Letter of News: 2025 Tour Dates + NYTBR Year's Best SFF

Dear Friends,

It's December 6! We're a week out from my birthday! I have scraps of letters I was writing in November that I haven't sent because that month managed to feel several months long and also vanish in an eye-blink.

But since we're now less than three months out from the release of The River Has Roots, many exciting and nerve-wracking things are pooling together and further distorting the gravity of my days, so writing about them feels extra necessary, to pin them in place and begin building some sort of structure for the coming year to inhabit.

First: I'm going on tour!

The River Has Roots Tour

Things are still developing but the following stops are confirmed so far:

March 4: NYC with Books are Magic
March 5: Portland, ME with Print: A Bookstore and Catherynne Valente
March 6: Chapel Hill with Flyleaf Books and Alyssa Wong
March 7: Cincinatti with Joseph-Beth Booksellers and Gwenda Bond
March 8: St. Louis with Left Bank Books and Ann Leckie

Some events are being held off-site from the organizing bookstores, and some are ticketed, so be sure to check and see if you need to book or RSVP in advance!

This kind of whirlwind tour – where you're sent to a new city every day – is an experience I've long coveted from a distance while having absolutely no illusions about how hard it is on the body and mind. Five cities in five days, across multiple time zones and biomes, while trying to be the best version of yourself for people who love your work enough to pay for it, without losing your voice or getting sick, is a heavy lift. But I love travelling, and I love meeting new people and talking about books, and I feel so privileged to get to look forward to sitting with brilliant colleagues whose company I enjoy and whose work I admire.

This is only the US tour (so far!) – details for events in Canada and the UK will probably emerge over the next couple of months, so stay tuned!

2024 Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

Up at the New York Times Book Review, my last piece of the year is up, listing my top ten SFF books of the year. Except it's missing one because I only managed to read it after I filed: Metal from Heaven by August Clarke (author of The Scapegracers under a different name). I absolutely adored it, so here's what I would have said about it (within the piece's wordcount and style constraints) had I managed to read it in time: Metal from Heaven is a delirious shout, furious and grief-stricken and staggeringly beautiful. Clarke's voice is inimitable, shines hot and sharp in this historically-inflected fantasy about labour, anarchy, and highwaywomen. If you loved The Scapegracers, you'll love this even more.

I hope to write more about it soon, because it's really superb, and I want to talk about it in conversation with Clarke's Scapegracer books. But I found it to be queer and audacious and delicious and I loved it to its marrow.

Wishing you all soft kindlings towards light and fellowship in this darkening season,

Amal

Postscripts:

• I'm going to be faculty at the Banff Literary Arts Science Fiction program in September 2025, alongside Ai Jiang and Premee Mohammed! Also Ali Fisher (my editor!) will be there as a Professional Guest, which I sort of love as a designation. I feel spiritually inclined towards professionally being a guest. Anyway you can apply for the two-week residency here!
• If you're a Hadestown obsessive as I am you might be interested to know that as of today there exists a West End recording featuring my favourite Hermes (Melane Le Barrie) and Orpheus (Dónal Finn). Frustratingly, it's not the whole show; I don't know what mercurial maths go into truncating live albums, but I'm still grateful for what's there, because I really treasured getting to hear these performances transform the roles and I'm so glad I get to listen to them over and over again in my home.
• If you've downloaded the latest iOS update to your iPhone, you may be opted into a bunch of Siri-and-AI nonsense that essentially gives your phone permission to read your encrypted app texts (like Signal) and incorporate them into machine learning. Spencer Ackerman over at Forever Wars – a journalist and newsletter I deeply value – has a step-by-step guide on how to turn that off. I recommend subscribing for excellent insight and analysis into an increasingly tormented news cycle.
• Speaking of which, an Amnesty International investigation has concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. This is that species of news that is exhausting because it is both horrifically obvious, and has been for over a year, and yet somehow remains necessary to spell out for some portion of people.
• I saw a portion of Susan Abulhawa's November 28 speech at the Oxford Union Debate making the rounds on instagram, often chopped up with no context or with weird dubbed audio, so I thought I'd link to it and the text in full here.
• If you feel overwhelmed by news and horrors, I encourage you to find the smallest possible action you can take and do consistently. Below are some resources.

If you're in Canada, this informational google doc is updated almost daily with information, scripts, and direct actions you can take to pressure our government into ceasing its support for Palestinian genocide and stand in solidarity with people enduring relentless and unspeakable horror.

If you're in the US, Jewish Voice for Peace has many tools for coordinating action, and links to repositories of information for further reading.

This Linktree has a rotating list of six fundraisers started by Palestinians in Gaza and their family members abroad. When the goals are met, the fundraisers get rotated off and replaced with new ones. Similarly, Operation Olive Branch is coordinating efforts that cast a wider net, tabulating different categories of need and requests for help.

I hope that wherever you are in the world you're finding ways to work for the liberation of all people.