Cecilia Tan's Blog

Chapter 4 from THE HOT STREAK!

In honor of my publisher putting a new cover on my baseball romance and moving it into Kindle Unlimited for a while, I figured I would publish a sample chapter for you all to enjoy. Here is Chapter Four of THE HOT STREAK!

Casey works at a design bureau in Boston, and finds herself somewhat unexpectedly in a fling with Tyler Hammond, the star pitcher for Boston’s new major league baseball team, the Robins. They’ve been on a couple of dates and had some of the hottest sex in Casey’s life when Tyler asks if she wants to come to New York City when he has a rare day free before the next game he pitches. Casey says yes, and packs her bag for New York:

Chapter Four

Casey arrived at the hotel around lunchtime. She’d had a nice ride on the Amtrak train into the city, and Tyler was standing in the lobby waiting for her when she came in. He had his sunglasses on, and was wearing a sport coat, which she didn’t expect.

“There you are,” he said, tucking his cell phone away and twirling her into a hug. “Right on time. Want to go grab something to eat? There’s everything here, of course. Oh, wait, let’s put your bag away first.”

“All right.” She would have been content to carry it if he’d wanted to go right then; it was just a backpack with one change of clothes and some toiletries. But she figured she might as well leave it off. They rode the elevator up to a small but nice-looking suite, the bedroom separated from the sitting room by a set of French doors. She plopped the bag on the couch. “Where do you want to go?’

“Everywhere!” he said, throwing his arms wide. “Off days are so rare, and off days that aren’t spent packing to go somewhere are even rarer. I’m glad this worked out.” He held out his arm for her and she took it as they went back to the elevator. “Today I get to pretend to be a normal person. Let’s go to Times Square, eh?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t Casey’s first trip to the city, or Tyler’s either, but there was something about New York that made each visit new, and yet the same. They ate in a Thai restaurant they stumbled across on one of the side streets a few blocks from the hotel, then wandered through the throngs of spring tourists in Times Square. Tyler haggled with a street vendor over buying an “I Love New York” T-shirt, and Casey wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but it ended up with him buying an entire case of the shirts for about fifty bucks, and some kid on a bicycle trundling off to the hotel with the box strapped on the back with bungee cords.

“That was totally like…something you’d see in China or Uganda or something,” she said, watching the kid struggle to pedal away.

“Yeah, wasn’t it?” he said, putting his sunglasses back on. “I went on this goodwill baseball tour to China when I was in college, saw a lot of stuff like that.”

The question was out of her mouth before she had a chance to wonder whether she cared about the answer. “Oh? Where’d you go to school?” Stupid. Asking him about the trip to China would probably be better.

“Oh, University of Texas, for the baseball program, of course. Couple of places tried to recruit me. I picked the one with the warmest weather.”

They moved on through the crowd, past a giant toy store with a small Ferris wheel inside it. “I never finished. Once I got drafted, I didn’t go back. They say I still could when my career’s over, but can you imagine me at forty years old, sitting in a classroom with a pencil behind my ear trying to do algebra or something? Doesn’t seem likely. And it’s not like I need a college degree or I’ll end up scrubbing floors somewhere. Or selling T-shirts and electronics on the street.”

She nodded, wondering if she should be avoiding the subject of salaries and money, or if those rules didn’t really apply, when she’d read in The New York Times online that he was making $10.5 million this year. “So where to now?”

“You want to see if we can get tickets to a show or something? Phantom of the Opera? Man, it’s so weird not to have a game.”

Casey hooked her arm through his as they walked. “Don’t you get a couple of months off, though, in the winter?”

“Yeah, but once the season starts…you just have to be in the mentality that there’s a game every night. If you wish you had days off, you won’t be mentally ready to play. But then it feels weird when you don’t have a game, like you’re skipping school or something.”

“But I thought you only played every fifth day anyway.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But there are things I do on each day between starts, part of my program to get ready for the next start. Kind of like how football teams have stuff they do all week between games, except I’m just one guy. The rest of the team has to go out and play every night. You just…you get kind of addicted to it, almost, and then you miss it when it’s not there, even just for one night.”

He stopped walking then and turned to face her. “But don’t get me wrong. Having an evening out with you is…I’ve been thinking about it all week. So what do you think? Broadway show?”

“Do you think we can still get tickets this late?”

“Hang on.” He took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Hi, yes, this is Tyler Hammond in room 1253. Heh, yeah, thanks. I was wondering, what are the chances you could get me two tickets to…uh…” He motioned to Casey to say something.

Casey racked her brains trying to think of a show she wanted to see. “Chicago?”

“Chicago,” he said into the phone. “For tonight. Oh, that would be awesome. Great. Call me back if there are any problems. Yeah.” He gave his number and hung up. “God, concierges are great.”

She grinned. “I wish I had one in everyday life.”

He laughed nervously. “Uh, yeah.”

“Tyler, what’s wrong?”

“I’m embarrassed to admit I do actually have one. A concierge desk, I mean. I’d never have stuff from the dry cleaners in time or anything without them.” He was actually blushing.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I just didn’t want you to think I was lazy.”

She punched him in the arm and they went back to walking. “So the show’s not until later. What should we do until then?”

“We could take a boat tour to see the Statue of Liberty, we could go up the Empire State Building, we could go to a museum. They have dinosaurs at one of them, don’t they? Or the planetarium. There’s supposedly fun shopping in Greenwich Village…”

Casey laughed. “You sound like you’d rather see the dinosaurs than shop.”

“Well, that’s true…”

“Can we just hail a cab and say ‘Take us to the dinosaurs?'”

“Probably.”

* * * *

Four hours later ,they had seen the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History and ridden a horse cart through Central Park, during which ride the carriage driver had told Tyler he needed to come play for the Yankees. He outlined all his points, including how the Yankees were surely going to be the ones to offer him the most in free agency, had the most players in the Hall of Fame, and so on. Tyler had demurred, saying that was all in the future and right now, he wasn’t even in the American League.

That prompted Casey to finally ask what was up with the leagues. She understood there were two separate leagues, the American League and the National League, going way back to the dawn of the 20th century. “But I looked at the schedule and you play some of the American League teams.”

“Yeah, they’ve been doing that for years now. Inter-league play. It means we’ll get to play the Red Sox later in the summer. That’ll be fun, won’t it? Boston is such a sports-crazed town. They’ll have to declare martial law to keep people from rioting.” Even though the Robins had only moved into Boston a short time ago, they already had quite a following. “What do you say, buddy? If I sign with the Red Sox, I won’t even have to move.”

“Man, the Red Sox suck,” is all the driver would say to that.

They then rode the subway down to Soho and Casey convinced Tyler to come with her into some art galleries, and he even seemed to like some of the cool modern art she showed him. “Yeah, when I think art, I think of paintings of vases of flowers and fat women,” he said, without any trace of meanness. “But this stuff is cool. I think I like the sculptures the best.”

Casey was tempted by a sculpture that looked a bit like a giant crescent moon, only it was iridescent colors, made of metal with a pitted and scarred surface. On its chest-high pedestal it stood as tall as Tyler, a grand almost-circle almost like the horns of a great ox. She looked at the price tag. Not only would the piece be totally out of place in her rundown apartment, it cost easily a third of her annual salary after taxes.

The gallery owner chatted with her about the piece anyway. “God, it’s really beautiful. I really like it, but I don’t have room for something like this in my tiny apartment,” she said, trying not to mention that it was priced light years out of her reach.

Tyler came up behind her, steering her aside from the owner. “But it’d look great in my ultra-modern place, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, with those huge ceiling you have and the…wait, you’re not thinking of buying it, are you?”

“I want to buy it for you, but you can keep it at my place, and you know, visit it there. Until you move somewhere bigger, eventually. Right? After you learn to play golf and get into management?”

She groaned. “You can’t buy me something that expensive.”

“Why not? I bought my mother an entire house and two cars. It’s not like I’m going hungry, right? What’s money for?”

She looked up at him and he looked really earnest, like if she said no, he might actually be hurt. “Are you sure?”

“Are you sure?” he asked back. “If you really like it, it’s yours.”

Her palms were starting to sweat. “Yeah. I really like it.”

