At long last, another part of my dream as an emerging fiction writer is coming true! My first reading from COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES & OTHER EXPERIMENTS, my debut collection of short stories, will take place in-person at the always awesome Skylight Books in LA on 1 October 2021 at 7.30 pm! I’ll be reading passages from my new book and doing a Q & A with my friend and mentor, Aimee Bender. I’m so excited I could scream. Like, this is one of those things that you want to do, that you hope to do, that you dream about doing for years. It usually starts shortly before and during your MFA, then you milk this dream for years afterwards. Eventually, one of your classmates does it kinda early and you become hopeful but also embarrassingly envious because it’s not you, wondering when your chance will come. And for most writers, it doesn’t come, which is the heartbreaking part. But, I feel like all my hard work on the five manuscripts I’ve been writing and revising for the past fourteen years has been showing up recently and kinda surprising me.
Remember: two years ago, I didn’t have shit going on at all at this time, and then three dominoes fell in swift succession for me and my writing career changed. But now, my first of three pub days is happening in less than a month and I’m as fucking ready for this as I’ll ever be, which is to say, not at all. My saving grace is that I give good readings, I’m reading at one of my fave bookstores in the country, and a lot of my people will be there supporting me, so I feel good about this. I feel like it’s time for the next stage of my life to begin.
Maybe I'll see you at Skylight in October, dear reader!