July 2022 Dispatch

Well. On the one hand, June was Pride Month, and there was a lot of pride out there. Parades, shout outs, celebrations, lukewarm acknowledgments from government entities, corporate rainbow-washing, etc. On the other, well, there were attacks on pride gatherings (but also people standing up against those attacks), and then there was the Supreme Court, seemingly intent on demolishing this country, starting with its own reputation.

I won’t spill too much ink here decrying its decisions on Miranda rights, concealed carry, tribal sovereignty, or of course abortion. I will say that there’s a very real chance for both gay rights and basic principles of democracy to be rolled back sooner than later. If you’re feeling ineffectual in the face of all this, there are places you can send money where you can have an immediate effect (donate anonymously if you’re worried about being tracked). I’ll also say that it’s very fair to be angry at the Democratic party for basically doing fuck-all to preserve our rights, but keep one thing in mind: the thing the Democratic party does do is nominate and confirm justices at all levels of the court who are interested in preserving progress and civil rights. Demand more from your elected officials, but don’t shy away from casting some “hold your nose” votes every now and again. As many people have said, we’ve won civil rights before and we can do it again. It’s gonna take work, but we can do it.

So. What did I do in June, apart from doomscrolling? Taught RAWR, as I mentioned last newsletter. That went very well! We hope that next year we can go back to in-person teaching, but the students this year adapted well to the virtual environment and bonded I think as much as we could expect.

I also finally finished up a revision of The Price of Thorns and got it off to the second round of beta readers. The cover designer I booked for it also has started working on a cover, so I hope that soon I’ll have that in my paws. I’ve moved to revisions on Return From Divalia, hoping to get that to first round beta readers by the end of this week.

Unfinished Business is out! If you haven’t pre-ordered it, you can straight-up order the e-book at the publisher today, and print + e-book everywhere else tomorrow. Get in on the ground floor of this new queer werewolf urban fantasy series (it looks like there’s going to be at least one more book).

Return From Divalia is on track for a release at MFF, as of now; The Price of Thorns looks like it might be TFF next year (though there’s a chance that we could have some pre-release copies at MFF, as we did with Unfinished Business at TFF this year). Why is the book that’s not as far in the process coming out earlier? Largely because PoT—a fantasy book with humans as well as animal characters—is expected to have more appeal outside the fandom than RFD, so the publisher will want to send it out to review sites that want to see a book 3-4 months before release. RFD, a more purely furry book (it’s an Argaea novel), doesn’t go through that cycle, so it can be released as soon as we have text and art complete.

Audiobooks: The War and the Fox is out on all audiobook sites now. Still trying to find time to review the Giles audiobook so I can get that out, and I have an agreement in principle to do an audiobook for Unfinished Business, but that hasn’t gotten started yet. Ty Game, Titles, and the rest of the Love Match series are in Savrin’s paws, waiting on them to have time to finish up.

Streaming! I finished up Bust Down (see last month) and it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen recently. Every episode had at least one laugh out loud moment.

We finished season 4 of Stranger Things (Netflix) and enjoyed it a lot. They did a good job balancing the four-ish storylines and bringing them together at the end. It did feel like I left this season wondering what the takeaway was from it—but it also feels like season 4 was only part of a story that’s going to continue in season 5, as several character bits remained unresolved.

I’ve talked before about Hacks (HBO Max), the show about a diva comedian reinventing herself with the help of a young comedy writer (one of the showrunners was head writer on The Good Place). Season 2 was just as good as season 1, with a lot of truthful, uncomfortable moments; lots of laughs; and some fantastic writing throughout. It ended in a way that might signal the end of the series, but apparently it’s coming back for a season 3 and I’m not complaining.

Two other series I enjoyed a lot are in the middle of releasing seasons, both from Apple TV+: Physical and For All Mankind. Very different shows, but so far both are living up to the promise of their first (and second, in the case of For All Mankind) series. More on that when they wrap up.

How’s your summer working out? Big plans or vacations? If you went to AC, how was it?