Pre-order link for Terrestrial, out in May! Also available at: Bookshop.org, Magers & Quinn Booksellers (so cool!), and Barnes & Noble.

Grateful for this review of Terrestrial in Independent Book Review. They review indie books and don’t charge $400 for book reviews–amazing!

There’s a Terrestrial e-book giveaway on StoryGraph.

Frolic Press was kind enough to include Terrestrial on this list of weird books by women (almost typed books by weird women, which, yes).

I brought some postcards I had made up for Terrestrial to the coffee shop I stop at on my walk to work after getting off the train. They have a table by the door with flyers and free zines and I have long imagined leaving something here. It reminds me of the coffee shops I went to when I was young, in Phoenix, with flyers and take-a-number posters, or Zia Records. I wish I could leave a copy of my book at Zia. Maybe I can make it out there this summer to leave one.

I asked the barista if I could leave a few flyers and he said sure, then asked what my book is about. Forced to quickly respond, I said it’s about a girl in Arizona who thinks she sees lights, which is close enough. A good exercise in having my reply ready.

I had emailed my old writing instructor about my forthcoming book because his writing classes were my first workshop classes and he taught me how to write a story arc. He replied kindly and asked if I would like to be a guest speaker for his advanced fiction writing class and tell them about my path to book publication after taking the classes in 2016. I remember the guest speakers we had during my time in the class, and said yes right away, before remembering that I am a Not Good speaker and can barely speak in front of more than 3 people. In the early days of his class, actually, he offered to read my story to the class in my place because I was so afraid. I turn red, feel faint, can’t hold the words and either speed read if I have the benefit of reading from a document and if I don’t then I can’t think and freeze up, forming thoughts and speaking on the fly is out of the question. Why had I thought I could do this?

I wrote down all my speaking points and debated taking an expired beta blocker but decided to just rely on the paper. I was so anxious but it went okay! The students asked thoughtful questions and the instructor guided me a bit after I read through all my pre-determined points. We even ended up discussing book release readings and bookstores. I learned a lot, too, as some of the students are going the route with querying and agents, and one said it opened their eyes to hear other options like indie publishing. I’m glad I did it.

I’ve been thinking about another author, one I completed an internship with during college and then worked for in a freelance manner for a few years afterward. I’d helped the author with book publicity, and I think about him all the time now as I look up ways to get my book out there. This was before I even had the ability to use the internet on my phone. For one of his books, he wanted to send ARCs to blogs and review sites and big-name authors, only he thought it looked unprofessional to send the ARCs directly from himself, and his publisher was not doing this, so we used stamps.com to send the books with a return address in NJ. I didn’t have a car and was finishing college as an old undergrad after just moving to Seattle, so I carried the books to different mailboxes and post offices around the campus area, in small batches since I couldn’t carry full boxes. I associate that time with carrying things around, taking the bus, walking to and fro with these books. He’s rather famous and I’m sure he doesn’t have to do this for his books now, and he’s not on social media anymore, but I think of him and carrying his books. Funny enough, I tried to claim my book on Amaz0n, but I’d set up an author account for this author years ago using my own email, so when I log in, it says hello, ___!, and I can’t seem to reset it or change it now that I need it for my own book. It’s a good excuse to not bother with them.

xoxo