October 28, 2025

the everlasting is here!

brags, tour dates, and meeting at the crossroads

news

in general i like to use this newsletter for earnest little craft essays rather than naked promotion, but it's the publication day for my fourth novel, The Everlasting, and you've all given me your email addresses, so here we are in the (metaphorical) nude.

let me get all the big brags out of the way: The Everlasting has three starred reviews (starred reviews are when one of the trade review outlets puts an extra little gold star next to your book. i am very lustful and covetous about these stars). it's an indie next pick and a libraryreads hall of fame pick. it's a spotify audiobook pick for october (it's narrated by sid sagar and moira quirk, btw, if you even care) and one of libro.fm’s best autumn audiobooks (libro.fm is better than spotify because, among other things, they aren't running ads for ICE). it has blurbs from rachel gillig, ava reid, cass khaw, caitlin starling, maria mora, lex croucher, freya marske, rebecca mix, c.l. clark, olivie blake, and olivia atwater. i don't have proof but sarah gailey said they liked it in a DM. so did kate quinn! it also has illustrations and a gorgeous map drawn by alice cao, and cover art by sarah wood, teal sprayed edges, and a sick gold case stamp (pictured above). 

in an increasingly precarious industry where everyone is underpaid and overworked and all the major papers have cancelled their book coverage and sales are down, the number of people that have taken the time to read and promote and make art for this book sort of bowls me over. i won't say anything cringe about whether or not i deserve it! i'll just repeat one of my dad's favorite sayings: i'd rather be lucky than good.

i'm also on tour right now (below). most of these events are ticketed, which i'm very sorry about! but it helps booksellers get the right number of copies and the right sized venue, which helps them not lose money, which helps them keep selling books, in the aforementioned precarious industry.

at the crossroads

it's a weird time to release a book. i know this is the standard (white)(liberal) disclaimer that comes right before a peppy sales pitch, like doing a land acknowledgement at the beginning of your for-profit yoga retreat, but it's also true. 

it's weird to look at my tour stops and count the cities under direct federal occupation. to evaluate which states are safe for which friends and family to visit with me. to board every flight wondering, a little nervously, if the air traffic controllers have gotten paid yet. to talk about the fascist obsession with rewriting history--in the context of my fantasy book!--while actual museum plaques are disappearing from exhibits. to get thirty AI scam emails a day. to make a calendar reminder to donate extra to our food pantry on november first, because SNAP benefits are getting cut off, and to remember as i do the day i got my SNAP card: i bought grapes at the store and ate them like a roman senator, reclined on the couch, because i felt so rich. to remember this as i am walking to meet my editor for a nice lunch in manhattan, which i could pay for but won't have to, because the wealthier you are the more things you get for free.

i think by weird i actually mean: really shitty. "this is going to ruin the tour," whispers local woman, apparently shocked to find that authoritarianism is a real bummer.

this is the point in a promotional post where you pivot away from the sad stuff and start selling your book again. i might press my hand against my chest and remind everyone that joy is resistance. i might misquote emma goldman¹ and declare that i don't want to be in the revolution if i can't dance--or read romance paperbacks, or bake pies, or play hades ii, or write fantasy novels.

and like: sure! i actually do believe, ardently, in the importance of pleasure and wonder and joy, in the creation and consumption of art. i'm not totally convinced it has specific, material value to "the resistance," whatever that is, but it sure has value to me. i simply can't imagine my life without reading and writing.

i bet you can't, either. i mean, if you're subscribing to author newsletters, you're in pretty deep (or you're a supportive family member. hi, aunt teresa). this, maybe, is the specific, material value art can offer us all: that it makes a kind of crossroads. a place for us to meet for a little while, and talk about things. i can spend two (or three, or four, but who’s counting) years writing this book, and then i can hand it to you, and you can hand it to your friend, and the next time you see her maybe you can talk about it. your dreams and mine can overlap. in a fractured and isolated and dangerous world, we can still meet here: in the margins, between the lines, on the borders of countries that don't exist. beneath the yew, even.

these meetings are invisible, most of the time, occurring as they must across time and space, through screens and earbuds. but once every couple of years i get to go out into the world and actually meet a few of you. we get to stay out late on school nights talking about art. we get to walk through bookstores and touch the spines of our favorites and turn to the person next to us and say, "did you read this one? dude. dude. it's a pulpy western except it's about a biker gang of lesbian anarchists--"² we get to connect, however briefly, at the crossroads.

i can think of no greater privilege, or better way to celebrate a book about the way connections between people can, in the long run, topple empires.

i'll see you out there.

further reading:

• donate to your food pantry if you can. if you're in charlottesville, visible records maintains a free fridge. if you're in kentucky, lexington's foodchain feeds a fuckton of people, and needs donations for thanksgiving.

• have i talked to you about joanna bourne yet? i probably have. i have this problem where i can't seem to like things a normal amount. anyway she has this series of spy/romance novels set during and after the french revolution and i'm passionately in love with them.

• c.l. clark had a recent, excellent essay on reactor called “everyone’s in love, but nobody’s horny,” about sex and embodiment in fiction, which is also a close reading of nicola griffith’s Ammonite. really hitting all my personal boxes here!!

• and maddie martinez had a really thoughtful analysis of the trends of lady golems and lady knights in fantasy, and the work of subverting popular medievalisms!