Book a 1:1 conversation with Paz Pardo

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Paz Pardo

Novelist, author of The Shamshine Blind. Essays in Modern Love, LitHub, etc.

Fiction

Science Fiction

Mystery

Where else you can find me

Personal website

Substack

Book a 1:1 with Paz

Hi!

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Talk soon,
Sam

Hey there!

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On my mind

I'm always reading something. Whole lot of sci-fi, fantasy, literary fiction, thrillers & mysteries—a recent sampling includes Future Home of the Living God, The Extinction of Irena Rey, The Book Of Love, The Best of All Possible Worlds. At any given time, my open tabs probably include articles from two local Argentine papers, a deep dive from ProPublica, a random preprint about space, somebody's acid thinkpiece about the history of Silicon Valley, and someone's lyric essay about childbirth. I'm always thinking about writing: how to balance craft and instinct (and whether those are two different things), how to work through blocks, how to balance writing with life (parenting! other work! zone-out time!) I'm always thinking about the difference in how things look from outside the US vs. inside, about cooking, about small children.

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Why I'm excited to talk with readers

Writing and reading alone in a room is cool and all, but nothing feels truly real until I'm talking about it with another person. Discovering shared book loves, new exciting things I hadn't heard of, and hearing new perspectives on my own work fills my well.

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Always,

Paz

Let's talk! Open to...👇

Freewheeling conversations

Questions about my writing

Questions about your writing

Writing in general

Getting to know you

Upcoming

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My latest

My Substack

Paz Pardo

Where I've written

The Shamshine Blind

A Novel

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In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.” Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).
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Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat in Daly City, just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend shows up with a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that this case will send her down a tangled path of conspiracy and lead to an overdue reckoning with her family and with the truth of her own emotions.
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Told in the voice of a funny, brooding, Latinx Sam Spade, The Shamshine Blind is “a rip-roaring beautifully crafted mash-up of cop noir, sci-fi, and alt-history that left me dazzled by its prescience and literary zing” (Leah Hampton, author of F*ckface).

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“The Shamshine Blind is a deadpan hilarious allegory for our times, in the classic style of Philip K. Dick and the other great social satirists of science fiction — full of heart and sharp as a razor.”

— Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future

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The Shamshine Blind

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