Q. What book, story, or poem set in Birdverse should I read first?

You can start anywhere! I do have three possibilities to suggest. My collection Geometries of Belonging begins with a poem and continues to “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds,” my Nebula finalist novelette. If you want to start with shorter works, I recommend you start there. If you love deserts and want to follow a fairytale-like journey of two trans elders as they come into their own, weave from bones and fight an evil ruler, I recommend starting with my novella The Four Profound Weaves. If you might enjoy a love story, an apocalyptic narrative, a nonbinary main character and a cat, I recommend my queer Atlantis novel The Unbalancing.

When I was designing the world, I wanted to experiment with nonlinear storytelling. I wanted the narratives set in Birdverse to form a tapestry, rather than a straight line of a traditional Western narrative. There are many ways to tell a story, and many stories that shape a complex world; I wanted them to come together, without beginning or end. This is a feature: not a single piece of writing in the Birdverse is “the perfect gateway.” I know it can be frustrating to readers, but I also hope that as you immerse yourself in the world, the weaving nature of my stories will become more and more rewarding - this has been the experience of many Birdverse readers.

Q. An important question about the English language: is it “Birdverse” or “the Birdverse”?

My first language (Russian) does not have a definite article, so it began as Birdverse without “the”, but many native English speakers, including my publisher, like “the Birdverse.” I am not a prescriptivist; either way is fine as long as it has Bird in it.

Q. You mentioned that Birdverse is inspired by Jewish languages and histories. Is all of Birdverse Jewish?

The Khana people, who feature prominently in The Four Profound Weaves and some of my short stories, are basically secondary world Jews. My worldbuilding about the Khana people is inspired by both ancient and medieval diasporic Jewish history, but it’s not a direct copy of any specific period or community. Instead, some overarching ideas and some details make it into the worldbuilding. Hebrew roots are at the base of the Old Khana language which the men learn, and these roots are recognizable in some of the words and the names that the Khana people use. We learn that the Khana people are exiles from Keshet, and there are Khana quarters in other places around the landmass. The Khana people do not seek to return to their ancient homeland of Keshet - they see themselves as fully diasporic.

I talk more about this in an essay for Mary Robinette Kowal’s My Favorite Bit .

There are many different peoples and cultures in the Birdverse. The Khana culture is important, but very much not the only thing I write about. In some of my works, the Khana people do not appear at all, or appear only tangentially. For example, in The Unbalancing, the Khana people are the backstory. Long time ago, the famous rebel Laaguti Birdwing and her many Khana friends made it to the archipelago, and some became ancestors. The language of the archipelago has quite a few Khana words, but the ancestry of its people is multiethnic.

Even when the Khana people are not always front in center in my storytelling, there is still a Jewish sensibility to this world, and this is by design.  Much of Birdverse is inspired by Jewish history, linguistics, and mysticism.

Q. What are the deepnames?

Deepnames are a common source of magic in the Birdverse. Roughly speaking, deepnames are neurological phenomena in the mind, which allow the person with deepnames (called in many cultures a “named strong”), to call or activate deepnames and to do magic with them. Most people do not have a magical capacity. A person can acquire up to three deepnames. Each deepname can have from one to five syllables, and the number  of  deepnames and syllables, and their combinations, determine the magical power a named strong can possess. Deepname combinations are usually called “configurations.” The most common configuration to acquire is a single-deepname configuration, where the deepname has three syllables. There is no scholarly agreement why some people can take more than one deepname, and why many people cannot take any.

You can learn more about common deepname configurations on the deepname configurations page :))

Deepnames are commonly acquired in adolescence, and an acquisition of a deepname can be a painful and frightening process. An acquisition of a deepname is called a powertaking. While a person’s first powertaking is usually not dangerous, each subsequent powertaking significantly increases the risk of stroke. One can die during a powertaking event, especially while taking a third deepname, so many people who can take three deepnames choose to avoid the risk.

Magical Geometry is the discipline that studies how deepnames can be combined. Strong Naming, sometimes called simply Naming, studies the deepnames themselves. Naming and Magical Geometry are often called the foundational disciplines (as opposed to applied disciplines).

