O-si-yo lovelies!

As you can see, I’m still doing a lot of experimenting with the format on this newsletter. Just like Stella, it’s going to take me awhile to find my groove. But, hey, I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you and your willingness to sign up with me for this journey! In this issue, I’ll share a little bit on what I’ve been up to since last month and what lies ahead for May.

A Case of the On Sub Blues

For those of you who don’t know, I am currently at what might easily be the most awkward and nerve-wracking stage of the traditional publication path—being on submission. It’s that stage where you’ve acquired a literary agent (in itself a huge milestone). But after you’ve popped the champagne bottles (or in my case, pulled a few tabs on a can of Mike’s Harder Lemonade) what’s next?

You go through a few rounds of edits with your agent. Then your agent sends your manuscript out to potential publishers. Usually it’s a curated list that you work on together. Then you wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait some more. While you start to count the hairs on your head that are graying from the stress of constantly refreshing email, you start to work on your next project to keep sane—and to have an iron in the fire in the event of the worst case scenario, that dreaded phrase all writers on the trad publishing path fear—”died on sub.” It’s a reality no one likes to talk about. But it happens to debut authors on submission all the time. In fact, the odds of most debut authors on submission is that you may have one, two, even three books die on sub before you finally get a sale. There just aren’t any guarantees in this business.

And in case anyone needs reminding, we have recent publishing scandals like the whole Shy Girl controversy to further muddy the waters.

In the meantime, as if being on sub isn’t frustrating enough, it’s also a time when writers are for the most part gagged at every stage of the process. You aren’t supposed to “talk about” being on sub. You’re not really at liberty to discuss where and who is reading your manuscript—in many cases we don’t even know ourselves which editors have our manuscript, only the houses or imprints it has gone to. In my case, my agent is good about letting me know who my potential editors are. But I can’t share that info online. I can’t post about it on social media. I can’t “stalk” those editors on their social media platforms (you’d be surprised how many writers do, however, just to try to read the tea leaves in their posts!).

Even if you get “interest” your book can still die on the vine. The first step is that an acquiring editor has to fall in love with it. Then she has to convince everyone at her imprint to fall in love with it, as well. Then there are acquisitions meetings where they all try to convince the marketing team why buying this book makes sense.

And this is where a lot of potential books that might have been die in the flames. With so many hurdles to clear, it’s no surprise why traditional publishing takes so long.

Is it any wonder my favorite analogy is that being on submission feels like being in Purgatory.

Did I mention that even if we get an offer tomorrow, my book won’t be out until at least 2028?

So either way, I’m looking at a long journey before I can finally share my boys, Elmer & Leonard, and their wacky but tragic paranormal love story that carries them across the South.

Hanging In There

Yeah, fun. So what does a writer do in the meantime? Short answer: You write. In the time I’ve been on sub, I’ve gone back and completely revised an earlier novel I wrote, In the Place Where Frank James is Buried, Just North of Here. And, yeah, I know, I know…last email, I said I had already sent it off to my agent.

But…after taking a break of a few days and coming back to it with fresh eyes, I realized I still wasn’t happy with it. So here went another email to my poor agent who had already been waiting three months on my promised edits…that email I’m sure every suffering agent knows too well from their clients. “I need just a little more time.” An earlier draft of this novel was a finalist for Black Lawrence Press’s Big Moose Novel Prize in 2021. But I wanted to do a complete revision that would make it more of a speculative, magical realism story. It seemed a logical step to make this my follow-up book since I already had the basic story.

And I’ve completed a draft of a third novel, The Kids of Crossroads, which is a dual timeline story centered on a school for “Specials” in the late 1970’s, a sort of Stranger Things meets Harry Potter. I’m really excited for this book; I had such a blast writing it. I am currently revising that book as well since it will need to be split into two volumes.

All a long way to say…I got my work cut out. And it does keep me occupied in Purgatory.

Does it stop me from checking email excessively a thousand times a day? Um, get back to me on that one.

What I’m Reading

Oh my word, you all, if you still have not seen the movie Hamnet, based on Maggie O’ Farrell’s novel, I urge you to catch it if you can still find it in the cinema. The novel is O’ Farrell’s fictional rendering of the marriage of William Shakespeare and Agnes Hathaway and how they each cope with the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. What I love about this story-both the novel and the film—is that Shakespeare isn’t the star of it. In fact, he’s almost a background figure. This is really the story of a wife and mother’s ordeal. She is the one at home raising these children; she is the one holding her son as he dies; she is the one bearing the burden of guilt and grief—or seems to be, until we learn that “The Latin tutor” has written a little play called Hamlet.

