Something in the Mist

Canada Has Come to Visit | 11 July 2025

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This week’s newsletter comes to you from the edge of a lake in central Minnesota, where I’ve been mostly toiling away in the pixel mines for this working vacation. My family is here and in good health; my nieces and nephews are elongating and developing their forever personalities. Today we were exposed to culture in the form of a semi-improvised musical play staged by a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old. I felt many sympathetic pangs, considering I mean to tread the boards myself in six days.

Speaking of which, just so I’m not remiss: I am doing a live performance reading in Burlington, MA on the evening of Thursday, July 17! Details at the link; I want to do more of these in the future, and after any given appearance anywhere the one thing I dread to hear is: “Oh, I would have loved that but I had no idea it was happening…” so! I have not let the side down this time. I am nudging you fine people twice! And don’t forget I’m in Seattle on Sunday, August 17, too!

The weather has mostly been a curtain of humidity, serving as a sort of focusing lens for the high summer sun. I have fussed around the lake a bit, mostly in a kayak, especially around the area where the gentle weedy shallows plunge three hundred feet, to the depths of what used to be a pit mine. It’s a very folk horror sort of hydrological attraction but so far nothing has come swirling out of the depths. Nothing save nieces and nephews. The real strangeness this trip has come in the last day with the slow settling of Canadian wildfire haze, filtering down from the north, shrouding everything in a veil vaguely smelling of burnt popcorn.

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I had hoped to spend more of this trip writing and editing actual prose, but technology had other plans. I have spent most of it wrestling with websites, documents, and administrivia… but it has been good and necessary work. My tiny and long-promised web store is now fully alive; wonky, but fully alive. Cosmetic and UI improvements can follow.

In addition to performance tickets, the site now sells DRM-free ebook versions of my previously available short work, in addition to a new one: “The Smoke of Gold is Glory,” my sword-and-sorcery adventure novelette from the 2017 anthology The Book of Swords. This ebook features a cover illustration by the fabulous Miles Äijälä:

Later this coming week I’ll have it up in the usual places (Amazon, Smashwords, etc.) but for now it’s soft launching solely at my place.

Last but not least of the new treats available at my store are pre-orders for signed bookplates. The first series of bookplates will be sold in sets of 3, and is limited to 500 sets (if this series sells out, I’ll draw art for a second, and then a third, whenever needed). All my signed bookplates will feature my own art and leave room for my signature and a small personalization if desired; these are adhesive-backed and may be placed inside books as a palliative for me being unable to sign them in person.

Speaking of signing, the Barnes & Noble visits have gone very well so far. I was able to make twelve of my intended stores; weather and scheduling difficulties diverted me from three, which I will now visit on my way back home over the next few days. These stores are:

• Algonquin, Illinois

• Rockford, Illinois

• Woodmere, Ohio

Time allowing, I may attempt one further signing at the B&N in Champaign, Illinois.

One of the most astonishing side effect of this Barnes & Noble promotion is that The Lies of Locke Lamora, which recently celebrated its nineteenth birthday, has returned to the USA Today Best-Seller list at a respectable #42.

As I have told many people this week, this is 1% my doing and 99% the work of booksellers and loyal readers (including you, o reader of this newsletter, including you) who have kept the love for these books alive for so long and been so very kind to me over the years. Until I write again— read well and stay safe.