October was a very busy month, and thankfully I was able to do some more major promotion for A Fickle and Restless Weapon, five months after publication!
1. On Saturday, 24 October at 8.30pm SGT, over 50 people attended the novel’s official virtual book launch, featuring me in conversation with my very dear friend Dean Francis Alfar, hosted by Epigram Books on Zoom and livestreamed to Facebook Live. And as much as I missed having an in-person event, I was also happy that so many people who would not have been able to attend otherwise had the chance to be there (like, for example, my family in the US, and Terri Windling in the UK). It was a fun and casual and joyful hour that mostly felt like two old friends chatting, and I’m very happy with how it went. The launch recording is now available on the publisher’s Youtube channel:
2. I’ve known Sharon Bakar out of Kuala Lumpur for a while now, and in 2012 she invited me to read in KL as part of the long-running Readings@Seksan series. Because of the pandemic, the series has now gone digital as Readings@Home, and I was flattered when she and host Sumitra Selvaraj so generously allowed me to participate in the series for October. It was a pleasure to share the same online space as Golda Mowe, William Tham Wai Liang, Melizarani T. Selva and Zen Cho. Since the video was being released on Hallowe’en, the passage I decided to read is concerned with my puppeteer character Vahid, and the ghost of his best friend who makes a startling appearance (it starts at 32:16):
3. This was the ninth consecutive year that I was invited as a featured author at the Singapore Writers Festival, which is something I’m deeply grateful for and hope to never take for granted. I was on one panel this year, “Worldbuilding: The Devil’s in the Details,” moderated by Wayne Rée (who did a great job), and joined by Amie Kaufman and Meihan Boey as wonderful co-panelists. The event was streamed live to Festival Pass holders on SWF SISTIC’s microsite, and is now available on-demand until 18 Nov; after that, it goes away forever, so check it out while you can. It was a really fun discussion, and I’m glad we all had the chance to get together (albeit virtually) to explore the topic (click images to watch):
4. I was invited on fairly short notice to appear on Wayne Cheong’s Creatives Asia Podcast after meeting in person to discuss publishing and Nine Inch Nails, and eat claypot chicken rice. We talked a bit about A Fickle and Restless Weapon and its creation, but most of the conversation consisted of fanboying out over NIN and Trent Reznor, and it was super fun! It was livestreamed to Facebook and YouTube, and will also appear on Spotify, iTunes and Twitch later on.
Jason Erik Lundberg 