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Hey there! You're reading the Tuesday Telegrams, a bimonthly newsletter from author Naseem Jamnia. Every other Tuesday, I send out a Telegram that's either writing related or a personal essay. You're currently reading a writing-related Telegram, which is where I give updates on projects, behind-the-scenes look at my work, craft discussions, recent publications, event news, and other publishing things.

While WisCon a few weeks ago wasn't technically the first conference I've attended since The Bruising of Qilwa came out, it was the first time where I was fully present in a conference after its release. Chicon/Worldcon last year was technically the first, but I was in and out with my family and therefore only went to my panels and didn't really feel like I was at the convention. The book had only been out for a couple of weeks at that point, and everything still felt surreal.

I don't mean to imply I'm now old hat at this book promo and writing professionalism thing. But I have been to my share of writing conferences, and when I was at WisCon, I realized I'd failed some professionalism basics (not because I was rude or a jerk, of course!). I'd forgotten to print more bookmarks or bring the few left from Qilwa promo, and I hadn't brought any books to sell (as the bookstore in the show room sold out of the copies of Qilwa after the first day). Professionalism fail!!

I thought this might make a useful topic for today's Telegram, so here are some thoughts as to how to put your best foot forward at a writing conference. (Some of this advice is great for any professional setting, but I'm specifically thinking of things related to publishing.)

Have some sort of landing page where people can find you (a website or Linktree or otherwise). There's big imposter syndrome of having a website before having an agent or a book, and I totally get that. But a single page that expresses your interests in writing and contact information is great to have, even if you don't have any publications or other connections. Everyone starts somewhere. Have a place where people can follow your work. There are free website builders, although even something like social media or Tumblr is a great substitute. If you do make your own website, I recommend paying a little extra to get your own custom domain. yournamehere.com is better than yournamehere.strikingly.com any day.
Even if you think you're a nobody, apply to be on panels at cons. Many speculative fiction conventions are fan-friendly. Being on a fan panel is still a panel! Apply to be on things you're passionate about, even if you don't have "credit" to back it. Yes, you'll get turned down, but all it takes is a few panels to accept you, and now you have those credits. (And a lot of cons are desperate to get panelists.) If you're an academic and the con has an academic track, apply to be on a panel for those. If you have a panel idea, pitch it! Get yourself inserted and involved.
If you're way too shy about doing the above bullet, volunteer at the con instead. You usually get free swag and your entry fee covered, and that's one way to meet plenty of other people—volunteers and con organizers alike. If you take the roles seriously (but still have fun, of course!), the organizers will keep you in mind for future things. Make yourself useful!
BUSINESS CARDS!! This is another place imposter syndrome strikes. (Okay, let's be real, there's imposter syndrome in probably all of these bullets.) You want a way for people to keep you on their radar. A business card with your website and a brief line about what you do is so useful to have (i.e. "copy and science editing" was on my early business cards, but something like "feminist speculative fiction" works great, even if you don't have any publication credits). It's true that a lot of people toss out business cards once they have them, which is why you want a reason for people to hang onto yours—a nice image, a brief explanation of what you do so they go, "Oh, an editor? I know one of those!" or "Oh, I have this project that I need a writer for, here we go!" Places like VistaPrint can get you a big stack of business cards for fairly inexpensive, although I've learned from experience that getting 250 when I need to update them frequently is not worth the extra per card I saved. 50 is plenty, and you have the freedom to update them regularly without having to recycle literal hundreds that are no longer accurate.
If you're already publishing, make a bookmark instead of a business card! It should have a book cover and either a catchy log-line or some blurbs, or both. Accolades are great too. Have a QR code (there are free ones online) that link to your website or LinkTree. Mention your social handle if there's room.
If you're already publishing, bring some ARCs (if you have them) or books to hand sell. It's possible booksellers at the con will have it, but it's also probable they won't. Cover your bases. If you're on a panel, the best time to sell these books is after, when you've stunned people with your brilliance. Just mention at the end of the panel that you have some for sale. (And don't beat yourself up if you don't get a lot of bites the first few times—it'll get there.)
Instead of thinking of networking as, well, networking, think of it as community building. Go to panels you're interested in and talk to the panelists afterward, even if all you want to say is that you enjoyed it (and maybe a specific example of something that resonated with you). Look around and see who else is sitting by themself at panels or in break rooms and ask if you can join them and what they do/write. Yes, this is incredibly daunting! As an introvert, I have been guilty of pretending I'm not a human and just sneaking away. But I guarantee the person sitting alone is feeling as lonely and imposter-y as you are, though, and you can make some great friends or find a critique buddy. If there are identity-specific meetups, go to them, even if you don't know anyone! By virtue of being in that group, you have something in common.
Famous people can be deeply daunting, but from experience of meeting some incredibly famous people in speculative fiction, they are likely amazing weirdos. Imposter syndrome never goes away, no matter how "big" you make it. (Sensing a theme here?) The goalposts keep moving. "Finishing a manuscript" becomes "getting an agent" turns to "publish a book" to "get another deal," and so on. At some point (unless you're a mediocre cishet white male, I guess), I think people get comfortable enough understanding that they are always going to doubt themselves in some way. All that to say: if you love someone's work and they're at a conference, go tell them. You'd think it would get old hearing, but I doubt it ever will. Likely, they'll strike up conversation, and don't be shy about sharing your interests when they ask. But if they don't, that's okay! You put yourself out there just by saying hi, and that's a win. That being said, if they're in a big group, maybe not the best time to approach them.
Use con social resources to your advantage. Con Discords have become more and more of a thing, so go over and say where you're hanging out if anyone wants to join for coffee or a writing session. Sit in the lobby and work with your conference name tag on. Use social media to find who else is shy at conferences and ask if they want to meet up. If you follow someone on social and they're at the con, ask them where you might see them.
Don't feel bad about needing to take breaks and exit the con. You're human, and being "on" for a weekend (or longer!) is exhausting.

