Fiction Fans

Bonus: The Traveling SFF Book Festival feat. Yume Kitasei and Mia Tsai

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Your hosts are joined by authors Yume Kitasei and Mia Tsai to discuss The Traveling SFF Book Festival coming up in October 2025. They talk about the inspiration behind the event, some behind the scenes of planning it, and what attendees can expect from each stop on the tour.

Find out more about the Festival here.

More from Yume: https://www.yumekitasei.com/ 

More from Mia: https://www.miatsai.com/ 


Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and talk about them too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I am Sarah, and I'm so pleased to welcome yume and s onto the podcast today to talk about the traveling SFF book Festival.

Mia:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Sara:

Welcome.

Yume:

Yeah. Thank you.

Lilly:

Well, so excited to talk about your event that's coming up in, depending on when this episode comes out. A couple of weeks probably. But before we get into that, what is something great that happened recently? Does anyone want to go first?

Sara:

I can go because I do have an answer prepared. My good thing is that I went to a Writers with Drinks event that Charlie Jane Anders put on in San Francisco last night which was fantastic. Had a really great time there. some incredible authors were, were doing readings, so, I hope that she starts putting those on again because I've been sad that, that they've been on hiatus.

Yume:

Yeah. I see those on Instagram and they look so fun. But you know, opposite post, obviously. Yeah,

Sara:

it was incredible. If you, if you're ever in the city when she does one, highly recommend one.

Yume:

yeah.

Lilly:

My good thing is a very small, but I had sushi for dinner last night. Always good. Yeah.

Mia:

My good thing was there was a Taiwanese American breakfast popup at the coffee shop across the street from where I live. And so, the. I just found out last night, so this morning we trucked on over and I got some Taiwanese inspired American breakfast options, except I got like the most Taiwanese one.'cause I just got kaji with like all the stuff in it. But my husband had a scallion pancake, bacon, egg, and cheese,

Lilly:

Ooh.

Mia:

so, not a bacon, cheese and egg or however he said it. You may, how did, how did Cuomo say bacon, egg and cheese?

Yume:

I think it was bacon, cheese, and egg or something.

Mia:

It's so weird.

Yume:

My good thing is there is a book that I've been dying to get my hands on because it is the. 13th Booker Long list book, which my friends and I tried to read before the shortlist comes out, which is Tuesday. And I had given up on getting my hands on this book, and my friend who was staying with me was just able to get the last book for me. So I have it in my hands and it's,

Lilly:

That's wonderful.

Sara:

Yay.

Yume:

really jumped for joy when I got it. So yeah, it was, yes.

Lilly:

And what is everyone drinking today? I have a. Well, it's called a blue jasmine, but that's just'cause there's flowers in it. The tea is not actually blue, which I was very disappointed to find out.

Mia:

I just finished my nitro cold brew from this morning, so I'm definitely a a person who drinks coffee like little by little across the entire day.

Lilly:

Nice.

Yume:

Three o'clock for me is what I like to call decaf O clock. That is when I have my decaf. So as soon as we finish this, I'm gonna go run and make my decaf.

Lilly:

Nice.

Sara:

I'm actually really proud of my answer. I'm drinking L'S Workshop Blend a custom bitter medicine tea blended by discover teas.com. So,

Mia:

you get that?

Sara:

I, when I bought Bitter Medicine from you at Jordan Khan a couple of years ago, I think you were giving these out and.

Mia:

Wow. You saved it. I am. I am in shock.

Sara:

Well, I have, I have a very large tea collection. So it's been in the rotation, but I thought this was the perfect time to drink it.

Yume:

Yeah,

Mia:

how has it taste to you? Because of course the my friend who made the blend is always curious to know.

Sara:

I really like it. It's a, it's a nice soft, like black tea.

Lilly:

Hmm.

Sara:

So perfect. Perfect for, it's a little too hot outside right now for this tea, but I feel like this is a perfect

Mia:

I think it would take ice really well, honestly, because we have all the floral components in it. It's got chrysanthemum and Jasmine, so.

Sara:

Yeah, it does. Taste like it would be good ice too. I think it's, it's probably very versatile.

Lilly:

All right. And has anyone read anything good lately?

Sara:

I heard a lot of good things at the reading last night. Does that count?

Lilly:

have a, a favorite author? Can you pick one from the reading?

