exclusive ARC giveaway (and more)
ARC giveaway for subscribers and upcoming events as book release draws closer
I have so many different things I want to talk about that it’s driving me batty. pole fitness new year’s resolutions! how I tricked myself into writing a book in first person! probably other things I’m forgetting right now!
but I do have my sophomore novel releasing in JUST BARELY LESS THAN TWO MONTHS, and I’ve been utterly crap about posting about it, so I should…probably talk about that for now, yeah?
if you’re new here, you might be like “lol what sophomore novel.” or maybe you’re not here but you never open the emails. (in which case you probably didn’t open this one, either, in which case who am I talking to, but whatever. repetition of news is important and all that.) so here’s a quick recap.
release date: March 25, 2025
publisher: MIRA/HarperCollins
genre: queer cozy fantasy
description:
an old man cursed with immortality hunts ghosts rather than making mortal friends who will die one day. when residents of an Ohio town beset by a vengeful spirit adopt him as their own, he must decide: leave to protect his heart, or stay to save their lives?
for a full description and to preorder, click here: link to The Keeper of Lonely Spirits at HarperCollins
or, to preorder a signed copy and support an indie bookstore, click here: link to The Keeper of Lonely Spirits at Gathering Volumes Bookshop
or, if you’re not ready to preorder but might like to check the book out later, add it to a TBR here: link to book page on Goodreads or link to book page on TheStoryGraph
if you’re not in a position to buy a copy yourself, please consider placing a purchase request with your local library! library sales help authors too, and also I like libraries and enjoy seeing my books in their possession 💜
ARC giveaway
I realized recently that (a) I have a pile of ARCs and (b) all my top social media platforms and my newsletter give me the ability to privately message winners for a mailing address, which means…I can do a buttload of giveaways!
okay sure fine I probably should’ve realized that as soon as I received my ARCs back in december, but. y’know. //gestures at 2024// the point is, I just ran some social media giveaways the other week and am now nine ARCs lighter. progress!
anyway, a special giveaway just for newsletter subscribers is happening now. if you’re reading this in your inbox because you’re a subscriber, no need to do anything! active subscribers* will be automatically entered** to win an ARC with gold edges hand-painted by yours truly, because I have become an unstoppable monster since realizing I could gild the edges of any book I want with gold craft paint
*subscribers who have confirmed their email address and are thus marked “active” in my Buttondown dashboard, including international subscribers who live somewhere that can receive packages from the U.S.
**if for any reason you don’t want to be entered, just reply to this email and let me know!
if you’re reading this in my archive, simple! hit the subscribe button below or on the homepage by 11:59p.m. EST tonight, Monday, 27 January 2025.
upcoming events
online book birthday celebration
date: March 25, 2025 (Tuesday)
time: all day
location: primarily Instagram and Bluesky
what will this celebration look like? your guess is as good as mine! follow me on Instagram and/or Bluesky to participate: link to my Instagram and link to my Bluesky
launch party for The Keeper of Lonely Spirits
date: March 25, 2025 (Tuesday)
time: 6:30-8:00p.m. EST
location: Gathering Volumes Bookshop in Perrysburg, Ohio
this event is free and open to the public!
author presentation
date: March 28, 2025 (Friday)
time: 1:00-2:00p.m. EST
location: Marine City Branch Library in Marine City, Michigan
this event is free and open to the public!
in conversation with E.M. Anderson
date: March 28, 2025 (Friday)
time: 6:30-8:00p.m. EST
location: Sidetrack Bookshop in Royal Oak, Michigan
this event is free and open to the public!
cocktails & convos with E.M. Anderson
date: July 24, 2025 (Thursday)
time: 7:00-8:30p.m. CST
location: Dog-Eared Books in Ames, Iowa
this is a paid, ticketed event!
(all right, I know that last one is a ways out yet, but what can I say? I’m excited to visit a new state and a new bookstore!)
odds & ends
recent reads
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic (2020), which had me going “damn I’d really like to write a Gothic novel someday,” because it reminded me how much I love a good Gothic, but then I followed it up by paging through a historical society’s brief book about a certain city in New York with which I have a history, and “someday” became “a week later as I took the train home from my parents’ place” (oops)
thanks to Les Mis Daily (emails along the lines of Dracula Daily, except you go in the same order as the book), I have finally read in full Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (1862), despite the extremely long, extremely dense, extremely boring section on the Battle of Waterloo that exists just to introduce Marius’s father and Thenardier. everyone complains about the bit about the Parisian sewers, but I actually found that interesting, and it was also considerably shorter than the part on the Battler of Waterloo. why are we picking on the sewers when the Battle of Waterloo is right there
Makana Yamamoto’s Hammajang Luck (2024), aka heist lesbians aka a queer heist book set in space, which was an absolutely fantastic new release! it also reminded me that I could never write a heist book
okay sure fine, that’s also what I said about mystery books, and then look what happened. but I mean it this time
Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (2024), the second book in the Emily Wilde’s series. the third book releases SOON, so my timing of reading the second book was very good (although I admit I had no idea there was a third book until I finished the second. oops)
recent listens
huzzah, I am fulfilling last month’s wish of listening to the Moana 2 soundtrack on repeat thanks to the release of the CD. it may be one degree with a windchill of negative twenty-four as I write this newsletter, but at least the CD player in my car is warm
recent watches
Nosferatu (2024) which I liked okay—definitely more than slasher lovers who aren’t familiar with Gothic horror—but at times it moved slowly even for me. and I’m sorry, but that vampire has my dad’s exact mustache and I cannot possibly take him seriously. I realize this is a totally personal thing that probably no one else on earth is experiencing, but like. that mustache. how can I be scared of that mustache. please
recent birds
starting my birdlist all over as I do annually when January hits, and my very first bird of the year was a red-bellied woodpecker! that will be far from the last time I see one
until next time!
