Deer friends, book-ish peeps, dastardly do-gooders, and even you naughty antagonists,

 

Nice try, no, you didn't catch a typo up there. I really meant my deer friends, you hoofed mammals out there who read my books. OMG, I've spent way too much time writing lately…

 

Anyway, dear friends and dear deer friends,

 

Before I ask you what you'd save in a fire, allow me to share some bits and bobs. (I think that's a British expression.) 

 

My deadline for The Only English Bookstore in Bologna is next Friday, so I'm hard at work finding ways to procrastinate. Inspired by my author friend, Nathan Van Coops, I'm finally, after all these years, all these millions of words, creating some merch. Think t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, coffee mugs. What else would you like to see? I'm designing it all now and ordering tons of samples. I basically look like a walking billboard when I go out the door. I'm hoping to get a merch store up in the next month or two, so stay tuned!

 

If you missed it, here's the video of my launch party for Before We Say Goodbye:

I'm also thrilled to share my latest craft essay, a short story of dazzling entanglement that provides evidence the multiverse does indeed conspire to give us creators what we need. 

 

(Note for after you've read it: I had the great pleasure of connecting with the fabulous couple mentioned in the essay, and it was far more enriching and enlightening than I'd ever imagined. I left their house with tears in my eyes--for so many reasons: the beauty of entanglement and divine intervention and all of the good things in this world, immense gratitude to them for sharing their story and opening up to me, more gratitude that I get to do this thing for a living, and on and on.)

And I have to share with you the below image, because I'm clearly in an absurd place lately. After enjoying Fredrik Backman's lovely appearance on Jimmy Fallon, I decided that there's nothing I both fear and want more than to be chosen for Jimmy's new book club, aside from Hollywood finally greenlighting Red Mountain, so I used ChatGPT to create an image for my vision board.

Yep, I really did that! Thanks for making it through all this boo stuff. I'm even boo'd out. 

 

Let's end with a question for you. It's research for my latest story.  

 

 

Hold on, before you hit reply, let me set some ground rules to make you really think: your loved ones and animals are safe. You've already loaded into the car your purse, shoes, medicine, computer, diamond ring, and important-documents folder. What are you going after now? You have only minutes.

P.S. Please forgive me if I don't respond to your emails. Know that I joyfully read each one. Your notes keep me going, but I best put my energy into meeting the next deadline. Thanks for understanding.

Catch up on old newsletters here.