Sara:

so everyone was fantastic, but I did come home with so many stars and oral history of trans non-binary, gender queer, and two-spirit people of color by Caro de Robertas, which I'm looking forward to reading. So, yeah, that'll, that'll be my answer.

Mia:

I think you may have the most interesting list, honestly.

Yume:

So I just as, as I mentioned, I'm reading my way through the Booker long list and my favorite so far on the list is this book called Seas Scraper which is this very spare novel that is just, it basically is like. A man and his horse and a couple other side characters, but there's something that's so well done about it. It's just like it's a very simple, deceptively simple book. Very atmospheric and multiple people who are reading it texted me saying they were very stressed out, like, you know, in a good way, like, which I think is, is, is just impressive that you can do that with, you know, relatively little. Frills. And and if you listen to the audio book as I did you can listen to the author actually singing a song that he composed for the book. Oh, and I, I should say who the author was. Sorry. Seas Scraper by Benjamin Wood.

Mia:

I honestly have to admit to not being able to remember anything. I have May's next release literally like a week and a half from now. Salt crop is coming out. It's sitting in the back of my car waiting for me to be destroyed because I peaked at it. And then I was like, oh no, I don't think I'm emotionally ready for this. And I've got so many books sitting around the studio that I have like started reading. And then just, I am, I am a serial d neffer, so they're all lovely books. I, and it's not the book's fault that IDNF, it is just like I ran out of time literally to read books. But I've got I've got, let's Become Fungal, which is a nonfiction book. Yasmin Oor Rodriguez and it is the full title is Let's Become Fungal Mycelium Teachings and the Arts based on conversations with indigenous wisdom keepers, artists, curators, feminists, and Mycologist. So it's sitting over here and it looks like it's going to be one of those where I really need to like, turn my brain on, which on one hand I love turning my brain on, but on the other hand, my brain is so tired,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Mia:

I dunno if I'll make it through.

Yume:

Mushrooms, of course, are a very important element of the memory hunters, which is Mia's new release which I highly recommend.

Lilly:

Excellent. A lot of nonfiction Today I have just been doing podcast reading, but we're getting close to spooky month, so, I'm excited for some scarier books. I think our first one is The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

Mia:

Ah, yes.

Lilly:

Which I've, I've never read any of her like novel length work. I think everyone in the whole world has read the Lottery.

Sara:

Not, not everyone.

Lilly:

really, Sarah, you went to school.

Yume:

I don't think I've read it actually. Yeah,

Lilly:

Oh, I mean, it's very good. There's a reason why

Yume:

now I have full though. Thank you.

Lilly:

yeah, it's a short story. It's very quick. I'm really, I'm excited to see,'cause like short stories are so different from a novel length work like. How different her writing is gonna be. So anyway, I'm excited to get started.

Mia:

Yeah, nonfiction is my happy place because I read so much fiction for, for work, so I will always crack into a nonfiction book without hesitation in a fiction book. I have to think about it and be like, well, if I'm, am I, am I ready for this? Have I been prepared?

Lilly:

Well, we are here to talk about the traveling SFF festival, which is a series of events over about two weeks where there are panels in, I believe it is eight different cities. And so I think I'd like to just kick us off with what is the history of this event? What were you inspired by?

Yume:

Yeah, I mean, so the, the impetus really actually is, this is maybe a, a sort of more meandering route than, than you might be expecting. But the impetus actually was an event that Mia put together, which was called concurrent. And so, maybe Mia you can talk a little bit about concurrent'cause that really was the thing that sort of then inspired me. We were both procrastinating in different ways and I guess we both procrastinate by taking on very large projects. But I saw Mia organizing that and it was just such an amazing thing. And I decided, you know, as I was planning my own book tour, it would be much more fun to just do a group road trip style book tour. and it's sort of like in classic fashion, sort of snowballed and then became a whole traveling festival. But but yeah. Yeah. Maybe you can say a few things about like what, how concurrent came about.

