Karla Huebner's Blog, page 23

Get Magnetic Woman on Sale!

Guess what! University of Pittsburgh Press is having a 30% off sale on all titles! This means you can order Magnetic Woman for just $70 until January 9, 2022. Go to https://upittpress.org/books/9780822946472/ and in your order use the code PITTBOOKS.

Take Dada Daily for Best Results

"The times are dark and hard, and I know no better means to overcome the chaos of the day than reading about Dadaist appearances.” Rudolf Lothar, “Der Dadaismus.” Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 3 October 1918.

2022 Debuts Winter Roll Call Day 12

Day 12 of the 2022 Debuts winter roll call... writing quotes! Early in In Search of the Magic Theater, narrator Kari ponders the husband she left:

Magnetic Woman in New Zealand

Magnetic Woman makes it to the Kelburn Library at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand! So says Worldcat.org.

Some Comp Titles for In Search of the Magic Theater

In publishing, as in real estate (but unlike in theater), we talk about comps. Comparables. Comparisons. And as the debut novelists of 2022 are doing themed posts all through December about our forthcoming books, one of them is for our comps. Some of us are posting on Instagram, others on Facebook, and others, no doubt, on Twitter or TikTok. My post on Instagram ran into a computer glitch of some sort, so I'm doing it here too.

Two of my comps are "old" but perfect, two are recent enough that we're using them as "official" comps (published in the last five years). So...

1) Hermann Hesse's STEPPENWOLF was the inspiration for my novel IN SEARCH OF THE MAGIC THEATER, which will be out June 1. I switch the genders of the main characters and set the novel in 1999. Mine is also happier overall than STEPPENWOLF and gives the landlady's niece a major role.

2) Robertson Davies's THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS. Not only is Davies one of my favorite authors, but he wrote so well about the arts in general. THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS is about a group of quite different people (who don't all even like each other) collaborating on finishing an opera by the Romantic writer and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann. I took many useful lessons from this novel in writing the theatrical portions of my own novel (along with having worked in theater myself and having composed small musical pieces in the distant past). Oh, and also, like LYRE OF ORPHEUS, the theater piece in my novel includes text from long-dead authors and lots of music.

3) Jan Alexander's MS. MING'S GUIDE TO CIVILIZATION. Jan is now a friend and we're in a writing group together, but I first learned of her and her novel through a mutual friend. MS. MING sounded like a book I needed to read--two young women, one American and the other a poor kid from China scraping a not-so-savory living in the US, get involved with the mythological Monkey King and scheme to improve the world--and it also led me to my publisher, Regal House! So MS. MING means a lot to me. It's about women's lives, about big dreams, about myth, and it's lively and fun and often satirical.

4) Carmen Boullosa's THE BOOK OF ANNA. This too is a good comp for my novel, as it uses a classic novel (ANNA KARENINA) as a launching point for a new and wildly imaginative work that also includes a work of fiction by the character Anna Karenina.

Follow along with the hashtag #2022Debuts to see what my other fellow debuts are saying and give a follow to @debutauthors, which will showcase all our books coming out in 2022!

MAGNETIC WOMAN wins the 2021 Czechoslovak Studies Book Prize

I'm so pleased to report that Magnetic Woman has won the biennial Czechoslovak Studies Association book prize! It is a huge honor. I also want to salute Anna Hájková, whose The Last Ghetto is the Honorable Mention.

In Search of the Magic Theater is now listed on Goodreads...

In Search of the Magic Theater is now listed on Goodreads (cover art to come), so now is a great time to mark it as "want to read"--not only does this help make the book more visible on the system (those algorithms!) but when I do a giveaway of paper Advance Reader Copies, everyone who marked it as "want to read" will be notified to sign up for the giveaway.

I'd post a picture of the front cover, but we're waiting on the cover reveal till a little closer to publication, so how about a look at the spine?

The Machine Anxieties of Steampunk

Ever wonder just what steampunk is and why people across the globe eagerly embrace its neo-Victorian aesthetic? Are you intrigued by the look of old-fashioned eye goggles, lace corsets, leather vests, brass gears and gadgets, not to mention mechanical clock and airships? Well, you can learn more in this cool book from one of my art historian friends! Kathe Hicks Albrecht's The Machine Anxieties of Steampunk will come out in mere days, and you can preorder it right now!

Kathe argues that steampunk is both an aesthetic program and a way of life, and that its underlying philosophy is the key to its broad appeal. She suggests that steampunk champions a new autonomy for the individual caught up in today's technology-driven society. Optimism for the future combines with a note of caution about our human role in a world of ever more ubiquitous and powerful machines. Thus, despite an aesthetic straight out of the Victorian scientific romance, steampunk addresses 21st-century concerns about what lies ahead for humankind and challenges us to ask what it is to be human today.

Launching Magnetic Woman with ISSS on Wednesday!

While it's true that Magnetic Woman was officially published a year ago and has actually been available for most of 2021, the book hasn't had an official launch until now. (Normally, we would almost certainly have done a launch event at the 2020 ASEEES conference, but the conference ended up being virtual and there was no University of Pittsburgh Press book display for me to sign books at and offer passers-by champagne.) So instead, the International Society for the Study of Surrealism (ISSS) is hosting a Zoom launch this coming Wednesday, where I will read portions of the book and all the scholars of surrealism will (schedules permitting) be on hand to ask questions.

It's at 7:30 p.m. GMT on Wednesday, October 27, which for North Americans translates to 2:30 EDT, 1:30 CDT, 12:30 MDT, and 11:30 PDT. Here's where to see more info and register to attend. It's free.



And, by the way, there's more good news to come...

Burning and Dodging

Julie Wittes Schlack has a novel coming out in December, Burning and Dodging! As you might guess, photography is one of its topics--as are, figuratively, both burning and dodging. I had the privilege of reading it several months ago, and can recommend it as a wonderfully complex, engaging tale. It is one of my very favorite new novels.

If you pre-order now through the publisher, you'll benefit both Julie and Black Rose Publishing (Julie gets a higher royalty than through, say, Amazon, and the publisher knows people want to read it).