Of Roads and Rivers and Roots

Friends, readers, fellow travellers,

I'm writing from a dear friend's dining room table in St Louis, where I'm listening to sparrows, petting a perfect orange cat, and catching my breath. From March 4 to March 8 I was in a different city every day: New York, Portland (Maine), Chapel Hill, Cincinnati, and finally here, meeting booksellers and readers, reconnecting with friends and colleagues, some of whom I hadn't seen since before the pandemic. The years dissolved between us like sugar. On Friday I'll set out again, for Tucson's Festival of Books, and then there'll be another spell of quiet to ravel myself up and write and catch up on correspondence, and then there'll be yet more travel, to Anaheim for Wondercon and Dallas for the TLA conference, and then, thereafter, home. For like eight days? And then more travel! I did this to myself!

It's been such a wild and wonderful time.

Every single stop involved meeting new people, hearing their stories about and passion for This Is How You Lose the Time War as well as their excitement for or enjoyment of The River Has Roots. But older work turned up too: one couple at the Flyleaf event told me they were expecting, and asked if I'd sign a copy of The Honey Month to their future child. Start to finish was this long, beautiful ribbon of people, dressing to match a book or bejewelling a book to match them, some of whom had driven hours to attend the event, all of them shining with what is surely the best of us: trying, with all our hearts, to express gratitude towards the people and art that make us feel something of what the world could be.

Here's a tiny sample of readerly wizardry I got to witness.

There were some phrases that I heard repeated: "thank you for coming to ___," and "I'm sure people say this all the time, but," or "you must be tired of hearing this, but". I found myself trying desperately to make understood the fact that I have not tired of hearing people's joy in my work. That if I ever tire of it I won't know myself. That the repetition of something so fulsome and kind is a blessing, and how could a body tire of blessings? That to travel to any new place is a privilege and a gift and a deep, deep pleasure.

The travel itself, though, was a bit of a gauntlet. At one point I got the notice to check in for the next day's flight while en route to the airport for that morning's. My decision to travel with only carry-on luggage for a month spent bouncing from biome to biome meant that I had to unpack and repack it every evening before bed; I averaged 4-5 hours of sleep a night for that first week, and lived off protein bars because of arriving at hotels at exactly the wrong moment for meals; I may have lost my favourite Parrish Relics necklace to Chapel Hill's AC Marriott, while Cincinnati's hotel laundry service misplaced a shirt that will hopefully make its way back to me before I leave St Louis.

But whatever faerie tithe the tour's taken, it's given me incalculably more.

When this newsletter lands in your inbox, The River Has Roots will have been out in the world for one full week. It's hard to wrap my head around; I feel like I've both been travelling forever and also like I've barely begun, that I'm still just setting out. To everyone who pre-ordered the book, raved about it, expressed enthusiasm towards it, came out to events, and freshly signed up to this newsletter – thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Wishing you all the best wherever you are,

Amal

Recorded Conversations

I'm delighted to share that some of the event conversations were recorded, so that people who couldn't make it out can still tune in if they're interested:

• Books Are Magic with Helen Rosner (Youtube)
• Joseph-Beth Booksellers with Mike Yeeter, recorded by Chris Barkley (audio only, with uncorrected transcript)

My conversation with Alyssa Wong at Flyleaf was also recorded but I'm not sure whether that's for release or for a vault; I'll post it here if it becomes available!

Signed stock

I left every bookstore with heaps of signed copies in my wake, of both This Is How You Lose the Time War and The River Has Roots, and I think most of them will ship books out for the price of postage. But in addition to Books Are Magic, Print, Flyleaf, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, and Left Bank Books, I signed copies at Perfect Books in Ottawa, Barnes & Noble in Union Square, and – most surprisingly to me – Barbara's Bookstore at Chicago O'Hare!

People keep telling me they've spotted it in airports and I'm truly gobsmacked. It's incredible to imagine so many people from so many walks of life just glimpsing it in passing.

Praise for The River Has Roots

I've been so grateful for the trade coverage so far!

• Library Journal and Kirkus both gave it starred reviews.
• In a roundup for The Guardian, Lisa Tuttle calls it "A pitch-perfect story of love and sacrifice, yearning and discovery, like a classic folk tale, but freshly minted."
• In SFX magazine Nic Clarke gave it 5 stars, calling it "A powerful, gorgeous little story of sisterly love, the power of words, and revenge as a dish best served in verse."

Interviews about The River Has Roots

• Jeff O'Neal interviewed me for Book Riot's First Edition podcast.
• Abigail Stevens interviewed me for Fantasy Hive.
• Arley Sorg interviewed me for Locus magazine and you can now read an excerpt of it online, with the delightful tagline "Obviously, there are fairies."
• Sarah Shaffi interviewed me for Vogue Arabia (!), of which my favourite part is probably this:

In The River Has Roots, El-Mohtar has her characters Esther and Ysabel sing the Palestinian folkloric resistance song “Tarweedeh Shmaali” (“Lover’s Hymn”), which she discovered on El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe’s album Zajel. Resistance is core to The River Has Roots, a book shaped by the elements that have defined El-Mohtar: sisterhood, borders, languages. She always wants her work to “tell truths and surprise [herself]”, and she’s clear about the power of fiction. “What literature can do for the Arab region is exemplified in the enormous efforts expended to silence and repress it,” she says. “Literature is powerful and has the potential and the possibility to stir minds to action and hope and resistance.”

A Time War Surprise!

While I've been travelling, Saga Press announced delicious news: they're releasing an absolutely gorgeous deluxe hardcover edition of This Is How You Lose the Time War in November, and you can pre-order it now!

They also made this adorable video of staff getting to see the new design for the first time. I get a little misty watching it! It's wild to think this book's been out for six years and still finding its way to new people to delight.

Postscripts

• Having now travelled through [counting on fingers] eight airports with it over the past week, I can highly recommend using a flo mask for air travel. (No one is paying me to say this.) It's so comfortable and adjustable and my glasses don't fog up and my ears don't hurt and it is, for me, absolutely worth the investment. There's a pressure factor – for mid-size events I've still put on my KN94 because I find it easier to speak a lot with – but if you're going to sit for a long time in quiet and zone out among people actively coughing and hacking around you I truly recommend it.
• If you're in the vicinity of NYC I invite you to join the WGAE (Writers' Guild of America East) and a broad coalition of our union siblings, this Saturday, March 15th at 11:00 ET at Foley Square in Manhattan at a march to fight back against cutting vital government programs to fund tax breaks for billionaires. RSVP here!
• It's been acutely horrifying to watch Mahmoud Khalil's story develop while I've been travelling in the US. To put this as plainly as possible: anything you can do to denounce and decry the disappearance of your neighbours is something you should and must do. If you've ever once in your life thought that fighting fascism is necessary and important, summon that conviction to your soul right now and hold fast to it, and understand that the evil you need to oppose is here among you, and it isn't people speaking in solidarity with Palestinians. It never has been.