Tor.com is proud to announce that we have acquired a series of two novellas from Margaret Killjoy. The first novella, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, follows Danielle Cain, a queer punk rock traveler, into the squatter utopia of Freedom, Iowa, where she searches for clues about her best friend’s suicide. She discovers that the people of Freedom summoned help to maintain their free community, and the spirit they brought into this world now presides over the town as judge and executioner. These novellas were acquired for Tor.com Publishing by Tor Books editor Diana Pho.
Margaret Killjoy is a genderqueer author, born and raised in Maryland, who has spent their adult life traveling with no fixed home. A life on the road has given them a healthy respect for hobos, street kids, and other elements of the criminal class. A 2015 graduate of Clarion West, Margaret’s short fiction has been published by Strange Horizons, Vice’s Terraform, and Fireside amongst others. They founded SteamPunk Magazine in 2006, and their nonfiction books have been published by anarchist publisher AK Press. Margaret’s most recent book is A Country of Ghosts, a utopian novel published by Combustion Books in 2014. They blog at Birds Before the Storm and say things as @magpiekilljoy on Twitter.
Killjoy had this to say about the sale:
I initially wrote a draft of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion because it was a story that I, myself, needed to read. I needed the characters and I needed the town of Freedom, Iowa. Soon into my second draft, I knew it needed a sequel—characters like mine all too often live without a future. With its emphasis on adventurous, diverse fiction, I knew Tor.com was the right home for the series.
Diana Pho had this to say:
I’ve been a fan of Margaret’s writing for a long time now, and I am thrilled to work with them after picking up The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. What drew me in was the fresh take on contemporary fantasy by focusing on an outsider community who deliberately falls through the cracks in the system in order to find itself. This novella is Buffy without the humdrum of suburbia while keeping that sense of wacky, horror-tinged fun. I love it and hope readers do too.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion will come out in ebook and trade paperback in 2017.
