Newsletter: Announcing Company of Ghosts

An upcoming fantasy novel by J. Kyle Turner

I wrote a book!

Man, it took a long time to write that sentence (almost 14 years, in fact). It’s been a long road from daydream to finished novel, and I might go into detail about the process at some point in the future, but for now I’m happy just putting those four words out in the world for people to read (I wrote a book, I wrote a book).

I’m aiming for a release date of September 16th, so expect more details between now and then. I’ll do a cover reveal and synopsis sometime in July, plus a sample chapter in August. I’ll also post links to preorder when those are available. I’m bracing myself for the mortifying gauntlet of self-promotion. I’ll try not to be too annoying about it, but I do want to end with one last teaser for today.

This came up in a conversation with my developmental editor, the brilliant and insightful Tricia Aurand from Beyond the Screenplay. In some of our early back and forths over email, she asked what my goals were for the story and where I saw it landing among the crowded field of amazing fantasy novels already in print. This is what I told her:

It really doesn't fit into mainstream fantasy at all. There aren't any special teenagers with special powers, and I don't have a diagram of the magic system on the inside cover. It isn't a folklore / fairy tale retelling or a thinly veiled allegory for a trending issue. Nobody is opening an inn, or discovering video game abilities in real life, or having sex with a fairy / elf / succubus / whatever. I wrote the kind of fantasy novel that I would want to read, and I've made peace with the idea that it probably won't fly off any shelves.

It should sing, though. Ideally, when I'm done self publishing it, the story will be in good enough shape for a random stranger to read it and think "well shit, that was honest and beautiful and true."

I guess we’ll see if I pulled it off.

Monthly Newsletter

With the book coming out, I felt a need to split out promotional posts into a separate thread. I’ve added a Newsletter link to the navigation bar to help organize these posts into their own specific category.

I’ll still post fiction under the Fiction category, because I enjoy writing weird stories for weird people (that’s you, dummy), but I want to give myself a little more time to do events and work on other projects. Instead of five stories per month, it’ll look something like this:

• Newsletter - A monthly post about book details, works in progress, and random life events. Expect these on a Wednesday somewhere in the middle of the month.

• Fiction - Microfiction on the first and third Monday of each month, flash fiction on the last Friday of the month. If the month has five Mondays, I’ll devote the last Monday to resharing some of my favorite recent stories on Substack.

• Essays - Infrequent essays whenever I feel like dusting off the old soapbox.

That’s all for now. I’ll see you all on Monday for the usual microfiction. Until next time!

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