DMV-Designed Game Event Planning!
And the end of my annual cello vacation.
Let’s lead with the most exciting news this week, friends! The game designer group that I’m a part of, Designed In The DMV, is collaborating with Pure Panic Comics & Games in Downtown Silver Spring to bring you a full day of role-playing game excitement this September, with a focus on locally designed RPGs! We’re still working out the details, but the owners of Pure Panic have been so incredibly gracious and generous with us already that I felt I had to shout them out well in advance of the day. Please stop by their charming store if you’re in the DTSS area, and pick up everything you might need for comics, card games and RPGs! They also have a cool Patreon if you can’t drop in but still want to be a consistent supporter.
Anyway, here are some photos from our fact-finding expedition to their store last night. And yes, I was super chuffed that they had two of my books for sale, too!
This past week also marked the end of my annual cello vacation, as I picked up my instrument again after a month’s hiatus and dove back into Beethoven’s Symphony #2 in D Major, in anticipation of the start of my chamber orchestra season. Learning pieces, especially as a feral cellist with very little formal personal training, is always so time-consuming for me at the beginning. I think it took me two and a half hours to crawl through the entire score last night, playing it well below tempo in the back half (as it was my first attempt at the Allegro Molto e Vivace,) and going over problem areas while figuring out how exactly to tape sheets together for the concert. I need to figure out how to do, much less conquer, some of these trills especially. Thank goodness for YouTube! (And again, please note that I have the significant advantage of being an ABRSM-trained if otherwise indifferent pianist, so I have a solid foundation in music theory. This would be super, super tough otherwise without an instructor!)
As such, surprise surprise, I think I’ve read even less this week than last! I did finish Danielle Valentine’s enjoyable The Dead Husband Cookbook. I wasn’t the biggest fan of her previous book, Delicate Condition, which was turned into a recent installment of the American Horror Story TV series, but I found myself much more captivated by this twisty tale of a cookbook author whose chef husband mysteriously disappeared several decades ago. Rumors have swirled as to what really happened to him — including the salacious idea that she ground him up into her famous meatballs — but she’s finally ready to tell all… with a catch. The one editor she’ll open up to is in disgrace, but ready to make a huge comeback.
I was also thrilled when Maria Dong reached out to me with her latest novel, Psychopomp. I adored her debut Liar, Dreamer, Thief, and love that she pivoted from that phenomenal genre mashup to straight sci-fi. In Psychopomp, a woman imprisoned on a lunar colony must fight to separate truth from fiction when she can’t even trust her own brain. Ultimately, I don’t think this sophomore novel worked quite as well as LDT did, tho I still very much enjoy everything Ms Dong writes.
I also have a very cool interview with JT Ellison for you on the publication of her latest book, Last Seen. This standalone psychological thriller examines family bonds and the connection between truth and memory, as a woman’s life falls apart once she realizes that it’s been built on a foundation of lies. Ms Ellison talks about the inspiration for this book specifically and for her writing in general, with great advice for aspiring writers as well!
Alright, I’m wrapping up my personal Hugo Awards 2025 coverage over at The Frumious Consortium — tho there may be plans for a round-table discussion column once the winners are revealed! — so will hopefully be back to my usual consumption rate of six books per week soon. Plus, Emily comes back from vacation and has a ton of exciting columns lined up for you too. See you in seven, friends!
Currently Playing (Music): Beethoven’s Symphony #2 in D Major; my Declan Rice and 2025 Energy playlists; Chappel Roan’s Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess; Stela Cole’s I Die Where You Begin; Jessie Murph’s Sex Hysteria; Bishop Briggs’ Church Of Scars.
Currently Playing (Games): The Light In The Mist puzzletale, The Wild Beyond The Witchlight, Metazooa by Trainwreck Labs, Learned League trivia, NYT Connections, Your Friend In Witchcraft by Kay Marlow Allen; The Wolves Of Langston by Obvious Mimic.
Currently Reading/Writing (Games): Ghosts Of Saltmarsh.
Currently Reading or Just Read (Books): The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine; Psychopomp by Maria Dong; The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr.