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Em oi! #454: Sad Not SAD

Here are all the books I read in 2024. I’m not going to rank them, but I’ll give brief reviews. I usually try to read the abbreviation of the year in books, so my goal for 2024 was 24 books. I read slightly more than that across many genres, although romance was the plurality.

Children’s/YA books

  1. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. Read aloud; I don’t think I have to convince anyone that this is an amazing book.
  2. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett. Read aloud; at times we were laughing too hard to go on, and really, what other endorsement is needed?
  3. Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle. Some excellent moments but ultimately too much Jesus for my tastes. Already lived all that shit by proxy growing up.
  4. Belle of the Ball, by Mari Costa. A pretty graphic novel with a big heart. Full disclosure: I met Mari Costa at the Lammys!
  5. The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger, by Colin Meloy. I may be biased because I’m a fan of both Colin Meloy and Pete Seeger, but this was delightful. (I never read it to the kids, though. Just saw it at back to school night.)
  6. The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos, by Deborah Heiligman. Too many words for a bedtime story, but my 3yo inexplicably loved it. The story is very cute, and Erdos was a loveable weirdo.

Romance (pairings and settings as noted)

  1. I’m So (Not) Over You, by Kosoko Jackson (M/M, contemporary). I hope Berkeley feels embarrassed by how dirty they did this poor book. Could have been good, but it was an entirely unedited mess.
  2. Take a Hint, Dani Brown, by Talia Hibbert (M/bi F, contemporary). For what it was, it was fine.
  3. Bisclavret, by KL Noone (M/M but one of them is a werewolf, middle ages?). A novella retelling the werewolf story “Bisclavret” by Marie de France. I usually think novella is not the best format for a romance, but this was charming. Full disclosure: I’ve been on panels with KL Noone a few times now at Rainbow Space Magic Con. (I don’t think she remembers me though.)
  4. A Marvellous Light, by Freya Marske (M/M, late Edwardian). Book 1 in the Last Binding series. The plot was fine and the writing was good.
  5. A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske (F/bi F, late Edwardian). Book 2 in the Last Binding series. The supporting characters were good.
  6. You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian (M/M, 1960s America just pre-Kennedy). I am not interested in baseball, but this was a delight start to finish and a standout. The second in the Mid-Century New York series (I lost the Lammy to the first one).
  7. A Minor Inconvenience, by Sarah Granger (M/M, Regency). Don’t think too hard about the plot. Or the sex scenes. The setting was nice.
  8. Letters to Half Moon Street, by Sarah Wallace (M/M, Regency). A gentle epistolary novel with almost no plot and an interesting queernorm regency setting that nevertheless left me with a lot of questions.
  9. An Appreciation of Cats, by Des DeVivo (M/M, contemporary?). Another novella that I read. I got this one as an ARC.
  10. Oak King Holly King, by Sebastian Nothwell (M/M but one of them is an elf, early Victorian). A standout–set in 1844, with strong medieval undertones and a delightful episodic plot that draws on the story of The Green Knight. Full disclosure: I was on Sebastian Nothwell’s podcast (Right Here, Write Queer) and he was recently on mine.
  11. A Power Unbound, by Freya Marske (M/M, late Edwardian). Book 3 in the Last Binding series. I didn’t hate it. Also I liked the characters from A Marvellous Light a lot better here.
  12. The Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, by KJ Charles (M/M, Regency). This was a delight. I have to go read book one now.
  13. Scandal in Spring, by Lisa Kleypas (M/F, early Victorian). This was the third book in a row that I read where one character had a BIG TERRIBLE SECRET that got revealed at or after the 50% mark in the book and turned out to be eminently overcomeable, and I am so over it.
  14. Cutting It Close by Reese Knightley (M/M, contemporary). I kind of lost track of the number of (war) crimes committed by the ostensible heroes. This book is a reminder that I need to stop picking audiobooks by just grabbing whatever is listed under “available now.”
  15. Dead Egyptians by Del Blackwater (M/M but one of them is a ghost, Edwardian). More of a character study, but a really lush and intriguing one. TW for an assault that happens around the 75% mark. Full disclosure: I have met Del Blackwater a few times (she lives in the area).
  16. My Last Duchess, by Eloisa James (M/F, Georgian). I want to say that it doesn’t make sense to try to body-shame someone when the fashion is to wear panniers, but that really diminishes the amount of fun that this book was.

