Lyssa Chiavari's Blog

I had a very weird experience recently. I saw a call from an organizer for a friendship-centric book bundle. This seemed ideal for me, because if you���ve read the Iamos Trilogy, you���ll know that friendship is one of the core themes. For Isaak, Henry, and Tamara, much of their character arcs in Different Worlds and New World focus on things like the struggles of maintaining friendships when your world is falling apart; questions like can a friend group remain friends when the ���anchor friend�...

It seems incredible to believe, but ten years ago today, my debut novel, Fourth World, was published! Over the last ten years, I have: Published the entire Iamos Trilogy (three novels, a novella, and several short stories) Published four additional novels under two pen names Edited two anthologies Contributed stories to six other anthologies When I put it that way, I’m actually surprised I’ve managed to do so much! When my health problems flare up, it feels like I do a whole lot of nothing, but ...

Back in November 2023, I fell down a rabbit hole and wound up doing a ton of research about Jim Theis, author of The Eye of Argon. I collected all that research in a 42-post Mastodon thread. Earlier today, I started thinking about this, and in a moment of clarity, I said, “What is wrong with you?? You did all that research and you put it on��social media? What happens if it goes down? All that research is gone!” This was truly a dumb move on my part, and what makes it even dumber is that I wrote...

As you may recall, back in 2023 I dipped my toes back into social media after several years away. You can read all my thoughts about the first ten months of that experiment here. We’re now out 18 months from that last post, and things have continued to evolve. While I still love Mastodon every bit as much as I did when I made that post, and while I really support everything that the Fediverse stands for, unfortunately, almost everyone I’d had such a great connection with on that platform fled as...

December 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of my debut novel, Fourth World! It’s incredible to believe that it’s been out in the world for a whole decade already! To commemorate the occasion, today I’m revealing all-new covers for the entire series. While I still love the original covers���especially since the custom photography allowed readers to really see Isaak and Nadin as real people!���after ten years, it’s time for a change. So I’m excited to share these all-new covers f...

For the majority of my author career, my books have been published widely. This means that my ebooks are available at many (most?) online retailers, including Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Google Play, Smashwords, etc., etc., and of course Amazon. The alternative to books being wide is having them enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, which requires that your titles be exclusive to Amazon. Up to this point, that’s not a prospect that I’ve really been wild about. I��like the idea of having my book...

After spending a��lot of time working on this, I’m so excited to finally be announcing a new project!��This is a book that I started on back in 2017, have shelved multiple times, yet has continued to niggle away at my brain, refusing to let me abandon it completely. After finishing One World and taking a bit of a writing sabbatical, when I finally felt ready to start writing again, this was the story that insisted on being told. And now I can finally reveal that my next book, Just Like the First...

There’s been some discourse on social media about the use of italics for non-English words when writing fiction. If you’ve read the Iamos Trilogy, you’ll know that I use italics for non-English words and phrases, primarily words in the Iamoi language. So I wanted to address the subject in a bit longer form than what social media allows for. The primary argument against italicizing non-English words is that italicizing centers English as the “default” language and white western culture as the “de...

You may recall that several years ago I nuked most of my social media accounts. With the exception of Facebook, which my lovely assistant updates for me, and Instagram, I was Officially Offline. But last April, in anticipation of the release of One World in Fall 2023, I decided to dip my toe back into social media. Now that we’re about 10 months out, I thought I’d share the results of that experiment. What Didn’t Work So, the elephant (bird?) in the room: Twitter. Dear God, Twitter. So, you all ...

Just a quick note today to let you all know that I am now selling direct. What does that mean? It means if you’re interested in getting your ebooks OR print books directly from me and cutting out the middle man, you’re in luck! eBooks I’ve partnered with Lemon Squeezy to bring you all my ebooks DRM-free. Supporting your favorite authors by buying direct means the authors get the largest cut possible without having to share a portion of their royalties with retailers and distributors. It also giv...