The northern academies teach that deepnames can be “living” (held in the mind of a person) or “planted”/”seeded,” which means that a named strong person can imbue an object with deepnames. This technique is often used in the so-called applied disciplines. One such discipline is architecture and construction, called Strong Building. Magically reinforced houses can regulate temperature, resist vermin and mold, and are better able to withstand earthquakes, storms, and other natural disasters. These magical techniques are labor-intensive, and while expensive houses in the Birdverse are usually deepname-reinforced, poorer houses are not. Magic is a part of how inequality works in this world.

Q. Are there other kinds of magic in the Birdverse?

Yes! The strangest magic in the land is that of the Burri desert, which many scholars think is semi-sentient. The desert is called  “ever-changing” in Surun’ and other Burran languages, because it dreams itself into being, and some of these dreams are tangible, while others are not. The desert is more ancient than the Birdverse itself, and it actually exists in multiple worlds, which is a theory popular in the Left-Hand Academy of Lepaleh, but not in other academies (The Left-Hand Academy of Lepaleh is huge on mystical things ever since its founder Mi Peyi visited the Garden of the  Letters of Creation - you can read about it in “The Book of Seed and the Abyss” in Geometries of Belonging.). The Surun’ magic of weaving is an art and craft that  combines deepnames with the mystical power of  the desert. The weaving magic can be practiced outside the desert, but it’s inherently a Burri desert art.

There is also the dreamway magic of the dreaming wilds, which featured briefly in The Portrait of the Desert in Personages of Power. It is also described in my new novella Yoke of Stars.

The siltway people use deepnames, but very differently from everybody else; this is a major storyline in Yoke of Stars.

Q. You mentioned the Left-Hand Academy of Lepaleh. Just how many universities are there?

Many. They are generally divided into Northern Academies (Mainland Katra University and the Royal University of Laina are the main universities there), and Southern Academies, which include the University on the Tiles, the Right-Hand and Left-Hand academies of Lepaleh. The most ancient of them all is the First University in Keshet, which is techincally a southern academy, but it escapes classification. At this point in our history, few outsiders have visited the University in Keshet - it is well hidden.

Each of the academies is  unique in its emphasis / main specialization.  So, for example, The University on the Tiles is pretty free-form, and its emphasis is on starlore. The Mainland Katra University is pretty much the opposite of free-form, and their emphasis is on Strong Building and in general on geometries of power. Some universities are star-nourished and star-nourishing; the University on the Tiles is located pretty much atop the Hillstar, also known as the Star of the Weaves.

The Khana men’s schools of learning (known as mekum in the singular or mekumot in the plural) are usually not considered universities. Yet, magical learning and discovery happens in them all the time, so they are technically universities.

Q. So is the School of Assassins technically a university?

No. It is a professional school.

Magical research is conducted at universities, including research by students; this is not the case at the Court of Sand Terraces.

Q. You mentioned The Star of the Weaves. What are the stars?

The twelve stars are a part of the creation myth of the Birdverse, in which the goddess Bird brings twelve stars in her tail to the newly formed world. The stars fall and are caught by the twelve guardians, who plant the stars in the earth  (or, in one very memorable instance, in the sea), creating anchors for the land and the magical foundation for deepnames. There are many stories about this first Birdcoming, each differently told. Here is how one eyewitness describes it:

Twelve stars she carried through the whispering air
on her tail, when the world was young,
the goddess shook them down when she descended
to call the earth up from names.

We learn a lot about the magical and land-nourishing nature of the stars in The Unbalancing. I go even deeper into the Birdverse creation myth in Yoke of Stars, which talks a lot about the Orphan, and the siltway Star of the Shoal.

Q. What other stars are there?

I think so far I’ve written about the Slumbering Star (also called the Star of the Tides or the Unquiet Sleeper), the Orphan Star, the Hillstar (also called Star of the Weaves), the Tumbleweed Star, the Volestar (through extremely minor mentions), and the Star of the Shoal.

Q. How can I ask you another question about the Birdverse?

Please submit it via the contact form, or invite me to give an event at your community/library/nearest zoom. I am always happy to do events and answer as many questions as I can!