Literature and Scifi/Fantasy

  1. Matrix, by Lauren Groff. If you’re the oldest daughter, and you sometimes get given distasteful tasks, and you maybe feel the need to do a really, really superior job at everything, you will see your experience reflected here. This had so many good lines–the writing was really an amazing achievement.
  2. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong. It was very good and also sad. Contained the single most stomach-turning scene I read (heard, I guess–I had this as an audiobook) this year, maybe ever.
  3. Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu. This was amazing and everyone should read it. And give Charles Yu more money to write more books. A real standout (and I got B to read it too).
  4. No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood. Part I was like having tw*tter slow-dripped into my ear. Part II made me cry.
  5. Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente. So amazing I immediately made B read it. Also a standout.
  6. Translation State, by Ann Leckie. A tricky book; not enough connection to the earlier Imperial Raadch novels and too much. Good but unsatisfying; I think it tried a lot of interesting things and I love it for that.
  7. Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree. The real magic rock was the friends we made along the way, I guess. This book managed to be very boring and also keep my interest, which feels like an achievement.

Nonfiction, Biography, and Memoir

  1. The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s all fun and games until Curtis LeMay firebombs Tokyo. (Of note, LeMay also introduced judo into the US and later was the VP candidate under George Wallace in 1968. Gladwell doesn’t mention either of these facts. I had to find them out by myself.)
  2. Cook County ICU: 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases, by Cory Franklin. Franklin is honest to a fault and I find I like him a lot for it.
  3. A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of a Hijacked Brain, by Sara Manning Peskin. Unfortunately this was reported stories focusing on the neurochemical underpinnings of various neurological issues rather than Oliver Sacks-esque first-hand case studies.
  4. On the Move: A Life, by Oliver Sacks. This was so delightful, and I’m glad he published it while he was still alive so no family members could stop him. (Would they? I don’t know. It was kinda scandalous. But also very good.) Key quote (not of the scandalous parts):
    As soon as I could get away from work on Friday, I saddled my horse–I sometimes thought of my bike as a horse–and would set out for the Grand Canyon, five hundred miles away but a straight ride on Route 66. I would ride through the night, lying flat on the tank; the bike had only 30 horsepower, but if I lay flat, I could get it to a little over a hundred miles per hour, and crouched like this, I would hold the bike flat out for hour after hour. Illuminated by the headlight–or, if there was one, by a full moon–the silvery road was sucked under my front wheel, and sometimes I had strange perceptual reversals and illusions. Sometimes I felt that I was inscribing a line on the surface of the earth, at other times that I was poised motionless above the ground, the whole planet rotating silently beneath me.
  5. Cultish, by Amanda Montell. I don’t know that her thesis (that cults use in-group language to promote belonging and a sense of community) is all that surprising, but I learned some interesting stuff.
  6. The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, by Dan Savage. I don’t know if I should say, “Wow, the early 2000s were genuinely as bad as I remember thinking they were at the time,” or “Dan Savage is the most Gen X writer.” Now I’ve said both.
  7. The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam*, by Andrew Wiest. A group memoir (biography? collection of oral histories?). This made me fucking cry. While driving.
  8. Boots on the Ground: America’s War in Vietnam, by Elizabeth Partridge. (Technically maybe YA nonfiction? oral histories woven together with bits of the larger historical record of the era, from the early ’60s through to the early ’90s.) I didn’t cry but only because I was running on the dreadmill at the time.

* Note–the company that committed war crimes in the village of Son My known as the My Lai massacre was also called Charlie Company, but that’s a different company. Because Army companies are named A, B, C, etc., and then referred to using the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, there’s lots of Charlie Companies.

Other Things I Read

  1. “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation,” by AK Ramanujan. In The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 131-160. I love this essay so much I wrote my MA thesis about it. I love this essay so much we did a podcast on it.
  2. “The Dybbuk: The Origins and History of a Concept,” by Leonard J. Greenspoon. In olam he-zeh v’olam ha-ba: The World and the World to Come in Jewish Belief and Practice, Perdue University Press, 2017, pp. 135-150. This was really informational, and well-written to boot. I learned so much.
  3. “The Etymology of Condom,” by Zacharias P. Thundy. In American Speech, vol. 60, no 2 (summer 1985): pp. 177-179. This started as a joke about the etymology of “condiment” that got way out of hand.

