Welcome to my free newsletter with writing news, what I’m reading, updates on publications, and more. Please feel free to share or recommend to other writers and readers!
I’m getting closer to announcing the 2022 release date and cover for the third book in The Bond Trilogy. The exciting news is that all three books will be redesigned and released together: The Bond, The Hive Queen, and (drum roll) The Mother’s Wheel.
I’m really looking forward to working with a new designer who will be doing all three covers together. Since each book is from the point of view of a different character (Dinitra, Fir, and…the frog draft, Sil!), I’m planning a design that will be both connected and feature elements unique to each story.
And…the books will be released with a new audiobook of The Bond, currently in progress.
I’m still assembling my Advance Reading team, so if you or a friend are interested, please let me know. That means you’ll get an early e-copy of the book in exchange for an (honest) Goodreads and Amazon review. Please email me at robinnkirk13@gmail.com if you’re interested. ARC team members will get special goodies as thanks.
Of course, The Bond and The Hive Queen are still for sale in my Book Shop.
Human rights book!
For most of the spring, I was working on a new, non-fiction book profiling heroes of human rights. The book, Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes Around the World (Chicago Review Press) will also be released in 2022.
One of my “heroes” is S. James Anaya, who has helped create and expand the principle of indigenous rights. Anaya, himself of Apache and Purépecha descent, was a key figure in the Awas Tingni case involving claims by this Indigenous group in Nicaragua for control of ancestral lands. In a landmark decision, the Interamerican Court of Human Rights recognized Awas Tingni rights and established a precedent for other Indigenous communities around the world.
In its ruling, the court declared that “for Indigenous communities the relationship with the land is not merely a question of possession and production, but it is also a material and spiritual element which they should fully enjoy, as well as a means to preserve their cultural heritage and pass it onto future generations.”
Anaya went on to become the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights from 2008-2014. Recently, he finished a term as the dean of the University of Colorado Law School
As part of my research on Anaya, I did a deep dive on the history of Native Americans in North America. Some books that came out of this include The Captured by Scott Zesch, which completely rewired what I thought I knew (not much TBH) about the 1800s west (read my Goodreads review here).
The book also sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole that included the new Tom Hanks film, “News of the World,” as well as “The Son,” both of which draw on the same history Zesch writes about in The Captured.
I highly recommend Zesch’s book. “The Son” is less successful, I think, but the scenes of Comanche life are wonderful, with great performances especially by Zahn McClarnon and Tatanka Means (the son of American Indian Movement leader Russell Means, an Oglala Lakota activist, actor, writer, and musician).
Other writing
I recently finished a very timely and needed week-long writing writer-in-residence program at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, NC. I was REALLY looking forward to meeting the (rumored) ghost but had to content myself with hanging out in the lovely gardens.
I celebrated finishing the final edits on The Mother’s Wheel with an excellent Rob Roy from The Bell Tree Tavern in Southern Pines and an utterly enjoyable mystery read, Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke.
I’ll end with a wonderful Maggie Smith poem, available also as audio read by Smith.
Good Bones
BY MAGGIE SMITH