More Extended Stay Bits

Extended Stay keeps chugging along! Here are some cool bits below this really cool spread of red-and-black covers.

  • Audio rights for the novel were acquired a few months ago, and the audiobook will be released in November. I’m a new but ardent convert to audiobooks, and cannot recommend Libby enough if you have a library card and want to experience an awesome novel while washing dishes or folding laundry. (I’m currently blown away by Zadie Smith’s commitment to doing all the voices and singing in The Fraud.)

  • I’m doing a few more events! Check out the Events page for more detailed info but I’m excited for this Friday 13th Horror Authors Night with some of my favorite Chicago folk who write dark stuff.

  • I’m super grateful to bookstagrammers like Ashley (aka spookishmommy) and Nina (aka the_wandering_reader/) for their continued support of the novel. I’ve embedded my two faves below but you should just follow them for all their awesome recommendations. Like, if you have not read Monstrilio? Do! So good! So sad! And I’ve got Ashley to thank for that one. OK: two awesome reels from Ashley and Nina, then more stuff:

  • I’m teaching a year-long class in 2024 for StoryStudio: Speculative Novel in a Year. Applications open October 17. Apply!

  • I am on Instagram, still! Mostly doodling on lunch bags. I am also on Threads. I am no longer on the other social media places. If you’re on either, follow! Or not!

Some Updates!

Win a free copy of EXTENDED STAY!

You can win a copy of the book + a monster drawn on the back of a postcard! You can enter over at Goodreads! Details below!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Extended Stay by Juan Martinez

Extended Stay

by Juan Martinez

Giveaway ends November 15, 2022.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

New story: "A Subscribers-Only Sneak Peek into the Preliminary Report on the Conditions of the Camps"

I’ve got a new story at this cool new science-fiction newsletter-subscription publication called The Sunday Morning Transport. It’s free to read over here, but please consider subscribing: you get new a new story every Sunday from a killer roster of writers.

My story’s called “A Subscribers-Only Sneak Peek into the Preliminary Report on the Conditions of the Camps,” and here are the first two paragraphs. You can read the rest over here.

Not bad. Really. Seriously. Not bad, or at least definitely not as bad as you’ve been led to believe. Pretty okay conditions overall.

There’s been this narrative out there that FloriCorp and maybe all of Colombia has been obfuscating, that they—we—have been denying outside observers access into the perimeter, that we keep a shifting account of the number of deaths and disappearances, that anytime we’re asked to provide a straightforward answer to a simple question, we just go around in circles, that we’re negligent re: the high incidence of injuries, that all we care about is the bottom line, that now that we are wealthy, we’re just doing what the wealthy do. But if that were the case, why would I be writing this (preliminary) report? I mean, why would I even try to tell you of everything that’s going on with the color variation issues re: the Consumers?

There’s a bunch of obvious sources of inspiration: the Colombian flower industry and the immigrant detention camps are the two biggest. I may expand on the post a little with some of my favorite odd bits of information I found while writing this piece.

New Story!

Hi! I’m really proud to have Trumbull, a new story, in the the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Shenandoah. The story is available right here. The first paragraph is below the photo.

From Trumbull:

They wanted to turn the school by our luxury condo into another luxury condo. I told my wife, Dawn, that it was a bad idea, and she agreed: it was gross, it was wrong. Plus, those condos are totally going to be haunted. I said, How many kids do you think died? The school had been around for almost one hundred years, so my guess was a few. Dawn coughed, looked away. Our daughter, Alba, had just been born. It wasn’t the right time to be talking about dead kids. We weren’t getting enough sleep. When I slept, I dreamt of the school, I dreamt of Trumbull’s massive brick facade, its narrow slits of windows. The school loomed over the intersection of Ashland and Foster, and stood catty-corner to a funeral parlor now occupied by a theater, and Trumbull closing was all our neighbors could talk about.

Today's Best Index Cards About Sharing Stuff on Social Media

I'm taking a social-media break and had some thoughts on how weird it is that so much of my headspace, and so much of the stuff I jot and share fairly regularly on social media, lives in a space that is not actually mine, is really mostly out of my control, and yet feels super personal in a way that is maybe not super comfortable.

(The cards above are like a baby version of the much better, much more precise ideas articulated in Sofia Samatar's Why You Left Social Media)

2018 Events

Here's where I'll be! If you're around please stop in and say hi:

Try Anything

The freaking New York Times wrote a super nice, super generous review of Best Worst American. I'm thrilled, beyond thrilled, particularly about the reviewer's appreciation of "Northern," my favorite story in the collection and its "botched buttock-surgery" angle. Also thrilled that the wonderful art for the review prominently features the kitten poster art from Best Worst American's "Your Significant Other's Kitten Poster." 

OK, no. The reviewer didn't say people had to buy 500 copies of the book. But please do so anyway, preferably via your favorite indie bookstore or via Small Beer Press directly.