We are mostly unpacked and settling into West Seattle. The construction across the way continues, and they’re working frantically to get the place done before the rainy season sets in. I give them a 50/50% chance of making it.

The high ceilings here make the place feel enormous, as does the extra 300 square feet we’ve picked up. We’ve also got substantially more closet and cupboard space. The view from the kitchen window remains a thing of wonder; every night it gives me a beautiful sunset with sound and mountains. Yesterday there was sunlight coming in through the leaves and flickering on the cabinet so beautifully that I had to call Wayne to come and look. The cats like the new place, particularly the carpet in the study.

Downsides are small so far — we’ll definitely need to get a portable AC for at least one room next summer in order to survive. We certainly can hear the restaurant — but the hours are such that it’s hasn’t been bothersome at all and it means we never need to worry that our TV or music is too loud in turn. There are raccoons who like to come up the back stairs and trip the motion detector driven light. Garbage is much more complicated than it was in Redmond: here we have to separate out food waste and there’s no handy dumpster.

The best feature, for me at least, remains the location. A few dozen coffee shops are within my walking range. The library is a six minute walk away. If I wanted to, I could take the water taxi into Seattle. Also within walking distance: multiple thrift stores, several parks, an antique mall, four large grocery stores, a 24 hour Bartells Drug Store, two bookstores, an art supply store, a post office, a pet food store that carries the cans of gold that are the only thing Raven can eat, and some of the most beautiful views around. The Unitarian Church is a hour walk, but a ten minute drive isn’t too bad.

Saturday we finished up cleaning the condo. A friend just moved to the area, so we’re happy to be able to have him staying there and making sure no one sets up a meth lab or tiger breeding facility or something like that while we’re gone.

Recent writing news:

• “Marvelous Contrivances of the Heart” just appeared in Fiction River: Recycled Pulp, edited by John Helfers.
• I turned in my story, “The Curious Peregrinations of a Goat Herder,” for the Champions of Aeltalis book, and Marc Tassin liked it.
• “He Knows When You’ve Been Sleeping” will appear in Naughty or Nice, edited by Jennifer Brozek. This is a humorous story that edges into R realms and is also the first Christmas story I’ve written, which is a slightly odd combo.
• “Rappacini’s Crow” was rereleased in the Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Year Six.
• Two collaborations are forthcoming: “The Mermaid Club” with Mike Resnick and novella “Haunted” with Bud Sparhawk.
• A notable recent reprint is “Tortoiseshell Cats are Not Refundable”, which originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, and will be reprinted in The Best American Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Joe Hill with series editor John Joseph Adams.
• Recent Patreon stories are Talking in the Night and Snakes on a Train.
• Other upcoming stories include “Tongues of Moon Toad” in The Bestiary Anthology, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer; “Preferences” in Chasing Shadows, edited by David Brin; “Red in Tooth and Cog” in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; novelette “The Threadbare Magician” in Genius Loci, edited by Jaym Gates; “As the Crow Flies, So Does the Road” in Grendelsong, edited by Paul Jessup; and “Call and Answer, Plant and Harvest” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Recent teaching news:

• I have just finished up converting the Character Building Workshop class to the on-demand form for Fedora and I am very pleased and proud with how this one turned out and how my little online writing school is growing. Once I’m done converting them all, I will go back and update the first one, based on a lot of the lessons I learned working with this particular class.
• I’m finishing a third and final installment of my How to Teach Workshops series for the SFWA Bulletin; you can find installment one and installment two in the Bulletin, the most recent of which is available on Amazon.
• Upcoming live classes include: Flash Fiction Workshop (October 16), Literary Techniques for Genre Fiction I and II (October 17 and 24), the Reading Aloud Workshop, and the First Pages Workshop with Caren Gussoff.

That’s all for now! Looking forward to an October spent exploring this new space and finally finishing up this goddamn book.

News and More Stuff from Chez Rambo

Hello folks!

Well, by now you know my big news, which is that my novelette Carpe Glitter is a Nebula Award nominee. I’m deeply honored to find myself in such fine company and absolutely twitter-pated to find out how many people have enjoyed it. The Nebulas are chosen by other writers who are SFWA members, and that makes this very meaningful to me. I will be at the conference that weekend.

If you’re not a SFWA member, but want some say in whether or not it appears on other ballots, it’s eligible for the Hugo Award and Locus Award in the novelette category and the World Fantasy Award in the novella category. You can see the cool banner that Meerkat Press did for me at the top of this newsletter.

If you’ve read the book and found it fun, please think about giving it a review or posting about it on social media!

