The first stage was denial.

I told myself that I wouldn’t do a T. rex book. That I couldn’t. It was only two years before, in Slate, that I’d called T. rex overplayed and a symbol of toxic masculinity. The dinosaur was an unfortunate animal that had been made into a symbol of dominance and might makes right. That hadn’t changed. And I still carried a little resentment from when I’d pitched editors paleontology stories about strange creatures and unexpected discoveries, such as the survival of Cambrian oddballs tens of millions of years after their supposed extinction, only to be asked to do another piece on T. rex instead. If anything, I wanted to write about the dinosaur less.

But I had just finished writing When the Earth Was Green and it was time for me to latch onto something new. I’d just done two sweeping epics that covered millions and billions of years of evolutionary time through a cast of wildly-different organisms, from microscopic red algae to our earliest primate ancestors. I wanted to try a story about a single animal, a life story that would feel deeper. More intimate.

I kept coming back to T. rex.

I accepted what I had been pushing away one spring morning in Salt Lake City, wrapping up a morning latte walk with my partner Splash and our German shepherd Jet. The strolls are the most important part of my day. They wake me up, give caffeine time to seep into my system, and provide Splash and I a while to talk about what’s ahead for the day and what’s on our minds. On that morning, I was focused on what I should write next.

The giveaway was that I said I didn’t think I could pull off a book about T. rex.

When I start with a negative, I’ve already begun negotiations with myself about how it could be done. The justification came easily enough. Why should I let the boys have all the fun?, I thought. I’d pointed out how the iconography and fan favorite status of T. rex had often turned the dinosaur into a monster, a status symbol for the rich, and an object of obsessive argument about paleontologists, but to what end? I offered a critique, but it could be easily ignored as contrarian. If I really believed what I said, I should be able to contribute something novel. Something different. The kind of dinosaur story that I always wanted to read. I wanted to roar and make myself heard.

I wrote the first chapter in about a week. (It’s now Chapter 7.) Snaggletooth didn’t even have her name yet. She was just “our tyrannosaur,” courting another T. rex in a Cretaceous glade. Then I wrote another. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would have been like for a little tyrannosaur to emerge into the world, the view from inside the egg, and that was that. St. Martin’s Press soon signed me for my third book from them, and now the book’s almost in your hands. Next Tuesday, Snaggletooth will be waiting for you.

Maybe I had to wait for our relationship to mature. I learned the name Tyrannosaurus rex the same day I learned “dinosaur.” But our on-again, off-again interactions started in 1988, when I visited the American Museum of Natural History and saw those facsimile jaws yawning so far above my little head. The real skull, grinning from the floor, seemed to smirk, as if the tyrannosaur knew something I didn’t. Perhaps so. They certainly caught me. Every time I visit New York City with even an hour to spare, I climb to the museum’s fourth floor to see that dinosaur again and wonder what I’ll notice this time. The scale of the animal is shocking. It’s effortless, letting myself get a little lost in every serration on each tooth and every foramina running along its jaws. I don’t know how to walk away from such a creature except in awe.

Tyrant Lizard Queen grew from that awe. In the months I spent imagining Snaggletooth, what she wanted, and what she might do, I fell in love with T. rex again. I set aside my frustration by how the dinosaur had been abused as a symbol of violent dominance while I went back to the bones and let myself follow the implications of all the reptile’s incredible anatomy. We share much in common, after all, even a common ancestor if we dig back far enough. Instead of this incredible other, the monster ready to bring back the Age of Reptiles by eating all the mammals, T. rex could emerge as a sensitive and vulnerable creature. I thought and imagined my way through how we connect even after all these millions of years. The slide of shade on a hot day, the annoyance of an insect bite, the twist of hunger and the satisfaction of feeling food break between your teeth with a crunch, the life of a reptile so different from us nevertheless held the familiar. The bones of these reptiles rest motionless in museums, but not in my imagination. Not in my heart. They still move.

Scribblings

• Tyrant Lizard Queen is one of Barnes & Noble’s best books of the year! Not bad for a book that’s not technically out until next week.

• I’ve got a new fossil narrative just for my premium subscribers! Among the Cretaceous swamps of ancient South America, a heron-like raptor hunts.

• “Great Maia” is a touching dinosaur film, playing with expectations and conventions to tell a story through Mesozoic tension.

• Leave the leaves. They're essential to relationships that have been evolving for hundreds of millions of years. My latest, for SIERRA.

Stomping to a City Near You

• We have a T. rex! tour. When Tyrant Lizard Queen reaches you on October 27th, I’ll kick off an East Coast run to talk about Snaggletooth and her story. Here’s where I’ll be stopping:

• Launch day! October 27th I’ll be at the central Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, MD.

• October 28th at Scrawl Books in Reston, VA. This is a trivia night event, so make sure you’re ready for dino questions!

• November 4th I’ll be in Lewes, DE at the public library for a joint event with Browseabout books.

• November 5th I’ll be at Hive Mind Books, NYC!

• November 6th I’ll be at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, MA.

• December 2nd I’ll be at the Natural History Society of Maryland in Baltimore, MD.

If you’d like me to do an in-person or virtual event closer to you, encourage your local museum or library to get in touch.

Ear Perks

With the best holiday soon upon us, let’s get into the scary stuff.

• I’ve always loved horror films, and horror films have given me good reason to love them. Because horror is incredibly queer. If you haven’t watched it yet, check out Shudder’s documentary series Queer for Fear.

• There is so much excellent trans horror. If you’re looking for some good gory reads this month, this Publishers Weekly piece will get you started.

• Careful what you wish from an author. A Talent For Murder looks thrilling.