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March 19, 2025

The post-deadline malaise (plus C2E2 & Can*Con news)

I turned in a revised draft of my next novel, Every Room a Hunger, last Monday. I spent the four preceding days ensconced in a cheapish hotel here in Queens so I could hyperfocus on getting through my long to-do list of edits that looked something like this:

A checklist from the Notes App. It says: Part 2: Chapter 7: Melody’s unhinged writing prompt. Chapter 7: specify what Leo does with the hidden pages? Chapter 8: better transitions in first part, when C’s stretching and thinking. Chapter 8: Add Rose the Parrot.  Chapter 8 (fix/finish Mother Hunger section. Chapter 9: reword Aimee’s bitch moment. Chapter 9: figure out the name.  Chapter 9: Add Frankie reactions for [brackets]. Chapter 9: double check all the truths.  Chapter 10: Add mention of Rowan looking in from the outside when everyone is ignoring them. Chapter 11: Finish!  Chapter 11: Add more propulsive chapter send us off into the rest of part 2 (Open House).  Finish Chapter 12 - transition to the next chapter
This was the least spoilery section of edits I could find, tbh.

After turning the book in, I spent the rest of the week in a state of collapse. I had pushed all my anxiety about the current state of the country/world to a little fenced off corner in my brain while the rest of it was consumed by FINISH BOOK, and once that was done, I got hit with 2 months of it all at once. I had my first panic attack in years while cooking dinner because my stupid, feckless, greedy government has decided to flex its nuts by advocating for a war with Canada and Mexico.

Ironically, one of the things I was working on in this draft was making it funnier and more hopeful.

I’m generally known as a writer who tries to balance horror, humor, and the absurd territory between them. The first draft of this book tipped over into purely grim, which didn’t come as much of a surprise. It’s about a group home for troubled teens, and the main POV characters are 1) a closeted evangelical girl, 2) a trans guy sent there by transphobic parents, 3) a kid sent there on juvenile diversion, based on the cash for kids scandal, 4) a nonbinary teen recovering after a suicide attempt.

The world of the story, like this world, does not have a lot of faith in justice. But YA, as a genre, is a realtor trying to sell a house with good bones. It needs to sell its audience on the world, give them a place to practice being human.

I don’t know if I nailed that balance in this draft, even if I did add a weird parrot and someone doing Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?” dance. I tried though; tried to remember how it felt to be younger, falling in love with a world that kept disappointing me. The world is a shithole, but it could be beautiful, right? We can make this place beautiful.

NEWS

  • If you’re in NYC, I’ll be doing an event this week with fellow YA horror writer Justine Pucella Winans at Astoria Bookshop, talking about their new book How To Survive a Slasher. Come chat horror tropes and play Kiss/Marry/Kill with your favorite movie slashers! Thursday, 3/20, 7pm.

  • I’ll be at C2E2 for the BATTLE OF THE TROPES panel! Come find me arguing that the Chosen One is bullshit with DL Taylor on Fri, Apr 11, 11:00 AM-11:45 AM, in room S401-ABC.

  • I’m participating in Virtual Can*Con in April. Tune in to listen to me, Georgina Kiersten, Faye Gabriel, and Derek Newman-Stille on the “(Re)Claiming What We Love” panel, Saturday, April 12, 10:00-10:50 AM EST.

And the requisite plug for my stuff:

  • Buy my books here: https://ninocipri.com/booksmerch/

  • Rate/review my books at Storygraph or Goodreads

  • Kick me a few bucks at Ko-fi or Patreon (where I mostly post cat pictures)

  • Follow me on Bluesky or Instagram (where I also mostly post cat pictures)

  • And if you haven’t, please subscribe to this newsletter!

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