August was a weird month.

my grandma went into hospice. I was hired last-minute to teach a creative writing course. my grandma died. I went to Boston for a book event and met a bunch of online friends in-person for the first time. my class started. I got some exciting news about The Keeper of Lonely Spirits. I started a supplement to help manage my ADHD. I wrote most of a short story about a “vegetarian” vampire who objects to the term, which was intended for an anthology submission but oops! turned into a novella and wasn’t done in time anyway.

and all that happened in three weeks.

so I’ve been kind of up and down and all over the place in terms of energy, mood, and productivity. I’ve had a lot of fatigue. I’m taking a lie-down almost every afternoon at this point, which is annoying but also has me grateful that I’m no longer working full time so I can take a lie-down almost every afternoon.

on the plus side, the supplement has helped my ADHD a lot. I thought I’d feel different once I started taking it, but I don’t. but as I worked on course prep after returning from Boston, I realized I’d sat there for two or three hours doing my work and not opened social media once. I hadn’t even thought about opening social media. what magic is this??

notably, the vampire short novella has also gotten more of my time, focus, and words than anything not-on-contract that I’ve written in the past two years. and I started writing it one day before I started taking this supplement.

it’s not a perfect fix, but it’s helped a ton. and since I’m currently unable to get meds for a number of reasons, it’s fantastic to have something affordable and effective that can help my brain focus on what I need it to when I’m not horizontal.

update: The Keeper of Lonely Spirits paperback

in case you missed it on socials, The Keeper of Lonely Spirits will release in PAPERBACK next summer! you can preorder now for a release on June 22, 2027. which I love not least because it’s like we’re celebrating Midsummer, i.e. the time of year at which Peter was cursed, with a shiny new edition of his story.

the cover got an update to hint more at the haunting/horror-ish aspect of the book. probably that means my publisher has noticed all the readers shelving Keeper as cozy horror instead of cozy fantasy.

(I’ve noticed, too, but my thought is always that those readers must scare even more easily than I do lmao.)

anyway, here’s the updated cover:

while you wait for the paperback’s release, you can listen to this song by Kingfishr that perfectly encapsulates the book:

preorder the paperback on Bookshop: link to The Keeper of Lonely Spirits at Bookshop(dot)Org

odds & ends

recent reads

• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, finally. this book has survived multiple book purges waiting for me to read it, but at last it’s had its day. I really enjoyed it, and now I’m enjoying Harrow the Ninth (and appreciating it on a craft level. second-person for the main story?? third-person for the same character’s viewpoint but memories of stuff that already happened except not really?? incredible)

• Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas. which. I. well. it’s a very, very different experience than reading The Three Musketeers and also so different from the film that you wonder how they got that film out of this book. (I do love the film, though.)

recent listens

• a bunch of queer country artists on Bandcamp

• Shaboozey’s album The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales

recent watches

• nothing recently, but I’m looking forward to seeing Forgotten Island later this month! I’ve been waiting for it to release since seeing a trailer I don’t even know how long ago

recent birds

• an eastern screech owl, which I didn’t get a look at but heard from my backyard one evening. I don’t get owls on my list consistently each year, so that was exciting!

• lots of terns and gulls in Boston. some of which I can also see at home, but I don’t always see terns, and I rarely get a good enough look at gulls to identify them. thanks to the Boston trip, at least one species of gull and two species of terns will go on this year’s list!

until next time!