywhere you buy books. If they don’t have it at your local independent bookshop, just ask for it. I’d love it if you also asked for it in libraries, particularly school libraries, and did anything you could to get it in classrooms. That’d be aces.
Here’s our ridiculously beautiful cover, created by artist Berat Pekmezci!
I’m not going to spend time trying to sell you a book. You’re subscribed to an author’s newsletter. You know the deal. I figure you’re either in or you’re out at this point. I do want to touch briefly on something that affects, not only authors of middle grade and young adult fiction, but every kid in this country, our culture, and our future.
Right now across America, forces are working hard to ban books from classrooms, school libraries, and, if they have their way, just outright keep them from shelves or even being published. It’s having a massive impact on the MG and YA markets, as this treatise on the state of the market from Teen Librarian Toolbox touched on just this past week. There’s a lot of information in there, but the part I want to focus on is the very real and alarming negative effect backlash against MG in particular is having on books, specifically those by and about marginalized authors and characters. Anything that isn’t a hetero whitewashed fantasy of American life is being targeted for eradication, period. And it’s working.
I’m not a marginalized author, by any means. I’m a big ol’ hetero-normative able-bodied cis white dude who is married to a high-powered attorney, with all the privilege that entails. I do write about marginalized characters and communities, because that’s where I grew up and those are the folks I grew up around. I was the only white kid in a poor immigrant Southern Californian border town. That’s very much where NOWHERE SPECIAL is set and the related issues it focuses on. Gangs, poverty, economic entrapment, substance abuse, domestic violence. The book has a fat kid and a brown girl on the cover, and I’m honestly worried that despite all my privilege my book could get banned just based on that. This is the ludicrously fascist and racist place we find ourselves.
No one needs more terrible shit to focus on right now, but if you care about kids and what they read and what they’re taught, you need to at the very least be aware of what’s going on in your own community. What books are and are not currently allowed in your schools and libraries and why. And if forces in your community are trying to ban books that tell stories that are anything except vanilla-ass people living some frankly Nazi ideal of life, if they don’t want any other perspective represented, you need to speak up and out against that. Make a call, send an email, vote for people who won’t buckle under the pressure of these goons. Show up at a meeting and shout down these MAGA shitlords making all the noise and making the shot-callers behind these bans nervous. Be as loud as them if you can. If you can't, do your best to support those who can.
Also, buy, boost, and scream about authors and their books who are on these hit lists. Help make them as successful as possible.
That’s all I’ve got. I’m trying to hope, but hope is a tenuous thing these days at best.
I also wanted to remind everyone that the world premiere of the trailer for the video game I’ve been writing for inXile Entertainment the past four-plus years happened over the summer. We headlined the Xbox Summer Showcase, which was a very big deal for us. The stream has been viewed by something like a hundred MILLION people worldwide. It’s the largest project I’ve ever been a part of as a writer, and I’ve been with this project since day one. Traditionally Xbox saves the trailer for their highest profile game for last, and that was us. We were second only to the massive special they gave Starfield following the showcase stream, which is a very nice place to be in video games, as far as Xbox and Microsoft go. The game is called CLOCKWORK REVOLUTION, and it’s an absolutely amazing FPS/RPG that really aims to change what a roleplaying game is. There’s elements of steampunk, alternate history, time travel, and a lot more. Folks are naturally comparing it to Bioshock, which I have no issue with, as I’m personally out to blow fans of that franchise away.
You can view our phantasmagorically epic trailer here.
Clockwork Revolution is coming in due time.
Get it?
I don’t have anything else for you right now. This has been a rebuilding year for me, as far as being an author goes. I began the year by parting ways with the agent I had since 2015. I signed with Becky LeJeune of Bond Literary a couple of months later. We’ve made a deal already, but it hasn’t been announced yet. Becky’s working on a to of things for me, and I’m working on new stuff to push out there, but as of now NOWHERE SPECIAL is my last contracted book.
Ever forward.
I hope you’re all hanging in there.