AFN #144: Happy New Year, Kinda

once more into the breach

Hi all! Happy new year! I hope your holiday season was as restful and renewing as possible. I hope that you got to spend time with all the friends and family you wanted to. I hope you fulfilled the ancient prophecies, and transmogrified into a couch between Christmas and New Year's. I myself am currently about 70% cheese—this number is expected to decrease.

I’m still in Texas, working remotely this first week back so I can attend a funeral on Sunday. In some ways it feels appropriate to begin the year this way—the old year is dead, the new one is being born, etc. But at the same time it feels like a lot of things are ending (democracy, anyone?) It feels like insanity, watching cultural institutions like the New York Times and enormous corporate entities race to bow to the impending administration, and the outgoing administration throwing up their hands and saying there’s nothing to be done.

But I digress. Fixing whatever the hell is wrong with our national ethos is outside this newsletter’s remit. I’d like to start out the newsletter year by laying out some hopes, goals, and intentions—and I’d love to hear what yours are in the comments!

Read more, and more widely!

I read seventy-seven books last year. (I count rereads, and I’ll count DNFs if I read more than half the book.) I’d like to aim to hit one hundred next year, and to cut down on rereading (this part might be slightly undermined by the beautiful gift I got from my sister for Christmas: the Folio Society editions of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels.)

More and more widely feels big enough that it could go in a lot of directions, and doesn’t feel limiting or like a chore. More books in translation, more books by POC and queer authors, more new-to-me genres and themes. More literary fiction? Sure! More big hits? Sure!

Write/Think more about what I’m reading

I do a certain amount of this in this-here newsletter, but I’d like to spend time jotting down my thoughts about books after I finish readingv them—what works? What doesn’t? I don’t know what this is gonna look like. I don’t see myself doing a second missive a week to specifically discuss what I’m reading—in addition to that being an absolute fuckton of work, I’m still doing this newsletter for free. That level of work would tip it into the “I should be being paid for this” territory, and I seesaw back and forth on the relative appropriateness of my charging for access to my thoughts. (Absolutely no shade to agents who charge for their newsletters—I can’t say that I’ll never do it, but right now it doesn’t feel right.)

Still, I’d like to think more granularly about craft when I’m reading something—especially if I am having a strong feeling about it.

Tackle a larger project

I have thought on and off in the last few years about combining some of the advice I’ve given on the newsletter into an ebook or something, a resource for authors to turn to to help as a guide on their publishing journey. Not sure what this will look like, either, but I’d like to start laying the groundwork!

I’d also like to turn back to my own writing, now that I’ve figured out my own work/life balance for the most part. I have the sequel to Marrying In to work on, as well as the fantasy novel I’ve been noodling on for the better part of a few years, plus fanfiction projects in various stages of completion. (Agents: they’re just like us! Getting hyperfixated on the darndest things!)

Continuing to build the A Faster No community

Since announcing my return to agenting in March of 2024, I’ve gained over 250 subscribers to this newsletter—this has been tremendously heartwarming. I’d love to figure out ways to foster more engagement, whether that’s getting more conversation going in the comments or getting our Discord more active. Some of you have been here since day one—some of you are more recent. All are welcome, and I hope this newsletter continues to be a resource and a friend in your writing journey.

WHAT I’M READING

I rounded out the year with two really fabulous reads—an e-Arc of the third Katherine Addison’s Cemeteries of Amalo novel, The Tomb of Dragons. I am on record as loving The Goblin Emperor, and this sequel series following semi-disgraced cleric and Witness for the Dead vel ama Thara Celehar is an absolute delight. Thara is my favorite literary type, the sad gay monk, and his efforts to find truth and justice on behalf of the dead are always twisty, intricate, and emotionally compelling. I want a Cadfael-style series of approximately one thousand books in this series. (And also a Goblin Emperor sequel, please and thank you.)

I might have read more before ringing out 2024 if not for my final book of the year, James Islington’s doorknocker fantasy The Will of the Many. (Six hundred and eighty-six pages!!) Set in a fantasy!Ancient Rome, it’s not the kind of fantasy I typically turn to, but I tore through it. In many ways, it reminded me of Red Rising, which I did not like and could not finish. The two books have essentially the same plot: a young man who passionately hates the empire that ruined his life must become a respected citizen of said empire in order to get revenge. But Vis, the protagonist of TWOTM, has an extremely compelling voice, and the monstrousness of the bodily autonomy-draining Hierarchy took what could be a very generic magic academy plot to a new level. I’ll definitely be reading the sequel.

2025 started out with a bang, i.e. the Naomi Novik short story collection Buried Deep. The collection contains almost all bangers, except for the one scifi story, which I could not finish. I also read the copy of All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum and Me which had been making its way through my family. It’s a beautifully written, tender memoir about grief and art (and at a brisk 180 pages, an easy read.) And for a book club I attended at my cousin’s local bookstore I read the dark stalker romance Lights Out by Navessa Allen—probably not something I would have picked up otherwise, but tremendous, sexy fun. (Even if it got a little to involved in body-disposal logistics in the second half!)

THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY

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He’s back! He’s back! Well, he’s been back for a while, but the Russian Machine came back to the ice to help lead the Caps to a 5-2 victory against the Sabres on December 28th. As of the time of writing, he’s 23 goals away from beating Wayne Gretzky’s goal record. This should be compensation for Ovi finding out that that he is not his son Sergei’s favorite player—that would be Nicholas Aubé-Kubel, a man I did not know existed before today. Elsewhere, Jaromir Jagr, who is somehow still playing professional hockey at age 52, lost four teeth in a game. Warning, those photos are pretty gross.

HOUSEKEEPING

Do you have any questions about the publishing industry? Requests for advice? Thoughts on your recent reads? You can leave them as comments, replies to this email, or fill out this Google form to ask anonymously!

For my sins, I have reopened to queries.

My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!

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This newsletter is a personal project, and the sentiments and opinions expressed here are my own and not those of my employer.