New Year, New Events + Magical Office Buddies, and...💖⚙️📚
Final days for giveaway! 🎁
Hello!
I hope you’re having a wonderful week! After finishing my draft last weekend, I’ve been away from my desk to celebrate Christmas with my family. Playing games, cooking, and watching movies together has been a good break before I start reading my WIP next week to prepare for revisions. Whatever you celebrate this time of year or if you’re focusing on resting after a wild year, I hope that you get the reset you need!
If you’ve ever seen pictures from my Instagram, it’s no secret that I keep a lot of whimsical items around my office. Everything from action figures, canvas prints of my book covers, little mechanical parts, skulls, and gifts from readers, artists, and other authors make up the decor. (I stopped counting at 16 skulls and skeletons in my office. 😂)
On Christmas, I received two more to add to my collection from one of my favorite movies, Howl’s Moving Castle:
I love the book version of Howl’s Moving Castle, too, though it is dramatically different than the movie. Both are fantastic!
While I’ll only be in my office part-time next week as my boys are home for Winter Break, it’ll be fun to have the new decorations in here as I begin the process for revisions. I’m so excited to do the work to make this book ready for readers! In the meantime, I get to have more hilarious conversations with my children like this one with my seven-year-old:
DS singing while playing with a Christmas present: "Making a monster, making a monster..." 🎶
Me: "Make sure if you're making monsters that you give them all names. It's very important."
DS: "Why?"
Me: "Well, remember Victor Frankenstein? He didn't name his creature and look what happened to him."
DS: "Ohh yeah. Okay..."
*Proceeds to start naming his creatures*
Upcoming Events
While I likely won’t be able to make all of these events, I thought I’d share a few steampunk and steampunk-adjacent events that are happening both virtually and around Central Iowa. If you want to begin 2025 with more whimsy, check out this list:
LAMWUF Annual Hogmanay Recruitment Party hosted by Madame Askew and the Grand Arbiter, along with the League of Aunties, Mavens, Witches, Uncles, and Fairygodparents will be held virtually on December 31st. Click the link for details!
Chrononaut Cotillion 2024: hosted by the BrassGears Adventurers Society on Saturday, January 4th at 8 pm at the Holiday Inn Northwest, 4800 Merle Hay Road, Urbandale IA. Click here for tickets!
DMSFFS Winter SACC: gaming and other fun activities hosted by Des Moines Science Fiction & Fantasy Society from Friday, January 3rd, to Sunday, January 5th, at at the Holiday Inn Northwest, 4800 Merle Hay Road, Urbandale IA. (Same hotel as the BrassGear’s ball!) Click here for details.
Temporal Textual Talks: steampunk book club hosted by Madame Askew and Bill Bodden will be held virtually on Sunday, January 19th. The first book of 2025 is His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. You don’t have to finish the book to participate in the discussion here. For the full list of next year’s book club reads, check out this post. (Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast is August’s book of the month! 🎉)
Don’t forget to check the banner at the bottom of the email for the ongoing Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Fair! You can enter daily for more chances at bookish prizes.
Happy New Year! (and happy reading!) 💖
Kelsey
