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8 min read seasons of glass and iron

Letter of News: January 2026

Most of the photo is taken up with the white-blue ice, which is smooth towards the top and breaks into chunks towards the bottom, strewn with dry pine needles.
Broken ice in late afternoon light.

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! Bistraynti 3aleikoum! I hope that, regardless of what these first two weeks of 2026 have laid at your door, you've been able to enjoy some quiet, peace, and connection in the deep winter.

There are some time-sensitive action items in this letter so I've pulled them up top!

CBC Book Club Tickets Giveaway

I was boarding a train from France to Spain when I got a call from Ottawa's own Alan Neal of CBC Radio's All in a Day. Amid confused shouting through ambient train noise and one-handed lugging of heavy cases, I understood he was telling me that The River Has Roots had been selected for All in a Day's Book Club and asking whether I wanted to participate in it?

I said yes! And was glad to learn that my book about sisters would be paired with a sister-book ALSO about sisters: Jordana Globerman's beautiful graphic novel Soul Machine.

A selfie of Jordana Globerman, left, and me, right. Jordana is a white woman with chin-length dark hair and wears a black CBC Ottawa scarf over a white blouse with a black zigzag pattern; I'm wearing a white CBC Ottawa beanie over my long wavy dark hair that mostly obscures my black tank top. We're both smiling open-mouthed and look super cute.
Jordana and me at a CBC book sale raising funds for the Ottawa Food Bank back in December.

The date and location have now been set: February 4th, at the gorgeous (and thematically appropriate!) Ottawa River House.

All the tickets got snapped up in what I'm told was record time – but if you missed getting yours and would still like to attend, here are a few ways to do that:

1) You can join the waiting list
2) You can attend virtually
3) Or you can WIN tickets by entering this giveaway!

Just send a note to bookclub@cbc.ca with a photo of yourself holding up a copy of The River Has Roots and/or Soul Machine (a photo with an e-reader or phone counts!) and put in the subject heading "AMAL CONTEST". Alan will do a draw for the lucky winners. You need to enter by 11:59 PM on January 18th!

Seasons of Glass and Iron Tour Stops

A promotional image for Seasons of Glass and Iron. Against a textured pale blue and off-white background, text is arranged to the left of an angled thumbnail of the cover art. The text reads "Fall into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth in SEASONS OF GLASS AND IRON, A collection of acclaimed short stories from New York Times bestselling author Amal El-Mohtar

I'm excited to announce three US events for Seasons of Glass and Iron! At a glance:

All of these events are ticketed or require reserving a spot, so bear that in mind if making plans!

These are all West Coast stops (The River Has Roots had me mostly East), and I'm so excited for them; I've never been to SLC or Spokane, and the first and only time I went to Portland was in 2017, the year "Seasons of Glass and Iron" won its awards, and I visited Powell's with Kelly Sue and dreamt of one day being invited to add my name to the pillar covered in author's signatures. Getting to go back there with the collection feels very special, closing a circle I didn't know I'd begun to inscribe.

Also, because people will ask: these events are all determined through mysterious Publishing Sorcery, so as much as I would personally love to visit every independent bookstore in every city that will have me as a matter of course, it is not currently within my powers. But UK and Canada stops are still being determined for April/May, so stay tuned!

Bookseller Interview and Praise for Seasons

I had a truly lovely chat with Katie Foster for the UK's The Bookseller, which she wrote up into an article that went up today! It's also in this week's print edition! Here's an excerpt:

The compiled works – 14 stories and four poems – were never intended to be published together in one book, but the result is an exquisite landscape demonstrating what is possible in SFF writing. The collection stands as a “capstone” to years spent writing short fiction as El-Mohtar transitions into writing longer prose as part of her four-book deal with Tor US and Arcadia.

The collection’s short fiction includes everything from sentient green books, teleportation and shapeshifting to witchcraft, psychic powers and the ability to craft dreams. Together, the poetry and prose showcase 15 years of El-Mohtar’s life. “My stories that I’m proudest of are now in a room together, interacting with each other and saying things to each other and I like that, it feels good.” It is like, she adds, throwing a party, inviting friends from disparate parts of your life and “hoping they gel”.

I've also been so grateful to see anticipatory buzz for Seasons of Glass and Iron at Lit Hub, Book Riot, B&N, Portalist, and NPR.

It's both thrilling and a little nerve-wracking to see your book on a Most Anticipated Releases list; on the one hand, a great honour to be Anticipated, but on the other, what if that Anticipation is disappointed? Especially when the book in question gathers up 15 years' worth of work. One would hate to be weighed and found wanting.

All to say, it's been a joy and a relief to see early reviews coming in warm and glowing. Library Journal and Publishers Weekly both gave it starred reviews: LJ calls it "An essential collection of work from one of today’s most poignant speculative writers," and PW says "There’s not a false note here." I'll take it.

