Meredith Miller's Blog

Proofs!

Proofs for Fall River have arrived. This is a lovely moment, seeing the book as a book for the first time, holding it and smelling ink on paper.
Now I have two days to read through one and catch anything we've missed!

Fall River

Rhys Davies Launch

Cree: The Rhys Davies Short Story Anthology
I'm very much behind in writing about the launch of Cree: the Rhys Davies Short Story Anthology 2022, which was a model of how such an event can be organised with real generosity of spirit. A multiplicity of voices were heard with respect and a real sense of sharing appreciation for each other and the form. Much of that was down to Tîm Diwylliant Prifysgol Abertawe, who organised the launch, including the biggest crowd I've ever seen at a launch for a bunch of relatively unknown authors. But the feeling was contagious and led to generous support, sharing and interesting conversation among us authors.
In the wake of the fading nightmare of big market publishing, this felt like healing. I spent three hours in a room full of people who read devotedly and write thoughtfully. I left feeling better about the world in general.
The winning story, 'Cree', is stunningly accomplished and a deserved winner. Had I had the choosing though, I might have gone for the story written by the youngest author on the shortlist. Daniel Strogen's 'Cracked/Duck' is an adventurous and complex treatment of traumatic memory written in beautifully observed dialect voice. I'll be teaching it for a long time. Knowing that it was written by a person so young makes me hopeful.

World Book Day

Happy World Book Day, folks!

I did this little film about why I think books matter with the lovely people at work.

Thanks to Fantastic Flying Book Club!

Today is the last day of the How We Learned to Lie blog tour at the Fantastic Flying Book Club and I just wanted to stop in here and post a thank you.

This was a really great experience. It gave me the chance to write a piece about my writing space, answer loads of questions about myself I'd never have thought of on my own, and there are now a bunch of interesting, thoughtful and kind reviews up all over the place.

You can view the tour schedule with links to all the posts here.

The organizers did an amazing job. If you're a bookblogger or a booktuber, I'd highly recommend jumping on FFBC's next tour.

Thanks to all the bloggers, for this and for everything you do!

Giveaway

Hi Guys,

There's an early giveaway over on the *How We Learned to Lie* Instagram. (@howwelearnedtolie) You have to tell us your three favorite novels to enter!

Publisher's weekly says, 'Miller's vivid, haunting writing is filled with prose gems.'

Kirkus Reviews says, 'a stunning portrayal of platonic love'

Booklist says, 'This is for readers who enjoy poetic, character-driven fiction and don't mind a little gauziness with their grit.'

We say, 'It's pretty heavy on the grit, to be honest. But there's also a lot of difficult, beautiful love, some cool fish and a bunch of stuff you never knew about telephones.'

We like #bookgiveaways that get people to share what they love reading, so:
To enter:
1) follow
2) reply with your three favourite novels ever
3) tag a friend

Enter HERE

Giveaway: How We Learned to Lie ARCs

How We Learned to LieIn case you missed it over on twitter, I'm giving away a couple of How We Learned to Lie ARCs. Ending midnight tonight (28th January). Enter by retweeting this

Cover Reveal!

So, today is cover reveal day for How We Learned to Lie. In honor of which, I am posting the HWLTL playlist. Once again, this is a collage of what different characters are listening to in different scenes.

I won't post explanations on my blog until publication day though, because spoilers! If you haven't heard/read about the Little Wrecks playlist, you can do that over at meredithmiller.me

Happy listening and eventual happy reading.

How We Learned to Lie: The playlist

The Playlist!

Been trying to get all these things up before Little Wrecks publication day, while at the same time revisions to the second Highbone novel are kicking my ass! This one was fun for winding down in the evenings, though.

This is every track and artist mentioned in LW, in order. (Unless I missed one, in which case do tell me.) I didn't select out, even when I would have preferred to, musically. As for the narrative, yes I've selected the music for particular messages and feelings. So, it isn’t so much a list of tunes from the period which I think are best. It’s the soundtrack of a particular world. Characters are listening to things according to who and where they are. If you were walking a particular route through this historical time and place, it might sound like this. The relationship between people is expressed here as a relationship between kinds of music. It's social realism in a playlist!
I’ve given some specific explanations for each track over on the blog
If you want to listen while you read, you can search "Little Wrecks: The Playlist" on Spotify.

Little Wrecks Audio

For some reason I've found the idea of Little Wrecks on audio ridiculously exciting ever since I found out it was happening.
We were presented with a selection of narrators and heard samples of them reading other things, but this morning is the first time I've heard this awesome reading of LW.
So, here it is! https://soundcloud.com/harperaudio_us...

What it Looked Like: Little Wrecks

I wanted to show you these images so you can imagine what it feels like to be in this world.
on the blog