February 24, 2026
Standing on the Edge
I’m writing this post from the airport where I’ve arrived much too early for my flight to Pittsburgh, where I’ll be attending the American Booksellers’ Association’s Winter Institute, an opportunity I’m so excited about—can you think of better company? And for me, this is the beginning of Book Promo season, a season that’s actually going to be pretty busy. We’re also taking a family trip to the UK in early April, a trip I booked around potential book events, which I felt a little embarrassed about at the time, because who was to say that such events would even come to pass? But they have, they really have, a string of occasions that I could (and no doubt will) line up in a row and call my “book tour,” as though I were R.F. Kuang or Sarah J. Maas. And I feel lucky for all these things to look forward to, for all these opportunities to meet readers and sell books. When I published my first novel almost ten years ago, I just took for granted that these were the sorts of things that just happened, but they don’t always. (And to be honest, even when they do, readers and book sales are never guaranteed. It’s a crapshoot.) I feel really lucky for the marketing and publicity push my publisher has put behind my book—the creativity, intelligence, and care has been astounding. Every author should be this fortunate.
And being able to line up events like this, a quasi book tour—of course celebrating these opportunities is important, but underlying this celebration is an uncomfortable feeling like I’m trying to prove something with them. Look at me, here’s living proof of my substance and importance, that I’m legit. Posting my “Book Tour” schedule like it’s no big thang, as though I’m the kind of person this sort of opportunity happens to (but oh, it’s such a big thang. I’m so so grateful and so so pleased, because I’ve experienced a book launch to CRICKETS and it wasn’t great.) The same way I feel compelled to line up my four published novels (my fourth novel is not officially out YET, but it’s slowly trickling its way into the world. Official pub date is March 17!) and exclaim to the world, “Look what I’ve done! Four entire novels. Maybe this author thing is not just a ridiculous fluke after all.”
As though the four books and the list of events add up to something more than what they are, as though they prove something about my worth, my worthiness—as a writer and a human both. And this is what I’m resisting, what I’ve been working on shrugging off since my last book came out three years ago and it almost wrecked me. All these things are wonderful, but they also mean nothing. This is my moment to shine, but also nobody cares, and neither point necessarily cancels the other, and being able to hold all of this at the very same time might very well be the key to not losing my mind.