“Awesome. It’s going to look so cool in the sitting room. I’ll have to invite people over on the next off day at home for cocktails to look at it.” He grinned like a boy getting a new puppy. “Uh, miss? Ma’am?” He flagged down the gallery owner and set about buying it and having it delivered.

Casey didn’t listen to most of the details, just stared at the piece with a hand on her cheek, feeling it burn. But it was a pleasant burn.

When they went back out onto the street, Tyler was holding her hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just kind of stunned.”

He smiled. “Look. Whatever guy you go out with, each one has something different about him, right? One guy’s maybe really handy with the fix-up stuff. One guy’s maybe really smart and can, like, do your taxes for you, right? Well, you happen to be going out with a jock who makes more money than he knows what to do with, so, you know, this kind of thing happens.”

She laughed at that. “Okay.”

“So, what do you think it was a sculpture of?”

“Of? Well, I think it’s supposed to be abstract. You interpret it how you want to. But I saw it as a kind of crescent moon. You know how sometimes it almost looks like it could go all the way around but it doesn’t? That’s what it made me think of.”

“That’s really cool. Now I really think we should grab a snack before the show, and just have a late dinner after. Maybe room service. Got to love the twenty-four-hour room service. It’s half the reason the team stays where it does.”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * * *

They were walking back to the hotel from the theater when Casey put her arm around Tyler’s waist, pulling him close as they walked in step with each other. He smelled more like aftershave than she usually preferred, but under it she could still tell it was him, just a hint of something that reminded her body of how his skin tasted. It was a nice feeling, wanting him, and not feeling either guilty or pressured about it. It just felt, well, nice.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked as they turned the corner into a stiff Manhattan wind.

“A terrific time.”

“I’m not just an excuse to get away from the office?” He grinned.

“And what if you are? Going to kick me out of bed?” She grinned right back.

“No, ma’am,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “So I guess I know what we’re doing when we get back to the room?”

“Unless you have a better idea,” Casey said, half daring him to suggest something.

But that was the end of the jokes. He pulled her into a hug, and she could hear the satin lining of his sport coat hissing against his other clothes as he enveloped her in his arms. “I’m glad.”

“About what?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Mm, just, you know, some girls wouldn’t be so nice to me.”

Casey didn’t really understand that comment, but she wasn’t about to start trying to pick it apart now. Maybe she could ask Missy a bit about Tyler’s previous girlfriends next time she saw her. Nice to him? What was the point of going out with a man who was the epitome of sex on wheels, then holding out on him? Maybe some of them really only wanted him for his money? That seemed quite possible.

She slipped her hands into his trouser pockets and felt not very subtly for his erection. He was only half hard, but as her fingertips brushed him, she felt him stiffening. She kept touching him until it seemed he was fully hard and he groaned.

“Soooo nice to me,” he said.

“Just be nice back,” she said and stepped back and tapped him on the nose. “Come on.”

* * * *

In the lobby, they ran into Mad Dog and a few of Tyler’s other teammates. He introduced her to Madison, and Casey shook his hand, finding it huge and rough. “I’ve met your wife,” she said. “In the stands. She’s great.”

“Isn’t she, though?” Mad Dog said. He glanced at Tyler, seemed to read something there, before adding, “If you come on more road trips, I’ll try to get her to come along, too. You guys can hang out.”

“Sure.” She gently pulled at Tyler’s hand then, trying to be obvious without being too obvious about wanting to go upstairs now.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Mad Dog said to Tyler as they were walking away. “Big start tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tyler said, and pulled Casey into an open elevator. “Ignore him. Catchers always think it’s their job to nursemaid pitchers.”

Casey looked at him. “Should we not stay up too late, though?”

He snorted. “The early bus to the park doesn’t leave here until two thirty in the afternoon. I think we’ll manage. It’s not even eleven now, is it?”

“Nope.”

In the room, they discovered a cheese plate, a bottle of champagne, and note from the reservations manager saying, “Go Robins!” Tyler eyed it suspiciously. “Okay, now, see, if it were the night after I pitched, and I won, then it might be okay. But it might all be a ploy on the part of some Mets fan to put me off my game tomorrow.”

She sniffed the cheese. “Well, why don’t we just save it for tomorrow? If we keep it in the ice bucket, they won’t throw it away. We can stick the cheese plate in the mini bar and test it for contamination later.”

He laughed. “All right.”

Casey put the plate away, tucking it into the mini bar on top of the jarred peanuts. Then she drifted into the bathroom and brushed her hair, which had gotten a bit tangled in the wind. She knew Tyler was watching her as he went to hang up his sport coat and take off his shoes.

She was suddenly nervous, butterflies in her stomach. How was it going to go this time? Was it going to be as good as before? She was really, really starting to like him.

He came up behind her then, lifting her hair to press a kiss against her neck. “Now if I remember right, you have a spot,” he said, his lips brushing her skin as he talked, “somewhere, right about…here…”

She pressed back against him with a gasp as his tongue found that place that seemed connected directly to her clit. She wondered what that warm velvet would feel like down there and she moaned aloud.

“Bed now,” she said.

“You sure?” He moved to the other side, lips and tongue searching for the matching spot there, his hands on his hips and the firm press of his erection against her backside. “You sure I shouldn’t just lift you up on the bathroom counter here and slip it in you?”

She moaned again, not knowing whether he meant to do it or just use the idea to arouse. His hand slipped around to the front of her, grazing over her mound with light pressure.

“I can make you come just as many times in here, you know…”

“Bed,” she said more firmly, then squealed with laughter as he lifted her up with another “yes, ma’am” and carried her through the French doors to the enormous bed. He half-tossed her onto it so she bounced a little, then started dragging her pants and panties down. He got one leg free of her clothes and then put his shoulder under the bend of her knee, pushing her onto her back and spreading her legs.

One of his hands spread her lips gently and then she felt a long, slow swipe of his tongue up one side of her labia. It was too deliberate for him to have just accidentally missed her clit. Then he did the other side and she groaned, grinding her hips toward his face.

“Now now,” he scolded. “You know it’ll be better if you let me take my time.” He bent his head again, this time flicking his tongue butterfly light all around her clit, but still not touching it directly except for the occasional brush.

She chuckled inwardly. Sex, and maybe Tyler, too, was a pile of contradictions. He was in such a hurry to go slowly that he hadn’t even taken her pants all the way off, or even touched her shirt. Just went straight for the “good part.” And yet it didn’t feel like he was rushing or neglecting her at all, the way it might have with another guy.

His tongue snaked over her clit and she gave a long moan. That was the funny thing, she thought. The guys who were in the biggest hurry were the ones who really didn’t know how to turn her on like this. She was completely ready for Tyler to fuck the living daylights out of her after just that little bit—she was ready even back in the bathroom. But when was the last time she’d spent all day with a guy thinking about, and knowing, they were going to have sex that night?

He brought her all the way to the edge of orgasm with his tongue, then eased her back down to a lower plateau of pleasure before lifting his head, his chin glistening. “So, you want to come now? Or you want me in you like last time?”

“Um…”

“Or there’s this…” he said, waggling his eyebrows as he slipped a finger into her and tickled her g-spot.

“Hey!”

“Too much? Don’t like it?” He continued to touch it, but with a lighter pressure.

“N-no, I love it, I just…oh….” He did something else inside her then, with two fingers it felt like, and her eyes rolled back in her head and she arched her back. “Oh fuck, you could pretty much make me come just from that.”

“Really? That would be so awesome. I’ve never made a girl come just from, you know, being in her. Well, I might have once or twice, but I’m pretty sure they were faking.”

“Well, I’ve never come just from something in me, but…” She bore down on his fingers again. “But God, it feels good when you lick me, too.”

“That sounds like a hint,” he said, and went back to licking her while doing what he was doing with his fingers.

Casey came within seconds, crying out loudly and clawing at the pillows. When she had fallen limp and panting, he lifted his head again. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“It’s just a catch phrase. You are awesome.”

She laughed. “I think I’m supposed to be the one saying that now.”

“Here, say it to this.” He slipped his pants off finally and reared up on his knees, his cock riding high and full.

She put a hand under his balls the way you would the chin of a big dog before talking to it. “Hmm, I dunno. Your cock’s awesomeness has yet to be proven tonight.”

