Fantasy author TJ Klune to talk at Books on the Bosque

AT BOOKS ON THE BOSQUE

TJ Klune, an author of fantasy and romantic fiction featuring gay and LGBTQ+ characters, will discuss his work at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at Books on the Bosque in Albuquerque.

Klune said in a phone interview that his presentation will focus on his newest novel, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea,” due out Sept. 10. It is the sequel to his New York Times bestselling fantasy novel “The House in the Cerulean Sea.”

Fantasy author TJ Klune to talk at Books on the Bosque

He said the sequel picks up where the first volume leaves off. It deals with issues he has become deeply interested in, “that decisions are being made on behalf of children such as what books they can read, what books are available in their libraries and what things are happening to their trans classmates,” Klune said.

“So the book was born of a singular question: If so many decisions are being made on behalf of children, why isn’t that the children are being asked what they think, what they see in the world.”

Today’s youth are smarter, savvier, more worldly than we ever were at their age, thanks to the power of cellphones, the 42-year-old Klune said.

They know that their classmates are targeted, their books are targeted, “and they know that unfair laws are being passed to restrict them to speak about their true selves,” he added.

So the sequel celebrates asking what children want from the world.

Klune lives in a log cabin in the Cascades of Washington state.

He grew up in rural Oregon in the 1980s and ’90s. At age six or seven, he filled a notebook with stories he imagined. But not until the seventh grade did his English teachers praise his writing. “I am proof positive of the power teachers can have over their students,” he said.

Since 2011, Klune has published more than 30 novels.

Books on the Bosque is located at 6261 Riverside Plaza Lane NW.

AT TREASURE HOUSE BOOKS & GIFTS

Don Bullis will discuss and sign his history book, “Bad Man of the New Mexico Badlands: Gus Raney, Multiple Killer, His Legend and Life,” from 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 18, at Treasure House Books & Gifts.

Bullis details the violent and often mysterious life that Raney led.

Treasure House is located at 2012 South Plaza St. NW, Old Town.

IN TAOS

Poet Wayne Lee of Santa Fe will talk about his new chapbook “Buddha’s Cat” at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 23, at SOMOS Salon. The poems explore human relationships with domesticated felines and canines, as well as with wild species such as wolves, foxes, coyotes and panthers.

SOMOS Salon is located at 108 Civic Plaza Drive, in Taos.

BOOK OF ESSAYS

Sunstone Press has published “Northern New Spain,” a collection of 20 essays by historian John L. Kessell that originally appeared in the New Mexico Historical Review. In the book’s preface, Durwood Ball, editor of the review, states that Kessell “is a gift to the discipline of history and field of Spanish and Southwest borderlands. I hope all readers enjoy these jewels of historical research, writing and interpretation.”

Kessell, who resides in Durango, is a former member of the University of New Mexico History Department. His major historical editing project — with colleagues Rick Hendricks, Meredith D. Dodge and Larry D. Miller — was the six volume “Journals of don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico, 1691-1704.”

— Compiled by David Steinberg / For the Journal