Signed By The Author

Where to find signed Ruby Finley copies

For the past few weeks I’ve been turning up to bookstores that have copies of Ruby Finley vs the Interstellar Invasion to sign them! I also very much enjoyed meeting the booksellers along the way. Below is a list of stores where I’ve signed stock. Most only had one or two copies at the time, so they may be gone. Perhaps you’ll get lucky!

If you happen to drop by to get a signed copy, make sure you tell them you came specifically for that! It helps when they know.

Not in any of these cities? Never fear, you can still get my book online or from your local indie bookstore. Click here to find it in your area.

Junior Library Guild

Ruby Finley is a JLG Gold Standard Selection!

This news made my day explode with glitter! Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. *confetti!*

For those who don’t know, the JLG sends curated book boxes to librarians who then use those selections to inform which books they’ll buy for their libraries. So this is a big win!

The guild also claims that they have “A Sixth Sense for Choosing Award-Worthy Books.” *fans self*

Many thanks to the folks at JLG for picking my book and I hope all the librarians who get it love it as well.

Writing with Pride

Writing With Pride – LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion

Since it’s Pride Month and Juneteenth season and three months until Ruby Finley comes out, I thought I’d post about an aspect of the book that’s not obvious from the jacket copy but is very important to me, a Black Queer person.

When I first decided to write this book I had specific goals about representation and inclusion. I wanted my protagonist to be Black, to live in a Black community that is functional, safe, and caring, and for that community to have LGBTQ+ people in it as a matter of course. I did this by including parents who are gay and lesbian, and at no point is this ever brought up as a problem or abnormal.

Continue reading “Writing With Pride – LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion”

Deal Announcement Ruby

Now it can be told: How Ruby vs the Robo-Bug came to be

I am beyond excited to finally announce my first book deal! From the notice in Publishers Marketplace:

Science fiction and fantasy writer and media critic K. Tempest Bradford’s [middle grade] RUBY VS. THE ROBO-BUG1, in which an 11-year-old Black girl passionate about entomology finds an alien bug in her backyard and has to rely on her friends, the scientific method, and her instincts to help the alien get home safely, to Grace Kendall at Farrar, Straus Children’s, in a very nice deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2022, by Larissa Melo Pienkowski at Jill Grinberg Literary Management (world English).

I’ve been sitting on this news for months as the slow wheels of publishing turned. I’m glad I can finally be public about it because I am so very excited for this book! I didn’t set out to write a middle grade novel or really any novel that wasn’t the one I’ve been working on for ages. How did we end up here? Settle in and I’ll tell you.

Continue reading “Now it can be told: How Ruby vs the Robo-Bug came to be”


Footnotes

  1. A working title and slightly different from the draft title: Ruby vs. the Big, Red Bug. []
Standing Still

December Microfiction: Standing Still

This month’s free fiction is in honor of the solstice.

In the hour before dawn a chariot climbed through the desert hills toward the Western mountains, the full moon above illuminating the way. The sky was not yet even the barest pink and every star embedded in the body of Nut winked down at the driver and passenger as they broke the night’s silence. They drove past the sealed tombs in the rock, the monuments to past kings, until the beating of the horses’ hooves echoed off the stone of the new monument ahead. Hatshepsut tapped her driver’s shoulder to indicate where they should stop, then squeezed it to keep balance once they did.

“Here, my king?” the driver asked. They were still many feet from the front of the first ramp.

“Yes, I’ll walk the rest of the way,” Hatshepsut said as she climbed down and dusted herself off. “I won’t need to return to the High House until the sun peaks, so you may return to the river to take part in the festival there.”

Even though they’d discussed this before leaving, the driver still looked uncomfortable leaving her king there all alone.

“I’ll be safe. Go.” She said firmly but with a smile.

Click here to read the rest.

The Initiate

November Microfiction: The Initiate

Back to Egypt…


The halls of the temple were quiet; the dawn song sung, the morning light just beginning to peek between the columns. Maatkare passed between them as silently as possible, bare feet barely making a sound on the alabaster floor and just a gentle swish from the linen wrapped around her body. Only sacred sound was permitted here.

The quiet faded the closer she came to the outer courtyard, punctuated by the quacking chirps of the flock waiting for her. She smiled at the sound–it was one reason why she enjoyed this duty above all others. The ibis roamed the courtyard, disturbed by nothing, patient and steady. This flock took a specific path around the upriver end of the city, passing each resting spot with the regularity of the sun. They knew that she, or someone like her, would appear before the heat got intense bearing their favorite food. They also knew – or so she assumed – that she always brought enough for all of them, so they never fought or crowded or menaced her the way geese would. This is why she loved them.

Click here to read the whole story.

Even When We Don't Want to be Ourselves

October Microfiction: Even When We Don’t Want to be Ourselves

The stories in this series are based on the artwork of Chiara Bautista which is amazing and gorgeous and you should look at all of it.


Wolf and Bunny artwork by Chiara Bautista

She discarded the rabbit face in the water where the moon self still cast some light. Now that she was here on the earth she wanted a single identity. To be one of the persons.

No matter. The Earth’s rabbits found her, anyway. In the swamplands they approached her in uncharacteristically untimid ways. They knew her for one of them. And she loved them for that.

She wandered the swamps in a funk. She had detached herself from the night sky and dropped here to get some perspective, yet she still wasn’t happy. Or fulfilled. Or even sure what she wanted. To feel. To be. Nothing got solved.

She came upon the skull, half sunk in the mud and grass. She washed it, pressed a bright red flower to the place where an ear would be. That was enough.

Hello. That was the voice of what was left. A girl. No, a fish girl.

“How did you get here? This isn’t your place.”

This isn’t yours, either.

Click here to continue reading.

Wolf and Bunny 1

September Microfiction: The Moon Fell Off The Night Sky And He Went Looking For Her

This story is based on the artwork of Chiara Bautista.


Wolf and Bunny artwork by Chiara Bautista

She didn’t so much fall off the night sky as she allowed herself to detach, come away, to drift. She wanted, just for a little while, to see things from a different perspective. So much time above the little blue and green planet, watching over it, playing her part in the push pull of water and energy. Acting as a light in the darkness.

Sometimes she would look down and see herself reflected in the waters. The big ones as well as the small. But it wouldn’t be her whole self, her true self. And who was that, anyway?

Click here to continue the story.

February Microfiction The Locket

February Microfiction: The Locket

“This makes no sense,” Tulla said. She’d said about five times up to that point, as if repeating the statement would manifest someone who would then make it make sense. But that wasn’t going to happen because it did not make sense.

The locket on the sidewalk was not a picture. It also wasn’t a mirror, yet it was a reflection. Just of someplace that didn’t exist. Click here to read the rest of the story

Dragon Bound

January Microfiction: Dragon Bound

“You’re not supposed to carry me like this! Are you listening? Kid! Brruughfft – this is so undignified.”

Tamar let the Dragon complain until his complaints ran out. He’d pay for it later when the Dragon got bigger. Didn’t take too long for that to happen, but maybe by then he would be a Dragon himself and nothing could hurt him.

“You think you’ll get to be one of us? Not likely.”

Click here to read the rest of the story