Episode 56: Farewell 2024!
The future of the podcast, plus some book recs! 📚
Welcome to the Pub Dates newsletter! We’re so glad you’re here.
This newsletter is released as a companion to each podcast episode, and we use it to share the visual elements of our discussion — from mood boards to design sketches, from photos to secret giveaways just for subscribers.
In episode fifty-six we closed out the 2024 season with some book recs, and talked about the future of the podcast.
In this newsletter:
Our spoilerific question to you
Book recs for your holiday gift cards
The future of the podcast
Our holiday wishes for you
Our spoilerific question!
This one really originated with Kate, who you may remember was busy giving birth the day Fyrebirds came out. That meant that Amie got to launch two books at once, which was chaotic and fabulous, but it also meant that Kate didn’t get to hear from readers about Fyrebirds in the way she wishes she had. So, here’s our question: do you have a favourite moment from Fyrebirds? You can be as spoilery as you like — leave a comment for Kate right here!
Gift card book recommendations!
In our last episode for the year, we recommended some books you might like to grab for yourself, or for someone else. Here they are, in case you were on the go while you were listening:
The Mars House by Natasha Pulley
Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
The future of the podcast:
As we discussed on the podcast, we’re planning on some mini-series for 2025. We’ll release some episodes to celebrate the launch of Lady’s Knight, Amie’s next book with Meagan Spooner — and perhaps we’ll do an episode to announce Amie’s 2026 title, which she’s not allowed to tell you about yet!
We might also do a few free-standing episodes on topics that interest you. If there’s an aspect of our publishing journey that we haven’t covered yet, leave a comment and let us know you’d like to hear about it!
Our holiday wishes for you:
Friends, we are so thankful for all of you, and we hope that wonderful things lie ahead for you in 2025. We’re looking forward to seeing you there.
It’s a little bit of an experiment, switching across to mini-series — but we love our Pub Dates community so much, so this is where we’ve settled in terms of holding you tight, but also making sure the podcast is sustainable for us.
Thank you so much for coming along on the ride so far!
We meant to take a big family picture for you all when we recently celebrated the holidays together, but we were having so much fun that we completely forgot. So instead, here’s the closest thing we took — a still from a video of Amie’s daughter serenading Kate’s son, while Kate’s wonderful mother teaches him about music appreciation.
And that’s it for this episode — and this year!
Please make sure you’re subscribed to the newsletter, so you don’t miss out when we share new episodes in 2025 — even if your podcast app doesn’t notify you because it’s been a while, we’ll make sure we tell you here.
See you soon!
I read Fyrebirds like I did Nightbirds: slowly at first, and then reading the last 300 pages in one sitting that lasted many hours and ended way past my bedtime. I have no regrets.
I definitely screamed when Fen and Sayer had their ~moment~, but I remember thinking that having Dennan die saving Matilde was such a good writing choice because it preserves his good character/bad character ambiguity. It was also the first time I felt I was being personally thanked in a book's acknowledgements, which made me feel all fuzzy 🥰
Oh I’m so glad that the podcast is continuing! I will definitely be monitoring for when the short series drops occur, and am so glad that you have settled on a plan which maintains the heart of the pod, your upcoming book schedules, and your wellbeing.
I second poppydots on having Dennon sacrifice himself - it was so unexpected and brought so much depth to his character arc (‘s end). I also loved Matilda’s character arc - several of her learning moments but especially her choice to protect Simta and her Fyrebird sisters at the very end, knowing the consequences to come.
For a standalone future episode on the pod, could you elaborate more on how you realize that you have an extra character who should be removed, or what characters you put in to add a specific few point or contrast? You’ve both touched on that in some previous episodes and it seems like such a challenge to balance for the best story. I would love to hear more thoughts or tips on how you recognize this, make changes, and why.