Jamie Lackey's Blog

My short story, “The Immobile God of Secrets” is now available from Cast of Wonders! It’s always super neat to have a story podcasted, and they did such a good job with this one.

You can also find my story “For a Song” at The Colored Lens.

The Blood of Four Gods and Other Stories is available in both print and ebook editions! If you like print books, this one turned out absolutely beautiful. My amazing friend Betsy Bodamer did the cover art, and my publisher did an amazing job with the layout and design.

I’ve been doing a lot of work the past few weeks to promote my short story collection (and my other books, too, of course). I’ve done two readings here in Pittsburgh for The Blood of Four Gods and Other Stories. I promoted Left-Hand Gods at the Baltimore Book Fest. I even went to a local grocery store for their Local Author Festival to try to get myself out there.

My short story collection, “The Blood of Four Gods and Other Stories” is available to preorder from Air and Nothingness Press. You can also find it on Goodreads!

Journey into a world of myth and magic, of mystery and monsters. Within these pages, you’ll find: Mayan gods stalking through the cloud forest and lurking in the underworld; steam-powered golems patrolling crowded city streets; fox and fish spirits struggling with love and loss; a dragon doling out justice; a metal snake scheming for worship, and more. Jamie Lackey’s debut collection contains fourteen short stories, including two never-before-seen tales, set in fantasy worlds inspired by Asian, Native American, and African myth and history.

It includes:

River Dragon’s Curse

Beyond the Reach of Moonlight

The Steam Lord’s Autumn Ruby

Rekindled Dreams

Fox-Woman

The Blood of Four Gods

The Place of Fear

The Sour Thread of Doubt

Citali’s Song

Quetzalcoatl’s Conquistador

The Balance Between Strength and Wisdom

Jealous Idols

Of Dreaming and Destiny

The Value of Weakness

I’m so happy with how well this collection has come together. It is going to be such a beautiful book. The cover, by my wonderful friend Betsy Bodamer, is such a perfect fit for the voice and tone that I’m going for in this collection.

If you’re interested, make sure you preorder! The book will be out on September 1st!

You can read “Fox-Woman” at The Colored Lens and “Controlling the Storm” at The WiFiles

My short story “The Family Ghost” is available to read for free from Daily Science Fiction!

I just found out that I got second place in the most recent Story Quest Short Story Contest! My story “Of Dreaming and Destiny” will be available in a future issue of SQ Magazine.

My story “Perfection is Not Required” is now available!

My story “Fox-Woman” is available in the latest issue of The Colored Lens!

This has been a hard year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I wish I could say that I’m an exception, but that would not be strictly honest. Still, I’m trying to focus on the positives.

I published Moving Forward: A Novella of Life After Zombies in March. It’s received some good reviews.

Left-Hand Gods came out in July, about a week after it was scheduled to. I don’t want to get into all of the issues and things that went on, but let’s just say that in this case, the reality of having a novel published doesn’t really live up to all of the hopes that I’d pinned on it for most of my life.

It’s been discouraging.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been good things–I do love the cover, and it’s received positive reviews and support from lots of people. I’m proud of the book that I wrote. I just wish… well, what I wish doesn’t really matter, now.

I had eight short stories published and ten accepted this year. I sent out 151 submissions. I did not write as much as I should have.

I edited Triangulation: Beneath the Surface. It was my last year working on Triangulation, and overall I’m happy with how it turned out. I should have done more to promote it, but it was coming out at the same time as my novel, and I got Lyme disease this summer on top of all of that, so I ended up dropping a few balls.

I went to WorldCon, which really underscored just how not great I am at networking and everything that goes along with it. It’s something that I know that I need to be better at. But I hate it. I hate it so much. I know I need to get over that and get better at it, but it’s a struggle.

I did get Lasik done this year, and that has been pretty great. It’s weird just how quickly I got used to not having to wear glasses after wearing them for so long.

My cat and my husband are both healthy. Paul’s game, It’s Element-ary! was nominated for an ENnie Award this year, which was pretty awesome.

Things at my day job are rolling along. I finally got a promotion this year, which has been pretty great. I got my massage license renewed without any issues. I’m still enjoying owning a house.

2016 hasn’t been great, and I’m not sad to see it go. But overall, life isn’t bad, and the only thing to do is keep moving forward.

I will be reading selections from Left-Hand Gods and Moving Forward at 5PM on Saturday October 8th at Rickert and Beagle Books! Copies will be available for purchase, and I’ll also be more than happy to sign copies! I’m also planning on bringing cookies. You can check out more details about the reading here!

I’m also doing a Goodreads Giveaway for two copies of Left-Hand Gods!

The Colored Lens is one of my favorite magazines, and they have an author interview with me in their Summer 2016 issue. You should totally check them out–you won’t regret it.