We’ll be back to our regularly schedule programming (rambling, moseying, meandering through the weeds) next week, but for now, an announcement: the brilliant team at Marysue Rucci Books/Scribner has given my novel, The Mythmakers, a cover and the on-sale date of June 13, 2023. Exciting! Terrifying! The germ of this book came to me in 2014—I was 22, and it took me some time to figure out how to write it—so it’s still hard to believe that in eight short months it’ll exist as a thing in the world.
The description from my publisher’s website:
Sal Cannon’s life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it’s revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She’s close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story’s editor—only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin’s widow, Moira.
Moira has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to Upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira’s life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin’s papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises—again and again. Even more so when Martin’s daughter’s story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?
The Mythmakers is a nesting doll of a book that grapples with perspective and memory, as well as the battles between creative ambition and love. It’s a story about the trials and tribulations of finding out who you are, at any stage in your life, and how inspiration might find you in the strangest of places.
Pre-orders are a big deal for any book, but particularly a debut—they signal interest to the publisher and to booksellers, which can lead to the book finding more readers, which is of course the hope. If you’d like to pre-order mine you can do so here, or request it at your favorite local bookstore. I will be deeply grateful. (As I am that you read this newsletter to begin with.) I’ll have periodic updates over the coming months, so if you don’t already:
Happy leaf-peeping, seasonal beverage-drinking, self-swaddling in warm jackets.
BUY…
…a book jacket that is practical and luxe
…a heart-warmer
…the illusion of a portable fireplace
READ…
…a filthy magazine
…a visceral depiction of insomnia
…my previously published short fiction (proof of concept!)