Emily Tesh
@emilytesh.net
Author. Hugo, Astounding, and World Fantasy Award winner; Clarke and Le Guin finalist. Rep: Kurestin Armada at Root Literary.
Out now: THE INCANDESCENT - https://tinyurl.com/theincandescent
Out now: THE INCANDESCENT - https://tinyurl.com/theincandescent
I am at Novacon! I contributed a short story set in the same universe as Some Desperate Glory to the programme and I’m very happy to see it so beautifully in print, with cover art by Alex Storer.
November 7, 2025 at 3:56 PM
I am at Novacon! I contributed a short story set in the same universe as Some Desperate Glory to the programme and I’m very happy to see it so beautifully in print, with cover art by Alex Storer.
Was struck by the sudden powerful urge to eat a vegetable, something which almost never happens to me, and thanks to Senshi from Dungeon Meshi I know that I ought to listen to what my body is telling me it needs, which is why I poured myself an 8pm glass of wine and did incompetent veggie noodles.
October 18, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Was struck by the sudden powerful urge to eat a vegetable, something which almost never happens to me, and thanks to Senshi from Dungeon Meshi I know that I ought to listen to what my body is telling me it needs, which is why I poured myself an 8pm glass of wine and did incompetent veggie noodles.
Another Monday, another List. This is the only way I ever get anything done.
October 6, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Another Monday, another List. This is the only way I ever get anything done.
She’s found the best nap spot in the house.
September 11, 2025 at 7:16 AM
She’s found the best nap spot in the house.
Five signed copies of THE INCANDESCENT now on sale at the Douglas Waterstones! which has a really strong SFF section generally, I’m always happy to stop in when I’m back on the Isle of Man.
July 30, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Five signed copies of THE INCANDESCENT now on sale at the Douglas Waterstones! which has a really strong SFF section generally, I’m always happy to stop in when I’m back on the Isle of Man.
May 13, 2025 at 10:02 AM
May 13, 2025 at 10:02 AM
![Hugo and World Fantasy Award winner Tesh (Some Desperate Glory) puts a fresh spin on dark academia by focusing on school administrators, faculty, and staff. Dr. Sapphire “Saffy” Walden, director of magic at Chetwood School (and an alumna herself), spends her 16-hour workdays managing one crisis after the next. In between, she teaches the Year Seven arcane safety course and maintains the thaumic engines that keep the school from collapsing “out of mundane reality altogether and disappear[ing] into the demonic plane, taking six hundred children with it.” Walden doesn’t have time to fight with the school’s chief marshal Laura Kenning, a “butch avenging angel” in charge of magical security, over the inherent risks of her star pupil’s ability to summon demons. When said pupil summons an 11th-order archdemon, however, the women must put aside their differences to address the threat. Defeating the beast forces Walden to confront her own demons (real and figurative) and, what’s more galling, acknowledge that Kenning may have a point. Focusing on the administrators is a fresh entryway into a popular genre, and “awful nerd with a superiority complex” Walden makes for a fascinating and often humorous narrator. Fans of Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series won’t want to miss this thoughtful exploration of privilege, power, and private school education.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:fv75sjrur464yctymgcdx6ht/bafkreihthkxjeezli6qc4ycuebkw3gwtaugqxkb2xwmv5vlyqofe4h36bq@jpeg)
May 13, 2025 at 10:02 AM
THE INCANDESCENT is a book about money and education and status symbols, about loving your career, about demons, about magic, about fantasy school - but most of all about how 'school' is always a kind of fantasy. Available now!
US: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/unti...
US: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/unti...
May 13, 2025 at 10:02 AM
THE INCANDESCENT is a book about money and education and status symbols, about loving your career, about demons, about magic, about fantasy school - but most of all about how 'school' is always a kind of fantasy. Available now!
US: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/unti...
US: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/unti...
Samuel R. Delany like: you know what a mysterious and sexy gay man living in a cabin on the roof of a derelict building in a post-apocalyptic city reads. that’s right it’s my friend Joanna.
![[quote from Delaney’s novel Dhalgren]
…author) Bike Bastard. Under that was The Poems of Rimbaud, with English at the bottom of the pages; then a paperback Selected Letters of Keats; next, Dickey’s Deliverance; a green, hard-covered book of logs and trignometric functions, place held by a white enamel, circular slide the. There was sundry science fiction by Russ (something called The Female Man), Zelazny, and Disch. The last book he picked…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:fv75sjrur464yctymgcdx6ht/bafkreihs6pcyau6spma76sdxzci772hj7mk74uv6p2nonbmazmjfabeddm@jpeg)
May 12, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Samuel R. Delany like: you know what a mysterious and sexy gay man living in a cabin on the roof of a derelict building in a post-apocalyptic city reads. that’s right it’s my friend Joanna.
Are you in London tomorrow evening? Why not come to Covent Garden and hear me talking about academia in fantasy with Sylvie Cathrall & Antonia Hodgson?
Reasons to do this:
- we are very entertaining
- you could buy all our books
- you could also buy lots MORE books if you’re in a Waterstones anyway
Reasons to do this:
- we are very entertaining
- you could buy all our books
- you could also buy lots MORE books if you’re in a Waterstones anyway
May 7, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Are you in London tomorrow evening? Why not come to Covent Garden and hear me talking about academia in fantasy with Sylvie Cathrall & Antonia Hodgson?
