mind games
Good news / bad news for you, reading this Tinyletter: all of that chattering about my book actually worked. I mean, I got an email six days after it had been released letting me know that Knopf was printing more copies-- because people were actually, like, buying it?
I was sitting in my living room when I got the email from my editor and I heard my voice say, very small, to no one, "what?" I'd gotten used to telling myself that imagining anything really good might happen for the book was just wishful thinking. Fun to indulge, but not remotely practical to expect. And a lot of the things I was imagining really were out of the realm of possibility-- but that also meant I forgot to consider the things that might not be. That librarians would tag me on Instagram to say they were sneaking reads of the book before adding it to their shelves, and fellow fans would reach out and say that it had made them feel seen, that friends would text about how they'd forgotten how they felt about N'SYNC when we were kids until just now. That the book could take on a life of its own in the world. That, as ever, I did not know anything about what would actually happen next.
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So now you're going to have to hear more about the book (in part because I'm working on a bunch of stuff but haven't published anything recently.) And in part I'm in New York this week, for a reading and signing at McNally Jackson! I'll be in conversation with Alanna Massey, author of All the Lives I Want on Wednesday, June 7 at 7:00 pm and I would love to see you there.
I wrote a previous Tinyletter about my relationship to the city which you can read here.
If you're in Los Angeles I'm teaching Nonfiction I for Writing Workshops LA this summer, and if you're in the Bay I'll be chatting with a bunch of other YA authors at NYMBC Presents: The YA Road Trip Panel at Books Inc. on Thursday, July 27.
I also forgot to include this delightful interview I did with The Verge about GRACE AND THE FEVER in the last roundup, so here it is now.