Name a character in my novel after your worst ex-boss (or a nemesis of your choice)

Hello loves!

I'm interrupting my recent radio silence (sorryyyy!) to bring you a delicious opportunity for some PETTY REVENGE, all in service of a great cause.

Lauren Beukes and Jeanette Ng are running an auction (Genre for Trans) to raise money for trans rights organisations in South Africa and the UK. If you're a fan of sci-fi, horror or fantasy, you'll find some incredible goodies like a rare galley proof of The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (the first in the Wheel of Time series), a hand-adorned edition of Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author, or a crochet axolotl.

South Africans, I'm so sorry, but that link doesn't work in SA without a VPN.

I'm offering something extremently ridiculous:

Name a character in Femme Feral after your worst boss

Ever wish you could trap your least favourite ex-boss in a novel and make bad things happen to him? Now’s your chance.

In my upcoming horror novel Femme Feral (coming 2026 with Bloomsbury and Viking Penguin), there’s a uniquely hateable character currently called Sean, a tech CEO full of messianic TEDTalk energy and zero competence. He’s the kind of guy who:

• Forces staff into a three-hour “Inspiration Jam” that’s just him free-associating about Kurdish dance and blockchain.
• Asks the only woman in the room (an engineer) to take minutes.
• Shows up in random meetings uninvited to spout nonsense phrases like “We need to create the Uber of happiness” and “Let’s take a human-centred approach to this”.
• Steals his employees' ideas and presents them as his own.
• Is made CEO over our very competent protagonist, the woman who everyone says “actually runs everything around here” but doesn’t ever promote.

Sean is a bullshit artist, a giant throbbing ego, and a jerk. Does he remind you of someone? You can rename him.

That’s right: the winning bidder gets to name the novel’s antagonist after their worst boss/ex/frenemy. Like how Michelangelo painted his nemesis into hell, or how Kendrick lyrically destroyed Drake, or the entire discography of Taylor Swift. Petty, harmless, delicious revenge you can savour forever.

And yes, terrible things will happen to this character... 😈

The fine print:

• First name only (I don’t want to get sued).
• Must be a male name.
• I’ll try to sneak in a nod to your real-life foe’s wardrobe or speech quirks if I can, but I can’t rewrite anything major at this point.
• If I can't make the name work for some reason, I’ll refund you.
• Your secret’s safe with me, but if you want them to know, I can thank you by name in the acknowledgements.

SOUTH AFRICANS: Annoyingly, the auction website's not available in South Africa (unless you use a VPN), but never fear! If you want to nab this, just email me and tell me how much you'd like to bid, and I'll manually record your offer.

The auction closes on 7 June. GO GO GO!

I'll send you a proper newsletter soon, promise!

Wishing you tasty revenge on all your enemies,

Sam