$5,000 marketing and publicity budget
Large galley run.
Consortium galley box mailing.
Galleys: NAIBA, NCIBA.
onward.
National radio interviews
Advertising campaign in print (Sci Fi Magazine, Rain Taxi,
F&SF, Conjunctions, Lightspeed, etc.), radio, and online
#WeNeedDiverseBooks
Promotion on the author's website: sofiasamatar.com
Publicity and promotion in conjunction with the author's continuing
speaking engagements including readings for Best American Science
Fiction & Fantasy 2016.
Readings and conference appearances.
Book display at MLA 2017, AWP 2017, & more.
Sofia Samatar is the author of the novel A Stranger in Olondria, the Hugo and Nebula nominated short story "Selkie Stories Are for Losers," and other works. She has won the John W. Campbell Award, the Crawford Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Two of her stories were selected for the inaugural edition of the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has written for the Guardian, New Inquiry, Believer, Strange Horizons, BOMB, and Clarkesworld, among others. She is working on a collection of stories. Her website is sofiasamatar.com.
NPR Best Books of the year · Locus Award finalist Reviews "All of
it is harrowing — and written in such heart-stoppingly beautiful
language there’s a good chance readers will ignore the plot and
spend a few hours just chewing on the words, slowly, to draw out
the flavor. Then they’ll need to read it again. Fortunately, this
is a short book; also fortunately, there’s a lot of novel packed
into relatively few pages. A highly recommended indulgence." — N.
K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review "Like an alchemist, Sofia
Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. . . . The
Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their
sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine
tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead
into the unknown." — Shelf Awareness (starred review) "It is
dazzlingly beautiful and as close to perfect as a reader can hope.
. . . The Winged Histories is one of the finest fantasy novels of
2016, or any year." — Jane Franklin, Rain Taxi "Samatar’s second
novel’s lyrical and gorgeous prose explores the lives of four very
different women caught up in the brutality of war." —
Recommendations from the Booksmith in the San Francisco Chronicle
"The lush syntax is often so spellbinding that entire paragraphs
demand an immediate re-read, and the plot map follows tributaries
as often as the river itself. Rhythmically, it varies between
traditional fantasy fiction and a sort of poetic prose. Samatar's
women are realistically flawed, and the storylines have
intentionally frayed edges and visible brutalities and, of course,
monsters and magic. Based on just a first read of this lyrical
work, Samatar's fascination with language and the human condition
is very apparent, and perhaps even contagious. Excerpts of in-world
books and songs, plus an intricate family tree and glossary, help
transform this fantasy into a world so real that when the book
ends, Olondria becomes a red balloon, ever-present but just out of
reach. For every moment of power and adrenaline, an equally
crushing or lovely or strange occurrence is offered. But then, such
is war, and life." — Jessi Cape, Austin Chronicle "Throughout it
all, Samatar ponders weighty questions. 'What is the difference
between a king and a monster?' Tialon asks; 'What is music?'
wonders Seren. But Histories isn't a book about easy answers, any
more than it's driven by plot. It's circuitous and hypnotic, told
through flashbacks, meditations, and stories within stories. Tialon
pores over a history book written by her aunt; Seren sifts through
the traditional songs she sings. Rather than being distractions,
these nested texts ring with lyricism.
"At the same time, they underscore one of Samatar's profound
themes: how words make us, every bit as much as we make them. At
one point Seren, waxing philosophical about the distinction between
sorcery and literacy in Olondria, says that writing is 'like riding
a horse to go somewhere instead of walking. You go to the same
place, but you can carry more.' Accordingly, Samatar carries a
great deal with her in the pages of The Winged Histories: beauty,
wonder, and a soaring paean to the power of story." — Jason
HellerNPR "Told by four different women, it is a story of war; not
epic battles of good and evil, but the attempt to make things right
and the realities of violence wielded by one human against another,
by one group against another. It’s about the aftermath of war, in
which some things are better but others are worse. Above all, it’s
a story about love—the terrible love that tears lives apart. Doomed
love; impossible love; love that requires a rewriting of the rules,
be it for a country, a person, or a story." — Jenn Northington,
Tor.com “An imaginative, poetic, and dark meditation on how history
gets made.”—Hello Beautiful "This book. This perfect book." — Amal
El-Mohtar,Lightspeed "If you think Samatar has the ear and soul of
a poet, you will love this book. . . . If One Hundred Years of
Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or House of the Spirits, by
Isabel Allende, are favorites of yours, you will love how Samatar
shows us a rebellion and a civil war through the lens of a central
family. Each of the viewpoint characters (there are four main ones)
brings not only a different perspective, but new information about
a prince’s attempted coup and a warrior’s attempt to free her
nation… or the rise of the Priest of the Stone. . . . If you love
stories but distrust them, if you love language and can also see
how it is used as a tool or a weapon in the maintenance of status
quo, then read The Winged Histories." — Marion Deeds, Fantasy
Literature "I wouldn’t normally taunt you with a book you can’t
have for two months, but this time is different, ok? Because the
book in question is a sequel, which means you have time to go and
read A Stranger in Olondria, and then be ready for Winged Histories
in all its glorious glory. In Olondria, Samatar built us a
beautiful fantasy world, full of diverse peoples and customs,
gorgeous landscapes, and a dark undercurrent. Our guide to
Olondria, Jevick, found himself caught up in the midst of a
troubled political situation, in a country on the brink of war. In
Winged Histories, we see that war from four perspectives. And, god,
what perspectives they are. Samatar has created characters that you
will carry around with you for weeks (months?). If you love strong
voices, world-building, and books that tell hard truths with
beautiful language, these are for you." — Jenn Northington, Book
Riot "Samatar’s use of poetic yet unpretentious language makes her
one of the best writers of today. Reading her books is like sipping
very rich mulled wine. The worldbuilding and characterization is
exquisite. This suspenseful and elegiac book discusses the lives of
fictional women in a fantasy setting who fear their histories will
be lost in a way that is only too resonant with the hidden
histories of women in our own age.” — Romantic Times Book Reviews
(4.5/5 stars, Top Pick) "The Winged Histories is a saga, all right,
focusing largely on a single family, but its prose, while
characteristically graceful and evocative and often stunningly
beautiful." — Gary K. Wolfe, Locus "It is obviously not
coincidental that Samatar’s narrators are all women: The Winged
Histories addresses that which is so often elided in conventional
fantasy novels – the absence of women, or at best, the limited
roles available to women. If Lord of the Rings shows us only
privileged women, able to disguise themselves in order to fight, or
else to remain sequestered from the grubbiness of war, Samatar’s
women have to deal with the effects of war head on, because in
their various ways they are all involved. While it may be true that
Tavis presumes on her status in order to learn to fight, she is
nonetheless part of a sustained military campaign, and all that
entails. Likewise, she and Siski have always been aware of their
significance as nieces of Olondria’s ruler, the Telkan, thanks to
their aunt, Mardith, who seeks to gain power through matchmaking.
