In Conversation with E. Lily Yu Tonight!

Dear Friends,

I've been remiss in writing on a regular schedule lately, and for this I apologize. But I'm writing now to invite you to a chat I'm really looking forward to, happening this evening at 7PM EST under the auspices of the New York Review of Science Fiction (NYRSF).

I reviewed On Fragile Waves very effusively last year. The relevant part:

“On Fragile Waves” is a tremendous and almost unbearable work of witness. It is devastating and perfect. It neither flinches from the horror of detention nor fetishizes it. Yu never lets us look away from the vicious banality of evil, leaving us to ask why we allow it to thrive, when it would be so much simpler to do good by one another.

The evening will open with Lily reading from the book, but thereafter, who knows what we'll talk about! Murder ballads? Crows? Ballads about murders of crows? It's anyone's guess. But it's free, and all you need to do is attend is tune into this youtube channel at 7PM EST tonight, March 29th.

I'm told the audio will be archived, so if you can't make it you can always listen later, but I'm just going to say from now that I intend to wear at least one truly spectacular Jasmine Chong accessory somewhere on my person.

Wishing you all the best, and hoping to see you at the event!

Amal

Postscripts:

• Esquire recently published this list of the 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time, which "emphasized books that brought something new & innovative to the genre." I was and remain thrilled to see This Is How You Lose the Time War on it. Having participated in the curation of a 50-book-list I feel like I know something of the work and deliberation involved, and it just makes me all the more appreciative of both the bones of this endeavour and our book's place in it. (I was also especially pleased to see agent-sibling Sarah Gailey's The Echo Wife on there, as well as An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon, The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel, and Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente.)
• One whole day later This Is How You Lose the Time War appeared in The Atlantic, in a lovely round-up by Carole V. Bell that makes me want to read every other book mentioned.
• Tor Books are giving away ten copies of Ursula K. Le Guin's Worlds of Exile and Illusion, which includes an introduction by me! It's a Goodreads giveaway and you can enter it for the next 10 hours or so.
• "Thunderstorm in Glasgow, July 25, 2013" is a poem that's very dear to me; it was acquired for Fireside Magazine by Julia Rios, incredibly illustrated by Molly Crabapple, and gorgeously produced for digital display by Pablo Defendini (look what happens when you scroll over the Arabic words). Since it was published, it's been available as a printed poster – but now that Fireside's closing, so is the window to obtaining one. It'll be available through the end of June, but after that it'll be gone forever, so if you'd like to own this physical manifestation of a unique and unrepeatable collaboration, now's your chance.