Books and Other Works I Published

  1. Old Time Religion. This was a scary book to write. Dionysus in Wisconsin was received well by a small but enthusiastic coterie, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. Luckily the Lammy shortlist hadn’t come out yet when I released it in January, or I would have freaked out even more than I already did. I got fewer preorders for this book than I did for DIW, which was unpleasant, and although I offered ARC copies no one wanted one. On the production side, the book was beset by some last-minute problems with the cover, which were a real learning experience and did nothing for my stress level. Fortunately, it has been well-received and sold steadily! I don’t track earnings by book, but it has earned out at this point, and slightly faster than DIW did (eleven months instead of twelve).
  2. “Dous.” This was so fun to write. I did catch myself trying to decide if I’d unfairly leveraged an argument Spivak makes about the way women are oppressed in India in a context she would object to, and then decided that I was getting a little too serious about the philosophy side of things for a lighthearted short story. As far as I can tell only a few people bothered to read it, probably because I gave it a weird title (it makes sense if you’ve read OTR, I think). But that’s fine. I know a few people really loved it, and that means a lot to me.
  3. Troth. This was a fun book to write, a hard book to revise, and now that it’s done I am extremely happy it’s out in the world. The last few chapters made me very happy to write. I got a lot more preorders for this one than I did for DIW and OTR–as many as both of them combined, actually. I didn’t bother to send out ARC copies. How do you offer ARC copies for the third book in a series without cannibalizing your audience? But despite the lack of hype, it has sold very well, including the best first month sales of any of my books.
  4. “Vivienne.” I sold this to Asimov’s Science Fiction and I have the check stubs to prove it, but although I received galleys, it was not published in 2024. I don’t know exactly what the story is; selling it was quite a coup, perhaps the most high-profile sale I’ve ever made. Maybe it will appear in 2025. Keep an eye out.
  5. Em oi! 452, 453, and 454 (above). I have another comic that I sketched and inked and then set aside because I needed to focus on something else.
  6. Lazarus, Home from the War. I have written two and a half full drafts of this novel this year, I think. I am so excited to show it to people in 2025. It’s got so much cool stuff that I love–a guy trying to put himself back together! A Jewish neurologist! A really scary snake! It will be out in May 2025, so keep an eye out!

How to Publish a Book

This consolidates some posts I originally put up on Tumblr, mainly so I can find them. (Tumblr’s search is a nightmare.) You can find them here, here, and here.

Ebooks

  1. Write the book. This is, believe it or not, the fun part.
  2. Edit the book. Slightly less easy, but you have to do this, no matter what anyone else has told you about “minimum viable product” or what have you. You can force your friends to read it, you can have a program read it aloud to you, you can read it backwards, you can hire someone to line edit your work, you can do some or most of the above, just get it edited. (Additional point: when hiring a professional, if you’re happy with the plot, ask for line or copyediting; if you’re not sure about plot points or need to flesh out some scenes, ask for developmental editing; if you just need guidance, you may want to start with an editorial letter.)
  3. Get a cover. You can make one yourself or pay someone to do it. You’re going to want it to be about 1600×2500 pixels and 72 dpi. It’s good to have a really nice cover, because covers sell books.
  4. Typeset the book. I use Atticus to create an epub file. If you are also doing a print version or you are a mild to medium control freak, I recommend it. Vellum and Reedsy are about the same, I think. If you have a lot of illustrations–big ones, I mean, not just an author photo–or you are a big-time control freak, you should beg, borrow, or steal a copy of InDesign. You can use Calibre to compress your output epub file if you want to make sure you earn every available penny. However, my book is 6mb and it is about 8 cents to download. Also, if you’re trying to do this on the cheap, you really can just do it in Word. The layout won’t be as fancy, but you can do it. (Layout granularity, from least to most granular, is probably Word->Atticus->InDesign.)
  5. If you want to publish under a press name that is not your name, you will need to start a business. Laws around taxes and registration may vary depending on where you are, but in general, you will want to register your name with your state or county registrar (for me, this cost $30 and I had to get a piece of paper notarized). Then you can get a business checking account (for me this part was free–I went through the bank I already have accounts with). In the US, sole proprietorships like this are taxed as pass-through entities, so you will pay personal income taxes on whatever money you make, but you don’t have to pay corporate income taxes. If you are publishing books that could possibly get you sued (e.g., The Big Book of Welding While Juggling or Now You’re Cooking with Napalm) you may want to form an LLC. Talk to a lawyer.
  6. Open a KDP account. If you hate the Zon and want to only publish somewhere else (Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, whatever), that’s fine–the process is about the same. If you think you previously had a KDP account and then didn’t use it, search your emails etc. to try to find out, because if they figure that out, they’ll close both accounts and then you won’t get paid.
  7. Add your new title to the catalog (you will need to add metadata, like your name, series name if there is one, and a description of the book) and set the prices. Unless your book is super big, you’ll probably earn more if you select the 70% option. For some reason, I changed a few of the prices. If you’re planning to publish on several platforms, I don’t recommend this–just set your price in one place and then let it convert those. Otherwise, you’ll have to reinput everything over and over, because it’s in the terms of service that you need to price things the same on Kobo as you do on Amazon (and so on).
  8. Set the day of publication and tell people about it. Like your mom. Your aunt who’s always so supportive. Your friend who has been listening to you bitch about how hard writing is for the past six months.
  9. ???
  10. Profit.

Q: Hey, I want my book in several online stores, not just Amazon.

