HARPERCOLLINS BOUGHT MY NOVEL!!!!!

My debut, NOTHING SERIOUS, will be on shelves in Feb 2025.

First of all, I’m dead. On the ground. It does not feel real that my novel will be published, in bookstores, for anyone to read. But here we are.

The image above is a visual writers know well. To see this card posted on the internet is to understand that a book has been sold, a wish has been granted, the poster has, in some sort of rigid but real sense, become legitimized. I’ve dreamed about this image, with my name in it, for a very long time.

Writing is excruciatingly lonely. Novels, especially. You have to be totally delusional to stare at a word document for years and years, spinning sentences into some form of a story, and believing, despite all the odds that 1) you’ll turn the mess of a document into a book, 2) someone else will ever want to read said book, and 3) one of the few remaining companies in a much dying industry will somehow want to publish it. THEN to do all this without any indication whatsoever that you have even a little bit of a shot — no MFA, no contracts, no agent, just you and your Word Doc. Is…utterly insane. Which is how I felt for years and years, until a few months ago.

In August, my agent reached out two weeks after we started submitting my book to publishers (I finally got an agent in April after 42 cold queries; you can read about that part of the journey here). Apparently, an editor at HarperCollins was interested and bringing it to her editorial board. Two agonizing days later, I heard that the editorial board loved it (!!!) and the editor wanted to speak with me about my vision and inspiration and where I saw my book sitting on the shelves (as if my answer would be anything other than: wherever the hell you want it to, HarperCollins!!). I performed the call in a near out-of-body experience, thinking it went well enough, but also knowing in my core that rejection was always around the corner.

The next day, I expected nothing, busying myself with work. I was on a Zoom call when I noticed a notification in the top right corner of my screen: “Offer for Emily J. Smith.” I did not allow myself to click on the email. I was an active participant in the video call and I was sure my face would twist and tears would run, if they weren’t…