Want to hear the first bit of it? Here’s a YouTube video.

In recent class news, I’m in the process of lining up classes for the April-June time frame, but will be taking most of April off due to travel and moving.

One new class I’d like to point you at is How Not to Feel Like a Failure in Your Writing Career with Jennifer Brozek, which talks about dealing with imposter syndrome, guilt, and other writerly frailties.

I’m excited to say Judith Tarr will be giving a workshop on how to write about horses on May 2, 9:30-11:30 AM Pacific time. I’ll post more details as soon as I have the full description but you can go ahead and reserve a slot if you know you’re going to want to attend.

Look for news of more upcoming classes soon – I’m hoping the list will include at least one with Seanan McGuire, plus I’ve got some other rad stuff in the works.

Here’s the complete list of live classes in March at the moment. Classes appearing for the first time are bolded.

• Writing and Gender with Cheryl Morgan, Sunday, March 1, 2020, 9:30-11:30 AM Pacific time
• Dunking the Reader in the Details: Toolsets for Creating Immersive Worlds with Cat Rambo, Sunday, March 1, 2020, 1-3 PM Pacific time
• Writing Your Way Into Your Novel with Cat Rambo, Saturday, March 7, 2020, 1-3 PM Pacific time
• Head Hopping and Head Hunting: Deep Point of View Writing with Tracy Townsend, Sunday, March 8, 2020, 9:30-11:30 AM Pacific time
• How Not to Feel Like a Failure in Your Writing Career with Jennifer Brozek, Saturday, March 14, 2020 9:30 am ““ 11:30 am Pacific time.
• Intro to Game Writing with Monica Valentinelli, Saturday, March 28, 2020 9:30 am ““ 11:30 am Pacific time

Remember that if you can’t make the live classes, there’s plenty of on-demand ones!

Along with chat server access and class discounts, Patreon supporters this month got:
◦    2 installments of serial novella BABY DRIVER, the pulp-y adventures of Patricia Savage and her five associates in 1930s America.
◦    Weekly online co-writing sessions on Wednesday mornings. If you’d like to join the next one, the link will be posted on Patreon and Discord. I will schedule at least one weekend one in March.
◦    A chance to participate in weekly goal-setting and check-in.
◦    Snippets included bits from Flowergod (SF story), The Butterfly Court’s Bathroom (fantasy story), (2) Because It is Bitter (SF near future novella), writing exercises from Fran Wilde’s Fantastic Worldbuilding class.

Want to join us in the Chez Rambo community? Here’s how.

Cat or Rambo Academy Stuff to be Aware Of If you find the 5 minute timed writing session video on Youtube useful, here’s a 10 minute one. Highlights from the online workshop on Writing Interactive Games from Kate Heartfield Twitter thread from Marie Brennan’s Writing Fight Scenes workshop If you’re a Patreon subscriber, here’s Installment 3 of Baby Driver. First episode of podcast If This Goes On Chez Rambo Community Links Priya Sridhar on Medium: OwlHouse Recap #5;  review of Fire on High, How to Train Your Dragon, the HTTYD Soundtrack, talking about getting published in Strange Horizons, and her story, Mr. Lieber Comes to Hirta, in Translunar Travelers Lounge Signal boosting for this excellent Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/apexpublications/invisible-threads-cutting-the-binds-that-hold-us Gaming D&D character sheets for gamers with dyslexia How to Write a Solo RPG Adventure (ht to Liz Danforth) Market News Closing March 3! Place to submit your fantasy or SF novel. New YA horror magazine (ht to Steve V on Discord Podcastle is looking for slush readers: https://twitter.com/PodCastle_org/status/1232330158494932993 Luna Station Quarterly is looking for volunteers Uncanny Magazine is open for poetry till March 6 For Writers and Readers How to Compare Yourself to Other Writers the Right Way (h/t Spiderlilly on Discord) How to effectively recommend things on Twitter (unsurprisingly, it’s aTwitter thread) N.K. Jemisin on writing guidelines (ht to Standback on Discord, here’s his followup) The Alpha Writers Workshop is open for apps through March 10 (ht to Nathan Lucas on Discord) Random  Rotate Your Owl (h/t to @stelmur on Twitter)

The January giveaway was for a signed copy of my new novelette, CARPE GLITTER and the winner was Gretchen (I’ve dropped you an email, Gretchen, let me know if you didn’t get it). This month I have stickers that will be going out to Patreon supporters – if you’d like one, drop me an e-mail with the address to send it to you! Happy writing! -Cat ... Read blog post Skip to content