A: You have a few options. Draft2Digital/Smashwords and IngramSpark both distribute digitally to various places so you only have to set things up once. But they take a cut of the profit for this service. My impression is that D2D is better for ebooks in this regard, however you should check the rates and make your own determination. You can also set up independent accounts with each store and upload your stuff. This is a PITA if you ever plan to update anything, but you can do it.

Q: What happens in step 9?

A: You know. Meet other indie writers and try to gain their trust. Read a lot. Work on the sequel. Get some sleep, because deadlines are exhausting, even self-imposed ones. Learn about advertising. That sort of thing.

PAPERBACKS

There are a bunch of options for POD publishing now. IngramSpark, KDP, Draft2Digital, Lulu, etc. Other websites like Barnes & Noble will let you set up paperback publishing but outsource the actual printing to IngramSpark (IS). I think a bunch of these services do. IS is also slightly better if you want to have bookstores sell your book, have it in libraries, etc., because most bookstores won’t order from Amazon, for obvious reasons. For Dionysus in Wisconsin, I’ve done both IS and Amazon, letting IS distribute to anywhere that isn’t the Zon. The last time I looked at the rates, IS was the best place that wasn’t Amazon, although that’s not saying much. D2D’s recent survey about AI and subsequent rejection of licensing their authors’ books to LLM companies wins them a lot in book, too.

OH, IS allows preorders for paperbacks while the Zon doesn’t.

First, you’re going to need to write and edit the book. We went over this in pt. 1. Please refer there if you have any questions on this step. Okay, here is the exhaustive list of what to do once you’re ready.

1. Decide what size the physical book should be. Look around your house at books in your genre and select the size that is most pleasing to you. This is called the trim size. Somewhere from 5″x8″ to 6″x9″ are the most popular, thus the cheapest.

2. If you uploaded your text into a typesetting program like Atticus, tell it your trim size, preferred typeface size, line spacing, and margins and have it spit out a pdf. Otherwise, set Word up with those specifications. KDP has a helpful site where you can calculate the correct inner margins for your number of pages, while I think somehow IS just requires a .5″ or .625″ margin for all sizes (this doesn’t make sense; I assume you just have to fix it after seeing a proof?). The book’s gonna be exactly the same, so just do the same thing in both places.

One thing I couldn’t find any guidance on is what size to make the typeface and line spacing. I wound up going with 11 pt typeface and 1.4 spacing. I figured this out by printing out the first page of my book, cutting it out at the correct size (5″x8″) and comparing it to pages in similar books until I found one that looked readable and pretty. Anything from 10-12 is probably fine, also 1.1-1.4 spacing, but keep in mind that small/densely spaced typefaces will make your text look more intimidating. Someone on Mastodon said 1.5 spacing looks like a student paper, which I also agree with.

There are loads of websites that detail what typefaces to use for what types of books. “Look at your genre and try to match” is reasonable advice here too.

3. You need not just a cover, but a spine and a back cover. Books are three dimensional objects!

If you hire an artist, they should just be able to provide a wrap-around cover that is appropriate dimensions (again, KDP and IS both have templates). It should be a CMYK PDF of at least 300 DPI resolution. If you’re doing it yourself, I suggest laying out the entire cover on one large sheet of paper/canvas and doing your art like that rather than trying to photoshop together various pieces, unless you are really, really good at color leveling etc. Make sure you use open access typefaces or that you have rights to use them, ditto for any images you collage into stuff.

GIMP is a great free photoshop alternative. ImageMagick is a free image manipulation program that is incredibly powerful. I had to use ImageMagick to flip my cover file into CMYK and create a PDF. The command you want is this:

magick "inputfile.png" -colorspace sRGB -colorspace CMYK "outputfile.pdf"

Note that this same command can be used to change between whatever formats you want. You don’t have to specify a colorspace, either.

magick "inputfile.png" "outputfile.jpg"

is a valid command. See the ImageMagick documentation for more.

4. Submitting your file for stuff: copyright here, LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) here. Neither of these is obligatory, but both are cool in their own way. LCCN is a way for Library of Congress to pre-catalog your data (creating a stub record in OCLC) so that if a library acquires your book, it’s easier for them to get it on the shelf. You need to submit your request for this PRIOR TO THE MONTH OF PUBLICATION. However, you don’t need a final manuscript to submit, just a summary of the book. Also, note that you can only retroactively submit your MS for copyright registration for THREE MONTHS after publication, so decide now if you want it. And yes, everything you write in the US is automatically copyrighted, but having a certificate to prove it is nice in a court battle. Also also, you WILL want a finished copy of the text to submit when you make this request, or else you will have to submit two printed copies. By MAIL. So you have to GO OUT OF YOUR HOUSE TO THE POST OFFICE. UGH. (You are requested to send in a print copy for the LCCN program too, so make sure you order extras. And some for awards.)