He made an affronted noise. “Well, then! I guess I better get to proving it. Which way do you want it? Front, back, upside down, or all of the above?”

“Just come here,” she said, kicking off her pants and pulling him between her legs. While she was at it, she stripped off her shirt and went to work on his. He finished it for her, then bent to leave kisses across the tops of her breasts.

“You ready now?” he asked. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

She blinked up at him. “Holy shit, you’re right.”

“It’s okay, darling. I’ve got it.” He had to get off the bed to retrieve the condom, but he returned quickly with it already in place. “There you go.”

Casey just nodded. She was on the pill, so it wasn’t like she was worried about pregnancy. But this was only their second date, and if Tyler’s reputation was what it was, then it was better to be safe. She was grateful. Most guys would have just plunged in if she’d pulled at them like that, she thought.

“Impatient,” she said, raising her eyebrow.

“Okay.” His eyes were open and looking into hers as he entered her, a flicker of amazement in them as he slipped all the way in, his mouth slightly open as if in surprise.

Her own expression mirrored his. She felt like she should say something, something that would capture the moment and burn it in her memory, but there were no words. Well, maybe one. “Good.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and he began to move inside her.

* * *
The Hot Streak is now in Kindle Unlimited, or for purchase & download at Amazon: https://amzn.to/4n7RoVP

New story at Sunday Morning Transport! *rocket emoji*

I’m still riding the creative high and queer community solidarity feeling that came from reading at Writers With Drinks in Seattle. Charlie Jane Anders was an incandescent host, Charlie’s Queer Books put so many books into people’s hands, all the readers were fire!

The story I read from, “Large Emotional Models,” is now live on the Sunday Morning Transport!

I’ve just spent the past five minutes trying to write a sentence describing the story, but the story is itself the best expression of the underlying ideas, so I keep throwing them away. The official description is “a story about fitting into one’s skin and the universe.”

I was motivated to write it when I was on my way to an academic conference, and I got ad-targeted on Instagram by a university in Europe offering positions to American academics fleeing the country. I started writing a story on the airplane to the conference, balling up all my feelings about the moment we are living through right now, with AI and LLMs and attacks on academia and science and the tidal wave of transphobia, and out came a story that is about Prince and David Bowie and grief?

It is their free story this month, so everyone can read it, but if you’d like to try getting a really great sf/f story from Sunday Morning Transport every week, here’s a signup link for friends and family to get two months free: https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/smt2024

Collage of photos from Writers with Drinks (photos by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books):

Seattle Worldcon Report

There is not just one Worldcon. In Seattle this year, there were 5500 registered attendees plus another 2000 or so bought single-day memberships, meaning there were ~7500 different Worldcons this year.

Worldcon is many things to many people, but the one thing it always is, is an intentional community. It’s an event that happens because people give their time, their energy, their skills, and their care to make it happen.

In this way, Worldcon is, and always has been, what we make of it. It is simultaneously the home of one of our genre’s most important awards, a premiere costuming event, a professional development incubator, a social structure, an important economic opportunity for some, a schmoozefest, and a celebration of all that the science fiction/fantasy genres have to offer. It’s also a microcosm of all the stresses and problems of our society, and really, how could it not be?

For most of Worldcon’s existence, science fiction as a genre and science fiction fandom were marginalized, minimized, and discriminated against. But in the 21st century, science fiction (and fantasy) have become big capitalist business in movies, television, and merchanidizing, and we’ve had two generations now who have grown up with sf/f being mainstream. These days it’s just as normal to see people wearing a T-shirt with Iron Man or Yoda or Hogwarts on it as the Dallas Cowboys or Real Madrid, or Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar.

This mainstreaming represents a sea change in the larger society, but it has not actually changed the Worldcon very much. Compare and contrast San Diego Comic Con, which was of similar size to Worldcon in the 1980s, and now tops out at 130,000 attendees because that’s the max attendance their convention center can handle. (See this graph.) As comics and their Hollywood tie-ins have grown to dominate moviemaking, SDCC has been growing more commercial for the past 50 years.

At Worldcon, although there is costuming and gaming and anime, the heart of it is still the literature, the short stories and novels of science fiction and fantasy and the people who write them and publish them, and the people who like to read them. Love of literature is not sufficient to define a community, though: that has taken generations of people defining the con fandom subculture and its traditions, and creating the space for all the sub-sub-subcultures within fandom to meet and co-exist.

I bring this all up as a preamble to my con report, because I think it’s very important for us not to take for granted the communities and institutions like Worldcon, that are built by people for people, and not by corporations for profit, or by governments for politics. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for things to be better when we feel it’s needed; quite the opposite, an intentional community demands its attendees not be mere passive consumers.

And make no mistake, Worldcon is not a perfect utopia (and if you’ve studied utopian fiction you know that no utopia is perfect, and also one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia). Someone said to me this year, “Can’t we ever have a Worldcon without a scandal or disaster?” This year there was the ChatGPT programming kerfuffle. Last year the Hugo voting/dossier compiling news broke. In San Diego a guy who got mad about being banned arranged a pro-gun “freedom rally” outside the convention center. The Sad Puppies. The Rabid Puppies. Et cetera.

Which got me thinking… maybe the answer is no, we can’t ever have a Worldcon without some kind of kerfuffle… but maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing? Because Worldcon is ever in the process of becoming itself. Like democracy, it demands participation and it demands argument. And unlike American democracy at the moment, it has proven itself resilient in the face of these challenges. The Puppies were roundly rejected by the voting membership to the Hugos. The gun rally was a complete dud. Unlike the major awards in some other genres (looking at you RWA Ritas), the Hugos still exist and carry on. (There have been other schisms, fights, resignations, and dismissals: do not take the previous list as complete. It is merely a sampling from recent memory.)

But despite the ChatGPT kerfuffle and a few highly questionable panel topics and/or slates, the overall program in Seattle came out looking quite intriguing, thought-provoking, and generally reflective of the sf/f genre’s leanings toward liberal thinking. At least two Hugo award finalists who had inexplicably not been given any programming did get added at the last minute. I do not know whether the programming department proactively took steps to remedy the oversight or if it took various folks prodding and yelling to make it happen. I suppose one of the points I’m making here is that no, it shouldn’t be necessary for folks to prod and yell to get the finalists included in the program, but given that humans are fallible and putting on a Worldcon is a huge group effort, sometimes some prodding or yelling is the only way.

The demographics of Worldcon have changed over the 35+ years I’ve been attending. There are many more visible queer folk than there used to be. Remember when Tor Books ran a “Women of Fantasy” advertising and book tour campaign back in the early 1990s, because it was notable that they had multiple women coming out with fantasy books at the same time? Now that’s simply the norm. Women writing science fiction & fantasy have gone from being a rarity (fewer than 15% of SFWA in 1965) to 35% in 1999 to being slightly more than half of SFWA members right now.

It’s no longer notable if all five panelists on a topic happen to be women, and it’s no longer notable if multiple queer, nonbinary, or trans folk are on a panel that is not about being queer or trans. The genre is no longer as White as it once was, either, with writers of color having pretty well stormed the gates of the award lists. (The whole Sad Puppies campaign was in fact in response to avowed right wing white male writers’ perception that the awards were not being dominated by white male writers anymore. And I kinda think that the Puppies’ attempts to game the nominations not only didn’t work, they accelerated the diversity, because they spurred a lot of folks in the Worldcon community to branch out their reading just to spite them… and people liked what they read.)

However, even with greater diversity among attendees, that doesn’t mean that a Worldcon automatically feels welcoming to everyone. As we know, even some of the most self-proclaimed liberal spaces can still be rife with microaggressions and/or fraught with systemic inequity. But with an intentional community, there is a lot of elasticity for people to make the event what they want of it.

Party!

It’s why for years my preferred method of promoting and selling Circlet Press’s books was to throw parties rather than take a dealer table. It might not have been the most effective way to sell the most books, but it was always the best way for me to bring queer, kinky, and trans erotic sf/f writers together to actually talk with each other. Those are my people, and I made a space for them to gather. This year I threw a Worldcon party for the first time since before COVID. Since I don’t run Circlet Press anymore, I just billed it as Queer Book Party, threw a bunch of pride flags onto the flyers and signs, and threw open my door to see who showed up.

