Just a quick update! I hope everyone is surviving this monster of a year as best they can. I am also doing the best I can as autumn draws on.

As the little baby I had not so long ago slowly allows me to make fiction again, new work peeks out of the background foliage.

I have a new short story up on Strange Horizons, Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo with a beautiful illustration by Thais Leiros. Head over to Serial Box for A Perfect Host along with brilliant performances of many of my older stories.

You can find me all painted up in mainstream IP masks in the upcoming tie-in anthologies From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back and Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth.

In 2021, I’ll have stories coming out in Uncanny Magazine, multiple anthologies, and two novellas from Tor.com. I’ll roar back onto the novel scene in 2022 with a new middle grade book and the sequel to Space Opera.

Life does go on. Eventually. I really hope to see people in person again soon, whether at conventions or readings. In the meantime, you can still join me twice a week through the fall, Wednesdays and Sundays at 8:30pm EDT for Instagram Live readings from The Orphan’s Tales.

Take care of yourselves, and each other.

The world is a very much different place than it was a month ago. We are all trying to adapt and survive. For writers, we face a volatile industry that is sure to contract, all the uncertainty that usually accompanies freelancer life multiplied several times, and the cancellation of almost all our public events, great and small, for the next year at least.

I am trying to find ways to connect with my readers while we’re all stuck at home. My Patreon is very active, and all are welcome there. Via Patreon, I do YouTube livestreams as well. I am obviously always accessible on Twitter, and I’m trying to be more active on Instagram, despite being more of a word-girl than a photo-girl. And I’ve recently signed up for Cameo, where I can make short videos for you and your loved ones for happy days and sad ones.

Please come and find me in these places. Now is the time of cliches, but finding each other online has always been a particular talent of the geek world, and I know we can do it now as we have done for the last couple of decades. I don’t know what the world will look like when this is all over, but I know we will be in it, and I hope that we will perhaps be closer.

See you in the cyberpunk dystopia.

The Hugo Awards are coming! The ceremony will take place this Sunday evening at 8:00 PM in Dublin, and Cat is on the ballot for Best Novel with Space Opera. We’re proud as can be that the community of readers who nominate and vote in the Hugos each year consider this rollicking and strange Eurovision-in-space novel a contender.

(Would you like the chance to nominate and vote in the Hugos next year? Any attendee of Worldcon 2018, 2019, or 2020 will have that opportunity. Supporting memberships get you voting rights as well!)

Cat also has the distinct pleasure of attending Worldcon this year in Dublin. If you will also be there, here’s where you can find her:

FRIDAY

10:30 – 11:20 AM • Mezzanine
Autographs: Catherynne Valente
In the Mezzanine at the Signing space (Point Square Dublin).

4:30 PM – 4:50 PM • Liffey Room-3 (CCD)
Reading: Catherynne Valente
(Readings)

SATURDAY

10:00 AM – 10:50 AM • Wicklow Room-3 (CCD)
Revolutions in an era of advanced technology
Panel: How do revolutions (e.g. overthrowing government) occur in an era of advanced technologies? Are orderly regime changes jeopardised with growing asymmetries in weaponry, surveillance, and political power? Are current political processes up to the challenge?

1:00 PM – 1:50 PM • Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)
Kaffeeklatsch: Catherynne Valente

2:00 PM – 2:50 PM • Wicklow Hall-1 (CCD)
Young adults versus… the world!
Panel: YA characters face so many challenges. They not only have to deal with all the drama that life, society, and their traitorous ‘developing’ bodies can throw at them, they also have to save the world and be home for dinner. What does it take for a teen to survive the dangers of a YA novel – including the whims of a capricious author who keeps placing them in the path of real danger?

9:00 PM – 9:50 PM • Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)
Panel Show: ‘That was unexpected!’
Quiz/Gameshow: Ever wanted to know what your favourite fantasy novelist would do if they were suddenly turned into a witch’s familiar? Or how a popular sci-fi writer would communicate with an alien race that only speaks in bad puns? Watch a team of esteemed writers talk their way out of the kinds of problems they’re accustomed to writing their characters out of, and some that they would never have imagined.

SUNDAY

10:00 AM – 10:50 AM • Second Stage (Liffey-B) (CCD)
What I read when I was young
Panel: The books we read in childhood often have a lasting influence. In this panel, finalists for the Hugo Award for Best Novel discuss the books that had a profound effect on the people they became. How did these works change them? Was this influence a good or a bad one? Is there a book they think everyone should read at least once in their life?

Happy Hugos weekend, everyone!

Last month, we invited you to discover the Kingdom of Prester John all over again with the release of The Habitation of the Blessed on Kindle – and now Almanack Productions invites you to read deeper still. The further trials of Prester John and his people are chronicled in Catherynne M. Valente’s The Folded World, now available on Amazon for your Kindle app or device.

The Folded World was originally published just over 7 years ago in November of 2011, and is the second installment of her A Dirge for Prester John series:

When the mysterious daughter of Prester John appears on the doorstep of her father”s palace, she brings with her news of war in the West – the Crusades have begun, and the bodies of the faithful are washing up on the shores of Pentexore. Three narratives intertwine to tell the tale of the beginning of the end of the world: a younger, angrier Hagia, the blemmye-wife of John and Queen of Pentexore, who takes up arms with the rest of her nation to fight a war they barely understand; Vyala, a lion-philosopher entrusted with the care of the deformed and prophetic royal princess; and another John, John Mandeville, who in his many travels discovers the land of Pentexore – on the other side of the diamond wall meant to keep demons and monsters at bay. These three voices weave a story of death, faith, beauty, and power, dancing in the margins of true history, illuminating a place that never was.

You can purchase The Folded World for only $4.99 through Amazon.

If you enjoy this strange and singular tale, please help its success by leaving a review on Amazon. Even a simple one-sentence review will encourage more readers to share in the glory of rare medieval intricacy.

Thank you to everyone who reads, shares, and reviews – you make these books thrive. And don’t miss upcoming news for the third and final installment of A Dirge for Prester John: The Spindle for Necessity will appear on Kickstarter in the New Year!

Note: using Amazon purchase links through our site will result in a small kick-back to us from the sale.