Mia:

Well, I think this goes all the way back to what are publishers ready to do for authors when it comes time to market and publicize their books. And the answer to that question has been changing. More rapidly it seems, in the last five to 10 years than it did in, in the times before. Previously we could count on specific things from the publisher, like scheduled appearances or, you would get, you know, a list of things that you had to go and participate in. And The landscape is always changing and so strategy always has to change also for marketing and publicity. And so, I feel, I feel like more and more, I mean, I shouldn't say I feel like I know, like you may and I have definitely felt this, the onus has been on the author more and more to prepare their own events, to figure out, like, how do we get word out? How do we spread the info so that people will start, you know, talking to each other about it. and that leads to a very Thanos from Avengers Infinity War, feeling where it's like, fine, I'll do it myself. And concurrent came about because of, choices Worldcon had made with regards to who was paneling and. I had seen a bunch of folks that I really believed should have had a voice at Worldcon just get rejected or ghosted and and it really was a ghosting. They just decided not to send the second round of rejections out because the timing was bad. They had planned to do it, and, the chat GPT thing happened like the same day. So they were like, well, I guess we shouldn't send them. Which, you know, I would've appreciated a, like, flat out rejection. At any rate. I saw who was going to be paneling and who wasn't. And like the, the people who got rejected from World Con was honestly shocking to me. So I said, fine, I'll do it myself. Let me run a con across the street from the main world con hotel and it'll be a one day thing. And I'll throw these panelists together on panels that I really believe will dig into. Current issues and current subjects in sci-fi fantasy. The nice thing about being a con that I put together in like 11 weeks flat is that we can be a lot, we could have, we were a lot more agile than worldcon. And so yeah, you may had a front row seat to me just like starting to really get madder and madder and like put things together.

Yume:

It was really impressive. Yeah. And it was great. I mean, I, I went through it and I thought it was, I thought it was amazing.

Mia:

Yes, you may. Of course I roped her in. Everybody in, like that little group, I'm like, you're coming, right? And they're like, oh yeah, of course.

Yume:

No, it was so good and it was packed. there was clearly like a, a hunger for it and people were really interested in the programming and the conversations were great. So, I thought it was great. And I mean, just to go back to your original question, I mean, I, I'm actually very lucky, like my, my publisher. Does quite a bit for me. As a, as a mid list author I, my first three books have been with Flatiron, and they always do they do three or four events for me. But I, I love events. I think normally for a mid list author, you wouldn't get e even that many events. And certainly not, not more than that. but I, I guess my view is a book tour isn't. To me about selling books directly. It's not about, you know, I, I did these events and I sold x number of books. I think the bookstores certainly want to see sales, but it doesn't matter if they're my sales, in my opinion. Like if I, if I do a a joint event with somebody and together resell. A bunch of books, I think the bookstore is, is just as happy. Right? So, I did a couple joint events in the past that my books that my publisher organized and it was a lot of fun because to me it's so much less pressure as an author because the, the attention isn't just on you and you don't have, it's, the show is like a joint show and like you're, you're entertaining people together and like, you know, you don't have to bring out the same kind of turnout because you know. Presumably your partner is also bringing people out. So it's not just like the, I don't mean just like a conversation partner, which is like the, the typical book event where you have an author, you know, talking about a book that nobody has read yet'cause it hasn't come out yet. And then their conversation partner, who's the only person in the room who's read it, who's asking you questions about it. And, you know, I, I love books and so I like, I don't mind that personally, but I as a, as somebody who does those. Types of events, it can sometimes feel a little bit like, I'm sort of having this conversation about a book with somebody that none of you guys have heard have read yet. So, you know, to me, like when you go to a convention or a festival, one of the things that's fun is if the conversation is, goes beyond just. The book, it goes, it's talking about genre and it's getting to sort of hear like the books that they like to read and, you know, interesting craft elements and sort of, you know, like listening to a good podcast. So, in, in my theory was that if you do a panel style discussion, and, I've been to some of these before. with authors at bookstores, and they've always been really interesting that you can have a really interesting conversation. You can sort of create a less traditional style event that like, you know, can, sort of bring in a broader audience potentially than just like a authors fans who like, frankly I'm not, I'm not famous enough that I could draw a crowd. Lots of different cities. And so, you know, together maybe we can, we can bring in a broader crowd. You, maybe you need meet readers who have never even heard of you you know, but might be interested. but they're just, you know, fans of, of certain genres. and then building relationships with those, those bookstores who've all been amazing partners in, in, in planning this. And also theoretically maybe share costs a little bit to reduce the cost of this thing because we are you know, most of it is not funded by publishers. So we were able to sort of piece together funding both from Smith College, who's been incredibly generous and is is funding. Some of it.'cause they, they have one of the events and then some of us did have publishers who are paying for like hotels and so we're sharing hotel rooms and then, you know, we're splitting the cost of everything else. So it's like, to me sort of. Changes the equation also of like, how worth it is it to do as an author.'cause a lot of us don't have unlimited resources to, you know, fund our own book tour. And I think it also as an extrovert, like I think it's also just gonna be so much more fun not just for the people coming to the events, but also for those of us who are participating in it. So I'm really excited.