Shortly after the party started, the significant person who showed up was a security guard who told us the hotel would shut us down if they got a second noise complaint about us. I pointed out that it was not yet 10pm, which was when the hotel supposedly would begin enforcing “quiet hours.” The designated party hotel, the Sheraton, had apparently decided the week before the con to decide unilaterally that their previous agreement to allow open parties — and open elevators — every evening actually just meant open elevators from 8-10pm and then all parties should shut down. Many typical worldcon parties run well past midnight and ours couldn’t even open until 9pm because I had a reading scheduled at 8:00. Ultimately we were able to keep the noise down enough that we did not get shut down and I had to regretfully kick folks out at 1:30 AM so I could get some sleep!

This was not the worst party-hotel fail we’ve ever experienced at a Worldcon, though. That would have been Montreal, where the designated party hotel was the Delta, and it had not only our party and many others, but the official Con Suite. We opened our party around 8pm that time and for the first hour or so we had great traffic and a lively crowd. But then it slowed to nothing. We were just down the hall from the Con Suite, and no one was in there, either. I went down to the lobby to try to see what was going on, only to discover that hotel security had decided NO ONE who wasn’t a registered guest of that hotel would be allowed upstairs and they were checking keys. About a thousand people who were NOT staying there, but who all had invitations to parties there, were milling around the lobby hoping someone would talk some sense into the hotel. (I don’t think anyone ever did. Montreal 2027 conrunners, please take note.)

One thing Seattle Worldcon did extremely well was with their art, graphic design, and signage. The signage was plentiful, informative, and necessary, given the immense size of the convention center. The designs were delightful to look at as well as readable. I also really appreciated that with such an immense convention center, there were able to dedicate space for lounges and safe spaces for various groups. I availed myself of the LGBTQ one at one point to meet up with someone, and there was also a dedicated press room, which was a good, quiet place to record an interview. (Looking forward to another article on Worldcon by Chaitna Deshmuk in The UW Daily.)

Writing Workshop

My one piece of “official” Worldcon programming this year was I taught a 2.5 hour workshop on Writing A Sex Scene. Cat Rambo put together a track of writing workshops and it was great to have the time to do a deep dive on my favorite topic. The room was packed when I arrived. I’m not sure exactly how many it was, but I think the room seated 50 people? Every seat was taken, and I gave a couple of chairs from the head table to a couple of stragglers. I think it went really well overall and I’m grateful people felt comfortable enough to read some samples of the little exercises we did aloud in front of the group. Here’s hoping some of those snippets turn into some fantastic stories!

This year the two biggest highlights of my con were both “fringe” events, events created by people who saw a need and made them happen adjacent to the Worldcon.

ConCurrent

The first was ConCurrent, the brainchild of Mia Tsai, who was in a group of authors online griping with one another about the apparent mess in the Worldcon programming department that had led them to disastrously use ChatGPT to vet program participants (and by disastrously I mean it prompted some award finalists to withdraw from consideration, some conrunners to resign in disgust, some attendees to boycott, and a massive social media outcry). ChatGPT is notoriously biased against BIPOC and queer people, which led Mia, egged on by several of us in the online gripe session, to do something concrete to counteract the possibility of that bias and make a statement against AI by programming an alternative event.

ConCurrent took over the ACT Theater, located closer to the main con hotel (the Sheraton) than the convention center itself, and put on a full day of panels featuring almost exclusively BIPOC panelists, with a few exceptions.

Here’s a photo of the panel on the movie Sinners, since I didn’t manage to get a photo of my own panel, which was on Erotica & Horror. Pictured are LD Lewis (Moderator), Christopher Caldwell, LP Kindred, Rebecca Roanhorse, Erin Roberts, and Nicole Glover.

Update! Here’s a photo of the Erotica & Horror panel from the ConCurrent instagram:

Moderator ML Krishnan, Coral Alejandra Moore, Cecilia Tan (me), Diana Pho, Sumiko Saulson.

Also in this photo, Lauren Ring (with camera) who took many photos for ConCurrent and I will include more of them below.

I was the one who proposed the Erotica & Horror topic, and some might note it’s the same topic as a Readercon panel I did, but the conversation came out so completely different with a different set of panelists! ML Krishnan was a terrific moderator who herded us cats into some interesting directions.

At ConCurrent, we dug down into how there are different subgenres of horror and how various subgenres might allow you to fulfill both the requirements of horror and of erotica within the same story. For example, if you’re writing body horror, can you use the contrast between the parts of the story that are erotic and the horrific to magnify the horror rather than conflating the two? Back in the 90s there was a kind of moment for erotic horror that most of us felt was very sex negative — where the sex WAS the horror, and there was still a lot of shame and revulsion built in.

There’s also redemptive horror, which often opens the door for a romance-style happy ending, since some of the characters do defeat evil and survive in the end (just not everyone…) There was universal agreement that we’d like to do away with the old horror trope that anyone who has sex gets killed and instead have the sexy-times remain as a positive force in the story. This panel left me hopeful that we can use horror as a narrative tool — dark days require dark fiction sometimes — and yet still include positive sexual experiences for our characters and readers, especially when portraying queer, trans, or kinky characters.

Writers with Drinks

Then that evening came Writers with Drinks.

Charlie Jane Anders has been curating a reading series called Writers With Drinks for over 20 years now, and I’ve read at WWD both in Cambridge and San Francisco. Usually WWD is in a bar or nightclub (hence the “drinks” portion of the theme), but in Seattle the venue was a gorgeous theater called Town Hall that was formerly a Christian Science church. I mean, look how gorgeous:

Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books

That’s me, captured by photographer @jo.goeswandering in the Great Hall, reading to an audience of over 700 attendees. A completely RAPT audience, I must add. They hung on every word. And all the readings were so terrific! The evening was billed as “Superstars of Queer SF”. Charlie Jane’s new book, Lessons in Magic and Disaster, just launched, and Annalee Newitz is also on book tour for Automatic Noodle. They both read from those books.

I had seen Annalee earlier in the week at Third Place Books in Lake Forest, Washington, and after hearing them speak about robot civil rights and noodles, I bought the book and had already finished reading it two days later. (They also gave a great recommendation for biang biang noodles in Seattle, Taste of Xi’an in the U District, and corwin and I ate there one night.) Automatic Noodle follows the principle of take everything you love and jam-pack it into a book. Every page is delightful.

Also on the slate were Andrea Hairston, Darcie Little Badger, and Becky Chambers. Andrea is a longtime theater person who is always a dynamic reader, and Darcie read from an absolutely entrancing story that had appeared in Sunday Morning Transport: “Those Hitchhiking Kids.”

Coincidentally, the story I read an excerpt from at WWD, “Large Emotional Models,” will be coming up in Sunday Morning Transport in just a few weeks! If you’d like to read my story, you can subscribe to SMT for free to get one free story per month, or use this “friends and family” link to get a 60 day free trial for the tier that gets you a story every week: https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/smt2024

It’s a story about academia, and Prince, and David Bowie, and broken hearts, and AI, and encounters with the ineffable. Oh, and self-acceptance.

Becky Chambers closed the evening with a novel excerpt that was also an extended meditation on love and connection and how important they are to human life.

Connection and community is ultimately what a Worldcon is all about. I’m planning to be in LA next year. Probably will throw a party, maybe two? How about you?

—

(And now the promised picspam)

More from ConCurrent:

Photo by Lauren RingModerator ML Krishnan and panelists Coral Alejandra Moore. Photo by Lauren Ring.I don’t know what I’m talking about here. Something! Photo by Lauren RingPhoto by Lauren Ring

More from Writers with Drinks:

Charlie Jane Anders, Becky Chambers, Darcie Little Badger, Cecilia Tan, Annalee Newitz, chatting prior to the event. Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer BooksCecilia Tan taking the stage at Writers With Drinks. Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer BooksI didn’t know there was a giant projection of one of my book covers behind me until I sat back down. Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer BooksCharlie Jane Anders, who always makes up these incredible fantastical fake bios for all the readers. Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books.After the readings were over, we had autographing in the lobby. Charlie’s Queer Books handled the sales and sold EVERY BOOK OF MINE ON HAND. Even the fancy expensive hardcovers I had brought with me! Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books.