All of the critics were right. This is one of the most affecting films you’ll see in 2026, largely carried by Jessie Buckley’s Oscar winning performance.

But I want to give a shout out here to the novel. I hadn’t read any of Maggie O’Farrell’s work but after seeing this film, I knew this book was a MUST ADD to my nightcap reading stack. So far, I have not been disappointed. O’Farrell is one of those rare literary writers who can pile on the repetition, the multiple clauses, the sentences that flow like rivers, and somehow make it feel like sipping fine wine rather than purple prose. Last night I came away astounded that I’d just spent nearly two pages in Agnes’s POV as she observes the shaking of a cart of apples. We’re literally getting every minute detail of how a row of apples are harvested and stored on a sixteenth century farm, and only as the scene pulls back are we made aware why those apples are rocking in their carefully constructed grooves—it’s her and “the Latin tutor” getting busy on the table! Somehow O’Farrell makes it work. It’s always refreshing to see that there is still a market for lush and beautiful prose (but oh how I would love to witness what her editing process must be like to achieve it!). I’m definitely planning to read more work by this author.

What I’m Watching

Well, this is more about what I will be watching. In just a couple of hours. As of tonight. I’m so excited that the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, is finally in theaters this weekend! This movie has had a long journey to get here. We’re going to see it in IMAX tonight. Michael’s life has always fascinated me. He was such an enigmatic figure, and so very misunderstood. If the critics are right, this movie probably isn’t shedding any new light-but once the lights dim and the music starts, the magic is going to happen and that’s what audiences are coming to see. I’m curious because by all accounts Jafarr Jackson’s performance as his uncle is STUNNING—not a mimicry, not an imitation, but the kind of truly, lived-in performance that happens rarely with music biopics. A few have achieved it—Austin Butler, Jamie Foxx, and Rami Malek come to mind, and if you go back far enough, Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. Jafarr Jackson is in that category by all accounts, so I can’t wait.

The film has had a troubled history, including several months of reshoots they had to do because the estate kind of failed to warn Graham King, John Logan and Anton Fuqua that they were legally gagged from portraying anything about that case brought against MJ by the Chandler family in 1993 (I do believe Michael was innocent and railroaded by money hungry grubbers, but I don’t have the time or space here to get into the semantics of all that). Suffice to say it’s kind of a shame, though, because I feel like the true arc of Jackson’s story is that tragic hero aspect of his life, the rise and fall from grace and eventual rise again, but the writers and producers were limited.

So what they’ve chosen to focus on instead will be Jackson’s struggle to stand up against Joe Jackson and make his own way. That’s still a compelling story, and I’ve heard Colman Domingo is outstanding as Joe Jackson—in the scariest kind of way.

Well, I do have my two cents about that. I used to write a very popular blog on Jackson called Allforloveblog. It’s long gone now, though you still may find some occasional references to it online. I kept it up for almost ten years, but finally just too many other demands and focusing on getting my own stories written, etc, got in the way and after ten years, there really wasn’t much left to say, anyway. But anyway, one of the perks I enjoyed as an MJ blogger was that I often got free media passes to events like the big shebang the family used to do in Gary every year.

So at one of those functions, I ended up with Joe Jackson sitting right behind me! And, yes, he was certainly an intimidating figure. It was at a function where Jennifer Batten, Michael’s former lead guitarist, was doing a tribute show. I tried hard to act nonchalant, but it was hard to ignore that Michael Jackson’s dad—the firebreathing patriarch of the Jackson family, was sitting right behind me! He called out to Jennifer during her set and said, “Jennifer, in all those years you played with my son, I never got to hear you play. Will you play something for me?”

I forget what she played. But it was quite moving and when I stole a peek behind me, Joe was crying. Keep in mind, Michael had only been dead less than a year then. Joe got so emotional he had to get up and walk away. I imagined that being very much the old school kind of guy he was, he didn’t want to be seen crying in public.

So people can say what they want about Joe Jackson. But I can always say, I saw that man cry over his son. There was a heart beating in there, even if it was pretty far down inside. He came from a world where being a poor Black man raising a family meant he had to be tough. He had to learn to be tough at a young age when his own father died and he was suddenly the man of the family. He had to be tough to raise his own children and get them out of Gary, Indiana alive.

I know the movie’s going to portray him as a monster. But I will always hold that bit of truth close to my heart. I know from experience it is entirely possible to still love a parent you’ve had a complicated relationship with. That’s partly why this story hits so close to home.

On that note, donadaghovi (till we meet again).

Linda-Raven

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