Mia:

I was gonna say you may like with, with the way that publicity and marketing is right now, like it used to be that I think publishers had a much better idea of what their author's strengths are. Yes. You have to fill out the questionnaire. You talk about what you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do. Like the first time I published, I was like, yeah, I'll do blog post. you know, I'll write things. And the second time I was like, no, actually that is so much work. I'm not going to do that. But you may, like she said, is an extrovert and flat iron. Should be taking full advantage of the fact that Yue likes to talk to people and she will just go and talk to whoever is going to listen. We went on a little road trip, like earlier in the summer, and we were standing and, and waiting for a thing to happen. Yue just starts chatting up everybody who's like next, and I'm just like, oh my God, we're talking to strangers and oh, and then Mia, and I'm like, Hey, I'm not involved in this. So.

Yume:

No, and I think, I think I'm, like I said, I've been pretty lucky. Like, I think my publisher, the publisher has been very good about like pitching me to festivals and, and they do, they do pay for it, which I think, again, for a mid list author isn't that common. So I've been very lucky in that respect. And I think they, they know that I like doing the in-person stuff. And so I've got sent to a LA and Comic-Con and stuff like that, and that's been, that's been a great time. It's like getting sent to summer camp. I love it. So good. But but, but you know, the reality is that for every publisher, and I don't fault them for this, like you have a list, right? And all of the opportunities have to be sort of doled out in a very specific, targeted way, you know, in a way that makes the most sense for them as a business. So they're not gonna send me to. Every single event, right? even if I were the most charismatic person in the world, like they, they couldn't send me to all of those events. So, you know, the question is how do you make your own opportunities for yourself that sort of supplement whatever your publisher is doing for you and, and some, for some authors, your publisher is not doing that much for you. And so like it's, it's, it becomes even more of the share of like what you get to do. But I think regardless of what your publisher is doing for you, unless like you're a lead list title, like, I think if you're mid-list, you do have to do a little bit of you do end up having to do a little bit of your own planning if you want to do those kind of things because you know, the resources just get distributed in that way.

Mia:

Yeah. And then what UME is doing with the traveling festival is just kind of like, it, it's a feedback loop. Right, because now I'm planning a, a different panel for my local Barnes and Noble in like November. And it's gonna be a fun thing. It's not about our books. It's, you know, it's a completely different subject. It's like related to books, but it's just like the four of us cutting up and having a good time in front of a bunch of people.

Lilly:

Awesome.

Yume:

I haven't, I haven't even done our first one yet, but I'm already sold on the model. Like, I think, I think all, all book events should be joint or group events if possible.

Mia:

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a great idea. I, I understand why publishers, like the publicity department is not as excited about it because it does take a lot of coordination and everybody's got about a million emails to answer like literally every day at a publishing house. Just, there are so many things. In the air, so many moving parts. And so it, it is easier for somebody like you may, who is like, I have one job and I'm going to coordinate all this, as opposed to publicist who is like, oh, I've got like 15 or 20 authors and I gotta do all this. But now times 15 or times

Yume:

Yeah, I mean when I started out I thought it was an easy thing to organize, and then I got to the publicity and marketing. Piece of it, of like actually promoting and trying to get people to, to come. And I was like, oh, this is a lot of work and the logistics. So it actually did end up being more work than I originally thought. But anyway,

Lilly:

Yeah. What is both of your experience with events, both as attendees and as organizers? Is this your first event that you've organized?

Yume:

I organized a couple events to supplement my, my publisher's tour last year, and so I got a little bit of a taste of, you know, the nuts and bolts of it. But this has been by far the biggest experience for me in terms of like, I've learned so much and I would love to do this again because I feel like I've learned so much that will make it easier next time around in terms of like. The things to do, the things not to do and how to make it easier. I would start much earlier. But but yeah, so my, my experience was pretty, pretty minimal before I put this whole thing together.

Mia:

Yeah, and CMI had never run a con before and I was just like, well, fuck it, run it. Let's go.

