Updates from Mechanical Pulp! Reviews, my next novel, zine submissions

Lots going on!

Hey everyone! Time for some updates! It’s been a while since I did one of these!

I fully acknowledge my output has slowed in the past month or so—right when I was getting a “feel” for what I wanted Motel Wizard to be, my laptop shit the bed, I did a bit of travelling, it’s the end of the school year and the kids are busy, etc etc… I do need to get back to that story. I have so many ideas! Just need to find/return to that headspace. So it goes! I’ve been working on other stuff, too. (More on that later.)

Meanwhile!

John Carter

wrote up a review for Pallas, a few of you reading this may have already checked it out, but if not, go read it!

Made in DNA

has also reviewed it [here], a well as

Alexandru Constantin

[here]!

Speaking of reviews, if you’ve arrived here because of Mr. Carter’s review of Pallas, welcome! Feel free to peruse my back catalogue! You may be intrigued by my other novel, The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick—check out

Redd Oscar

’s review! It’s a character-driven fantasy: dark humour, flintlocks, swordfights, and crime. (And tragedy.) It’s in this year’s SPFBO!

M L Clark

also did a video review on her YouTube channel!

More details on both books all over my Substack. (There’s also a completed serial: Pull Me Under!)

Purchase links (adjust Amazon URL to your locale if necessary:)

Pallas

The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick

PSA: Reviews, and word of mouth, are HUGE for indie authors! Please please remember to leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever, or even just a rating, and tell your friends about any indie novel you read! When it comes to self-published works especially, it’s so vital! We are all eternally grateful for your reviews/ratings!

Alright! Enough with that rambling. Now for the really exciting stuff!

The Ghosts of Tieros Kol

will be my third novel released, ETA early 2025. It’s with my last round of beta readers right now, and then it’s wrap-this-up-o’clock. Thinking about a cover now, and hoping for a cover reveal in the fall, with a more official-er announcement post. But it’s never too early to start building hype!

Think a more adult Edgar Rice Burroughs type SF—because it isn’t a Lisa Kuznak novel without cussing and tits, you know—set in a Roger Dean painting. Planetary romance (heavy on the “romance” but it’s not a Romance, you dig?) Swords in space!

Before you know it, I’ll be putting out a call for ARC (advance review copy) readers, so stay tuned for that.

When it’s out, listen to UFO and Uriah Heep while you read.

(Also in 2025 there will be another chance to beta read something else, which I’m currently redrafting. No ETA on this project, it’s still untitled, but it’s fantasy, fairy tale-ish. But this is the real reason I’ve slowed my Substack posts.)

I Want To Write A Zine With You

and I’m real super serious, despite never having done this before. Anyway, here’s the deal: I want your gritty, grimy, hometown, lowdown, lighthearted, scumbag poems. I want your surreal flash fiction, tell me about some weirdos, a lowbrow vignette, some strange encounters, something bizarre. But whatever you conjure, it better sing. There’s beauty everywhere, even in our darkest places. You're finding beauty in the grotesque, or you’re making me laugh about it. It doesn't have to be gross or filled with cuss words. Maybe it’s just a piece about someone you saw in a grocery store.

Genre: meaningless. It can have swords and dragons or alien scum, or totally here in contemporary reality—but it must be poetry, or “poem-adjacent” bits of prose. Keep submissions to under 1500 words—and, I’m not an editor, so please have the typing be as clean as possible. (PS: If you have multiple poems or flash pieces to submit, 1500 words TOTAL. Zine here, not magazine.)

I don’t even have a title for this thing yet, all I know is my desire to work with all you lovely folks has been keeping me up at night.

Deadline: When I call it quits.

I’m also accepting artwork for this, if you feel like it!

This is for fun, not profit, labour of love, etc.

Send your stuff to: lisakuznakbooks (at) proton (dot) me, and include the words “zine submission” in the subject line. Somewhere in the body of the email, include your Substack handle, if you have one.

That’s It For Today

Cheers!