A new book and a cover reveal
A new book and a cover reveal
DUST is coming from Wednesday Books
It’s been a long time since my last newsletter update.
There’s a reason for that. A few months ago, I started a new job as Staff Culture Writer at Salon. It’s great to be full-time in a newsroom again, after years of piecing together everything I could as a freelance reporter. Freelancing is a lonely place, and no matter how hard you scramble, it never ends up being enough. But most of my essay-writing is reserved for work, and filing multiple assignments a week along with parenting and working on my books at night and on the weekends … there’s not a lot left in the well. I’ve been uncertain as to what shape this newsletter should morph into.
Now the dust has settled on my new job, I’m going to write updates about my work, pointing you to some of my favorite culture writing I’ve done lately along with what’s happening with my books. I’m doing events again, and maybe you’d like to know about those, as well as insights into the world of a person who writes for a living and who finds small magic in nature. I’m searching for it, still and always, and finding it a lot of times too.
First, a surprise of the work, something that has amazed me, the deaf person who fears answering the phone: I love doing interviews. Getting the opportunity to connect with creative, smart people in a meaningful way has been a huge, unexpected bonus of my job. Here are some my favorites I’ve done lately at Salon, including a conversation with Jamie Lee Curtis where we both teared up, an interview with Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan which made me regret ever leaving the stage, and learning so much about story and pacing with the writer of “Flowers in the Attic: The Origin.”
A surprise for you: if you don’t know, my next book has been announced. DUST will be published by St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books, a wonderful imprint of Macmillan!
DUST is about a Hard of Hearing girl who moves with her strict, unschooling family from Ohio to a remote valley in Colorado. When she begins to realize a second Dust Bowl is coming, a storm capable of burying the valley, she has to convince the other homesteaders and loners to escape, along with the boy who’s been teaching her sign language in secret.
Although I feel many of my main characters are deaf like me, this is the first time I’ve engaged with my deafness directly in fiction. This is a book that has forced me to confront so many feelings and experiences: about my disability, about Colorado, and about home in general. It’s been a journey to get here, and I can’t wait for you to read it.
If you can’t wait that long, I have a release this fall: TRASHLANDS is coming out in paperback for the first time on November 1, 2022!
This is my first time having a special paperback release after my first-ever hardcover, and I’m excited to reveal its brand-new cover. I love the community of TRASHLANDS so much. They provided company for me, my only friends during the first part of the pandemic when we moved far away from everything I had known. I hope they bring you solace too. I hope they bring you home.