I hope this is helpful—let me know if you think of any other advice that is worth sharing!

Qilwa Corner: I Wrote 1900 Words of the Sequel Again

Well, I wasn't honestly sure what I was going to talk about for this weeks' Qilwa Corner (which is still "corner" with a C, despite my husband asking whether it could be with a Q; yes, this is a callout). Then last night, when I was supposed to be getting ready for bed, I decided to open up my Word doc for the Qilwa sequel (so far untitled) to take a quick peak. (You know it's not serious drafting when it's a Word doc and not Scrivener, I tell myself.) Then I wrote another 1900 words because apparently, the three projects I actually need to be working on weren't enough work.

The Bruising of Qilwa was always intended to be a standalone set in a larger universe. I had no intention of returning to these characters—I'd told the story about them that I'd wanted to tell. But I was surprised that so many readers wanted to see more of Firuz and Afsoneh and Parviz, so I began to wonder: what happens after "and they lived"?

When I was doing yet another revision of the novel set in this world currently out on submission (ask me how I feel about that), I decided to put a little cameo for readers of Qilwa. The novel takes place four decades after the events of the novella, so the characters were either very old or dead by that point. (Very old. I picture Firuz as a grumpy 70-something yelling until they go into a coughing fit and then yelling some more.) There was enough distance there for me to consider what story I'd want to tell were I to return to the city-state of Qilwa and the characters I'd created there. So by doing that, I had a sense of where these characters ended up in the future.

Were I to return—a possibility that is quickly becoming a probability, given that I already have a story in mind—I wanted to explore issues I'd been unable to in Qilwa. The Bruising of Qilwa is meant to be a dense, complicated, barely-room-to-breathe type of book. It's why I wrote it as a novella instead of a novel. When you're multi-marginalized and fighting for your right to survive, you don't get the opportunity to breathe. Despite how much slice-of-life the book is, I wanted that frenetic sense of "I don't have time to process" to come across in the form.

So, in contrast, I'd want the sequel to have room. One major plot, with dangling bits of everything that complicates daily life—with a focus on trauma. This means the characters have to be far enough from the events of Qilwa to process not only what happened in the book, but also what happened to lead up to that book.

Trauma is a specter that haunts a lot of our lives. We normalize it as children, are immersed in it in adolescence, and if we're lucky in adulthood, can finally look in the mirror and consider the ways in which it's changed us.

Afsoneh and Firuz both have c-PTSD from events that happened before The Bruising of Qilwa. The events in the novella only add to the trauma they've both experienced across their lives. In Qilwa, Afsoneh reacts by lashing out and doing dangerous things. Firuz reacts by stuffing everything in a box and compartmentalizing until everything explodes—and then stuffs everything in a box again. We learn how to cope with life by looking to our elders (in the loosest sense of the word); if our elders are not modeling healthy coping mechanisms, we believe that's the only option until we're shown otherwise.

So a decade after the events of Qilwa felt like an appropriate time for the trauma neither of these two have dealt with to come back up and have a reckoning. If Firuz is the health care professional I might have become, Afsoneh is the activist I strive to be. How to give her a story where she could grapple with the inadvertent harm her beloved mentor and older sibling caused her? How to give them a chance to admit the ways they'd failed her and Parviz? How to give Parviz a chance to anchor his two chaotic siblings when they'd as easily drown themselves in all they cannot say and all they do?

That's what I'd like to figure out in a Qilwa sequel.

Well, I can't talk all about this without giving you a little excerpt from last night. Please keep in mind that this is literally a first draft! This also contains a spoiler for Qilwa, so if you haven't gotten to the "a major character gets jumped" scene, don't read ahead.

Afsoneh changed into her nightclothes and returned out to the small living room to see Firuz on a floor cushion, holding an estekaan of tea. “Won’t that keep you up?” she asked, going to the samovar in the kitchen to fetch her own glass.

“I’d have to drink a samovar full of tea for that.” Firuz played with a sugar cube between two fingers. Gone were the days where they had to buy grainy ghand that fell apart the moment it touched liquid; now, they could get the good stuff. “How are things up on the Hill?”

Afsoneh grimaced as she sat beside Firuz, leaning her shoulder against theirs. “The same arguments, day in and day out. So many of them don’t want to listen to reason or to data. You’d think what the people literally have asked for or objected to would matter, but of course they don’t.”