Reasons to do this:
- we are very entertaining
- you could buy all our books
- you could also buy lots MORE books if you’re in a Waterstones anyway
Reasons to do this:
- we are very entertaining
- you could buy all our books
- you could also buy lots MORE books if you’re in a Waterstones anyway
Eastercon pretty good so far.
April 18, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Eastercon pretty good so far.
On Thursday 8 May you can catch me at Waterstones Covent Garden to talk about academia in fantasy, just ahead of the release of my magic school story THE INCANDESCENT the following week!
April 2, 2025 at 11:22 AM
On Thursday 8 May you can catch me at Waterstones Covent Garden to talk about academia in fantasy, just ahead of the release of my magic school story THE INCANDESCENT the following week!
Here it is: the UK cover for my upcoming book, THE INCANDESCENT - a school story about teaching magic, about power and privilege and history, and also about being thirty-eight and career obsessed and chronically bad at identifying when someone is into you.
February 26, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Here it is: the UK cover for my upcoming book, THE INCANDESCENT - a school story about teaching magic, about power and privilege and history, and also about being thirty-eight and career obsessed and chronically bad at identifying when someone is into you.
Went to the greengrocer. Acquired potatoes, fresh bread, and a bunch of daffodils. Things could be worse.
January 24, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Went to the greengrocer. Acquired potatoes, fresh bread, and a bunch of daffodils. Things could be worse.
!!! I got my JSTOR access working!
January 6, 2025 at 9:36 AM
!!! I got my JSTOR access working!
How it started, how it’s going:
October 27, 2024 at 3:58 PM
How it started, how it’s going:
Apparently today is the US release of ALIEN CLAY by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a book I really loved & one which engages in a very crunchy way with alien life and with what you might call the 'revolution story' in science fiction. Strongly recommended.
September 17, 2024 at 2:11 PM
Apparently today is the US release of ALIEN CLAY by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a book I really loved & one which engages in a very crunchy way with alien life and with what you might call the 'revolution story' in science fiction. Strongly recommended.
OH: I’ve been starter packed, that’s why you’re all here!
Hello! I’m a Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning SFF author. My next book, THE INCANDESCENT, is out in 2025. It’s about demons, teenagers, & institutions; but mostly it’s about teaching.
Preorder link: www.amazon.com/dp/1250835011
Hello! I’m a Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning SFF author. My next book, THE INCANDESCENT, is out in 2025. It’s about demons, teenagers, & institutions; but mostly it’s about teaching.
Preorder link: www.amazon.com/dp/1250835011
September 12, 2024 at 3:08 PM
OH: I’ve been starter packed, that’s why you’re all here!
Hello! I’m a Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning SFF author. My next book, THE INCANDESCENT, is out in 2025. It’s about demons, teenagers, & institutions; but mostly it’s about teaching.
Preorder link: www.amazon.com/dp/1250835011
Hello! I’m a Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning SFF author. My next book, THE INCANDESCENT, is out in 2025. It’s about demons, teenagers, & institutions; but mostly it’s about teaching.
Preorder link: www.amazon.com/dp/1250835011
Preorders should now be available nearly everywhere for THE INCANDESCENT, coming in Spring 2025!
This is a book about money and education and status symbols, about loving your career, about demons, about magic, about fantasy school - but most of all about how 'school' is always a kind of fantasy.
This is a book about money and education and status symbols, about loving your career, about demons, about magic, about fantasy school - but most of all about how 'school' is always a kind of fantasy.
August 17, 2024 at 10:35 AM
Preorders should now be available nearly everywhere for THE INCANDESCENT, coming in Spring 2025!
This is a book about money and education and status symbols, about loving your career, about demons, about magic, about fantasy school - but most of all about how 'school' is always a kind of fantasy.
This is a book about money and education and status symbols, about loving your career, about demons, about magic, about fantasy school - but most of all about how 'school' is always a kind of fantasy.
Showing off shelf looks pretty good, though.
August 14, 2024 at 3:56 PM
Showing off shelf looks pretty good, though.
What if the teachers at a magical school were actually doing their jobs?
THE INCANDESCENT is a book about risk assessments, lesson planning, predicted grades, and how to prevent teenage magicians from enthusiastically feeding themselves to demons; also about privilege, power, and pedagogy.
THE INCANDESCENT is a book about risk assessments, lesson planning, predicted grades, and how to prevent teenage magicians from enthusiastically feeding themselves to demons; also about privilege, power, and pedagogy.
August 9, 2024 at 8:35 PM
What if the teachers at a magical school were actually doing their jobs?
THE INCANDESCENT is a book about risk assessments, lesson planning, predicted grades, and how to prevent teenage magicians from enthusiastically feeding themselves to demons; also about privilege, power, and pedagogy.
THE INCANDESCENT is a book about risk assessments, lesson planning, predicted grades, and how to prevent teenage magicians from enthusiastically feeding themselves to demons; also about privilege, power, and pedagogy.
I am so excited for Worldcon and so jealous of everyone who's already there! I'm there on Saturday and Sunday, and I hope to see lots of you there. Here's my schedule!
August 8, 2024 at 7:45 PM
I am so excited for Worldcon and so jealous of everyone who's already there! I'm there on Saturday and Sunday, and I hope to see lots of you there. Here's my schedule!