April 2026
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my overhauled but still very irregular newsletter!
This coming weekend is RavenCon in Richmond, VA (https://www.ravencon.com). I’ll be vending there — my first appearance as myself, selling only my own books instead of hiding behind a screen of promoting other people’s work. I’m a lot more nervous than I thought I’d be, so please come on out, stop by my table, and be friendly at me!
Writing update: I’m still working on the second book in the Kingdom of Salt series. The overhaul I mentioned last month is still working out very well indeed, and I’m starting to see the end point on a couple of side/intersection stories that I want to publish by the end of the year. These are stories about what was happening off-screen during Lies of Stone, arcs that will be immensely important to the next book — for example, some ongoing plotting by Lord Evkit, clashes within Aerthraim Family, and what happened to Idisio after Lia and Tank left Arason.
I’m also starting to look seriously at the idea of serializing the first series, Children of the Desert (currently out of print), with a running commentary on what I still like about it and what I would do differently today. I suspect I’d only be able to carry that through the first book, but it would be a fun project for that long.
Mostly, I need to work on my time management skills, because there’s a lot (a lot) of gardening in progress, a whole bunch of reworking promotional approaches, preparations for a potential move next year, and (hopefully soon) a return to working in the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden library archives.
Anyone who reads my blog will have seen many a post on mapping of late. Those have not even scratched the surface of the backlog of data I have in my overstuffed folder, and I haven’t had the time to really dig into that project properly either. I’ll be making that more of a priority once my current horticulture classes end, so look for mapping posts to be focusing towards more writing-related specifics over the next two months.
Finally, as I also said last time, I have a frankly exorbitant amount of seedlings started, from hot peppers to basil (so. much. basil.) to lettuce to cucumbers and more. I’m committed to going through as much of my seed backlog as possible, even if that means just throwing the seeds out into the garden to see what survives. So locals, stop by the table at RavenCon and check with me to see if I’m growing anything you want! (I will not have plants at the table. It’s not the right space for that. But I’ll have a list, and we can set up a meet.)
That’s it for now! Thanks for all your support, and tell me — seriously, email me back, right now — and tell me about your recent triumphs, however large or small-seeming. I want to hear it!
See you at RavenCon, I hope!
