wyd this weekend 👀

Welcome to the Stone Soup Digest! This is where I share what I'm up to and some of my favorite things from around the internet. Subscribe to Stone Soup to get this in your inbox every week.

Neighborhood Watch #3 is Out Now!

Despite their distrust, Val and Bianca have no choice but to continue working together to keep their friend, along with her gunshot wound, hidden from the cops. But they each have had very different experiences with the law—ones that could make or break their ongoing investigation. Will they be able to avoid any trouble while they look into what Jill’s "runaway” daughter knows about this growing mystery?  

Kobo | Bad River Website | Local Comic Shop

Columbus Book Festival THIS WEEKEND

I’m typing this from a restaurant in SFO, a couple of hours before I enter the sky in order to come to the Columbus Book Festival! I love sitting in the airport. I never get more accomplished than when I’m trapped among fellow travelers. 

Anyway, here’s where to find me at the festival:

Saturday: 

11:30 - Queer in Every Genre panel, with Signing to Follow
4:00 - Horror That Haunts You panel, with Signing to Follow

If you’re trying to choose which signing to come to, PLEASE come to the first one! I will have less than an hour after my last signing to catch my flight, so a shorter line in the evening will save my bacon bigtime.

SF in SF with Meg Elison

The San Francisco Public Library Main BranchKoret Auditorium, Lower Level100 Larkin Street between Grove & Fulton

Sunday: 5:30 PM

This is why I MUST catch that flight out of Columbus: On Sunday, I will be in San Francisco with the avatar of vice herself, Meg Elison! We’ll be talking about her new book, Foundling Fathers, which is hilarious and incisive. I will be exhausted to the point of absolute derangement. Don’t miss it!

SDCC

July 23-25: San Diego Comic Con

I’m coming to SDCC! I’ve gotten invitations to a couple of really rad panels and signings: 

Thursdsay 07/23
3:00 - Signing with EC comics at Oni Booth #1829
5:30 - Signing in Autograph Area

Friday 07/24
1:00 - Signing in Autograph Area
2:00 - Panel: LGBTQIA+ Activism in Comics (Prism)
3:30 - Panel: BOOM! Comics for You: Owning Your Story
5:00 - Signing at Prism Booth #2144

Saturday 07/25
11:00 - Signing in Autograph Area
4:00 - Signing at Prism Booth #2144
6:00 - Panel: Out In Comics

Featured New Release: Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle

Poppy Stringer was born to be a star.

An aspiring fashion influencer by day, Poppy moonlights as a grave robber to make ends meet, wheeling and dealing dead bodies across Palm Springs.

When her hero, the flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar Eddie Michaels, unexpectedly dies, Poppy gets a call to retrieve his body from the medical examiner’s office for a lucrative sum. It could be the last job she’ll ever need―if everything goes to plan. But the night’s delivery quickly veers off course when Eddie wakes up.

Now Poppy must fight for her life if she hopes to survive this blood-soaked joyride of carnage and extravagant entertainment.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Libro.fm | Find an Indie Bookstore

Currently Reading: The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie

Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.

Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction.

When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs's youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs’s wrath.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Libro.fm | Find an Indie Bookstore

Make Me Better is on sale now

If you haven’t already ordered Make Me Better, I hope you will! It’s one of the best things you can do to support my work. Here are all the places you can order your copy:

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Find an Indie Bookstore

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In the meantime, remember: Do what you can. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up.

-gailey