Some crowd shots I took showing the immense audience:

Charlie Jane Anders on the stage at the Great Hall of Town Hall, speaking to a crowd of over 700 people.Photo by Cecilia Tan

My Worldcon Schedule AND Boston Fan Expo (formerly Boston Comic Con)

Whew~! Readercon was a whirlwind, as expected, but so much fun. I had so many great panels, and I wrote down so many inspiring thoughts and quotes from fellow panelists. Two in particular from Vandana Singh: “There is an artificial line between nature and culture.” and “Shiva was a bisexual god before he got appropriated by mainstream Hindus.”

But now it’s time to gird my loins for Worldcon in Seattle! I leave in less than a week. But guess what…?

Fan Expo Boston

I got added to the Fan Expo Boston author lineup as well, being wrangled by Lovestruck Books, the absolutely fab new romance bookstore in Harvard Square, which has a huuuuge romantasy section, nice erotica section, and lots of other squee-worthy genres.

So this Saturday, August 9 I’ll be autographing Magic University at 11am at Fan Expo, along with Elizabeth Skarpnes (To The Gallows|on Bookshop & Amazon) and I.V. Ophelia (The Poisoner | on Bookshop & Amazon).

Then at 9pm I’ll be on an 18+ panel/writing workshop on How to Write a Sex Scene with Kim Swizz and I.V. Ophelia! The three of us will be giving advice (in graphic detail if necessary) on how to wring every last bit of pleasure from writing sex scenes! Whether you’re trying to keep it as low key as possible or you want to turn up the heat, we have techniques to share!

Fan Expo Boston is held at BCEC (Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, right next to the Westin Seaport.)

THEN, it’s off to Seattle Worldcon!

My Worldcon schedule is spread out over five days and four different venues:

WEDNESDAY 3:00pm to 5:30pm
Writing Sex Scenes Workshop
Room 330, Seattle Worldcon (convention center)
This will be a deep dive into how to write sex scenes really well — but here’s the trick: it’s actually a deep dive into how to write ANY scene really well.

Sex scenes are a building block of fiction, akin to fight scenes, car chases, family arguments, and other set pieces that a plot may require. If you’ve ever wanted to write better sex scenes (or any sex scenes at all, if the whole concept feels intimidating), this class will delve into the craft. I will present tools and techniques for approaching these scenes and making them work for both readers and characters, and how to tailor them to your genre or subgenre. We’ll also discuss pitfalls to avoid and subjects like content warnings.
Advance sign-up is required for workshops and table talks. The details on how to sign up is on the Seattle Worldcon website. Online reg for Wednesday events starts on Sunday, August 10th. Everything else is 24 hours before. In-person signups can also be done in room 236 (Program Ops).

THURSDAY 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Panel: Erotica & Horror: Polar Opposites or Twins Separated at Birth?
At Concurrent in the ACT Theater (across from the Sheraton).
With ML Krishnan (M), Cecilia Tan, Sumiko Saulson​, Diana Pho, Coral Alejandra Moore

Erotica and horror—two genres guaranteed to make certain moms mad when they find the book hidden in your bedroom. Two genres that every other genre has tried (at times) to put down as schlock or trash. Why? What is it about literature that evokes strong visceral physical reactions from the reader that makes people so afraid? (And is “paranormal romance” their love child?)
Admission is free at Concurrent, BUT REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED

THURSDAY 7:00pm to ?
Event: Writers With Drinks! Superstars of Queer Fiction
At Town Hall Seattle (1119 8th Avenue, 2 blocks from the Sheraton)
With Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Becky Chambers, Darcie Little Badger, Andrea Hairston, Cecilia Tan

An evening of queer speculative fiction! Whether you’re a Seattle local or you’re in town for Worldcon, enjoy readings by six authors of queer science fiction and fantasy whose work spans galaxies and realities.
Admission Required: Sliding Scale $10-$35

FRIDAY 1:30 – 2:30
Table Talk
Room 430, Seattle Worldcon (convention center)

This is one of those get-togethers where we can sit around talking somewhat informally in a get-to-know-you setting! Some cons call this a “kaffeelatsch” (but I believe one must bring your own caffeine to this one).
Advanced signup is required (through Worldcon online in advance or at program ops, Room 236 in the convention center).

FRIDAY 8:00 – 8:30
Reading
Room 429, Seattle Worldcon (convention center)

I will be reading from Bound by the Blood, my kinky paranormal thriller, which I’m currently serializing on Patreon, and which will be published in January 2026.
All members of the Worldcon may attend.

FRIDAY 9:00 – 12 midnight
BOOK PARTY
Room #TBA, Sheraton Hotel

Details to be figured out, but I’ll be hosting a book party in my room at the Sheraton. Come by and talk about erotic sf/f just like in the old days? (We just don’t call it a Circlet Press party anymore, now that I don’t own Circlet!) Other authors to be announced!
You don’t have to be staying in the Sheraton to attend the party! (The Sheraton is the official party hotel and there will be other parties going on, too!)

SATURDAY 3:00 – 4:00 pm
AUTOGRAPHS
Garden Lounge (3F), convention center

My “official” autographing at the con. Sally Kobee of Larry Smith Booksellers will have my books in the dealers room, including some copies of the Magic University collectors edition hardcover she picked up from me at Readercon. Visit her before you come by! (It would appear the Dealers Room is on the second floor, and the autographing area is on the third floor…)

And that’s it! See you there!

My Readercon Schedule!

Whew! I’ll be making my Guest of Honor run at Readercon this coming weekend in Burlington, MA! It’s me and P. Djeli Clark in the GoH seats, with legions of super-smart sf/f writers and editors on the program, including Max Gladstone, Rob Cameron, Catherine Lundoff, John Chu, Laura Antoniou, Erin Roberts, Sarah Pinsker, Shariann Lewitt and many many more.

As expected, my schedule will be PACKED. Of note: I added a second autographing slot because of concerns that the first one happens soooo early. I will not have a table selling books: you can get them in the bookshop from Sally at Larry Smith Booksellers and some will also be on the Broad Universe table.

And yes, there will be some copies of the new shiny beautiful Magic University Collectors Edition hardcover. (And if you ordered a copy via Kickstarter, check your email for an update about picking up the book in person if you want to! Or just come to a party!)

FRIDAY
2:00 PM Bisexuals in Science Fiction: Still Hip After All These Years?
3:00 PM Autograph Session #1
4:00 PM Cecilia Tan GOH Reading
7:00 PM Moving from Traditional Publishing to Self-Publishing
9:00 PM Levels of Interiority (in Narrative)

SATURDAY
12:00 Noon The Works of Cecilia Tan (I’m not on this, I’ll just be listening!)
1:00 PM Divination in the Writing Process
4:00 PM Guest of Honor Interview: Cecilia Tan by Charlie Jane Anders
6:00 PM Erotica, Horror, and the Fear of Visceral Fiction
9:00 PM Patrons & Kickstarter Supporters Get-Together

SUNDAY
12:00 PM Noon Beyond the Bio: Weird Jobs & the Worlds They Inspired
1:00 PM Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
2:00 PM Autographing Session #2

See the full descriptions in my personalized schedule on the readercon site.

Some descriptions:

Bisexuals in Science Fiction: Still Hip After All These Years?
with Andrea Hairston (M), Charlie Jane Anders, Vandana Singh, RWW Greene, Cecilia Tan
Bisexuality has been associated with futurism in both the U.S. and U.K. for over a 100 years, with each generation since the 1920s going through a phase where bisexuality was considered the “new, hip” sexual identity—and bis were accused of only doing it to be avant garde. Bi characters have been an SF trope since at least the 1940s, so is bisexuality still “trendy,” or can we finally lay that idea to rest and have representation for its own sake, not to indicate society “moving forward”? Who’s doing that best?

Levels of Interiority
Cecilia Tan, Erin Roberts, Max Gladstone, T.X. Watson, Will McMahon (M)
There’s been a discussion lately about bad books being written so “cinematicallly” that they have no interiority at all, giving the reader no more understanding of character motivations than if they were viewed on a screen. Is it possible to write a good book with no character interiority, such as a deeply withholding first person narrator? How have expected levels of interiority, or ways of signaling interiority, changed over time or across genres? And what stories could be improved by less interiority?