Yume:

Yeah. Which is pretty incredible. I mean, you, you rented a theater. I mean my, the traveling festival is relatively simple because it's basically just ticking like. A bookstore model and sort of amping it up. But the concurrent convention was like, you know, there was swag, there were lots of participants. You had the level of detail that you really thought through was just incredible.

Mia:

Yeah, I think that with Yue and I, we both have like, we are maybe more project manager oriented than many other people. Like when I went traveling with Yue, she sent me a spreadsheet and I was like, what is this?

Yume:

don't, I dunno, people travel without spreadsheets. Like, what is that?

Mia:

I, I don't use a spreadsheet. The only time I have to use, like, I will only use a spreadsheet, like if I have to use a spreadsheet. I do keep a lot of notes by hand, but like, it is, it is just one of those things where you look at the big task and you just start breaking it down into tolerance, smaller chart, and then going, all right, what's my timeline? And I have from here to here to get everything ready. Okay, let's, let's go, let's get it done.

Lilly:

You mentioned the, the PR and marketing for this event. What have you been doing and like what has been successful so far?

Yume:

well, well remains to be seen. What will be successful? Actually I would love to like poll people when they come in,

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Yume:

so, I mean, Part of it is collaborative, like, you know, using the, the collective reach of social media from all of the different participants, right? By definition, if we're all posting. So we've made some graphics that we're collaboratively posting and that we're all sharing together. And then on top of that, like, we've made postcards which I've actually been mailing. I've been calling around to local libraries in the area. And if I don't, if I don't hear back from them, then I just. I just do it, which is, and mailing them like little stacks of these little printed cards that have the information for each event. And then mailing, I, I've also mailed them to the bookstores to give out at the counter which they've been very happy to do. We've put together a press release which will go out on at press Advisory, which will go out on Monday Monday I guess, whenever. Monday in the past airs and doing a lot of Facebook outreach, I had to make a Facebook account for this, which was hard. I got permanently banned the first time I tried and then was able to access it through my Instagram. I'm not really sure what that's about, because you can't talk to a human, so I'll never know why. We're just trying new things and I'm very curious to see. What ultimately gets people to come. Oh, also emailing, you know, emailing universities, emailing local science fiction and fantasy groups in the area. And just sort of trying to get the word out. I emailed, you know, maybe 200 plus friends and just was like, you, you happen to be in any of these cities, you know, please tell people about this.

Mia:

Then of course, outreach on this podcast. And you know, the more we get into it, the more it's like, oh, this stuff is really difficult because you never know what's going to shift the needle over here. If it's gonna be the clock app or if it's gonna be Instagram. Like who knows? Somebody might go viral.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Mia:

But we can't count on it. Yeah.

Yume:

And we'll pitch, you know, local papers and you know, maybe somebody will bite and maybe somebody won't, but we'll see.

Lilly:

Yeah, absolutely. What has been the biggest surprise to you while this process of organizing or during organizing concurrent?

Yume:

I have been so gratified by how I thought it was kind of a weird idea, but I was like, I'm into it. So, you know, I'll just try it. And I've just been gratified by how many authors, even authors like Veronica Roth is gonna do our New York event. She's really nice, but also, like she was very willing to do it. People that I cold emailed, like Ray Mailer, you know, I'd always heard great things about, but like, I've never actually met him and I just cold emailed him. Or I had a friend who, who intro introduced us and I was like, do you wanna do this? And he was like, sure, I'll do two events. So, you know, it's just been really awesome to like to hear from other authors that they're, this is something that they're interested and excited to do and, and, that, that, you know, you could cold email both bookstores and authors and people were just very interested in it.

Mia:

Think that as a model, it works really well for those of us who don't want to be promoing our books all the time. It is you know. It's part of the job, but also we are like, we authors are also excited about other people's books and like, yeah, we'll talk about our books, but we'll be so much more excited to talk about other people's books or what we see as happening in the genre or like what media has been really influential. Commonalities between the, between the books that we've been reading recently, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that would generate a lot a livelier conversation than having to answer like, questions about a book that nobody has read yet.

Yume:

Yeah, that's actually, so I should say actually some. Some history to, this actually maybe goes back to the fact that a lot of the people who are participating in at least one of the weeks, were all part of the 2023 debut year. Which was, you know, there's, there's always a slack group that's made in every debut year, and our debut year was extraordinarily non-toxic. Like we all loved each other. We, I don't remember there being any drama. We all like are really.

