Today I have the ARCs of the three books by the authors who appeared on a panel I moderated at ALA. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:
- You need to be affiliated with an American Library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
- If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
- Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
- If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.
Click here for the previous giveaway. Our winners were Kristie from NJ, Ilyssa from NJ, Susan from MA, and Maggie from CO.
On Sunday during the ALA 2025 Conference, I had the opportunity to moderate this panel:
During our 20 minute conversation we talked about how "Cli-Fi" is not a genre-- as these three books demonstrate. It is more of a frame. All three of these books have an environmental frame and add unsettling speculative elements to provide entertainment, yes, but also some fear about our very real climate.Cli-Fi Panel: Exciting Forthcoming Environmental Fiction:
Join authors Anna North (BOG QUEEN, Bloomsbury), Wendy N. Wagner (GIRL IN THE CREEK, Tor Nightfire), and Yume Kitasei (SALTCROP, Flatiron), as they discuss their forthcoming novels, which explore environmental issues in bold new ways and through various genres, including literary fiction, eco-horror, and sci-fi. This panel will be moderated by librarian Becky Spratford, RA for All. After 30 minutes of discussion and Q&A, please join the authors for a 20-minute galley signing.
We have titles here that would be most commonly cataloged as Historical Fiction (North), Horror (Wagner), and Science Fiction (Kitasei), and yet, they also a have clear "cli-fi" lens.
In this more general part of the conversation we talked about why they felt that this lens was so important to them and how it works I tandem with their genre elements.
All three have a deep connection to the natural world and shared how they work it into everything they write. (So if you like these books or what I am sharing here, check out all of their books.)
We also talked about how they approached their novel so differently. We went back and forth about some more specifics of how their stories are told. Here is a summary of that part of the conversation:- North's novel is a historical story going all the way back to ancient times and alternating with the present. And we talked about how the bog gets a voice as well. She talked about her research as well.
- Wagner talked about the overlap of true crime, being a hiker and things she has seen, and the narration of her fungus-- the strangeness. We talked about the animals having a voice and her love of trees.
- Kitasei shared stories about having three sisters herself, how the story is as much about a journey as it is about the environment, and how when she wrote it, she thought it would be way more SF, but now it feels to real.
It was a great chat and I highly recommend all three books for all libraries. I am giving these ARCs away together precisely because I love how they represent the broad range of what would have been considered "Cli-Fi," even just a few years ago. These are solid historical, horror, and science fiction novels with strong message about the problems of climate change.
These ARCs were went to me by the publishers before ALA so that I could read them to prepare. And now, they are being passed on to one of you.
Enter this week and you are entered going forward.
Good Luck!