More STAY CRAZY Reviews!

Response to Stay Crazy has been trickling in slowly but surely. Over on LiveJournal (still!) Nick Mamatas lists it as one of his best five books of the year, saying "I blurbed this one! 'Had Philip K. Dick lived through riot grrrl and the collapse of America's industrial economy, Stay Crazy would be his memoir. Erica Satifka is a prophet.' I think this book was hilarious, telling, and raw. It definitely worked hard to avoid crazy-person-is-magic cliches at the same time. Plus, after the largely unexpected election result, the United States will become more and more like the town in Stay Crazy. I'd said that Satifka was a prophet before Trump won the election—I hate to be a prophet myself, but..."

Meanwhile, at Bogi Reads the World, Bogi Takács also puts it on eir year-end list, with this blurb: "On the surface a snarky, cynical romp with a mentally ill woman battling aliens in a big-box store, then a semi-autobiographic examination of class issues in rural America, and then sheer Dickian existential vertigo. At one point I had to stop reading this and wait for the sun to come up, just to make sure all was right with the world. Then Trump got elected. (To make it clear, I am not blaming the book.)"

(Maybe I did cause Trump! Uh, sorry about that? Like, really really sorry?)

Jason Sanford calls Stay Crazy the best SF debut of the year, remarking "Stay Crazy mixes a fast-paced science fiction plot with deft social criticism, characters you'll love, and laugh-out-loud humor. The novel is also an excellent exploration of neurodiversity and how there are multiple ways to see both your own life and the world around us." (And if you haven't read it, check out his easy fix for the execrable film Passengers.)

And last but not least, James Nicoll (one of my fave reviewers) posted a review saying in part: "Mentally unstable protagonists offer authors an easy way to keep the audience unsure as to whether what seems to be going on is what’s actually going on. Also, they offer an even easier way to for authors to treat their protagonists in a shallow, exploitative way. Satifka avoids that trap: Em is a rounded character. She may be an unreliable observer but she’s not a caricature."

Not doing a 2016 wrap-up post because I wrote very little this year what with the election and all. Next year's output will depend on whether we're fighting Civil War II or World War III or both (the smart money is on both), but hopefully I will squeeze in some fiction. After all, who doesn't want to escape reality by reading a book? Oh wait, what do I write again.... aw, crap.

A Banana-Cream Pie Dropped from a Stepladder: My 2016 Award Eligibility Post

So we seem to have entered the time of year when I have to look away from the trainwreck of American democracy and list the works I've had published this year! Between the election and -- okay, it's all election -- I haven't been doing much writing or submitting. I only had four things published this year, which is half of what I had published in 2015 and and also 2014. As a certain President-elect would say, sad!

However, one of them is a novel! Stay Crazy is 65,000 words of paranoid Walmart alien fighting action, and it's already gotten some amazing reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. As a debut novel, it's eligible for all first-novel awards as well as the standard ones, and while I'm not convinced a little book like this has a hope of being nominated for a big-time award, I'd be honored if folks would consider it. (And for the rest of today, November 28, it's available for 40% off directly through Apex.)

I am also equally proud of my short story "After We Walked Away," which was published last week by Apex Magazine. It's an answer to Le Guin's story, but a million times more dark and desperate and gory. It's so new that I haven't really gotten many reviews of it yet, but people who've read it seem to be digging it, and at 3700 words it's also a bit on the short side. If you know Ursula, feel free to send her a copy, I'm too scared.

The other stories I had published this year are "Human Resources" in Fireside and "The Panoptimom" in Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things. They are also good stories that don't take much time to read!

If you like my story or book, or any others, you can list it/them on the SFWA Reading List if you're a member, or on your own site if you're not. Trust me when I say that no matter how dire things in the world are right now, every writer still feels a little lift when someone says they like our stories, and it lasts until the next time we check Twitter.

The STAY CRAZY Ridiculous Cosplay Giveaway

So at least one person is a Stay Crazy superfan. Here's one of my spouse/in-house editor Rob's coworkers in Em cosplay:

And... we have an idea for a giveaway. Take a photo of yourself or someone else holding a hairdryer and communicating with a package of frozen food, and Twitter-tag both @ericasatifka and @ApexBookCompany. Battle pose is optional, but recommended. I'll retweet everything, then randomly pick one person to receive a signed physical copy of Stay Crazy. You must live in the United States! I'll be closing the competition at ten entries or Halloween evening, whichever comes later. And hey, horror is one of the genres in which people keep trying to stick this book (along with urban fantasy, science fiction, young/new adult, and humor), so it even kind of fits! You can read the first two chapters of Stay Crazy here if you'd like, but keep in mind this is right before all the weird shit goes down. I promise you, however, weird shit does indeed go down.

