We launched a book!

Well, we may not have kept up with this newsletter very well over the summer, but we did manage to have an amazing time launching our debut novel The Needfire this past week! Below find pictures, gushing about our amazing friends, and a few reflections on the whirlwind that is launch week.

Our first event was in Glasgow, at Waterstones Argyle Street, a few days before the book was officially out. We were fortunate enough to be joined by Kirsty Logan and Heather Parry, both of whom are Scottish authors we have long admired. Kirsty did a wonderful job chairing and Heather did a wonderful job bringing the weird and wild, and I think we just about kept up with the wide-ranging discussion. We had loads of familiar faces in the audience and signing queue (!) where we used the stamps M had spent the last week carving to impart a little debut author eagerness to the proceedings.

The whole evening went by in a blur, which is why I have one picture of M in the staff room before the event and then nothing until a very arty picture of a courtyard taken when we were spilling out of the pub several hours later (lol). Our agent John came up to cheer us on from the front row, and it was great to have the Glasgow crew as well as M’s family join us for proceedings.

Our next event was on our official launch day, July 31st. We were hosted by Blackwells Edinburgh, which both M and I have fond memories of, and it was incredible to be there with loads of our friends (especially the Edinburgh SFF crowd). Our dear friend Ann Landmann (director of Cymera Festival) chaired, and we had a fantastic time talking about our gothic influences, the ecological and historical basis for the book, and our co-writing process. We also managed to coax people to eat all 36 of the fiery red velvet cupcakes we had baked and brought*, which feels like its own achievement.

This was another whirlwind of an evening but I did manage to capture slightly more pictures, which I keep looking back at and grinning. It was amazing to see so many familiar faces, and there were even a few new ones in the audience who presumably just liked the sound of the book?? Seems false but I am reliably informed by more established authors that sometimes strangers do indeed read and even enjoy your books. So that’s wild.

We’ve also been tagged in loads of lovely posts by friends and readers on social media this past week. I think the biggest takeaway for us is that while reading and writing can be done as solo endeavors, building a community will make them both so much more fun and meaningful. We’re fortunate to know so many great authors who have supported us throughout the past four years while we’ve been on this journey, and it’s absolutely incredible to meet new friends and connect with booksellers and readers now that our book is out in the world.

If you haven’t gotten a copy of the Needfire yet and you’d like one, you can peruse the shops here for a hardback or ebook copy. If you’re an audiobook listener you’re in luck - an audio version will be coming in a few weeks, read by M!

All of this has led into some mad prep for a 2-week trip to the States, where we’ll be seeing family as well as attending Seattle Worldcon. If you’re reading this and you’ll be at Worldcon do let us know, we’d love to see you there! And I promise our next newsletter won’t be so belated, and it’ll have lots to share about what we’ve been reading and writing during our very busy summer. Stay tuned!

*if you’re an author approaching your own debut event, take it from me: don’t do this. Or, if you do, don’t forget the eggs on your first double batch so that you have to make an entirely new one late in the day. Just a little launch day tip from me to you.