Writers With Drinks

10/22/2024

I did the thing!

10/15/2024

"Please be a book hipster! And by that I mean: Please go out of your way to hunt down the books that hardly anyone else is talking about, the gems that have been passed over in favor of the handful of books that usually get celebrated."

My latest newsletter:

This is a free newsletter! If you would like to support me — and give your future self a gift of a lovely read — please do pre-order my upcoming adult novel...

10/06/2024

Just a reminder that I have a free weekly newsletter. Every week I write an essay (or rant) about pop culture, writing, politics or my own personal life. I've interviewed climate scientists *and* the stars of my fav Brazilian TV show. It's more interesting than whatever Matthew Yglesias is rambling about, I swear.

Please subscribe!

We're dancing because we're happy. Or we're dancing in order to become happy. Or we're happy that we can dance. One of those.

10/03/2024

Diego Gomez ( on Insta) is one of my favorite artists in San Francisco. This q***r Mexican-American artist creates incredible street art and flamboyant q***r superheroes (including some lovely X-Men fan art).

He was assaulted and is in the ICU. Please help if you can!

**Help Diego Gomez Recover from Assault** Today is Deigo's birthday (Oct. 2… Lauri Green needs your support for Join Us in Uplifting Diego in His Recovery

09/29/2024

Just a reminder: I have a free newsletter, where I write about pop culture, politics, writing, personal stuff, etc.

Recent topics include:
why genres exist
why we mistreat unhoused people
a Brazilian time-travel show I love
Batman
how to write "conflict" in fiction
my breasts
Doctor Who

We're dancing because we're happy. Or we're dancing in order to become happy. Or we're happy that we can dance. One of those.

09/26/2024

If you see me out and about, you can totally get one of these stickers for my upcoming novel Lessons in Magic and Disaster.

It's about a young witch who teaches her heartbroken mother how to do magic. It's full of q***r joy, tenderness, grief, trauma and forgiveness.

Pre-order link: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250867322/lessonsinmagicanddisaster

09/19/2024

Here are some pics from past bookstore and chocolate crawls! It's a lovely time where we swarm into bookstores, buy all the books we can carry, and then move on to the next store, sustaining ourselves with chocolate. Hope you can join us on Saturday!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1717659768978960/

09/17/2024

"Nobody read The Hunger Games and thought, 'I need to read more books about a teenage girl who fights with a bow and arrow and eventually wears a pin with a bird on it.' Nobody even came away craving more teen death sports. What many people who loved that book wanted — myself very much included — was more of that feeling we got from it."

My latest newsletter is about where genres come from:

We spend a lot of time discussing how genres work, where to draw the lines between genres, and which tropes and motifs are essential to a particular genre....

09/03/2024

"Communities are a crucial part of futurism. And futurism needs to center communities."

My latest newsletter is about one essential reason why community gives me hope: communities create their own consensus reality, which can change the world.

A week or so ago, I was the closing speaker at the final XOXO Fest in Portland, which was a huge honor. I was asked to come talk about reasons to have hope...

08/21/2024

I love literary fiction! Reading lit fic has made me much better at writing science fiction and fantasy, and I highly recommend everyone read some. So here are ten (mostly) realist literary books that had a huge influence on me...

https://buttondown.com/charliejane/archive/10-literary-books-that-made-me-a-better-science/

My latest newsletter! Huzzah!

I love literary fiction, whether it’s grand pomo experiments or a totally grounded personal stories about one family. I’ve been reading literary writing my...

08/13/2024

Why do I go to conventions? They're a special weird community in a bubble and I love the conversations. They're also important professional spaces! My latest newsletter....

While I was at Worldcon last weekend, Emily Wilson (writer for New Scientist and author of the Sumerians trilogy) asked me why I go to conventions. This...

08/06/2024

"Here is a story that contains plenty of conflict: 'I was hungry. I really wanted a sandwich. So I got up and went to the fridge and made a sandwich.'"

My newsletter this week is about another way to think about "stakes" and "conflict" in fiction writing.

Last week, I was an instructor at the Lambda Literary Workshop, and it was an utter privilege to get to work with some brilliant writers whose bravely...