5. OKAY, assuming you got everything done, now you need an ISBN.

Do you really? Kind of. If you’re only publishing on KDP, they’ll give you a free one. But you can’t reuse it if you try to also publish on IS. The reverse is also true. Technically, the entity that assigns the ISBN is the publisher, so this makes Amazon/IS the publisher of your book. Also, it makes editions slightly weird if you’re doing paperbacks through more than one p lace (technically, it’s supposed to be one ISBN per edition). ANYWAY, in the US you buy ISBNs through Bowkers. Don’t let them sell you barcodes or any of that garbage. Just buy your ISBN(s).

Sometimes, people report putting in information in KDP and then having the ISBN rejected as “in use” when inputting it into IS, so do this next part all at once. First, assign your ISBN to your book in the Bowkers database. Then assign it to your book at IS and save as draft. Then assign it to your book at KDP and save as draft.

One other note. If you have set up a business to be your press name (mine is Winnowing Fan Press, because the main character’s name is Ulysses and I am a GIANT NERD), that will be set up as your publishing house in Bowkers. You won’t have an imprint unless you specify one. (An imprint is like a special line of books, so Harlequin has a “digital-first” imprint called Carina Press that specializes in LGBT+ romance, because why would you publish LGBT+ romance in paperback first, ugh.) BUT Amazon will ask what the imprint is for your ISBN and it will be THE NAME OF THE PUBLISHING HOUSE. Why is Amazon using the term differently from everyone else? I DON’T KNOW. JUST GO WITH IT.

6. Upload all your files. Look at the previewers/e-proofs to make sure everything looks okay. Panic and reupload them five times with minute changes.

7. Set a price.

For real at this point I hope you’re done making changes, because you suddenly have at least three versions across two different sites to update if you suddenly decide to add a credit for your author photo or something. (cough)

How to set a price the easy way: look at other similar books in your genre (your comps) and just set your book to that price (hopefully you aren’t losing money that way).

8. You can order a physical proof at this stage. But if you want author copies, you’re going to have to publish your book, meaning it becomes publicly available. I think that if you get through the KDP screens and hit “publish book,” it goes live. So…save it as a draft; don’t hit the go button until you’re ready. IS meanwhile lets you make it available for preorder.

Deadlines: Try to get everything done and uploaded by five days before your planned publication date.

Addenda to previous parts

  • Even if you are doing this as a hobby, even if you’re not going to be a working writer, you should make a budget at the beginning and write down what you’re spending. You might want to give the episode on Towards a Poor Podcast from the late, great Start With This a listen. Also, listen to the one about giving feedback while you’re at it–it totally changed my mind about giving and receiving criticism on my writing, even though my podcast is unscripted and I’m not workshopping theater pieces right now.
  • It’s best if you can figure out everything (cover, finalized text, back cover blurb) and THEN upload it to all the various websites. Otherwise you’ll wind up with mismatches. (My book, for example, has a slightly different cover in the ebook on Amazon compared to the print version, another different cover on Goodreads, and slightly different wording on the back of the book text in some places.) I should emphasize the interior text is all the same. I just messed that up.
  • There are some errors you may not catch until you see the print version, if you’re doing one. I recommend uploading your files to KDP, ordering a proof copy, making any updates, and THEN uploading the files elsewhere. IngramSpark is much slower to approve files compared to Amazon.
  • They say that you don’t ever really finish a project, you just give up on it, and this is true. I made the last changes to the text on Monday of the week it was published, and then I forced myself to stop looking at my proof copy because there is a deadline you have to meet to upload your files and I needed to stop. making. changes. in order to meet it.
  • When creating a cover, note that there is a variance in trimming things, so don’t assume that the area outside of the trim line on the cover is going to be invisible.
  • They say all you have to do to find a typo is open the freshly printed book. In my case, my husband found it.
  • Previously, I suggested you could use InDesign for ebook design. Technically, this is correct, but because screens are different sizes, you can’t…nail the text down, I guess? You have to allow reflow or things will look super weird. I don’t know, if you’re using InDesign and/or doing something really graphics-heavy, you need a guide that is more in-depth than this.
  • Everyone hates marketing.

Em oi! #453: Outsider Art

Em oi! #453: Outsider Art Em: I'm trying to figure out the plot of this novel. Bryan: The one you're writing? Em: The one I'm revising.
(copyright EH Lupton 4/14/24) Bryan: Isn't it a little late for that? Em: No. Anyway, it's like a reverse art heist. Bryan: Okay...
Em: They break into the art gallery and do something magical to the painting... And when the rich people take it home, demons come out. Bryan: Oh, like Banksy.
Em: ... Em: ...yeah, exactly.

