today is officially (finally) release day for to rule the desert, and i hope you’re all as excited as i am! while the book is available starting today, we’ll be holding the actual release party tomorrow (5.19) at 6pm at canal view park (across the street from lucky’s). it’s free to attend, so i hope you’ll join us!
get the book!
we all know that i hope you’ll buy my work from the spiral bookcase (we are actually out of copies in the shop right now, but feel free to email the shop to request a copy when they arrive back in stock, around 5.28), but i wanted to make the full range of options available to anyone interested!
kindle
amazon
barnes and noble
bookshop
& for my fellow booksellers: ingram
you will also be able to find to rule the desert at a novel idea by the end of the month, and hopefully in an array of other local bookstores throughout the summer. if you know a bookseller that might be interested, email me!
don’t forget: if you want to support your favorite local author, you can review to rule the desert on goodreads or storygraph, post about it on your socials (feel free to tag me!), post about it on your blog, or recommend it to your local library branch!
in the press
to rule the desert black tea blend by old growth alchemy
“Made in collaboration with Monica Robinson based on her novella to rule the desert, this tea blend of the same name brings this desert gothic to your cup. A bold and rich black tea curls with smoke from lapsang souchong as the toasty flavor of hojicha offers up something of the dusty heat and haze of the desert. A kiss of lavender swirls through each steeped cup as an ode to the sapphic lovers. Let this tea coax you along as each word drips off the page and onto your tongue.”
on creating a personal mythology by yours truly for reads rainbow
“to rule the desert is a deeply personal mythology that follows a narrative of finding oneself amidst long-lost memories, past ghosts, and the rubble of a life collapsed to create something sturdier, if not more vicious – a tale of becoming more equipped to protect oneself after learning the often unfair lessons of the myth and emerging not unscathed, but at the very least, newly restored. “
“monica robinson journeys to death and back in ‘to rule the desert’” for dis/member, by dee holloway
“A slim but powerful book, to rule the desert also dovetails with the rising popularity of sunlit horror (think Midsommar, The Noonday Witch, The Reflecting Skin, or even Picnic at Hanging Rock). Author Monica Robinson divulges her relationship to myth and landscape in a chat with DIS/MEMBER.”
review for wizards in space mag by ari koontz
“This novella is queer in both content and form, with vignettes that twist around each other to tug us through past, present, and future - sometimes all at the same time. This blurring of boundaries mirrors the murkiness of life & death across this desolate landscape: our heroines are both alive and not, here and vanished, remembered and foreshadowed. Robinson’s writing is endlessly dynamic, giving us everything from lush imagery to dripping horror to sweetly sharp melancholy for that trip we’ve never taken but often dreamed of, windows down to the scent of cactus blossoms, coyotes howling in the night, flickering neon and perpetual road signs promising whatever escape we need most - as long as we remember to stay away from the shadows.”
at the risk of being overly sentimental: if you’re still here, if you have followed my writing journey this far, if you’ve ever read my work or my strange little newsletter, stopped by for poems, chatted with me at spiral, any of it — thank you.
with love,
m.r.
a sneak peek to leave you with
“The dead hitchhike alongside Route 40, heading West. At dusk between the headlight glares, spindle-legged specters wait for the highwaywoman to carry them down to eternity, wandering aimless through the sparse brush and mingling with the resident desert shadows, only few of which are harmless.”
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