The Black Hand, vol. 19
Teenage codebreaker cracks ASD code in an hour
I mean, have you heard about this? The gloriousness of it?
The Australian Signals Directorate – ie. the primary Australian signal intelligence and codebreaking agency since the Second World War – released a commemorative 50-cent coin to celebrate their 75th anniversary. On each side of the coin was a series of encrypted messages that started reasonably tricky and got progressively harder; there were actually five levels of encryption on the coin, and you can see here how pretty it is:
Anyway, they released the coin at 8.45AM, along with an online contact form for people who thought they might have cracked the codes on it…and by 9.45AM, the whole damn thing was cracked by a 14-year-old Tasmanian boy.
Can you believe that? I mean, 14 years old and you’re already eligible for a spot in the country’s top codebreaking unit, far out. Anyway, I just love the entire story, and I am in no way surprised that the codes were broken by a teenager because, as I’ve said before, teenagers made up the bulk of WWII signal intelligence codebreakers and also teenagers are awesome.
Wild.
Book release! For realz!
I DON’T KNOW IF YOU’VE NOTICED BUT I’M RELEASING A BOOK THIS MONTH 😲
But it’s fine, I’m all fine, in fact I’m totally relaxed.
I don’t know what it is about book release time that is so stressful – I guess it’s all the emails madly flying back and forth from your editor and your publicist and the launch venues and your launch partners, plus coordinating all the promotion (yes, authors do a metric butt-ton of this themselves, as the DOJ case in the US has firmly established – but also, hey, we’re not in the trenches alone, I have an Australian publicist and an American publicist and they do a million things I can’t, and I would sincerely lay down in the road for both of them right now), PLUS the existential terror of knowing that your words are going out into the wide blessed world for people – complete strangers! – to read for the first time…
ANYWAY. It’s cool, I’m cool. Completely relaxed. Absolutely.
But before the release happens, and my words are read, I just wanted to say a giant thank you to all of you. It’s been a wild ride reaching this point, and with THE KILLING CODE ready to fly, I’m feeling intense gratitude for all the support I’ve received from all my readers, from my newsletter friends, from my writer community, from my publishing support team…and from every single person who saw me loitering on social media and shouted “ELLIE, GO WRITE THE BOOK” (because y’know, I need that push sometimes). I’m incredibly thankful I have you all on my side, and that you all use your powers for good.
And now…are you ready? Let the book launching begin!
Launch in NYC – Sept 20
My first launch will be at 6PM at Books of Wonder in New York (42 West 17th Street NY, New York), on September 20 which is the day the book is officially released.
I’ll be joining Catherine Yu, Andy Mientus, and Bill Konigsberg on stage as they release their books too, and we all get a chance to talk about our stories (hopefully not all at once! I mean, we could do that but it would be noisy). And there are special launch copies of the book available, with lovely book swag!
There will be signings and chatting and the chance to pick up not just my book but three other really cool-looking books by some incredible authors. Having a launch at Books of Wonder is a bit of a bucket list item for every author, and I feel very lucky and happy that I get to do this.
If you’re in NYC, and you’re able to attend, please do come along! I would be so rapt to see some friendly faces in the audience!
Online event - with Brigid Kemmerer Sept 25
On Sept 25 at 3PM CT (that’s Sept 24 for my Oz crew, but please check the time in your zone), I’ll be joining Brigid Kemmerer online thanks to The Novel Neighbor for an event in which we get to chat about both THE KILLING CODE and DEFEND THE DAWN (and probably a lot of other stuff – Brigid and I are old friends, and when we get together it’s like we’re sitting down for a few glasses of wine and loads of gossipy chat. Come to think of it, I will probably definitely have a glass of wine handy for this event).
Again, if you’re able to join us, I would be absolutely delighted to say hi! The event goes for an hour, and knowing the way Brigid and I tend to go on, it should be a rollicking good time.
Launch in Melbourne – Sept 29
Finally – finally! – I get to launch the book in my home state! I’ll be chatting with Lili Wilkinson at Readings Kids Carlton from 6.30PM on Sept 29, and yes there will be signings and Q&A (and cake, if I have anything to say about it).
Lili and I will be talking about everything from codebreaking to why women used gravy on their legs instead of stockings during WWII, and I can pretty much guarantee it’ll be fun, because when Lili and I get talking it’s quite hard to shut us up.
I know many of you are in Melbourne, and I would love to see you there!
Book giveaway on socials
Yes, this is happening, but I’m doing it on the soh-shuls (cough).