Technically, Banksy is regarded as a street artist or guerilla artist, although I’d argue that’s a subset of outsider artist. Outsider art is art created by people who are largely self-taught and exist outside of the conventions of the art world. That group, as you can imagine, is pretty broad, and includes “naive” artists (self-taught but want to be mainstream) like Henri Rousseau, mentally ill artists like Adolf Wölfli and Robert Gie, folk art, and, well, me, I guess.

Once, when I was in Baltimore, MD, before a marathon (I think it must have been the Marine Corps), I went to an exhibit of art created by mentally ill patients. Some of it was like a giant boat made of glued-together matchsticks. Some of it was like this: a self-portrait carved out of a single apple tree log by a man who had never shown any interest in art, then made this, then never made art again. It raises an interesting question of how the art-making process exists within a human. What, indeed, is art? Is art always intentional? Are we unfairly dividing art into two categories whereby one is the product of some sort of delusion or other uncontrolled mental process and the other is the result of specific creative direction? (Yes.) If someone writes novels compulsively to cope with stress, anxiety, or depression, is that essentially the same as building a giant boat out of matchsticks?

Anyway, before I veer off into fruitless discussions of Deleuze and Guattari, the comic. Over the last few books, I’ve developed a process, which includes: 1/ write a first draft. 2/ Revise to fix plot problems. 3/ Another draft to fix remaining plot holes and fancy language. 4/ Send book to editor and accept changes. 5/ Final draft to make the language as good as possible. So the book we’re talking about is currently in stage two. And B did, in his way, fix the plot. He probably doesn’t even know how.

I’m going to file this one under N8354 B3 L86 2024, for Visual Arts–Art as a profession. Artists.–Banksy.

Em oi! #452: An Honor to be Nominated

Em oi! #452: An Honor to be Nominated Em: I got the email about a month ago-- Nietzsche: Okay, ja... Em: And I've been very anxious since then... Nietzsche: Mmm...
Em: (out of frame) And it's not like it's a bad thing, so I don't know why I feel this way. Is it that I care too much about--- Mary Oliver: You can head out, Nietzsche. I've got this. Nietzsche: Danke.
Em: Mary Oliver! Mary: Dearheart, you can worry all you want. It's fine. It just inevitably comes to nothing.
Bryan: In the last panel, you should make out. Em: That feels appropriate.

(In case you haven’t read it, Mary Oliver references this poem. Nietzsche dressed as the Overman first debuted here.)

In case you missed it, Dionysus in Wisconsin got shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in gay romance. The ceremony isn’t until June, so I get to spend the next few months either being anxious or being fêted, depending on who you ask. The other nominated works (you can check them out here) are also tremendous, which is awesome and intimidating all at once. In a very good article on being nominated for things, John Scalzi refers to all the works nominated together as a peer group. It’s hard to conceptualize myself up next to those other writers as peers, because their books are so good.

Awards are weird. On the one hand, they can draw attention to works that otherwise have been overlooked, create critical conversation, and recognize people who do work very, very hard and often receive very little. On the other hand, as an outsider, they can often seem to reinforce mainstream, middle-class values and recognize works that have already received recognition. Not for nothing, the Pulitzer board declined to award a prize for Gravity’s Rainbow the year it was released, because some of the board believed it was obscene and unreadable. (Which it is, but not in a bad way.)

That is to say, in a certain sense, it doesn’t matter if the Barbie movie gets an academy award (or even a nomination); it’s already proved its point by grossing a billion dollars worldwide. It’s already won.

For every book I’ve read that had justifiably won the award it was nominated for, I can name one that wasn’t very good and made me wonder what the judges had been thinking. And of course, there’s the terrible conundrum of the writer who wins a major award early in their career and then never quite achieves that high again. 

Anyway, as of this writing, my biggest feeling right now is just…happiness. As someone who was always kind of a weird kid, who wandered for a long time without much acknowledgement that my writing was what anyone wanted to read (remember this comic? yeah, bleak times), it’s nice to feel like, hey, actually, someone did like it after all. More than one someone.

I just want to take this moment to thank everyone who’s read the book already, or who heard the news and is reading it now. You guys are the best. If you ever get to Madison, let me know. I’ll make cookies.

Gonna file this under BF608 L86 2024 for Philosophy, Psychology, Religion–Psychology–Will. Volition. Choice. Control. (Feel a little bad for psychology, which still shares BF with parapsychology and occult sciences. That feels like a statement at this point.)

Em oi! #451: Technically

B: ...she'll become thy bed, I warrant thee, and bring thee forth brave brood. E: Wow.
B: What? E: I mean, you do the speech very well. I just don't much like Caliban.
B: Why not? E: He's, like, sexist as hell. I guess he's not portrayed as a hero, but...
B: He's literally a monster. E: Oh yeah.