Mia:

real tr now.

Yume:

We all support each other. And, and that was when I first learned what Mia's describing, which is like, you don't need to promote your book. Like you can promote each other's books. And that's so much easier.'cause it's like, I, I love reading and I love books and like, you know, I'm excited about their books and, and because we are all from, except for in that in the second week, I think it's. Four, four of us are all 2023 debuts. And then we have Elaine Show, who is a 2024 debut who I met, I met El elsewhere. But I've read because of that, all, all of, a lot of these authors that were doing these events with, I've been reading their backlist. So like I, it's not just that I've read one. Book by them that's coming out this year. I've also read multiple of their books. So it's, I think it's gonna make for a much richer conversation because we've, you know, we just, we know the works pretty well and like we can talk about each other's books in a way that is just more fun and like less stressful than trying to convince you that I am a good writer when I'm not even convinced of that every single day of the week. You know, I'm just, but you

Mia:

but you, you're a fantastic writer. I wouldn't have so much trepidation about like getting into salt crop and then having to stop reading salt crop to write my own thing.

Yume:

No, but I mean, I, I like, I think authors in general, just like it is hard and most authors, I think it is not comfortable to like shout about yourself in your book, which you wouldn't know maybe by the level of self-promotion that necessarily goes on in social media spheres. But like, I think many of us are, screaming inside? No.

Lilly:

It is interesting how writing is often such an introverted project, and then marketing your book is such an extroverted project.

Yume:

Yeah,

Mia:

Yeah, I find that when it comes to book events, I would rather not be in the spotlight. I really enjoy being in the moderator position, which is why I am doing moderation at flights of Foundry at the end of this week Saturday, right? So, okay, next week, six, six days from now. And it's, I don't know. I like just having a chat with other folks who have been in my situation also and other folks who have been like, just from all walks of life who have different experiences and perspectives just to make things interesting. And so it's not like my book and my work and like me, me, me all the time, which is like, no thanks.

Sara:

So talking a little bit about the authors who are involved in this or the other authors who are involved in the traveling book festival. Can you tell us a little bit about who is going to be on these panels?

Mia:

Okay. It's a long list. Let's

Yume:

It's, it's a long list. So, in week one we have, let's see, Mackay Johnson who wrote those Beyond the Wall is, the sequel, I think to the, the Space Between Worlds, which was very which was a great book that came out a couple years ago. And Ray Aer, who I mentioned already has his most recent book is where the Axis buried. Science fiction author Julia V who writes with Ken Ken Bevel, I hope I pronounce his name correctly. And is a tour author. So they just they write together. Actually, it's really cute. They met, I think in elementary school and they first started running together

Mia:

They have the most chaotic writing process. You

Yume:

they, we connected us, al. And they, they write together now as, as like, you know, adults. And so their tourist trilogy is coming to conclusion with Pearl City. Sarah Pinsker is a local author in Baltimore who's joining us. And Veronica Roth, as I mentioned, is doing the New York City event. Fran Wild is joining us for Washington. DC Matthew Kressel is joining us for week one. He just wrote space Trucker Jess which is a, with a small press. And then, okay, so week two is Elaine Ucho, who just wrote Teos Demi, which is Zando, which is a sequel. JR Dawson is a tour author Emily Jane. It was with Disney. Me and Mia t I'm actually like in both weeks obviously,'cause I organized it. And, and, and Mia Mia t who's an incredible author who happens to be here right now is also in week two. I think that's everyone.

Sara:

and for these panels it's gonna be a different topic each week, right? I believe, or each event. Right? Yeah. Each night Yeah. How did you choose the panel topics?

Yume:

Brute force? No.

Mia:

Help pick topics. And I was like, what? What.

