#career update

[misty-missdee]

yappin

[scifimagpie]

Hi, everyone. Here's what comes next.

Happy Friday. I was born on a Friday, and I’m thinking it might be a very good publishing day. What do you think? When do you usually read your newsletters and emails? (No, really, sound off and tell me.)

So, one thing about the blog articles I used to write, before I took basically a two-year hiatus, is that they were very structured and kind of formal. Now, I’m not saying I’ll never write essays like that again, but I think I need to change up my style because not everything that comes to me readily presents itself in that format.

Now - I want to try and publish regularly. This is how writers survive, after all. Although many writers affect reticence or suffer from social anxiety, we’re still a sort of artist, and all artists perform and communicate to some extent; and without attention, we dry up and wither away like a forgotten houseplant. (Just a moment, I need to water my plants.)

Right. So, I’ve spent this week wrapping up my editing practice - contacting clients, deleting my website and Facebook page, and kind of saying goodbye internally. But that means I’m now freed up to, you know, actually pay attention to things like both writing and marketing (and writing articles again, something that got awfully thin on the ground over the last few years).

What will go here?

In addition to returning to non-fiction essays and opinion pieces, and in addition to a less formal style for quite a few of them, I’m going to be serializing my next work, Prairie Weather!

Prairie Weather?

My Canada Council of the Arts Grant-winning novel project is 155,000 words long. A cozy academia with many PoVs, it’s about exploring queerness, coming of age, and navigating friendship, love, and heartbreak. Set in my hometown of Lethbridge, Alberta, It’s a fun and sweet romp with plenty of interpersonal drama.

I mean, as long as your definition of a fun, sweet romp includes things like a stabbing, revenge, and a men’s help group going deeply awry.

I’m thinking that, since the trilogy is complete, I’ll post a chapter each Friday, and essays or nonfiction on Tuesdays. Partly to warm up the space and break in my Patreon and Substack, I’ll be posting some of my best works from the archives - possibly with updates and commentary.

I’ve also been reading actual books lately (gasp!), so I might talk about that a bit, especially where it relates to my creative journey(s). Right now, I’m enjoying a “Gothic Girl Summer,” where I’m getting around to a whole bunch of gothic horror novels I’ve been meaning to tackle for a minute. It’s giving me some serious ideas for the style and direction of the bottom-up rewrite of my trunked first-ever novel, then called “Synchronicity”.

Not just writing?

For the Patreon specifically, I might also post about my art, but if people are into it, I can do that elsewhere. If you don’t know, I make jewelry and knit, and I’m getting a little more serious about drawing, too, for the simple reason that I’ve always wanted and meant to, and now I’m doing a drawing challenge. (Follow that on Instagram!)

That should be everything for now, but I’d love to hear from you! If you’ve been following me for a while, what would you like to see more of? Less of? If you’re new here, say hi!

***

A writer and artist, Michelle Browne lives in southern AB with xer family and their cats. Xe is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find xer all over the internet: *Website * Amazon * Substack * Patreon * Ko-fi * Instagram * Bluesky * Mastodon * Tumblr * Medium * OG Blog * Facebook *

[krockon]

Two things:

I will be producing three projects in the next few months. A digital PSA, a podcast and a stop motion short film.

And everyone should stop what they are doing and watch Eyes of Wakanda. However you can. It's amazing and needs a lot of eyeballs on it.

[scifimagpie]

So, before I get into the career necromancy, some housekeeping.

Who tf are you?

If you've never heard of my ass before - uh, hi. Thanks for reading this far! I'm an artist and writer; you can call me Magpie or Michelle. She/her or xe/xer. I'm queer and poly, and I live with my two spouses, our son, and three cats in southern Alberta, Canada. I make jewelry and knitwear and sometimes sew; I write science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction - and maybe romantic and gothics?! Ideas are cooking. I even have a non-fiction research project I want to work on and publish.

I got married in 2022, moved houses in 2023, and moved again in 2024, the same year my wife had our son. It's been exciting and busy and packed, and life keeps happening - but it's been pretty hard on my non-fiction writing output.

Also politics and mental and physical health issues have been a thing happening to me, so you know, those take time, too.

The rundown

So, what can you expect from this space? How often can you expect it?

I'm hoping to post biweekly (every two weeks) or more.

Content will vary between poetry and articles, with fiction excerpts or short stories, brain permitting, plus occasional publishing news.

I may re-publish some of my best old articles from the blog archives. Re-published articles may be edited or rewritten, and both their vintage status and any alterations to the original content will be noted.

Expect typos. Sometimes I need to say things more than I want to say them perfectly. I'm also going to be writing on my phone a lot.

I'm going to sunset my MailChimp newsletter and switch to publishing on Substack and on Patreon. I may still publish on Medium and Tumblr, but I'm considering sunsetting my OG Blogspot blog for traffic reasons. (SciFiMagpie is my handle on pretty much every site you can think of.)

Regardless, the same content will be accessible at each of these social media locations. I'm probably not ever going to do exclusive or paywalled content. At most, paywalled content might be early releases.

I'm also sunsetting my editing work. I'll be doing the occasional book for friends, but 11 years is a good run. I haven't always been as reliable or prompt as I would have liked, mostly from mental health, and it's time for me to let editing go. I need to make stuff.

However, if you like my fiction and non fiction, or my artisan stuff, this is probably good news. I'm also going to be posting more on my Instagrams, so follow @rainbowbazaarartcollective or @SciFiMagpie on Instagram or even Tiktok to see what I'm up to. Theoretically, I might be on Bluesky, but I'm more of a long-form or group-chat bitch, so I can't promise much.

I also want your opinion on all this! If you're familiar with my previous writing, chime in. Where do you want to see me?

If you've read all this way, leave me a 👍or ❤️ the post.

See you all soon - for real this time. Change is scary, but I have too much in my head, and I'm tired of closing my mental cupboards on half-finished ideas. Time to start releasing them into the wild.

***

A writer and artist, Michelle Browne lives in southern AB with xer family and their cats. Xe is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find xer all over the internet: *Website * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Tumblr * Mastodon *Facebook * Medium * Twitter  * OG Blog* Instagram * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[joyceforensia]

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[almfineartandphotography]

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[coral-skeleton]

Tomorrow is a really big day for me, this whole week is a big on, actually, but tomorrow especially, I'm writing a test which determines whether or not I pass my semester and I have an interview with a potential supervisor directly after that. Needless to say, I'm pretty nervous. I also have to pick my final project choices tomorrow, and to do so I kind of need to talk to the other potential supervisors as well, but I don't think I'll have time, as the test is three hours and then the interview is also scheduled for 3 hours. So that only leaves 2 hours of the day to talk to the others.

I also have to talk to the department head about a potential transfer to another university for next year. And then I have to call my family and tell them about it. I kinda broke it to my parents a few weeks ago that I might be miving to the complete other side of the country next year, but I still need to tell my grandparents, idk how they'll take that.

I am very excited about the projects tho, if all goes well I'll be working on some really cool stuff for the next three years, real cutting edge science. But that all depends on the next two days really, and that's terrifying.

I'm trying to sleep, but I can't seem to, I'm both too exited and nervous.

Wish me luck