Back before we had many small children, when he had time for community theater, B used to recite the speeches he was working on while we went running together. That was always fine when he was doing something fun (Twelfth Night) and always a little weird when he was doing a villain (Aaron the Moor from Titus Andronicus has a very good one[1]). Now we’re back to doing this because he has a show next Saturday (9/23, here in Madison)–and he’s learning a scene from The Tempest. Which is a great scene, but also interesting to be doing excerpts from in public. (Also, when we actually had this conversation, we were on dreadmills at the gym, so. But it’s a hell of a scene.)

All right, announcements.

I had a poem in the August/September issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine. The poem is called “Anxiety #243,” and you can buy a copy of the issue here. If you just want to read the poem, you should sign up for my newsletter and then check out the most recent back issue. I have another poem coming out in the next couple of weeks, and you should definitely sign up for my newsletter if you want to be notified!

I will be reading at Rainbow Space Magic Con at the end of September. I will also be appearing on a panel about writing fantasy and historical accuracy w/r/t the middle ages, a topic about which I have many possibly controversial opinions. Registration is free, so go sign up. I’ll send out a newsletter with the actual schedule once I know it.

I also recently came out with a new T-shirt. It looks like this:

Em wearing a turquoise shirt with a black, red, and white design that says DO NOT SUMMON DEMONS IN THE LIBRARY with a little flame-headed demon.

Click here if you want one. There are a few color and size options (also children’s sizes, because my 6yo wanted one), and also stickers and metal signs, in case you want it in your own library.

Finally, for fans of Dionysus in Wisconsin, book two will be available for preorder in October and out in January.

We’ll file this under PR2833.W5 L86 2023, for English literature–English renaissance (1500-1640)–The Tempest–Criticism. (I’m not 100% sure about that W5–I don’t have access to that table anymore, but I used it last time I did a comic about Shakespeare, so I am guessing it means “Criticism.”)

Footnotes:

[1] From act 5, scene 1:

Lucius:
Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?

Aaron:
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
 Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,
 Few come within the compass of my curse—
 Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death;
 Ravish a maid or plot the way to do it;
 Accuse some innocent and forswear myself;
 Set deadly enmity between two friends;
 Make poor men’s cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and haystalks in the night,
 And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
 Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves
 And set them upright at their dear friends’ door,
Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
 Have with my knife carvèd in Roman letters
 “Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.”
 But I have done a thousand dreadful things
 As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
 But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

It’s an amazing speech! Who doesn’t want to twirl their moustache so heartily? But you can see why we used to quiet down when we passed one of the neighbors…

Em oi! #450: Oversize Shirt Season

Em oi! #450: Oversize shirt season Drawing of a red plaid shirt Text: It's oversize shirt season, the best time of the year.
Text above panel: Copyright E.H. Lupton 2023 July 31 Panel text: cool mornings? Going to the grocery store? Hate your body? Oversize shirt! Drawing of Em wearing the red plaid shirt and giving a thumbs up.
Drawing: Em holding an axe, the sleeves ripped off the shirt. Text: It works for camping... Drawing: A sailboat with the sail made of red plaid cloth. Text: Sailing...
Text: Perfect for hiding in a cave from the sun. Drawing: Em crouched, holding the shirt above her head. Dialog balloon says "Hiss." Oversize shirts forever!

To be honest, I have only been camping once. It might not involve axes.

Lots going on around here! Not just related to the wearing of plaid shirts, either. I’m very gradually rewriting book 2 in preparation for a January 2024 release. (If you haven’t read book 1 yet, why not?) I have some poetry coming out in upcoming journals that I’m excited to tell you all about when it arrives. New merch dropping soon. My 6yo (WHAT) is starting first grade in three weeks? Maybe more comics if I can figure out where I put the scripts and also if my hand cooperates. I don’t know, just a ton of stuff. If you want to make sure you see it, sign up for the newsletter.

I have lost my access to the main LOC website, but someone has recreated the classification on Wikipedia. So this will be classified as NK8800 L86 2023, for Decorative Arts–Other arts and art industries–Textiles.

Quilt Pattern: Rainbow Bearclaw Star

This is my own pattern, but I believe in releasing these things into the wild, so I’m gonna tell you how to make it.

The original is a crib/baby quilt, so it was envisioned to be 40″x40″, which means each square is 8″ plus seam allowance (typically I use a 1/4″ seam allowance, but I don’t sew especially scant on purpose). Feel free to do your own quilt math and make it bigger or smaller. If you want like a 50×50 lap quilt, you could add a thicker border around the edge. I don’t care. It’s your quilt. Make yourself happy. You don’t have to use the same colors, either, but I will refer to the colors in this quilt when I describe the pattern.

Here’s a diagram that shows the squares:

There are five types of squares that get repeated.