So if you’re not connected with me…well, you probably should be, and I feel like I’m EVERYWHERE now, so there’s no excuse! You can find me on Twitter, FB, Instagram and Tiktok now, good heavens.
This giveaway will involve me handing over five (5) signed copies of the Australian version of THE KILLING CODE. It will start (if I’ve calculated this correctly) next week, around Wednesday Sept 14, so please do keep an eye out!
I’d also like to thank everyone who joined in the giveaway from last month - I’ll be sending out your swag parcels soon! - and I’m planning another giveaway just for this newsletter in October, so hey, there’s giveaways all over the place, surely you’ll get lucky in one of them!
No more THE KILLING CODE news, please!
Okay, that’s it, I’m done now. Phew.
Although I should remind you to add your name to the preorder campaign if you haven’t already done so! (you’re good people, you’ve probably already done so. But I like to give a reminder! Because some people like to leave these things to the last minute…ahem, which is something I personally almost never do).
Okay, now I’m really done.
SOME SHALL BREAK news
We have a cover for SOME SHALL BREAK! And it is exceedingly beautiful!
Look, I was only just telling folks over at Nailbiters (the paid version of my newsletter: it’s quite fun and I share a lot of behind-the-scenes gossip) that this book’s progress from Word doc (yes, I know – I still use Word, please be embarrassed on my behalf) to book-form has been rather fast. And now here we are with a cover and a preorder option about to arrive in October (!!) and it has just been a LOT. I haven’t moved this fast on a trad-published book since I released three Every series books back-to-back in the space of 36 months from 2013-2015.
ANYWAY – Here’s the cover!
I love it VERY much and I am so rapt that we managed to get (massively talented artist) Janelle Barone for the cover art once again. And I also love the pink – it’s so pink! And it matches NONE SHALL SLEEP so perfectly! Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better cover than this one. I’m chuffed, I tell you, chuffed!
Let me know what you think of the cover in comments, if it pleases you. The book will be updated on Goodreads once the cover goes live. And yes, I will keep you up to date about preordering for the book when I have the link – I’m so damn excited for this book! Eeeeek!
What I’m watching
Let’s stop talking about book releases for a minute and talk about movies – have you seen JENNIFER’S BODY? I just watched it for the first time the other night and it was an absolute riot. Omg, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Megan Fox go so hard in a role, and to such great effect. I loved it very much, and now join the chorus of people who think the movie was wildly underrated on release.
It’s about a pair of best friends, Jennifer (Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) who have basically outgrown each other, but are still trying to maintain their relationship – even after Jennifer is accidentally turned into a boy-eating succubus.
When the movie was released back in 2009, it was profoundly panned by critics who I think were expecting something a little more horror-erotica (I guess they saw Fox in the film and figured that was the score – stupid!) and a little less feminist-horror-fantasy. The marketing was very skewed toward the teen boy demographic and less toward its true audience, teenage girls. So Jennifer’s Body was basically binned – but it became a cult classic and really deserves a rewatch. It reminded me a great deal of another feminist horror fantasy, Ginger Snaps (2000), and both Seyfried and Fox are uniformly excellent.
If you’re worried about it being horror, please don’t let that discourage you – it’s more of a comedy-horror, and it’s not particularly creepy or horror-y (meaning: it isn’t grim or even very scary). There are one or two jump scares, and some gory scenes, if you’re very sensitive, but some of the gruesome parts are done as shadow silhouettes (it’s that kind of movie). Mainly, to my reading, it’s a comedy about female friendship, especially that unique kind of toxic, co-dependent friendship between girls that is half love and half resentment, and about how girls can struggle to let go of relationships that are no longer healthy for them.
Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot! So if a little dose of horror is your jam, give it a try.
And that’s it from me for this month, because I’m running out of puff – and this month has honestly been a lot, and will continue to be really busy right into October! I’m kind of hoping to have a little break after October, but let’s see how things go – life might still be busy in the lead up to the SOME SHALL BREAK release. But right now, I feel really glad I took my vacation earlier in June-August, when I could truly relax.
I hope you’re getting a chance to relax where you are! It’s the very first days of spring here in north-central Victoria (south-eastern Australia, for the uninitiated), and the wattles around my house are just going off; all the jonquils are blooming and while we’re still using the woodfire stove every evening, we can leave it off during the day, which is real progress! I’m so glad the sun is returning!
Until next time, take care, stay well, and hopefully see you at one of THE KILLING CODE launch events!
xxEllie