In the meantime, if you've read Stay Crazy, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads or Amazon. They really do help, especially for small press books that don't get a lot of mainstream attention. It is easy much of the time for writers to believe we're shouting into the void, and it's not a great place to be, and not only because Donald Trump is there.

And lastly, here is a picture of my book fort. These babies will see you at OryCon:

STAY CRAZY Review Roundup!

I am not a very good blogger, and I'm only barely a better Twitterer. However, I have been getting some pretty great reviews of Stay Crazy, out RIGHT NOW from Apex Publications, and I might as well share them on Ye Olde Blog, for the three people who might follow me here and not on Twitter or FB. Some highlights:

"We really need more stories like this. Not just in the sense of how it deals with mental illness, but which acknowledge struggles that don’t end cleanly or may not end at all after the big ugly has been banished beyond our realms, while, at the same time, showing us people coming to realize this and accepting it as part of their life while finding value in the small, daily victories." --Cemetery Dance Online

"Stay Crazy was a blast to read. This is a tale where “crazy” runs amok, not only in the title, but in just about every aspect of the story. If you’ve ever felt just the slightest bit crazy yourself, then this book is for you." --Books, Bones & Buffy

"Stay Crazy treads the common ground between science fiction, horror, and fantasy. It taps a common plot thread, the gap between the fantastical and the insane, but doesn’t scruple to twist convention for its own purpose. The persistent tragic undercurrent to both the setting and the characters keeps it grounded in a grim reality, without being overwhelmed by despair. That alone, in my estimation, makes it well worth a read." --Hazel Gold (mild spoilers)

"What I liked about the book is that the take feels so genuine. Satifka isn’t trying to reach some fundamental of mental illness that we have to tease out or extrapolate. She’s writing about one condition that she has clearly done her homework on, and has built a character and story around. And once things start moving, it becomes a nail-biter pretty quickly." --Alligators & Aneurysms

So yeah, buy a copy of Stay Crazy, wherever fine books are sold! Which now includes the Portland independent bookstores Another Read Through and Annie Bloom's Books! Or get your local library to order it for you! It's all good.

STAY CRAZY Released: We Have Book Sign!

So there comes a time in every manuscript's life where they must be fed into a computer, rendered into pixelated symbols corresponding to various phonemes, and then stamped on the thinly flayed corpse of a thousand-year-old tree.

Anyway, this is just a rambling way of saying that Stay Crazy was officially released today. It's available everywhere: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, and the Apex Publications site itself. Here is a terrible picture of it:

And like all 21st century authors, I took a little blog tour. Here's where I've been so far:

Starting at the beginning, at Alex Shvartsman's The Hook I have an essay about the beginning chapter of the novel and why I started my weird SF/horror/WTF book so mundanely. At the South African Speculative Fiction Review blog I talked about the real villain in Stay Crazy (capitalism), and at Midnyte Reader I had a post about some of the darker themes in the book.

One of the main things I wanted to do with Stay Crazy is fight the stigma of psychosis, and so over on John Wiswell's blog I wrote about why I thought it was so important to show a heroic (kinda) character with schizophrenia. And on Mary Robinette Kowal's My Favorite Bit I spoke a little about the interaction between my protagonist Em and her mentally ill coworker Roger, which is the novel's most significant relationship.

I did interviews with Nick Mamatas, Shimmer Magazine, J. Kathleen Cheney, M. Darusha Wehm, and Andrea Johnson the Little Red Reviewer.

Here are some more early reviews:

"Stay Crazy succeeds in its defiance of convention, in taking the most familiar story arc in existence and turning it inside out. As a first novel, it's a promising showcase of Satifka's talent, and fans of Philip K. Dick will feel right at home." --The Semiotic Standard (with bonus interview!)

"What I like about Em is that she is kind of a jerk. I like to have to try hard to find the redeeming qualities in characters." --The Booktrovert

You can add Stay Crazy on Goodreads. I myself am a horrible user of Goodreads, preferring to announce my book recommendations from a megaphone out of the side of a helicopter, but the kids seem to dig it. And lastly I did a reading at the Another Read Through bookstore in Portland, and you can buy it off the shelf there right now!

And finally, I'll be at WorldCon, where there will be a release party on Friday night in the Consuite. I'll be holding one of these:

...and just generally being as awkward as possible so you might as well come over and awkwardly eat cookies with me. YAY BOOK!