For type 1, I cut a circle out of the focal material and basically glued it down using an iron-on applique product. Many of these have names like “Heat and Bond.” Ask the old ladies at your quilt store if you’re not sure which one to get. After I appliqued it, I stitched around the circle with a thread in a pretty color using a zigzag stitch. Because the stitching does take up the fabric a bit, you may want to cut this square a little big (like…9″ instead of 8.5″ or even a little bigger) and then trim it if you need to. You will need five circle blocks.

For type 2, I did these as two flying geese, because there are ways to make a lot of flying geese pretty easily. You could also do it as four half-square triangles, or an orange square on point and just sew on the corners. I don’t care. I don’t think one way is inherently superior, although depending on your fabric, maybe you want fewer seams. Or maybe more seams is easier for you. You will need four blocks like this. For your 40″ quilt, each finished flying goose (before it is sewed into the square) will have to be 8.5″ by 4.5″.

For type 3, you have four half-square triangles (HSTs): one orange/yellow, two light green/yellow, and one dark green/dark blue. Since there are four of these blocks, that works out to four orange/yellow, eight light green/yellow, and four dark green/dark blue. Each finished HST, prior to being sewn together, should be 4.5″ by 4.5″. (Damn it, that’s math. I wasn’t gonna do that.)

Blocks 4a and 4b are mirror images. Each one contains a square of light blue, a square of dark blue, a dark green/light blue HST, and a light blue/light purple HST. Be careful when you assemble these–it is easy to get confused, especially if you don’t especially like rotating shapes in your head or whatever. You need four of each (so eight total with these colors). These are also 4.5″ x 4.5″ for the hypothetical 40″ quilt.

Block 5 is essentially the same: one light blue square, one light purple square, and two light blue/light purple HSTs. You need four of these, and again they’re 4.5″ x 4.5″.

I put on a dark purple border. If I’d done better math, I would have made it bigger, but whatever. I usually want at least a 2.5″ wide border; smaller than that looks a bit weird in my opinion.

Tips: Iron everything at every stage. I press my seams to the side rather than open. Spray starch if you have to. Quilt it in the way that makes you the happiest. Bind it with either more dark purple (if you have enough, I didn’t) or black (if you have enough, I didn’t), or both in some kind of random arrangement (ding).

That’s it. Easy, right?

Em oi! #449: Cranespotting

A drawing of a bald eagle.
Two birdwatchers. One is pointing at something, the other is smiling. Text: "Normal birdwatchers."
A drawing of Em looking at a great blue heron.
Em raising a hand. Text: "Me." Em says: "HI, BIRD!"

First of all, hat tip to B for the title.

It took me a while to admit to myself that I really like birdwatching. In the beginning, I just told myself that I was out for a run and looking around, and there was something funny about shouting, “Hi, bird!” as I went past. I could only really identify large birds–hawks, vultures, wild turkeys, cranes, that kind of thing. Then I started taking photos of birds to ask my mom (who genuinely is a birdwatcher) what they were. Then I started taking photos of birds I saw just to show off to my mom.

Then one day, I realized I had two birding-related apps on my phone.

Then I found myself excitedly emailing my mom that I’d seen a GREEN HERON when I took the boys over to a local pond for a walk.

So yeah.

Not long ago, I was out for a run and a guy heard me saying, “Hello, hawk!” to the hawk I stopped to photograph.

That’s all for today. If you see any birds, tell them I say hi.

Em oi! #448: Post-Pandemic Blues

Em and a woman with blond hair are talking to each other. Blondie has a cup of coffee and is saying, 'Hey! Haven't seen you in a while. How have you been? Doing anything fun?' Em replies, 'Oh, hi! Um...'
A table labeled The Thought Process, with things Em has been doing on the left and what she thinks about them on the right, connected by arrows. I've been working on my novel, arrow, No one cares about your unfinished novel, no one cares about your weird hobbies. Working on my podcast arrow Everyone has a podcast, arrow No one cares about your weird hobbies. Kid did something funny arrow Don't talk about your kids all the time. Baby trying to crawl arrow Don't talk about your kids all the time. Super anxious all the time arrow TMI. Working on a quilt arrow No one cares about your weird hobbies. Training for a 50k arrow No one cares about your weird hobbies, arrow Sounds like bragging.
Em: Life has been pretty quiet. Also I've forgotten how to make small talk. Blondie: OMG, I know, right? Please help me.

Hey, I’m back! It only took a year plus two months, approximately. I feel like I should offer some explanation, but… *waves hand vaguely at everything* you know.

I spent most of the last year editing a podcast called Ask a Medievalist. You should check it out if you haven’t already. Also I had a baby. He’s doing pretty well. How have you all been?

I’d like to say I expect more comics soon, but I can’t make any promises. I guess we’ll see.

Maya the shiba inu.
I feel you, friend.