Hey awesome,

How's April going for you? I'm continuing my quest for moments of joy, including getting to surprise the wonderful Jeremy T. with a free audiobook of Beyond Enemies from the last newsletter. Always makes my day to get to hopefully make someone else's day! Plus, it's spring here, and the flowers survived a last (???) snowstorm so it actually feels like spring.

Of course I'm immediately leaving the perfect 60s weather to go to 90 degrees in Durham, NC, but also I'll get to see lots of my favorite people so I'll suck it up.

Because I'm off to Fantasci! Will I see you there? Kevin J. Anderson is the Guest of Honor, and allll the special guests are equally fabulous, so it's bound to be a great time. I will most often be found hanging out in the lobby/bar area chatting, except for Saturday, during which I will be in the only sort of marathon you can usually find me in: being a nerd doing nerdery on awesome panels. Big shoutout to my fantastic author friend, H.Y. Gregor, who made that wonderful graphic for me.

Speaking of Fantasci, there will be a big release there for Paladins of Valor, which is chock full of fantabulous authors and their wonderful stories (including the aforementioned H.Y. Gregor!):

Of course you don't have to be there to get your own copy - and I hope you check it out! So many good stories, and I've been in a very fantasy-flavored state of mind lately, for Reasons.

Reasons I hope I can tell you in the next newsletter, but in the meantime I'll continue reading awesome stories and books and dream of dragons... Ok, and scifi, because I am who I am. Also I read this super interesting article about how reading science fiction in school can be really helpful for preparing students for the future, which... I mean. Yeah.

That's basically two of my top passions - better education for kids and SFF, wrapped into one. The article also touches on exactly why I roll my eyes real, real visibly anytime someone downplays the power of genre fiction - if you ever see me in person, and are in the mood to see an enraged recovering English Major, feel free to ask my thoughts on Literary Fiction Snobs.

But for now, I should get back to work. Those mysterious deadlines won't complete themselves!

Til next time,

Marisa