Hello, lovely readers! Spring is still struggling to beat out winter here, but I think we’ve finally turned that corner. The wider world continues to feel extra rough, though, and I hope you’re taking care of yourselves and your communities. As we count down the days until Tea & Treachery at the Infinite Pantry comes out (April 21! Just a month away!), I feel like we could all use more coziness in our lives right now.

Have you preordered your copy yet? Paperbacks are up for preorder now as well as ebooks, in all the usual places. Give your future self a little treat — and maybe a double treat, because I’m doing a giveaway: a tea-and-cookies care package for one reader who preorders! Tea is central to the story, and this will let you enjoy a curated tea collection while you read.

To enter, just 1) preorder Tea & Treachery at the Infinite Pantry in any format, and 2) fill out this form with a copy of your receipt.

It’s been getting a warm early reception, most recently this glowing review from Mia V. Moss and another from Dawn Vogel. Mia says:

I loved this book SO much. It was exactly the book I needed this month and I'm grateful I got to read it when I did. The Infinite Pantry is a cozy fantasy triumph of healing through nourishment and a love-letter to every kitchen table.

I’m so excited to share this book with you. But before I spill more tea (as it were) about the role of tea in The Infinite Pantry—wait, there’s more news!

During our spring weather roller-coaster, this tree went from not blooming to 100% blossoms literally overnight.

The good news: Short stories

I missed this when it first happened, but the ebook of volume 2 of Worlds of Possibility is now live, and it’s free! It includes my subversive queer book ban story “Stories Never Die But Live Forever on the Wind,” which is regrettably still timely. (I feel like I say that about my short stories a lot. I would love to have a story where I say “this is outdated now”... but I’ll have to keep dreaming.) WoP has been one of my favorite short story publications, and editor Julia Rios does a great job of selecting stories that balance depth and hope. Go check it out!

I also just signed a contract with Escape Pod, which has been on my author bingo card a long time, to publish “You Have Arrived at Your Destination,” a near-future sci-fi-with-magic about what I wish self-driving cars were actually like. And about greedy misbehaving tech companies, naturally. It'll be published later this year.

Also, events

My event and convention schedule is packed this year, with Ravencon in April, Balticon in May, and Lavendercon in July, plus some smaller events and book fairs. I’m mostly sticking local this year for ease of travel, with some virtual cons in the mix as well. I will keep you posted on these as the details come together!

The bad news, aka “The News”

I don’t need to tell you about the dumpster fire that is current events. That’s not what this newsletter is for. But here’s one you may have missed that’s personal for me: a bill that would ban books about trans characters and gender identities from all public schools, in the name of supposedly protecting children from “sexual content,” which is going up for a vote in the House.

This would get rid of books from queer and trans authors and representation of queer characters that school-age kids desperately need. Books can help queer kids know they’re not alone, not to mention helping all kids better understand people who are different from them—people who exist in the world who they’ll have to live beside.

If you’re in the US, can you call your rep and ask them to vote against HR 7661? Here’s a script you can follow, plus more background info. I will be deeply grateful.

One more way to support trans and nonbinary creators right now is the Trans Rights Readathon and Auction. There is a lot of cool stuff on offer (including a signed book from me!), so after you call your rep, go check it out!

Tea time! What tea means for The Infinite Pantry

There’s a surprisingly big overlap between tea lovers and sci-fi/fantasy. TJ Klune, Becky Chambers, Rebecca Thorne, and many others have set entire books in tea shops (a mobile one, in Chambers’ case). Anne Leckie made tea a cultural pillar in her Imperial Radch books, the thing that everyone panics when they can’t get access to it, gave it ritual significance, and paralleled the troubling, problematic, colonialist history that tea has in our world.

Or maybe it’s not so surprising. Tea has a lot going for it as a story element: it can be a cozy, comforting cup, or a high-stakes ceremony. It can be as simple as harvesting herbs from a garden (I’m counting tisanes as tea, here, because they play a similar role) or a craft pursued by masters. Tea can heal and delight. Tea can be a business interest and economic driver. It can start wars and restructure empires.

As a cozy fantasy, the tea in this book is much more on the “heal and delight” side. But as a huge tea nerd, as soon as I started a food-centric story, I knew tea had to be a big part of it.

The Infinite Pantry is a food museum, and the characters love food. One of the things I’m excited to explore in the series is what makes food “important”—to an individual, or to a culture, or to the world—and what “belongs” in a museum to be commemorated. On one hand, so many things! But their space isn’t literally infinite, so they have to pick and choose.

The main character, Glendevyn, is also a tea nerd. She’s constantly drinking tea and constantly making it for other people. Being newly promoted as head curator of the Infinite Pantry, she starts a tradition of serving tea at the beginning of every meeting—and making sure everyone attending takes a moment to actually sip and taste and appreciate the tea before diving into business.

I wanted to show the incredible variety of tea that exists, the many forms and flavors it can take. They have “real” tea in this world, from a tea plant, and Glen will brew black, white, oolong, or other varieties as the mood takes her. There are flavored teas, too, like chai and floral and others, and herbal tea for relaxing. Glen is almost a tea sommelier, able to identify any variety in her collection from smell or taste, and she thinks carefully about what tea is best for each situation. I had tons of fun writing tea descriptions and inventing blends!

I also played with the social role of tea, and its emotional importance. There’s the everyday frustration of getting distracted by urgent things and ruining a brew or letting it go cold. There’s tea as self-comfort, and also tea as care-taking: Glen often makes tea for other people as well as herself, yet some of my favorite moments in the book are when other characters make tea for her—which to her is the ultimate expression of care.

I’d love to make a warm cup of tea for every single person who reads this book, but alas, that technology doesn’t exist yet, so I figured doing a giveaway would be the next best thing. I’m going to curate some tea pairings to go with the book, add a mini teapot for brewing plus some cookies and other goodies, and pick a winner on release day. To enter, just 1) preorder your copy and 2) fill out the form.

What I’m reading

The Chamos Project by Alexis Ames is a tense space adventure about the fissures that erupt between humans and their android crewmates on a deep space mission when things start to go very wrong. Alexis gave me an early copy of this to read, and by the end I couldn’t put it down. If you liked Warped State but don’t mind a darker side to your sci-fi, this could be right up your alley.

Call Me Traitor is Everina Maxwell’s first foray into epic fantasy and it blew my mind. I was lucky enough to get to read an advance copy, and sadly it’s not out until later this year, so I will talk about it more then. It was a level up from her romantic space opera Winter’s Orbit, which I also adored, and for many of the same reasons—so for now I’ll recommend Winter’s Orbit, and if you like it, I think you’ll love Call Me Traitor.

Last but not least…

Here’s Ada, our personal coziness guru. She does not give lessons. She only teaches by example.

Until next time,

Jo Miles

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