Three things I'm looking forward to

Plus a bunch of progress on the book marketing plan

Hello from an Amtrak train to Boston. 👋

Three things I’m looking forward to:

• Brooklyn Book Festival

• Artmageddon

• Not traveling for a while after my current marathon of 5 out-of-state trips in 6 weeks

This week in Leave news

I’ve been working that book marketing plan, baby.

As soon as I saw the cover that Amy Wheaton designed, I knew it deserved a big reveal. I pitched Electric Literature on an exclusive cover reveal and they said yes! We’re holding the preorder go-live until the second week of October so that it can happen simultaneously. I can’t wait for you all to see it.

The next thing I did was propose a launch event to my beloved neighborhood bookstore, Lofty Pigeon Books. They said yes, too! The event will be on February 25, 2025 and we’ll be doing a preorder promotion where you can get a signed copy of Leave if you order through them. More details to come.

I’m also asking for blurbs. Asking for blurbs is a little scary but it’s still something I want to do, so I am doing it! So far I have one YES, two MAYBES, and one form rejection from one of my all-time favorite writers, which I am not taking personally at all (seriously — protect your time how you need to protect your time).

I’ve sent the ARC to a handful of trusted people with a note that the cover is under embargo. A few of these folks are pitching interviews to magazines — amazing! More ARCs will go out once the preorder is live, and I’m planning to get a galley up on Netgalley as well.

Finally, I registered the book with the copyright office and they sent me a super official-looking certificate. Perhaps I will frame it.

Whew! Big week. The wheels are turning.

This week in writing

I’ve been working here and there on my Rockford essay, and I also submitted an essay I wrote over the summer to a few magazines that are only open in September. Book stuff + back to school season haven’t left much time, but I’m hoping my travels will help. Sometimes just getting out of the routine can shake loose some good ideas, you know?

This week in reading

I finished Jami Attenberg’s I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home, which came out in early 2023. This is one of those books that’s made partly of essays that were published over a period of time in different magazines and partly of newer writing that functions as connective tissue, which is a form I enjoy and kind of needs its own name that is not memoir and not essay collection. I’m also still reading and loving Donato Loia’s 1095 Short Sentences.