Oops, turns out months have passed since I last sent out a newsletter! Thanks for sticking with me. I have some pretty neat announcements that will hopefully make this worth your while.

The Phoenix Pencil Company paperback is out!

The Phoenix Pencil Company is now over a year old! A lot has happened since then, including, most relevantly, the paperback edition is now out in the world. I’m also running a giveaway over on my Instagram. It’s a collab with The Paper Mouse, my favorite local stationery store! I think the prizes are pretty awesome—I have bought them for myself before, and am in particular a big fan of the mouse emoji stamps.

Hope you’ll pick up a copy!

International editions

Since the last time I sent out a newsletter, some international editions of The Phoenix Pencil Company have been published, and they’re beautiful! I love the different takes each cover artist had.

As always, I’ve asked the pets to model them.

The German edition is an adaptation of the UK cover, and they also changed the title, which I am told translates to “Manufactory of Magic Words” which I think is quite delightful. This one came out in April 2026, and was translated by Barbara Ostrop.

The Brazilian edition cover is the most different from the other existing covers I think, but I adore it. The art is by Denny Chang. Before I had any cover at all, I had imagined a pencil drawn phoenix as the cover, and this definitely hits that. I think it’s a bit more introspective than the other covers, and emphasizes the fundamental relationship of the book more. The Brazilian edition was translated by Yonghui Qio and came out this past March.

And lastly (for now) we have the Spanish edition, whose cover is glorious, don’t you think? It was designed by Micaela Alcaino and there’s so many small details I love here. There’s the obvious pencils and the phoenix, but also the ink splatter at the top is a nod to the magic mechanics, and the pixelated version of my name hints at the tech parts of the book. This edition was translated by Tatiana Marco Marín and came out this past February.

There are more foreign editions to come (how lucky am I!) and I’ll try to be better about sharing in a more timely manner.

Enough about The Phoenix Pencil Company! What’s next?

It’s been kind of a wild year for me. Shortly after The Phoenix Pencil Company debuted (like, 6 days later), I was laid off from the software job. I decided that while I still had severance, I would just use the time to write. I made a huge amount of progress on my current manuscript during that time, but then something else caught my eye… I shouldn’t say too much about it yet, but an opportunity to write a book in a world I love came up and there was no way I could turn it down. It had a super tight deadline, so I am kind of astounded to say that my second novel will be coming out by the end of this year! It’s a book written for an established fantasy IP, so it’ll be quite different than PPC, but I like to think there are similarities. I’ll be able to share more at the end of this month (after San Diego Comic Con…!) All I’ll say for now is… yip yip!

In the mean time, I have gone back to software, and was very intentional about what kind of job I’d go back for. It was the only job I ended up applying for, and I’m happy to say I am now a software engineer for the MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority! I’m excited to be in the service of public transit in the greater Boston area 🚆 So I guess… choo choo!

Until next time!

Allison