Divination in the Writing Process
Cecilia Tan, Jedediah Berry, Mur Lafferty, Stephanie Feldman (M),Stephanie Wytovich
Tarot, dice, tea leaves—regardless of your feelings about divination in the non-fictional world, they’re always as applicable as you want them to be in worlds you control. How do authors use divination tools or other forms of mysticism to guide or inform their writing practices? What kinds of effects do you get from different methods?

Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
Cecilia Tan, Gillian Daniels (M), Natalie Luhrs, Rob Cameron, William Alexander
“The death of the author” is a well-worn concept about who, author or audience, owns the meaning of an author’s work. Such arguments take on a different valance, however, when the author is not only alive and well but using the funds and power accumulated by their creation as leverage to take extremely public and reactionary political action. When the price of engagement with a work is empowering its living author to publicly abuse others, how can we plausibly claim that the author is dead and our engagement is ours alone?

Disney, my Dad, and the Very Bisexual T-Shirt

So, between Pride being yesterday here in Boston, and Father’s Day being today, I thought I’d tell you a story today of what Being Queer in the Nineties was like, and also (another) story about Dad.

To be clear, being queer in the 1990s was definitely not always a joy. But in this case… well, you’ll see.

When I was in my early 20s, my parents decided to take me and my brother on a cruise vacation. This was exciting for a number of reasons, not least because my parents were awesome to hang out with. It was always fun to spend time with them and my brother, who was then 16 and had at that point gotten into the Grateful Dead. (Jerry Garcia was still alive, then.)

If you’re new here, my Dad was a Chinese-filipino immigrant who came to the States to be a doctor (and send money home to support his 9 younger siblings). Mom, meanwhile, was born in rural upstate New York, spent her teens in Florida, and then moved to NYC after college. Mom was the one who raised my brother and me to be the progressive humanists we are, while Dad often seemed a little bit baffled by “American” attitudes.

Also, it was our first time on a cruise ship.

Everything my brother and I knew about cruises at that point we had learned from watching The Love Boat. We’d spend 4 days on a ship nicknamed “The Big Red Boat,” then 3 days in Disney World. (This was before Disney started their own cruise line.)

We didn’t know that on a cruise ship they feed you 12 times a day. Nor that it would be so much like summer camp, with social activities making you mingle with the other campers, I mean, cruisers. The four of us went to the Welcome Buffet. A couple there were wearing matching T-shirts that said “Ask Me About My Schnauzer.” (Actually I don’t remember which breed of dog was on the shirt, but let’s pretend I did.)

My father was enchanted by this. “What a smart idea! Those people wear a shirt looking for other people who like schnauzers, too! They show who they are. It’s brilliant.” Dad plucked at my brother’s tie-dyed shirt sleeve. “You must meet other Deader Headers when you wear this one!” (sic)

My brother and I agreed it was brilliant, and we were amused that Dad seemed to think wearing T-shirts that declared something about one’s self was a new idea…? As I mentioned, Dad was often a bit out of synch with American culture, but he mostly didn’t sweat it.

Anyway. Fast forward to the Disney part of the vacation. The package deal had us in some hotel off-property and Dad got up early in the morning to play golf somewhere. (Dad was obsessed with golf.) My brother and I were sharing a room. After sleeping in a bit, we got dressed to go out for breakfast with my mother.

I put on a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it, with the overlapping pink-purple-blue triangle on it…

“Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt,” my brother said.

The shirt. I had all my pride and kink event T-shirts made into a quilt last year.

“Why?” I replied. “Doesn’t he know?” My brother shrugged.

My freshman year at college, I had come out as bi to my mother very explicitly because Mom was the parent we actually TALKED to. But we expected Dad to pick stuff up by osmosis, I guess…? He was really not a talker.

Mom also took one look at me and said, “Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt.” I again replied, “Why? Doesn’t he know?” She also shrugged, and slightly changed the subject. “Do you think it’s a good idea to wear that to breakfast?”

“Mom, homophobic gangs are not roaming the IHOP at 10 in the morning.”

Well, point of fact, there was a non-zero chance we might run into some homophobic attitudes, but I wasn’t actively concerned for our safety. And I was confident my family would quickly be convinced it was a good idea to wear it. Because that T-shirt was like a “cheat code” to get a top-notch Disney experience.

At the time, the Disney corporation was not openly supportive of LGBTQ rights. A few years earlier (1991), self-organizing park-goers had started having unofficial “Gay Days” in Orlando and Anaheim, but Disney didn’t have an official “Pride Nite” until 2023 (if you’re counting, that’s 32 years later). At the time of our story, 1993, no one at Disney was officially “out,” but many many MANY queerfolk worked there.

To quote a friend who had worked at the Magic Kingdom: “Every ‘theater gay’ in Florida ends up working for The Mouse.” The word was, wear your rainbow rings or other Pride-related festoonments. Okay, granted, rainbow rings would have been more subtle. I had chosen a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it in large letters. I was not subtle. Maybe it would backfire.

But especially after the whole speech Dad gave about how brilliant an idea it was to wear T-shirts so you could find people like you? It seemed the perfect time to wear it.

Now, one of the things that is magical about Disney is they work so damn hard to make you—yes, you—feel like you are special, like everything is being done especially for you. Which is amazing considering that they create that experience for 48 million people a year in Orlando alone.

But my experience of going as a “marked queer” in 1993? Unmatched. Cheat code unlocked. We would be in line for a restaurant with an hour-long wait. And then a cast member would waltz up to us and beckon us over… and tell me a table for 4 had magically appeared for us.

Magically, I tell you.

Or we would be lining up to see a parade. And a cast member would sidle over and say, hey, are you interested in a better view? And take us to a roped off area.

This happened over and over that day.

Eventually my brother was like, “this is because of your shirt, isn’t it?” Yep. It was solidarity, it was fraternity. Because taking care of each other was the only way for queerfolk to make up for the times in life when we got treated worse.

Dad never did have that conniption, by the way.

He never said a word. But as I mentioned, Dad was not a talker. It’s possible he was oblivious and missed the whole thing. But Dad could also pretend to be oblivious when he felt nothing needed to be said. Maybe we didn’t give him enough credit? Years later he would tell me he was fine with it. At the time, we just let it ride.

I do not miss the days when queers had to operate in stealth to make each other’s lives better. What I know is if the right wing worldwide rolls back what rights we’ve clawed for ourselves, we will always be in the business of taking care of each other.

Happy Pride everyone, and take care of each other out there.

“A magic school book, but make it queer”

Here’s what’s keeping me super-busy this month… Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Magic University hit the (digital) shelves?

It feels like a different era of history. In 2010, Obama was president, the Kindle was still a newfangled thing, and Twitter still felt niche (at 40 million users). And the final Harry Potter book had come out only 3 years earlier, and the final movie was still to come…!

At the time I didn’t know that writing a trans-inclusive magic school book was going to become such a political statement. I mostly wanted to write a magic school series where we knew up front lots of the characters were queer and that would actually pay off a rivals-to-lovers trope/plot line. I wanted to write original fic that my fanfic-loving friends would love to read.

I didn’t include a trans mentor for my hero to spite J.K. Rowling. At the time she hadn’t yet voiced her anti-trans views. I included trans characters because trans people exist.

I also include some characters who change gender magically. While I wouldn’t call that “spite,” it did always feel like a missed opportunity to me (and many fanfic writers) that none of the many ways a wizard could change gender in the Harry Potter books (Polyjuice, animorphmagus, etc) are ever explored.

But here we are, in 2025, with JKR leading a brigade of anti-trans voices in the UK, and the USA devolving fast into a book-banning fascist nation trying to legislate trans people out of existence.

It’s why now seems the right time for me to produce a hardcover omnibus edition of Magic University. So I’m running a Kickstarter to do just that.

I launched last week and it took off like a rocket! The more people who back it, the fancier I can make the hardcover edition, too, so if I can nerd out about books for a minute: it’s already slated to have a really nifty fore-edge design on the pages, a Wibalin buckram binding, and a foil-stamped or debossed title on the cover. If the campaign continues to do well, well reach the custom designed endpapers goal next, and at $10,000 we can add a ribbon bookmark! (I really really want to get to the ribbon bookmark…!)

