I’m not nervous, YOU’RE nervous!

Okay, sorry to visit my anxiety on you. That wasn’t nice.

But I have so many feelings right now! My current novel is in production and should be in the world this September. I’m immersed in that familiar whirlwind of getting all the edits done, sending eARCs for blurbers, gathering info for my publisher for the distributor…these are all good problems, yet, EEK! This means people will be introduced to Iris and the Crew this year!

While I have had extremely positive and enthusiastic feedback on this first “season” of this series, I always get terrified about new book releases. This will be my third title as an author (I had two additional titles as a co-editor), and after going through production five times since 2016, you would think I would have become more laidback by now.

And you would be wrong! (LOL, I am such a mess.)

It’s also the first book I wrote during the pandemic. The world-building has no cure narratives and does have bodymind celebration, and accessible ship, and pew-pew-pew! In the Keangal, we make space accessible! On Earth… well, you know how I feel about accessibility on Earth… It always blows my mind how I can’t even open most doors by myself in this city.

Anyway, so much is different for me with this book. I have never drawn episode sketches before. Heck, I’ve never written chapters like episodes before! I also have more aliens who resemble humans this time. And instead of one disabled or neurodivergent character, I have an ensemble cast of stars with a gorgeous diversity of bodyminds!

By the way, sensitivity editors are gifts to humankind. Without them, I would be trapped in a vortex of overthinking. Hug a sensitivity editor today! (But only with their consent, of course.)

So, yeah, I’m all whirwindy and stuff, so this blog isn’t my most eloquent piece. In summary: book happening, full of eek.

If you’d like to learn more about this anthology, please visit the page: Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!

Okay, I have to have a meeting with a sensitivity editor now. Cheers!

A greyscale close-up of me, standing in front of a blank background. I am a white woman with short silver hair cropped closely on the sides. I am wearing dark metallic rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the side. I’m wearing silver hook earrings with flat beads and a plaid shirt.

Cait Gordon is an autistic, disabled, and queer Canadian writer of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. She is the author of Life in the ’Cosm, The Stealth Lovers, and the forthcoming Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space (2023). Cait also founded the Spoonie Authors Network and joined Talia C. Johnson to co-edit the multi-genre disability fiction anthologies Nothing Without Us and Nothing Without Us Too.

Featured photo by Frank Cone on Pexels.com