Hey awesome,

Happy May. Is it me, or has time gone extra wibbly wobbly? I swear some months are stretching well beyond their prescribed allotment, but then also somehow it's May? The year is barreling by.

Bright side, I'm making progress against deadlines, but whewww. Flowers aren't the only thing going rampant around here. Feels like everytime I pass something in, I still somehow have the same amount of work to do.

This is a good problem to have, to be fair. It's just...sometimes I also just want to curl up in a ball and watch tv. What's on your must-watch list right now? We recently finished Halo and are slowly making our way through Dead Boy Detectives (when I've been good and hit my word counts), and my to-be-watched list is nowhere close to my TBR pile, so clearly I need more suggestions!

As I write/read/watch my way into summer, there have been plenty of other fun things going on and coming up.

Over the last few months, I hung out with the folks at Continual for super fun chats about Storm and then our Picks and Pans of 2023, and just yesterday I joined Todd Fahnestock to talk about The Writing Dream: Then & Now, which is always an awesome time.

Coming up I have two exciting cons - this month I'll be on some really cool virtual panels for Balticon (May 24-27) on Saturday and Sunday:

• Sat 10:00 AM: Blurring of Genre Borders             
• Sat 4:00 PM: Collaborating in a Shared Universe        
• Sun 11:30 AM: Creating a Convincing Military          
• Sun 5:30 PM: Taking Off the Training Wheels: Fanfic to Original Fic

In June it'll be time for LibertyCon (yay!), and I'll share more as we get closer. Any cons on your schedule this summer?

I have now and later news for books, too! Right now, the fabulous William Alan Webb has The Trashman (book 1 of Hit World!) absolutely free! Perfect timing for the re-release of The Valkyries Initiative later this week (May 17th, available now for pre-order)! Also The Spider is out and about, setting the stage for the mayhem the ladies are about to kick off...

Also for this weekend's awesomeness, how about some MORE fantastic and snarky urban fantasy?

The fabulous Riley Rose is releasing the first 4 episodes of The Adventures of Elena and Ned, Gargoyle P.I. on Kindle Vella this Friday May 17th. I read one of these stories in the fabulous anthology Tales of Monstrosity, and can't wait to dig into more in a few days. The link won't go live until Friday, but if you follow on the page linked above, or search for the title (or ASIN: B0CW18M6RJ), it should be easy to find! And if you want to know more:

The Adventures of Elena and Ned, Gargoyle P.I. is a humorous urban fantasy about an irreverent human and grumpy gargoyle who are partners in a detective agency and have to solve zany cases involving cute anime collectibles, monster dance competitions, and missing cat food!

I mean, this is my jam, and Jeff definitely tells a good story. Check it out this weekend and let me know what you think!

And now to get back to work, because that tv isn't going to watch itself...and, uh, those deadlines aren't going to meet themselves either.

Til next time,

Marisa