I had a short story come out in an anthology! My sapphic short “To Make Her Eat” released in Artifice & Access in January.

I wrote a new book for my contract entirely from scratch, after already having turned in a complete manuscript. While I love the new book, having to start over—right around when Behooved was due to release, no less—was the absolute nadir of 2025.

I got to celebrate the release of Behooved! Major highlight of the year!

I sold my YA debut! I don’t know why, but part of me truly believed this book wouldn’t sell despite my agent’s confidence, and I am so happy that I get to bring my feral found family to readers in 2027.

I was on a bunch of virtual panels and was interviewed for some podcasts. I discovered that I really like doing both! (If you’ve got a podcast looking for guests to chat about publishing, romantasy, craft, etc., hit me up!)

I had a poem I wrote as a teenager get traditionally published in an anthology for teenagers. Which is also the first time I’d let anyone read that poem. Wild!

I put together an anthology with my friend CJ Subko and published it! I learned a lot about the behind the scenes of anthologies and self publishing through the process (main takeaway: it’s more straightforward than I thought, but it’s also a LOT of work).

I met readers who had read, loved, and even annotated my book, and I got messages from people who felt seen by the chronic illness representation. Truly, this has been THE most special part of being an author. I wrote Behooved for me; I never imagined how impactful it would feel to have people tell me it felt like it was written for them. What an incredible, surreal honor.

The highs and lows often happen at the same time. You can receive wonderful news on the same day you get horrible news, and often those come from different spheres, e.g. personal and authorial. It’s an emotional roller coaster.

You have to work to make the wins feel special. If you don’t actively celebrate, it’s easy for things to just glide by. Release day, for instance, felt a bit unsettling since there was nothing for me to do and seeing my book in stores took all of five minutes. I’m so glad I had a launch party, because otherwise it would have just felt like a weird Tuesday.

Publishing a book doesn’t change your life as significantly as you’d think. Becoming a full time author definitely changed my life for the better. But the actual book publication? I’m the same person I was before release.

…but it can change your relationship to writing and affect your creativity. I’ve spent a good portion of this year feeling really creatively blocked because of the pressure of not only knowing that my next book will be judged in comparison to Behooved, but also knowing that even my ideas have to fit in a certain mold for my publisher to consider them.

Being a published author affects how I read. I’m wary of being critical of books I didn’t like online. But even more than that, now that I’m being asked for blurbs fairly frequently, I feel guilty about reading for pleasure but not getting to all the blurb requests. And then weird about that, too, because reading is supposed to be how I relax.

I don’t want to record my reactions. There are a lot of videos of people online crying over getting publishing news. Over seeing their covers. Over doing an unboxing. I filmed opening my first arcs, and it taught me that I don’t want to do so again. Recording turns a private, meaningful moment into a self-conscious act for public consumption and takes away from the realtime experience. (Obviously ymmv, you do you, etc., but this is my personal conclusion.)

I love being a full time author. Yes—even doing the business parts, of which there are a lot. (I spend at least an hour on admin and bookkeeping every week, often more.) I want to keep doing this job as long as I can.