So: Personal news!
I have sold my debut novel, currently called HEAD CASE, to Ballantine. Pub date is still TBD. While they were at it, they also bought one I haven't written yet, so that's pretty cool also. So yes, that means down the line, I will write another one. I keep saying that to myself over and over again.
The truth: I love this book with all my heart -- it is about love, friendship, grief, guilt, and baseball. More specifically, it's a drama-romcom-sports-media-small-town story about a young widow who rents out the apartment attached to her house to a professional baseball player (and friend of a friend) who recently retired after developing the yips. If you're not familiar with the yips, the term basically means you wake up one day and can no longer do the thing you've always been able to do, and nobody really knows why, and it's often incurable, and it's so awful that I find it irresistibly compelling. The book is about their relationship, but also about her complicated bonds with her closest friend, her parents, and the town where she grew up. (The town is fictional, but located in midcoast Maine, in the area where my family used to vacation -- and where my Twitter background is from.)
I have a million things to say about doing this, and I'm sure I'll say lots of them between now and publication -- which, in the tradition of publishing, won't be for a while. But for now: a bunch of people who helped me get this done know exactly who they are. Thank you thank you.
Every few years, it seems, I am lucky enough to have another adventure, and this one is next.
I still can't really believe it.