Danai's Dispatch: January 2025

Welcome to Danai's Dispatch, where I pop into your inbox once a month whenever something exciting happens, bearing gifts: VILE LADY VILLAINS updates, writing resources, short story and book roundups, and exclusive giveaways! Thank you for reading. If you haven’t subscribed already, please consider signing up below.

January is a scream suspended in icy slumber.

Greetings, fellow villain. A new year has dawned in the Swedish forest, not that you’d know it from the frosted silence. (The above might not be an actual picture of my neck of the woods, but might as well have been.) I’m sure you didn’t notice, but I sneakily skipped our December meet; the month melted away from me amid editing clients’ manuscripts, wrapping up my first year as an assistant agent at Tobias Literary, reading submissions for khōréō and screaming at the screaming deer at night (which were confused at first, but then went along with it). And now? Now the time is nigh.

Wrap yourself in something warm as you sit next to me in this clearing in the woods. Ignore the ominous creaking of branches; they’re not really inching closer every time you look at them, it’s only the wind that moves them. Yes, the wind does sound like a scream doesn’t it? So much of 2024 has felt like a scream, suspended, and now frozen. So much of 2025 feels uncertain and slippery. But we persist, because it’s the only way to beat the horrors: by becoming them. By retelling our stories. On that note…

In case you missed it, my debut novel VILE LADY VILLAINS was announced in November, and because time is tricky like that (publishing time doubly so), it comes out NEXT YEAR in March, by Penguin Michael Joseph. Yes, that Penguin! My villain heart is so warm, even amid all this snow, at seeing all the enthusiastic reception the book announcement has gathered so far—culminating in this BookBrunch headline, which is the best headline to ever exist: “Murderous sapphics unleashed at MJ.”

So what’s VILE LADY VILLAINS about, in case it’s not obvious from the subtle title? 

My publisher calls it: “A WORLD-BURNING HORROMANTASY, BRINGING TOGETHER LITERATURE'S MOST FAMOUS LADY VILLAINS, LADY MACBETH AND KLYTEMNESTRA . . . For fans of A Dowry of Blood, Clytemnestra, and Piranesi, Vile Lady Villains is an unforgettable ride into the realm of stories.”

With the consequences of her murderous actions closing in, Lady Macbeth turns to the three witches for help. She’s given a brew that transports her to an unknown realm. Desperately lost, she opens a door and comes face to face with a beautiful woman drenched in blood.

Klytemnestra, Queen of Mycenae, is exacting bloody vengeance on her husband. Yet as she revels in her triumph, an otherworldly door appears and a strange woman steps in. Thinking this stranger a spirit, she chases Lady Macbeth into the realm of stories.

Hunted by screaming wraiths into worlds that are hell bent on their demise, this murderous pair are forced to form an alliance or perish. Yet the realm’s goddess, The Mistress of the House of Books, claims to hold the key to saving them. But can they trust this ancient goddess? As every threat brings our vile lady villains closer, turning ill intentions into fiery attraction that no author dare write, they have a choice: remain within the confines of their original tales … Or burn down the world to pen a new story together . . .

Help me unleash the murderous sapphics further

So, we’ve established that my book is coming out NEXT YEAR. And I need YOUR HELP. Apart from the fact that preorders help immensely, so please do preorder if you can, I’ve been thinking about what it means to promote a book and trying to reach a broader audience in 2025. Specifically, what it means to promote a queer, sapphic book in 2025. I’m on every platform, posting book content almost every day, but TikTok suppresses almost any video I post with the words “sapphic” and Instagram wants you to pay for visibility. Let’s not discuss the mess Twitter/X has become, where the other day I offered an opinion on the Odyssey translations (gods forbid a Greek person knows something about a Greek text!) and got so much abuse over it I had to lock my account for days, thus tanking my visibility. Hey, at least BlueSky is nice, for now. But the issue remains: I’m someone who likes feeling like they’ve done everything they can to ensure their book gets a fair chance—and it’s obvious that’s not something I can manage alone.

SO I turn to you, fellow villain. I’m thinking about assembling a street team (a forest team? a raven team?) to help spread the word of VILE LADY VILLAINS and their murderous sapphic antics. Unfortunately the setup of this newsletter doesn’t allow me to include polls, but would you be interested in joining my street/forest/raven/name pending team? If you can just respond to this newsletter and let me know, I’d deeply appreciate it. I’ll create a Google form to share soon, but I wanted to ask you first.

I’m also planning a preorder sweepstake, to reward the people who have preordered—perhaps something like a big box of book goodies for one winner and some postcards and book plates for a few more? What would you like to see/receive in a preorder sweepstake? Do respond and let me know, if you have a minute. Thank you villainously.

Right, enough of that. I shall retreat to my forest for the rest of January, to work on the book’s first round of developmental edits. It’s such a joy and a privilege, working with an editor who “gets” what you’re trying to do and whose main notes were “more of this, more of everything.” So that’s my Vile Lady Villains mission for the rest of the month.

All the fiction I fawned over in 2024

Reading unpublished manuscripts for work, and unpublished short stories and poems for khōréō and Haven Spec, kinda diminished the time I had to read for fun. That being said, I did consume some great works of fiction, both long and short. Sit a bit longer in the snow with me (don’t worry if you’re beginning to lose feeling on your fingers and toes, the forest will consume you take care of you) and I’ll tell you all about them.

Short fiction

It was a good year for short stories. Here’s just a few I can’t stop thinking about:

• "And She Had Been So Reasonable" by Rachel Bolton in Apex, a frankly terrifying reminder of the universality of violence and misogyny.

• "Telling the Soul of Mars" by Alina Pete in Augur, an incredibly touching tale of reclamation of one’s heritage and of building bridges between two vastly different ways of living.

• "We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read" by Caroline M. Yoachim in Lightspeed, a mantra-like repetition of a lost civilizations’ last words, as innovative in form as it is impactful in content.

• “The Tangle” by Rae Mariz in khōréō, a vibrant tapestry of a utopian neighborhood that made me want to live there forever.

• “The Trauma Tourist” by Christos Callow Jr again in khōréō, about who gets to tell and profit from our culture and our pain. Warning: contains Greek rage, and is sadly very very timely. (This one is also edited by yours truly, so I cannot officially nominate it for any awards. Please do so for me if you’re so inclined.)

Long fiction

Thank you for screaming in the forest with me

The ice is crackling on the leaves now; the sun retreats. When shall we two meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain? Perhaps, in the next instalment of this dispatch. So if you liked what you read, I hope you’ll subscribe, if you haven't already! And maybe help my ravens spread the word by sharing it on your social media?