Hey there. This is UNUSUAL FICTIONS, a sporadic newsletter from Jess Nickelsen.
Happy March, everyone! It actually sort of sucks, going into autumn right now. It really doesn't feel like the summer was long enough. I wonder if I say that every year, or if this year summer was particularly...meh? We had a few hot days back around new year / early Jan, but February was pretty underwhelming, weather-wise.
That said, the cicadas are out right now, which is one of my favourite summer things, and we'll soon be heading into feijoa season. For northern hemisphere friends, feijoas are the fruit that make life worth living. I love everything about them, heh.
And of course over the past few months there has been a lot of interesting writing-related progress and news to make up for the rather underwhelming weather!
Writing updates
Some biggies here!
Five By Five in paperback
The first one is that Five By Five is now available in paperback:
They look great, and who doesn't love a book in the hand? They are being printed on-demand from Amazon, and while of course everyone has strong opinions about Amazon these days (including me) there still aren't a lot of other great options for paperback publishing right now. Further, people who live down this neck of the woods actually get reasonable shipping if they order from the Australian site.
I have a few author copies here if anyone in NZ would like one ($15 NZD). I can even get them signed by everyone if you don't mind the wait. Just reply to this email!
New cover for C&B
Another bit of excitement is a new cover for my novella, Catnip & Brimstone.
As I mentioned in my blog post, it wasn't really something I'd been planning on "upgrading" as I was just going to keep things simple with this one. But in the last batch of covers from Go On Write I spotted something that was pretty near bang-on:
I like the dark magic vibe, the moody swirls, the tabby cat, and the colours! The turnaround time is great (I put in my order before I went to bed, and when I woke up it was ready) and James is really friendly too. I really recommend him!
Competitions and subs
Maybe the right thing to do in this space is to only email you about acceptances, but at the same time that seems a little disingenuous, with regard to the whole writing/publishing process. In any case, I am at the point in my writing life where I don't feel embarrassed by rejections, or sharing failures. It's all a part of the process, and the whole initial point of these newsletters was to share the ups and downs.
That said, over the last few months I've written and submitted a couple of pieces:
- a 2,500 word story to the NYC Midnight competition, from the following prompt: genre: fantasy; character: a widow; subject: upriver. I wound up writing about a weird family that shuttles walking-dead humans upriver to a tree that 'processes' them into something more useful. I actually quite liked it, and was surprised that I could turn it out over a period of only eight days. I have no idea how I'll go in the competition, but I look forward to sharing it here with you all once we're allowed. (The judging should be done by early April.)
- I've also got a flash piece out with Abyss & Apex, called "Missing Piece" about a space jockey looking for a new mount. Only in this story navigating the "space waves" requires a melding of minds, and both the jockey and her prospective star-coaster have been traumatised by past experiences. This one made it past the initial slush read, so fingers crossed the editors enjoy it! But if it gets rejected I'll definitely keep sending this one out. I really love the vibe with this one.
Courses and workshops
I'm at the tail end of a six-week short fiction writing course with Cat Rambo. There are ten or so of us in the group, and it's been really a great experience to learn from Cat, but also workshop pieces with a group of new people. I got some really useful feedback from everyone on my short story, "The Gravedigger's Strife" and I'm looking forward to getting another draft done on it very soon... and then getting it out into the submission cycle.
Book funnel group promo
I've never done a book funnel group promo before, but I've signed up for one for Catnip & Brimstone. I figure the new cover might catch a few eyes, and as it's a witchy-themed swap it should fit in well.
A group promo is basically a way to share some "book amplification" across different authors and their networks. It also is a great way to let your readers know about other writers and books in similar genres, so it's possible you might be able to find some other gems out there.
The promo's scheduled for April, so you can expect a link in the April newsletter. It's all new to me too, so I'm interested to see how the experience goes, for me, but for you too! Depending on how it goes I may sign up for more in the future.
Other news
So back in 2019 we had BIG PLANS to go on a family trip to Japan. We had tickets booked, we were getting ready to go! Then the four years of hell kicked off. We were lucky enough to get a refund (thanks, Singapore Airlines!) but that money turned into double glazing for part of the house, heh.
But we are finally back on track, with tickets booked for Thailand, South Korea, and Japan, later on in the year. It's going to be so amazing, and I'm looking forward to wandering the streets, taking lots of photos and eating delicious food!
Books & music
Book-book reading has been a little slow over the past few months, but I've been reading a lot of short fiction, both for Utopia submissions, as well as the stories submitted for the fiction workshop I'm doing!
On the to-be-read stack are:
Blog round-up
Here's what I posted on my blog in February!
Cool links
A few things that I read and enjoyed this month:
Housekeeping
I struggled to think of what else I could call this section of the newsletter... housekeeping it is! If you've missed out on earlier newsletters, or just want to revisit how awkward the early ones were, you can catch them here.
Anyhoo, thanks again for subscribing! I’d love to hear from you about anything. Just hit reply, or email hello@jessicanickelsen.com.
Until next time,
Jess