Yume:

yeah. I mean, I generated a bunch myself to get things rolling and then we attempted to reach consensus via email, which, you know, and then some people, some people added topics to it. So we sort of expanded the pool and then, I just sort of, this is basically how we decide our, in my, one of my book clubs, this is sort of how we decide is basically like quote unquote consensus, but it's basically like three out of 12 people speak up. So you've decided the consensus? No, I'm just kidding. It was a little bit more than that, but like, basically like. You figure out what nobody is objecting to, and then you sort of like triangulate what everybody is comfortable with. So, uh, it was a bit messy, but, if I were to do this again, maybe there would be a, a better process for it. But it, it was important that for each. night we're gonna take turns moderating the topics. So if it doesn't fit everybody's book, it's not the end of the world. But in general, we were trying to find topics for each night.'cause each, each lineup in each night is slightly different. In week one. Week two is less of an issue'cause it's the same authors every night. But we are trying to find topics that fit all of the books. And the books are obviously a, you know, part of the fun is that it's a whole range of. At the SFF speculative fiction like Sarah Pinsker is does horror, and is I would say very like spec speculative, literary. Whereas like, you know, some of the other authors are maybe like much more deeply embedded in the genre, like Elaine chose is like space opera, right? So, the, the range is, is. Fun'cause it's quite wide. But then, you know, coming up with topics that everybody can sort of speak on is, is sort of a process of elimination issue.

Mia:

Though one of our events in week two is gonna be moderated for us. That's Two of them are Okay. Yeah. Two of them are, are at, it's at Smith. Right. And then is it, is book line also moderating for

Yume:

Norwich. Yeah. So Smith College, so thank you. Yeah. Allegra Hyde, who is, a really wonderful author who I admire anyway, and is one of the people I called emailed. And she's also the one who's helped us get funding actually for the Smith event, although we're gonna, if, if we can get stipends, we're gonna use that also to help supplement the rest of the tour. But she's moderating the, the Northampton event. And then somebody I met through book talk is gonna be moderating. Amanda Peterson is gonna be moderating the Norwich Bookstore event in Vermont.

Sara:

Will any of these panels be available online or, or accessible to people who are not on the east coast and can't attend in

Yume:

Yes, definitely the Washington DC event is going to be hybrid. And I will double check. I'll have to double check real quick, but I there I think maybe one or two others that are going to be available. Later, I believe Brook Brookline, for example, does a YouTube clip afterwards, but it won't be live. So, so several of them, I'll, I'll make sure it's reflected on our website. But several of them are, are hybrid, but we'd like people to come in person and because of that work, doing a, a raffle giveaway. So, if you come to one of the events, you'll get entered to win a bunch of books

Mia:

You'll get loot.

Yume:

Yes.

Mia:

You

Sara:

Well.

Mia:

loot.

Lilly:

I didn't look at every single event, but the ones that I was clicking through the tickets looked extremely affordable.

Yume:

I think, yeah, in general. Sometimes bookstores, which I totally understand, like they'll say you know,$5, but you know, you can use it to buy a book At our bookstore, it's like just store credit that you're basically buying. I think that's just because you don't wanna have a big event and then nobody buys anything.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Yume:

Which, you know, we all, we all love in an indie bookstore, so I don't begrudge in that at all. It seems quite affordable. And then a bunch of them are free.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Mia:

Though. I will say that having a drop in panel like this where the bookstore doesn't have to give any resources beyond keeping the lights on and having like a staffer or two spend another hour or two on the floor managing the actual bookstore it's, it's. attractive to bookstores'cause they don't have to get extra manpower to do that. Yeah. I actually had one of my events canceled because the bookstore simply didn't have the people to staff while another bookstore employee would be moderating or like being in conversation. So yeah, that's a, that's a big issue and you may has circumvented that like quite easily by putting a bunch of us together.

Lilly:

I noticed that the title of this event is the traveling SFF Festival 2025.

Yume:

Oh yeah, I'm ambitious.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Yume:

you noticed that, huh?

Lilly:

It sounds like we can look forward to perhaps a 2026 festival as well.

Yume:

I, I definitely would like to, I'm no longer going to have a book in 2027, but I'll have a paperback for this book coming out. So maybe I'll, maybe I, if you know, and, and also like I don't own this idea, so, you know, in theory, I suppose like I could pass the baton to somebody who does have a book coming out. But, but no, I'd be down to do it again. And I think we would probably do it a different route each time. That's, that's sort of my vision is that like, each time you do a different route, you hit different cities meet different, you know, new bookstores. Although some of the bookstores that we've worked with have been so amazing that like, you know, I could see working with them again in the future just because they've been such cheerleaders. But yeah, I mean, we'll have to see how this one goes. Right? It could be an utter failure, so. Hopefully not.'cause it's now two weeks.