Award Eligibility

January through March/April is award season in SFF, containing the nomination periods for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. I'm on record (in a post now 12 years old!) saying I think it's good and cool for people to look back on the work they've had published in a given year and offer it up for award consideration. I think it's good housekeeping. So here's mine!

I'm proud of all of these very different works, and want to also signal a bunch of other people involved with them if you enjoyed them and are nominating for the Hugos:

Best Editor, Long Form: Ali Fisher edited The River Has Roots and is basically inseparable, in my mind, from the finished product. She's an incredible editor, both textually and as a project manager; conversations with her unlocked huge and necessary changes to the text, and she's responsible for both the title and for bringing Kathleen Neeley on to illustrate it. Speaking of whom –

Best Professional Artist: Kathleen Neeley made the gorgeous interior art for the print edition of The River Has Roots, and I think is profoundly worthy of consideration for her incredible work.

Best Editor, Short/Long Form: Sarah Gailey's work curating year-long non-fiction projects is frankly magnificent and honour-worthy. "Why I Need the Birds" wouldn't exist without them gently asking me if the diffidently mid essay about loving birds that I'd initially turned in was something I was happy with; they gave me permission to write something raw and heartbroken by reassuring me it didn't need to be uplifting. I think Love Letters as a whole might be eligible for Best Related Work? I don't get to decide these things but I encourage you to raise discussions about them wherever you're having them.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long): This category is usually full of films, but has in the past included albums of music and audiobooks, so I think it's worth highlighting here that the audiobook of The River Has Roots is extraordinary to me. Narrated by Gem Carmella and lushly soundscaped by producer Steve Wagner and his team at Macmillan Audio, it features Gem's gorgeous singing and also contains music and singing performed and improvised by my sister Dounya and me.

Every year since 2020, I've paid attention to the first bird I see in the New Year. Some years I've written about it here; mostly I haven't, just signalled to friends and the wider public that it's a practice I enjoy and easy to participate in. I love people sharing their glimpses of birds from wherever they happen to be, and the stories they do or don't make of them.

In the past this process has always involved going outside. I want to take a walk, have an encounter, read the world by the new year's light. Usually I keep going even if I see a bird immediately; in January of 2025 I saw a bluejay the moment I stepped out the door, but since I was already kitted out for winter, I went for a long binocular'd walk all the same.

This year, I woke, got dressed, walked past a window to grab my coat, looked out and saw goldfinches.

Possibly if I'd seen them at our backyard feeder, I'd have let my eyes go soft and turned my back, not let the glimpse of them end my pursuit of mystery. They were none of them yellow; their winter drabness could have cloaked them in ambiguity enough at a distance that I'd have strode out to meet the year's augury all the same.

But they weren't at the feeder. They were clustered along the tall dry stalks of evening primrose that line our driveway, cracking into seed heads. The sight of them filled my heart very suddenly, in the startling and familiar way of feeling summoned to attention, of being given a story to turn over in my hands and read.

So I stayed indoors, and thought about what a Goldfinch Year might mean for me.

Last year was such an unrelenting whirl of travel that I'm still struggling to reckon with it. A full third of the year abroad, away from home, away from my family and local friends while ostensibly celebrating them to a wider public – I've never spent so much time away from my sister while telling strangers about how much I love her. So staying closer to home – flocking with those who love and support me – finding nourishment together even in the depths of winter, from what bloomed in spring and died in fall – these things appeal, begin to spell something for me.

I felt more broken by the end of 2025 than I have been in a very long time, and to tiresomely keep quoting that one song off Florence + the Machine's new album – healing is slow / it comes and it goes / a glimpse of sun and a flurry of snow. Not wholly unlike the winter we've been having, full of fits of freeze and thaw.

So I'd like to read an augury in this article about molting goldfinches:

Unlike most songbirds, goldfinches molt twice a year. At winter’s end, they’ll grow in a complete set of new golden yellow feathers. Again each one will have a strange, patchy appearance for a few days, but soon they’ll be vividly beautiful again.

Inshallah. I'd like to feel vividly beautiful again.

Wishing you all vivid, beautiful warmth wherever you are, as you work for the liberation of all,

Love,

Amal

Selfie in which I'm semi-reclined on a grey couch with my left hand supporting my head, wearing glasses, my long wavy dark hair loose over my shoulders, and a black ribbed tank top beneath a waistcoat pinstriped in in black and grey-blue. My expression is soft and I'm smiling with my mouth closed.

Postscripts:

The invasion and occupation of Minneapolis by ICE is horrific, and my heart goes out to every friend and acquaintance living there and doing their best to manage their fear and risk while protecting themselves and their neighbours. Here is a list of ways to donate support to these communities, from mutual aid groups to individuals to organizations doing work on the ground. Whenever you feel helpless or overwhelmed by the evil in the world, picking one thing to do consistently – no matter how small it may feel in the face of it – will always help more than stewing alone in misery, which helps no one and hurts you.

Published by:

Amal El-Mohtar

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