Hi Storytellers, A. E. here.

Today is a News and Update post. I have a few things to go over, so let’s get to it.

I have an announcement to make!

I made a Substack!

I think most writers know what Substack is by now, but if you don’t, basically, its the writer’s version of heaven. Everyone on there is having a blast right now. We’re all writing, talking, sharing, making friends and community. If you don’t have a Substack account, I suggest at least getting on there and seeing what all the fuss is about. It’s a lot of fun!

So what is my newsletter?

It’s called Tell Your Story.

You can find it at yourstorytold.org. Yeah, tellyourstory.com was already taken! And it would have cost me several thousand to try and pay for it. I kind of like yourstorytold anyway, so no biggie. Its kind of like inviting in your future!

So what is Tell Your Story newsletter about?

Here’s the little bio description from the site.

You have a story to tell. You think you don’t have what it takes to write it. But you do! Tell Your Story is dedicated to inspiration, motivation, advice, encouragements, personal pieces, and more to get you to Tell Your Story.

Hop on over, subscribe and check out my Notes page so you can find me chatting there. I’ll start a thread, and we can have conversations in live time on Substack!

There are things I want to do with Tell Your Story that I can’t offer with WordPress, like monthly Zoom calls for my paid subscribers during which I’d go over their Stories with them. I’m also going to start publishing my short stories on Substack, and at the end of the year, collect the stories into a free E-book of short stories. I want to make a community of Storytellers, and let people know that they CAN write and tell their own Stories.

Substack is very much for writers by writers, so if you haven’t really tried Substack, I am encouraging you to get on. It’s a million times better than X, formerly known as Twitter, trust me.

So that is the first news update.

Second update.

My current writing project, Ring of Galiroth (pronounced Gale-Wroth) is my dark academia young adult novel. You’ve been hearing about this story underneath different names, because I’ve been working on it for so long. It’s been untitled, called Zak and Valor, it was known as The Noble’s Echelon for a long while, I named it Dark as Light for a hot second, it was called Osaira’s Heir for a little while, before I pulled that all out, and turned it into another story. But finally, it’s in its final form, now known as Ring of Galiroth.

A good comp title is Gideon the Ninth by New Zealand writer Tamsyn Muir.

Gideon the Ninth is a 2019 science fantasy debut novel and the first in The Locked Tomb series, followed by Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth, and the upcoming Alecto the Ninth. I’m still reading Gideon the Ninth and I haven’t read the rest of the series, but if you liked Gideon the Ninth, then you’ll enjoy what I’m cooking up with Ring of Galiroth.

My main character Poppy Pittman (yup, name change, she was called Zakariya Phaethera for years, plus she used to be a boy) is half-Common half-Nekromantaien. She has the sorcell skill to use nekromanteia, that is “ghosts and ghouls.” Unfortunately she lives in Fairwater Narrows, a small insular Commonplace town where 99.9% of the populace are Common people who can’t use sorcell. *sorcell is this fantasy term for magic. And they all hate her for her being weird, creepy and a spook, so she’s never had a friends, and is an outcast. After years of being a social reject, Poppy finally is sent away from Fairwater Narrows, and enrolled to Ring of Galiroth Academy, which is a school for nekromantaiens. There she learns the truth of who she really is, and the meaning of belonging and self-acceptance.

As you all know, my goal for Ring of Galiroth is to finish it this year. I want to do my absolute best to write “The End” by December 31st.

Third update.

I broke my ankle this year, June 1^st, to be exact. Nothing fancy, I just fell in my home and broke it. It was a bad break and I had surgery on June 7^th, and have some metal parts in my leg now.

I was in a wheelchair for a while, and now I’ve graduated to a walker, with a boot on. My stitch got infected, and we thought I’d need a second surgery to cut and wash the infection out, but the surgeon decided I didn’t need it. So I’ve been dealing with the infection at home. I’ve been praying over it daily, and it looks like its healing. I am due to start physical therapy sometime next week or the week after to learn how to walk again.

Fourth update.

Due to falling and breaking my ankle, I took a leave of absence from Lesley University.

I can’t go to residency while I can’t walk, and so I just need to take a step back until I’m all healed up. My mentors and the faculty were super understanding of that, and were wonderful about it. I am loving my time in the creative writing MFA program there. Everyone is lovely. However, that does lead into my fifth and the most heartbreaking update.

Fifth update.

Due to taking a break from Lesley University, a person I thought was my best friend cut ties with me.

I will do an entire personal piece on this.

Yeah, those 5 things, just those five things, are my news and updates. Those are what happened while I was gone, and what I’m projecting for the future.

I’ve been reading, so I’d like to do an A. E. Reads Book Review post upcoming soon, and then a Personal Piece about breaking my ankle and losing my best friend, and how that affected my writing.

Well, until next time, Storytellers!

Technically, there are no cats by my side as I write this. Since I’ve broken my ankle, my 4 kitten kids have been in boarding. But, its no A. E. post without ending off with a little cat pic, so here is one of the three kittens.