On Making Art for Fun + EARLY Black Friday! 💖⚙️📚
Open for a very silly pic of Belle and Beast! 🎁
Hello!
I hope that you’re having a wonderful week! I spent last weekend celebrating one of my dearest friends’ birthday and was reminded of the importance of creating art for the simple joy of the process. I have more thoughts on that, plus details for a special sale for Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast and an update on ordering signed copies! 🎉
Last weekend did a lot to boost my morale. I went on a short road trip to visit one of my best friends. (We’ve been friends since middle school, so we have ALL the inside jokes. My face was sore from laughing, but it was totally worth it!) She decided on a stained glass class for her birthday and I’m so glad that she did!
I’ve never made anything with stained glass before, but I immediately fell in love with the process. There was a bit of a learning curve to cutting the glass and the soldering (very different than my days of soldering electronics for my high school Robotics team or electrical engineering days.) However, it brought me so much joy to be making art just for the sake of creation. The room with all the glass in it was simply MAGICAL. I could have stayed in there all day, admiring the gorgeous colors. The pics don’t do it justice!
It’d been far too long since I’ve played with my art supplies and I plan to change that. I keep all kinds of crafty supplies in my office and it’s been a minute since I’ve sketched. The class was an excellent reminder that I need to create like I need to breathe. There’s something wonderful about making art that doesn’t have to be polished. And now I have a perfectly imperfect decoration for my office window!
If it’s been a while since you’ve done anything creative, just for you, I highly recommend you try it. Even something as simple as a coloring book or a sketchbook for your eyes only can do wonders for your mood. If you have any fun creative hobbies, I’d love to know about them in the comments! I’m always on the lookout for trying new things.
I have the opportunity to talk to students via author visits near the end of this year and beginning of next year (both virtually and in-person.) I’m so glad I had the weekend to recharge so that I can be at my best for those talks (and diving back into my WIPs.)
In other news, I’m starting Black Friday early! The eBook version of Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast is on sale for $0.99 in the US and UK from November 27th (starting at 10 am Central time) to December 3rd!
(I might have had a little too much fun making this very silly graphic of Belle and Beast pictured below. 😂)
I don’t often discount the book version Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast on sale, mainly because it’s always available for free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. However, I thought it’d be fun to do to celebrate the one-year publication anniversary. If you’re planning on reading it for Temporal Textual Talks’ book club list next year, this would be a good opportunity to pick it up!
You can find the full list of the 2025 book club picks here. Please note: don't vote on any of the books in the official Goodreads list as they're posted in reading order for book club. 💖
Also, I’m not sure how long this will last because this was something Amazon did and is out of my hands, but they’ve heavily discounted the paperback copies of Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast. At the time of this writing, they’re marked down to $10.99, which is very close to the printing cost of the book!
If you’re local to central Iowa, here are more places you can find my books:
You can also request that your library carry the physical book if it’s not already on their shelves:
Keep an eye on my social media accounts on Friday for group promos for more Black Friday deals and giveaways on fantasy romance, sci-fi, and other speculative fiction books! (Particularly Facebook and Instagram.)
Finally, a quick update on ordering signed copies of my books: I’ve added a couple clarifying details in the Google form here. Any books ordered through the form will be signed by me, but I’ve added a box if you’d like your books to be personalized. Also, I’m currently out of hardcovers for Monsters and Machines. If you’d like to be put on the waiting list, please let me know! (Otherwise, I can send a signed bookplate instead for the cost of postage.)
Happy reading! (And for those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving!)
Kelsey