Sara:

Hopefully it's a roaring success and you are able to do it next year as well and continue doing it for, for many years,

Yume:

Yeah. So if people come out, you know, we'll do more.

Sara:

yes, everyone should attend. Everyone who is in those cities should attend.

Yume:

Yes, please.

Sara:

So you may, you just had a book or you have a book coming out soon and Mia you just had a book come out. Can you tell us a little bit about your books?

Mia:

Oh man. You, Mays got the most recent release, so I'm going to let her go first. I'm also going to pull my pitch sheet up because I cannot remember anything so.

Yume:

So, my book is Salt Crop. which is about two sisters who sail across a climate ravaged ocean in such of their missing sister. And it's a dystopian novel. And I will say if you've read The Deep Sky or the Start of Girl, which were my first two books each, each standalone, by the way, they're not related at all. It's very different tonally than those two books. So, just forewarning that it's a slightly different pace and a slightly different tone, and that's intentional. I was trying to experiment a little bit, so, it's definitely one of the hardest things that I've ever written and I pushed myself a lot.

Mia:

The memory hunters came out at the end of July. From, and like you may, I also pushed myself on this one. It is totally a 180 from. Bitter medicine. So whatever you expected from bitter medicine, please do not expect the same thing. Again, I'm a musician who believes in never doing anything the same way as anybody who has been in classical music long enough knows. Like we are basically not allowed to interpret anything like the same way twice. So, the memory hunters is an adult science fantasy once more in the cross genre space. It is mushroom anthropology meets museum ethics when a brilliant anthropologist finds a forbidden memory and asks who tells your story and what gives them the right to tell it all wrapped up in some creepy mushrooms. And set in a post climate disaster world that is Appalachia like.

Yume:

And I'll say if you like like blood over Bright Haven. I think that's a great comp for this book.

Mia:

Yeah. It's not like dark academia. There is, there is academia and like standard academia things in here, but it's, it's not about, it's not about secret societies or anything like that in the

Yume:

magic. It's not a magic school. It's

Mia:

We, we have graduated from the magic school and now we are in the field kind of thing.

Yume:

Field operatives. Yeah.

Mia:

Yeah. I have had those who have been in library sciences in archival and in museums in general, have found the book to resonate with them because they're like, ah, yeah, the author has clearly been in these institutions. I'm like, yep, I have been.

Lilly:

Well, fantastic. Thank you both so much for joining us today. It has been such a blast talking to you about this upcoming festival and all of your current projects.

Yume:

Will we see you at any of our events or are we in the wrong coast for you?

Sara:

Unfortunately Wrong coast. Yeah. is hence, hence the question about online

Lilly:

yeah.

Yume:

I'll also be, I'll also be in Seattle and Austin as well if you happen to be

Lilly:

Oh yeah. When are you in Seattle?

Yume:

In October. So the second week in October, I will be in Austin and Seattle.

Lilly:

Cool. Where can our listeners go to follow the traveling SFF festival? To find out more information To follow both of you

Sara:

Buy tickets to the events.

Lilly:

Yes.

Mia:

You has conveniently put up a website. It is at ume.com/traveling. Sff book Festival.

Yume:

Mostly'cause I didn't wanna pay for a separate domain,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Mia:

Yeah, it would've been like traveling book festival co or something like that.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Yume:

Yeah.

Sara:

And if our listeners want to follow both of you to get more news about your books, where can, where can you both be found?

Yume:

So I'm at UME writes, Y-U-M-E-W-R-I-T-E-S at Instagram is my most favorite platform at the moment. But I'm also on Blue Sky. And, tikTok, but I'll say that very quietly because I'm doing better.

Mia:

I am@miatsai.com. That has like the link tree to just about everything. I am on because my my username changes depending on the platform, unfortunately. So on Instagram, I am Mia. Time books. I think there are dots in there. And on Blue Sky, I am at Itea. But really just go to the website and then just like click the various icons that'll take you to my socials. You may and I also have newsletters. You, Mays is very worth

Yume:

That's what I do. I have a newsletter. It's monthly.

Mia:

a newsletter.

Lilly:

All right. And most of those links will be in the episode description, so if anyone's interested, they can go ahead and click on that. Thank you again for joining us and have a wonderful rest of your afternoon.

Yume:

Thank you guys so much.

Sara:

Yeah, this is a blast. Thank you.

Yume:

thank you.