March 2026: We Launched A Book!
Easily the biggest news in my life right now is that Shiraki Press launched our first book on March 3: Lauren C. Teffeau’s sapphic eco-thriller Accelerated Growth Environment.
I wrote up some of my own thoughts on the book here, and you can order your copy in ebook and/or paperback directly from Shiraki Press.
In other news, I recently spent at a week at the Rainforest Writers Retreat, with the goal of getting a long-form work off the ground for 2026. I wrote about that experience in detail here.
Regarding that long-form work, it’ll still be a while before I’m ready to make any kind of real announcement, but broadly: I’m aiming for elements of supernatural and cosmic horror, leftist speculative fiction, and communitarian hopepunk, set in an Americana-infused fantasy world that interrogates civic religion and the American creation myth.
The extended quiet time at the retreat also allowed me to finally finish reading The Fisherman, which I reviewed here. All my other reading this month was submissions for Shiraki Press and a beta read of an upcoming sci-fi novel from my writers’ group that is so damn spectacular that I can’t stop thinking about it. Be ready for me to yell ceaselessly about that book as soon as it gets picked up!
Things that have brought me joy recently:
- The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl! I’ve never lived somewhere that had an NFL team do that before! I’m not even that big of a sports fan, but this is neat!
- An incredible new response to AI slop just dropped: AI;DR
- I have a deep love of nature photography, so this unprecedented drone footage of blue whales feeding absolutely blew my mind.
- Also on the nature theme, this floaty grizzly bear just going with the flow feels like a metaphor. Or maybe an aspirational ideal?
- And for a nature trifecta: I finally played Abzû (yes, I’m very late to the party) and if you’re as fascinated by the ocean as I am, you’ll love this chill hour-or-so of absolutely gorgeous undersea exploration.
Things that have brought me angst:
- The Iran War is, insanely, a thing. One of my favorite independent journalists, Sarah Kendzior, has published an in-depth article adding history and context to this conflict, much of which I’ve never seen discussed anywhere else: The No World Order.
- Kansas passed a law that immediately invalidates driver licenses with gender markers that don’t match the owner’s birth certificate. There is no grace period. Overnight, trans Kansans lost their ability to drive legally in their own state, for no articulable reason beyond pure bigotry. (Erin in the Morning)
- In my own home state of Washington, a ballot measure will now almost certainly appear in November that would require public school students participating in girls’ sports to submit documentation from a health care provider to “verify their biological sex”, likely triggering a genital inspection. Unlike the Kansas law, we still have a chance to vote this trash down and salt the earth where it lay. (The Seattle Times)
Upcoming events:
- We’ll be attending Norwescon which runs April 2-4, and there will be some signed copies of Accelerated Growth Environment available at the Bardhwood Book Nook.
- Shiraki Press’s second publication, Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu, launches April 14!
That’s all for now!