However, through Seren and Tialon we see women who are nominally
reliant on men in order to survive, and the ways in which they
negotiate survival in a world that is rapidly changing. . . . And
still there is more to be said about The Winged Histories and its
predecessor. Thoughts and notes piled up as I read on, and I
reached the end wanting nothing so much as to return to the
beginning and start all over again. Samatar’s work really benefits
from rereading, which is more than can be said for a lot of
contemporary novels. This is a very satisfying novel to read,
challenging and troubling too, as the very best fiction ought to
be." — Maureen Kincaid Speller, Interzone 265 "Tav, a teenage girl
from the House of Telkan, ‘the most exalted bloodline’ in Olondria,
has run away to become a swordmaiden in the army. As she fights
alongside the men, she realizes the war is a distraction while the
ruling branch of her family subjugates her native kingdom,
Kestenya, and surrounding territories. . . . Samatar is a writer of
uncommon beauty, and she takes a genre that has historically tended
to focus on the heroic exploits of men and shows how those exploits
involve and affect women. This novel teaches us the importance of
giving voice to experience and bearing witness; as one character
says, writing is less about words than ‘how we are written into one
another. How this is history.’ A lyrical immersion into a finely
wrought world." — Kirkus Reviews "In 2013 Sophia Samatar's A
Stranger in Olondria introduced us to new world described with such
poetic verve that is has since become a living classic of fantasy
fiction. With her new book, The Winged Histories, Samatar's great
storytelling talent and wickedly beautiful prose takes us to an
Olondria wracked by war. Despite this bloody and turbulent time,
four women will have their voices resonate above the fray. Their
stories and the stories they tell themselves are vivid portraits of
women willing to challenge the conventional and fighting in myriad
ways to be remembered. Samatar's creative use of a section titled
"A Common History" unites the voices of these women to unrelated
yet connected people or events which adds an emotive depth to the
story. She also includes a richly imagined mythology that is shared
by the characters, a scintillating vein of ideas bringing such
beauty and darkness, but that helps us understand unearthly changes
need to be embraced, despite our fears, in order to be truly free."
— Raul M. Chapa, BookPeople, Austin, TX "Can I smear tears on a
piece of paper and call that a review? This was GORGEOUS and
emotionally bruising and so so wonderful and engaging and many
other perfect words. There is so much world-building, a fascinating
mythology, and beautiful language (I'm trying not to yell about
Seren's little language lessons). There are amazing epigraphs,
which I'm always a huge fan of. Samatar winds the stories of four
very different women through a monumental period of Olondrian
history, and it's one of the best reading experiences I've had in
the last year. Poetic and bloody, lovely and dark, this is a book
to be SAVORED, and I will be re-reading it again soon, at a much
slower pace." — Allison Senecal, Book Shop of Fort Collins "Sofia
Samatar's work is a revelation. Her prose has only become richer
and more assured between her debut novel and this follow-up. The
Winged Histories gives the stories of four women whose stories are
linked by the events that shape them (and that they help to shape).
The contexts of the complicated class and national histories the
inform these women is described in such clear detail that I feel
that I know them all, their histories and their inner realities.
Amazing, incredible, lush, emotionally rich, politically
fascinating, this is one of the most satisfying novels I have
picked up in ages. It begs the reader in each moment to consider
how histories are created, and the costs and inequalities behind
how we all must fight to be a part of history, however it gets
written." — Gretchen Treu, A Room of One's Own, Madison, WI
"Pleasantly startling and unexpected. Her prose is by turns sharp
and sumptuous, and always perfectly controlled. Samatar's writing
strongly recalls Guy Gavriel Kay's fantasy, which reads like
historical fiction, but there are strains here too of Jane Austen
and something wilder." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A
nuanced and subtle tale of war, love, duty, family, and honor. It’s
like polyphony—a chorus of voices singing different melodies,
sometimes at odds, but ultimately harmonious. And moving. And
exciting. Have I mentioned exciting?” — Delia Sherman “Sparse and
magical, beautiful and terrible; The Winged Histories is a story
spun out of stories and the lives of fierce women, each a warrior
in her own right.” — Nalo Hopkinson “A brightly moving narrative
that crystallizes into scenes as delicate, hard, and changing as
ice, that rises up to meet four women in the midst of warfare, and
the most devastating kinds of devotion and rebellion. It is
astonishing what The Winged Histories does with language, what it
does as a novel.” — Amina Cain, author of Creature
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