First off, you may have noticed the shiny brand new header banner image in this email. It was drawn by my incredibly talented wife, Stelleaux Peach. (THANK YOU!)
As you may already know, my novel The Boy with a Bird in His Chest is getting a paperback release in the U.S. It hits stores officially on January 3rd, 2023. Buzzfeed named it one of the best books of 2022 (AN HONOR!). I received my copies the other day and they’re gorgeous (I’m a little biased), now complete with a burst on the cover reminding readers it was longlisted for the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction and a book club guide in the back which includes a Q&A with me! If you want to preorder it you can do so through your local bookstore or through Bookshop. To celebrate, I’ll be in conversation with several of my literary friends in January, some in-person in Portland, OR and one virtual. It would mean a lot to see you out in the crowd.
On January 3rd, I’ll be in conversation with my good friend, Stacy Brewster at Broadway Books in Portland, OR. The event starts at 6pm and is in person. Stacy Brewster is a Portland-based writer and author of the short story collection What We Pick Up (Buckman, 2021). He was awarded the 2019 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship in Drama for his queer noir teleplay Gargoyles & Dandelions. His fiction, poetry, and book reviews have been featured in New South, The Oregonian, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Plenitude Magazine, The Madison Review, and elsewhere. www.stacybrewster.com.
On January 10th, I’ll be in conversation with the incredible Nina LaCour, a virtual event hosted by Novel Neighbor in St. Louis, MO. We start at 7pm ct/5pm pt, and you can register for the event here. Nina LaCour is the bestselling and Michael L. Printz Award-winning author of picture books, young adult novels, and adult literary fiction. Her novel We Are Okay was named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 YA Novels of All Time. Her adult literary debut, Yerba Buena, was a Book of the Month Club selection, Target Book Club selection, and Indie Next Pick. Garnering started reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, Booklist, and others, Nina’s books have been translated into over a dozen languages.
On Sunday, January 15th, the amazing Vanessa Friedman and I will be in conversation in person at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, OR. The event starts at 7pm. Vanessa (she/her) is a queer dyke writer living in Portland, OR. She’s the community editor at Autostraddle, a teaching artist with Literary Arts, and an instructor at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and she is a Tin House Summer Workshop alum and a Hedgebrook Spring Retreat alum. Vanessa writes about friendship, home, loneliness, grief, sex, and the body; her work has been published in Autostraddle, Nylon, Catapult, Alma, Shape, among others, and her essay, “If I’m Lonely,” is included in Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic, recently published from Harper Perennial. She is represented by Amanda Orozco at Transatlantic Agency and is currently working on her debut novel This Is A Queer Love Story.
Classes and Workshops:
I’m super excited to be teaching two virtual courses with Writing Workshops Dallas this winter.
The first is called “Pushing Through: Carrying Your Manuscript Over the Finish Line.” It starts on January 19th and runs four weeks, Thursdays 5pm pt - 7pm pt. It’s going to be so much fun! I’m going to be finishing up my own manuscript alongside the students. The course description: “Part-support group, part-craft class, this four-week course is designed to help you finish that draft of your manuscript. We'll read craft essays about drafting a book, set aside time each week to discuss problems we're having with manuscripts, and design a schedule for each student to ensure everyone addresses the issues specific to their draft.” Class size is super limited because I want the space to feel intimate and want to provide room for us to address problems as they arise. The class has been filling up quickly.
For the second class, I’m resurrecting my class on place and setting! “When New York’s a Character: On Writing Place and Setting” begins February 4th and runs for four weeks, Saturdays 11am pt -1pm pt. I taught this class last summer and the feedback from students was super positive. Course description: “Over the course of four weeks, we will explore place and setting in writing, learning how to capture the sights, smells, sounds, and feelings of our world, exploring everything from grassy meadows to paved cities. We will learn specific research techniques for capturing moments in the past in places we can no longer visit as well as well techniques for catching details in the spaces we inhabit.”
Please note: I haven’t forgotten that this newsletter is supposed to be full of spells and magic. I’m at the end of a draft of a novel and spent some time in December finding a new agent. (Yay! for signing with Leila Campoli at Stonesong.) I simply have not had the time to dedicate to a proper post. I promise one is coming.