The link, if you want to read more about it or become a backer:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ceciliatan/magic-university-collectors-edition-hardcover-omnibus?ref=depv7q

(Mock-ups of the hardcover design and such below the cut…)

Artwork and design by Painted Wings Publishing

I got one sample hardcover, without any of the fancy bits, printed just as proof of concept and it’s massive! 700 pages! As soon as I’m done proofreading it, I’ll get a sample WITH all the fancy bits made up.

The campaign is lated to close right after my birthday, on April 11. Many thanks if you are jumping in to support! You are supporting the efforts of me, an independent author, and I really appreciate it!

Link to: Kickstarter.

Arisia 2025 and Capricon 45 Schedules

I can hardly believe 2025 is already here, which means we are only a few weeks away from Arisia, the “big tent” science fiction/fantasy fan convention in Boston. Well, this year in Cambridge! And in early February I’ll be in Chicago for Capricon, as well.

Arisia has relocated from their longtime home on the Boston waterfront to a hotel on the Charles River, the Cambridge Hyatt Regency (sometimes nicknamed “the ziggurat”). The author Guest of Honor is Moniquill Blackgoose, and if I haven’t already gushed at you to read her book To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, consider this your exhortation to do so (buy it at Bookshop or Amazon or your local bookstore).

It’s basically… what if there was an anti-colonialist, feminist “magic school” book but with dragons?

The worldbuilding is so great, and the characters are sharp, and smart, and caring. I’ve been beating this book’s drum for a while, partly because I published some books of hers back in the day with Circlet Press, but also because it’s so damn good. Awards seem to agree: I’ve lost track of all the ones it has won, but they include the Nebula and the Lodestar, and it made the Locus Awards, BFAs, and Astounding finalist lists.

The new Arisia hotel is smaller, and VERY close to my house, so I decided not to get a room this year and let folks coming from farther away have the rooms. This means I’m not throwing a party this year (unless someone with a party suite wants to lend it to me for a tea party on Saturday afternoon?)

Here’s my schedule of panels, as well. As of right now, it does not appear that I’ll be doing a Friday night erotica reading. (I’ll make up for it at Readercon this summer, where I’ll be GoH.)

Saturday 8pm Invented Languages

Anne E.G. Nydam, Cecilia Tan (moderator), James Willis, Rob Cameron, Sarena Straus

Time for me to put that undergrad degree to good use! From the website: “Snippets of invented languages add depth and interest to speculative fiction, but when is it too much of a good thing? Get tips about language creation with results that even an expert would believe.”

Sunday 3pm Publication: Sorting out the Confusion

Cecilia Tan (moderator), K. H. Vaughan, Meredith Schwartz, Rachel A. Brune, Rebecca Matte

Yeah, I don’t know if the confusion that is book publishing can ever truly be “sorted out,” but at least we’ll have some actionable advice for writers and aspiring authors. “In a publishing environment that’s rapidly changing, get up-to-date guidance on getting your work into readers’ hands.”

Sunday 8pm What About Elevenses?

Cecilia Tan, Clara Ward, Greer Gilman, Rachel L Silber (moderator), Rebecca Fraimow

And a panel on food! Hm, I wonder if I still have any of those butterbeer recipe cards sitting around… “From George RR Martin’s many memorable meals to the periodic mention of crottled greep, works of SFF have often brought readers to a very different table. What are some of the most significant and appetizing meals described in speculative literature? Panelists will address the role of food in SFF as well as mentioning their own favorite recipes.”

Then, on the weekend of February 6-9 I’ll be in Chicago for Capricon 45. Capricon, like most cons, is still trying to regain its footing post-COVID. I’m offering my one-hour workshop on Kickstarter, so if you’ve been thinking about doing a crowdfund, come pick my brain!

Queer Eye for Sci-FiStreeterville • Fan Interest • Panel • Fri 1:00 PM–2:00 PM“Queer Eye for Sci-Fi returns! There is a long and complex history of queerness in fiction, from queer-coded villains in pulp novels to the more diverse spectrum of characterization in the last decade or so. Join panelists as they discuss the recent state of genre queerness.”Kickstarter for Authors and Small PressesColumbus • Writing • Single Speaker/Lecture • Fri 7:00 PM–8:00 PM“Cecilia Tan offers guidance for publishing via Kickstarter. Learn about pros and cons, pitfalls, best practices, and Kickstarter’s latest tools so you can have a successful and profitable campaign.”Reading: Cecilia Tan (18+)Bridgeport • Reading • Reading • Fri 8:30 PM–9:00 PM“Cecilia Tan reads something very, very sexy.”Writing FanFiction as a Professional WriterColumbus • Writing • Panel • Sat 11:30 AM–12:30 PM“What is the difference between fanfiction and writing for profit? Can you bring readers from one to the other, or should you keep your identity secret? How do you balance your ideas and writing time?”Professional Organizations for WritersColumbus • Writing • Panel • Sun 11:30 AM–12:30 PM“Let’s talk about professional organizations out there that support writers, such as the Speculative Literature Foundation, SFWA, and even Writers Guild of America (for film and television). How are they like and unlike traditional unions, and what kind of support do they offer professionals in the field?”

Cranberry Nut Bread “Fruitcake” Recipe

So I’m blogging this recipe so I don’t forget all the changes I made to this recipe, because there were enough of them that it was significant, and yet the overall vibe of the result was the same, I think?

Jane Friedman had linked to the King Arthur “Orange-Cranberry Fruitcake” recipe in one of her publishing newsletters, saying it was basically a great fruitcake-like thing that wasn’t TOO fruitcakey. I decided to try making a variation when I saw we still had half a package of gourmet candied citron peel leftover from last Christmas’s panettone baking that really ought to get used up.

First, here’s the link to the original recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/orange-cranberry-nut-fruitcake-recipe

Here are the changes I made in the ingredients:

Ingredients

Fruit

1/2 cup (57g) dried cranberries, or orange-flavored dried cranberries 1 cup (120g) King Arthur Fruitcake Fruit Blend or dried apricots, chopped 1/2 cup (113g) water, cranberry juice, or brandy 1 3/4 cups (283g) candied red cherries

Cake

8 tablespoons (113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, at least 65°F1 cup (198g) granulated sugar1 teaspoon baking powder1/2 teaspoon table salt1/8 teaspoon orange oil, King Arthur Fiori di Sicilia, or 1/2 teaspoon King Arthur Pure Vanilla Extract (just go with Fior di Sicilia for that old-world hoiday baking vibe! It’s the stuff in panetonne and some other traditional treats.)2 large eggs, at room temperature1 3/4 cups (210g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour1/2 cup (113g) orange juice 1 cup (113g) pecans or walnuts, optional* 2/3 cup (133g) candied red cherries 1/3 cup (57g) King Arthur Orange Jammy Bits

Soak

2 tablespoons (28g) orange juice 2 tablespoons (25g) granulated sugar

Icing 

1/2 cup (57g) confectioners’ sugar milk, water, or orange juice, enough to make a thick but pourable icing

Preheat the oven to 325 and lightly grease a loaf pan. I used the silicone baking dish shaped like a rose (from Berghoff) and it made for nice ridges and crannies on top to hold the light drizzle of icing.

Put all the dried fruit listed in the fruit section above into the brandy, microwave it for about a minute and let it sit. The recipe called for a somewhat larger volume of fruit, but I found this seemed like the right amount, because any more and half of it wouldn’t have been able to soak in the brandy. As it was, after the initial nuking, I needed to mix it up and tamp it down to get it all in the liquid. Then I put it back in for another 30 seconds. Then I let it sit while I toasted the pecans and did the other prep.

On the cake dough itself, cream the butter and sugar in the KitchenAid stand mixer until it’s light-colored and fluffy. (I’m not sure mine ever got to what I’d call fully fluffy. The weather needs to be warmer for that.) Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl, and then incorporate/beat in the flour and pineapple juice in three alternating batches. Once that was uniform, I folded in the soaked fruit and added the spoonfuls of fig jam.