Early STAY CRAZY reviews and weekend discount!

Some early reviews of Stay Crazy have come in, and they're good! Nebula-nominated author Beth Cato says:

"Stay Crazy is dark and intense sci-fi with a twist, in turns disturbing, amusing, and enlightening. It's not a book that fits into tidy genre boxes, so kudos to Apex for publishing a book that is that complicated--and good."

And over at 10 Bad Habits, Justin Howe writes:

"Overall it’s that mix of the weird and the downtrodden that makes Stay Crazy fun – maybe not ha-ha fun, but fun of a kind all the same. It would be a slipstream novel, except no one knows what Slipstream is. It could be science fiction or horror, except it’s not. It’s one of those weird novels that sits oddly in the joints between categories. Resume With Monsters mixed with Bubba Ho-Tep with some Kurt Vonnegut by way of Nick Mamatas added in. And that’s all great stuff. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, don’t hesitate to check it out, you’ll enjoy the trip."

 Also, from now through Monday, subscribers to the Apex newsletter can pre-order Stay Crazy or any other Apex title for 30% off, which means you can temporarily order it for only $11.17! Just use the discount code 2016bonus. And if you're not a subscriber to the Apex newsletter, why not? Sign up at the site!

Stay Crazy pre-orders now open!!!

Pre-orders for my forthcoming novel Stay Crazy are now open. You know what to do. Right now it's $12 for a print copy, which is the absolute cheapest it will ever be, more so than Amazon. And if you pre-order from Apex, you get a free 2015 Apex Magazine sampler! Besides, you know you want a physical copy of that cover art on your shelf, c'mon.

There's a Goodreads page for it now as well, and I must admit to being extremely interested in what books that algorithm pairs it with. Put it on your to-read list now and get an alert when the giveaway goes live! You can also add it using this handy link:

It's Gonna Be June

Some things that are going on with me, in no particular order...

1. Over on the Apex blog, there's a post with the cover art (YES!!) for Stay Crazy and a longer description of the book! In case you don't want to click over, it's right below:

Isn't it awesome?! Go check out Nick Brokenshire's stuff right now.

2. I have a rare young adult story out now in the latest issue of Ember Journal, "The Panoptimom," It's a story that equates parents with the surveillance state so yep, kid's story. Check out the art! (This is apparently my season for original art.)

3. But the biggest news in my life right now isn't writing-related at all, it's that we bought a house. Yes, in Portland. Yes, if you live in Portland you can come visit, although we're still painting the thing. And yes, I did convince Rob to let me paint the house all kinds of wacky colors:

So, writing has been on the backburner for... uh, pretty much this entire year now. I'm not proud about this by any means, but it is what it is. Now that we're moved into the thing and are almost set up for good, I should get back to it. As well as back to reading, riding my bike, and basically a whole plethora of things that aren't this house. At least I never have to move again? But I seriously love this house, even if it did derail the entire last six months of my life

4. Are you a true buckaroo? Love is so real, you guys.

Novel sale: STAY CRAZY to Apex Publications

It's on the publisher's blog, so it's official: I'm going to have a novel published. Here's the blurb:

Nineteen-year-old stock girl Emmeline Kalberg isn't surprised when voices start speaking to her through the RFID chips embedded in frozen food containers. Ever since she left college after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, voices have been a mainstay of her life, something to be ignored. But when Em's fellow employees at Savertown USA start dying around her, victims of a mysterious suicide plague, she decides to listen in. What she hears has the potential to tear apart the fabric of her small western Pennsylvania town -- and maybe the entire world.

The story of Stay Crazy began in 2006, when I wrote a novel called Entity that melded my experiences working for Walmart in that strange-ass year after I graduated college with my love of stories that question the nature of reality. Then a year later I quit writing for reasons that made a lot of sense at the time, and the novel was basically trunked along with the rest of my writing. But the story never left me, I always wished I had done something with the novel, and that wish especially grew stronger when I un-quit and my writing reached a whole new level. Some time last year, I pulled out the novel and well... I'm a much better writer than I used to be. So I rewrote it, line by painstaking line. I gave the story the writing it deserved.

And now... it's going to be published. My weirdo reality-bending category-bending novel with a mentally ill, working-class protagonist living in a shitty small town is going to be available for anyone to read, anytime, anywhere. I'm especially stoked to be published by Apex, since they've released a whole lot of books I've just loved.

Publication date is set for August 2016, so mark your calendars! In related news, I will be at WorldCon next year, so... book release party? Book release party, yes.

EEEEEE!!!!!!