Once a week, Afsoneh held an open-door session called the Voice of the People, Sobhat-ha-ye Mardom. It was why her platform had been so popular amongst the non-rich citizens of Qilwa—she’d already demonstrated her commitment to amplify the needs of people outside the merchant class. Every week, these sessions were flooded with individuals, many of whom would be turned away and return the following week, or with whom Afsoneh would set up private meetings for a later date.

The work both exhausted and energized her.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Firuz, finally placing the sugar cube between their teeth and taking a sip of tea. “I’m surprised it surprises you.”

“It doesn’t, not really.” She sighed and leaned back against the cushion against the wall. “Do you remember the time I asked you why Qilwans hated us? This was, gosh, maybe a decade ago.”

Firuz paused, glass against their lips. They took a careful sip before placing it down. “The day Parviz was attacked,” they murmured. “Yes, I remember.”

Afsoneh winced. She hadn’t realized those two memories were related. Maybe a year or so after she’d moved in with the Jafaris, Afsoneh and Firuz had been walking home from a training session when they realized a migrant was being attacked. But it hadn’t been any migrant—Parviz had been the target of some schoolyard bullies. In a white-hot rage, Afsoneh had broken three of a bully’s fingers and threatened them should they ever come near him again.

That magic had been so easy to summon. She had felt her blood bubble under her fingertips, and without needing to draw her own, knew instinctively that she could use Parviz’s to gain access to the bully’s. She’d amplified the force of the rock she’d slammed into her own fingers and ricocheted it across her link to the bully. She’d been left unmarked and unharmed, and the bullies had fled.

If Firuz had asked her to explain how she’d done what she’d done, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. That’s how magic had always responded to her, moving in tune with her desires before she could articulate them.

Instead, Firuz had held their own rage in check and explained, with a patience neither Afsoneh nor Parviz could imitate, the dangers of what she’d done.

But that was over a decade ago, when it was unclear whether the genocide had stopped. The Year of Terror, people were calling it now, according to the Sassanians she’d spoken to who still had connections in Dilmun. It had been a year of terror for all Sassanians, regardless of whether they’d fled Dilmun or not. Certainly the Sassanians in Qilwa had had plenty to fear.

Where I've Been/Upcoming Events

This past weekend, I was in Oakland for the Locus Awards. The Bruising of Qilwa didn't win (no surprises, I was expecting that) but I had a blast at my first speculative awards ceremony.

I was on a terrific panel about worldbuilding with Shewta Taneja, Kemi Ashing-Giwa, and Fran Wilde. ID: The four of us standing together and smiling.

Whenever I go to the Bay Area, I make sure to hit up friends there, so here's a snazzy shot of me and legend Charlie Jane Anders in front of a fountain.

Tomorrow, I'm doing a craft talk for Clarion West's Write-a-thon on cultural storytelling in speculative fiction. It's a topic I'm really passionate about, so if you're doing the Write-a-thon, I hope to see you there! Make sure to ping the chat if you are and brag about being a Telegrammer! And there's still time to sign up if you're interested in joining the Write-a-thon!

What I've Been Reading

I don't know if I'll always add this section (unless there's interest!), but I thought I might give a few lines about the books I've been reading/listening to and my thoughts! Now that I'm officially in the industry, I don't like leaving negative reviews, so I'll be talking about books I've enjoyed (even if I have some criticisms).

Currently listening to:

Ander & Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa (YA contemporary). It's a bit long and a little slow, but a beautiful slice-of-life about queer Chicanx young adults. Avi Roque does a fantastic job narrating.

Currently reading:

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham (YA horror). I'm a little biased as Kayla is an agent sib, but I absolutely love their work. My Dearest Darkest was a wonderful, spooky debut, and This Delicious Death is campy and funny and a great take on zombies.

Recent 5 star reads:

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds (YA contemporary). This one was stunning. The audio is absolutely excellent. A look at being queer and Black in the South and the types of traumas our families bury.
The Tita Rosie's Kitchen mystery series by Mia P. Manansala (adult cozy mystery). I met Mia at WisCon and she describes her books as "Hallmark but with dead bodies." Honestly, a Millennial book series starring BIPOC and QPOC where everyone is okay at the end soothes my soul. The audios are a delight. I am in MAJOR NEED of Filipino-inspired desserts because of this series.
The Clackity by Lora Senf (MG horror). I've learned good MG horror is actually about something other than the horror. The Clackity is spooky and creepy and has so, so much heart, tackling a young girl's grief and need to be safe. My only criticism is that its uses whiteness as its baseline assumption (and while the aunt and the librarian are clearly in lesbians with one another, that's not explicit).

It's the final week of June, which means my final moment to say Happy Pride!!!! Of course, in the Jamnia household, it's Pride all year long, but gotta make sure my fellow queers know they're loved and appreciated!

stay safe and love each other,

Image description: Naseem's author signature with "xx," above it. The author signature is their name in Farsi.

2023.13: writing conference professionalism

Qilwa Corner: I Wrote 1900 Words of the Sequel Again

Where I've Been/Upcoming Events

What I've Been Reading