Ursula

My latest newsletter contains a couple of things I'd like you to know about:

• An old friend has a story in Clarkesworld about a knitting mathematician. (Similarities to your correspondent are probably intentional! :) )
  
• The audio from my KGB books reading is live!
  

My most recent newsletter has good news about a friend and a bunch of book and story recommendations.

Also, Neon Hemlock is running a celebratory 50% off ebooks sale with the code ALLEMPIRESMUSTFALL. If you'd like a personalized rec, let me know what sort of mood you're in or what kind of representation you're looking for!

2024 was an exciting year for fiction!

short story collection

North Continent Ribbon was released by Neon Hemlock Press.

novelette

The final story in North Continent Ribbon, "A Fisher of Stars," is an original novelette. (If you're reading for awards nominations and would like a review copy, let me know!)

short story

Frivolous Comma published Flannelfeet, a Wisconsin covid-era portal fantasy.

poetry

My poem "Hexavalent" was in Analog in January 2024, and "Beyond the Standard Model" is in Analog in January 2025.

essays about writing

• The Poet’s Toolbox: Three Strategies for a Vivid Prose Voice (SFWA blog)
  
• A Depth of Taste (writing about food in space opera), for Frivolous Comma
  
• My Favorite Bit of North Continent Ribbon.
  

essays about math

Elliptic curves come to date night talks about a fun result combining economics, number theory, and algebraic geometry.

North Continent Ribbon is on Esquire's list of best sci-fi of 2024!

It's a really interesting list overall--is there anything you're particularly curious about?

North Continent Ribbon comes out on August 20!

I'm doing a Zoom release event at 7 PM Eastern time on August 22 with Argo Bookshop in Montreal and a bunch of writer friends. We're going to knit/embroider/craft and talk about the connections between prose and other ways of making things.

My essay The Poet’s Toolbox: Three Strategies for a Vivid Prose Voice is up now at the SFWA blog!

The Neon Hemlock 2024 series Kickstarter, which includes North Continent Ribbon, is live and creeping up on fully funded. Only a little bit more than $1000 to go!

2023 was a good year for sharing projects I've been working on for a long time. I also wrote up my best explanation of my hard-won sense for plot, and posted a game!

fiction

• Closer than your kidneys, Frivolous Comma.
  
• The Fifteenth Saint, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (novelette; excerpt here).
  

poetry

• Persephone takes up the garnets, The Deadlands.
  
• Olympia, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
  
• Circle Packing, Rosalind's Siblings.
  

game design

• Monster in the Wilderness.
  

math and writing careers

• The Gamemaster's Guide to Short Story Plot, SFWA blog.
  
• Branch cuts: writing, editing, and ramified complexities, Aspiring and Inspiring: Tenure and Leadership in Academic Mathematics.
  

I posted a journaling game called Monster in the Wilderness in honor of radiantfracture's birthday!

radiantfracture designed an excellent prompt, and I had a lot of fun inventing a mechanic that uses destruction in an evocative but not overcomplicated way.