As I mention above, next time I will probably mix the fig jam (or whatever jam, marmalade would be good, too!) in better. This would also be a great time for some fresh-grated lemon or orange zest and/or some fresh grated nutmeg. Fresh-grated whole nutmeg is like a completely different spice from the pre-ground stuff!

It took the whole 90 minutes to bake in the one big pan. Let it sit 10 minutes before unmolding onto a cooling rack. The recipe calls for nuking the soaking liquid and sugar for 45 seconds to dissolve the sugar, and then brushing it onto the still-hot cake until it’s all soaked in. The result didn’t feel wet to me at all, it just soaks in nicely and feels like a moist cake as a result.

Once it was cool, I wrapped it up overnight, and didn’t ice it until the next day, right before the party.

corwin complained that some pieces were not structural, and I would blame the blobs of fig and also maybe some of the large cherries for that. The one change I might try for next time is chopping the larger dried fruits into smaller pieces, as well as the pecans, which would make it more sliceable.

Overall, this cake really satisfied my holiday craving for a citrusy dried-fruit baked good, and I think it was probably a lot better with the citron peel than the candied cherries. If you wanted to spice it with nutmeg-cinnamon-etc I think that would be delicious, too, but it wasn’t really necessary. (Maybe try the soak with spiced rum instead of brandy? That sounds like an experiment worth trying, too.)

My impression is that this is a very forgiving recipe and that there’s a pretty wide variation in the amount of fruit you can use and how it’s flavored in the end. A++++ Will bake again.

UPDATE: Adding a link to the thread of photos on Bluesky since the embeds seem to not be working on crossposts: https://bsky.app/profile/ceciliatan.bsky.social/post/3lel4udzp6x2j

 

(Before it was iced…)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer)

Writing and career news

Finally getting around to posting this update. I’ve been so busy with so much writing-related stuff, but not much actual writing… !

The biggest writing news this month is that I finally launched the Vanished Chronicles via Patreon. That’s right, after nearly 10 years of hearing me talk about it, and after the whole saga of Tor Books putting me through endless delays and reversals (and in the end having to give me the rights back…) you can finally start to READ the dang thing.

I’m so pleased with how it reads now. I was worried that I wouldn’t like it anymore, but I really love the characters and the story, there’s so much great going on in it… and it’s only gotten more relevant, not less, with time.

What was once entitled “Initiates of the Blood” is now “Bound by the Blood,” it’s book one, and the first two posts are up (the prologue and chapter one). New chapters appear every Friday. Here: https://www.patreon.com/collection/886649?view=condensed

If you’re not already a paying patron, you can also read chapter one for FREE over on my blog: https://www.ceciliatan.com/archives/4849

I know one post per week is going to feel slow to some folks… especially since this is romantic suspense, with a lot of cliffhangers. So I have pledged that if the patreon monthly pledge amount climbs to $500 a month, I’ll double the number of chapters per week to two. So if you’re intrigued, want more, and want to jump on the bandwagon, you can join the patreon for as little as $2 a month. (You can also “follow” for free, but patreon doesn’t let us show any of the naughty bits — they have to go behind the paywall.)

I’ll also give patrons some chances to “earn” an extra post sometimes, because I’m generous like that. 🙂

DGC VOLS 1-10 ARE IN KU

Another month, another new edition! And book 11 is going through a final proofread before I upload that one, but it’s imminent. Cover art is also done for books 11 and 12, and sketches have been approved for the 13th and final book. Just waiting on the final art to come in! Can’t believe this massive project of re-releasing and re-doing will finally be finished!

Book 11 will be the first one that never had a book edition of any kind before, not even an ebook. So I’m eager to get that one out. Another couple of weeks.

WIP Report

Confession time: I have not written a single new word of fiction since election night.

The dragon book is looming in the background, waiting for me to get my braincells back together enough to get back to it. I discovered a few days after the election that I’m B12 deficient, so that might also explain the recent lack of energy. And here I was, blaming politics?

Politics is still awful, but it’s especially difficult to face pronouncements like Project 2025 which (as I ranted about last month) literally states that anyone who creates or distributes “pornography” should be jailed. Pornography by their definition includes not only explicit erotica, but anything that includes queer or trans characters, gay relationships, or poly relationships (for example). And guess what I write? All of the above.

As I may have mentioned, I’m waiting to see if Patreon will hold the line if new anti-porn measures are enacted, and whether I’ll literally have to leave the country if they’re serious about jailing pornographers. It’s a little challenging to face into those headwinds and make any progress.

But I will be trying to re-establish my writing rhythm next week. Now that I have finished physical therapy for my knee, I should turn that into writing time, right? Instead of having to haul my ass to the PT gym, I’ll just haul my laptop into my lap without even getting out of bed, and try to put down a thousand words before I even put socks on.

Also, now that most of the production work on the DGC relaunch and the serial set-up are done. I do need to remind myself that those things were taking up the same creative hours that I would have spent on Windmark.

Dragons, I’ll get back to you shortly!

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

2025:

January 17-20: Arisia, Cambridge, MA (new hotel: Hyatt Cambridge)January 30, 8pm “How to Write a Sex Scene” Class: online for Passionate InkFebruary 2, 2-4pm: Lovestruck Books, Cambridge, MAFebruary 6-9: Capricon, Chicago, ILMarch 19-23: ICFA, Orlando, FLJune 2025: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Pride Release Tour (details TBA)June 25-29: SABR 54 in Dallas, TXJuly 17-20: Readercon, Burlington, MA (Guest of Honor)August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WASeptember 25: Writing Bisexual Erotica: online for Passionate Ink

NOTE: ICFA and Capricon are back on the 2025 schedule!

Also: the new romance bookstore in Harvard Square will be opening soon! Lovestruck Books has been building out a gorgeous space where Church St. intersects Brattle St. They’d been hoping to have an event with me and some other local writers in mid-December, but the construction isn’t quite done yet. So we’re looking to reschedule to February 2. Check their website for updates! More About Readercon

As I mentioned on social media and in newsletter, I’ll be a Guest of Honor at Readercon this year. July 17-20 in the Boston area. They’re taking panel suggestions until the end of December (https://readercon.org/contribute) and they’re collecting written appreciations (or roasts…) of the guests of honor now. Let them know if you would like to write one (250 to 1,000 words) by January 1st, and you have until March 31 to deliver it!

Let’s End with a Book Recommendation

I get sent a lot of books to “blurb.” Publishers and authors really rely on the testimonials of praise from other authors to say things about a book they can’t say themselves. After all, if the publisher just prints “This book is effin great, just buy it,” on the back cover, the reader is going to think well, sure you would say that, you’re the publisher.

But if they see a quote from an author they like saying “No really, this is great!” it carries a lot more weight.

Usually the art of crafting a blurb means you have to come up with a way to say “this is great” that is unique and punchy and clever. You want to say something truthful and specific, but not give away spoilers. Doing blurbs also means getting a sneak peek at not-yet-published books.

But a lot of the time I don’t actually have time to give a blurb. I want to actually read the book, you know?

Well, I got sent a book to blurb recently and I’m now at something of a loss for what to say because what I think is “THIS BOOK IS EFFIN GREAT, JUST BUY IT.”

The book is Lee Mandelo’s latest anthology, AMPLITUDES: STORIES OF QUEER AND TRANS FUTURITY and it it just packed with awesome. I haven’t even read every story in the book, yet, because now that I tore through about half of them I’ve been slowing down to savor them.

There are 22 stories in the book, nearly 100K words, and my intention when I sat down to give a blurb was to cherry-pick the stories by authors I know (Sam J. Miller, Meg Elison, Sunny Moraine and others …) but I found myself just starting at the beginning and then being unable to put it down.

These stories are science fiction so sharp you could cut yourself. The strength of the collection showcases not only what a terrific editor and anthologist Lee is, but how much trans, queer, and nonbinary talent there is in the genre, and what vital stories these voices bring. There’s a LOT of resistance and revolution and joy in this book, and seems like we’re going to need it.

I know it’s a bit unfair to tell you how great a book is when it’s not even going to be published for months, but you can pre-order it (Amazon, Bookshop).

Okay, that’s enough of my blather. Next newsletter we’ll be in 2025. I’m sure there’ll be things to say about it then.

Until then, take care, if you have loved ones in reach, hug em, and I’ll see ya in the new year.

-ctan