Subscribe now

Share

In June, I went on a spur of the minute trip with my sister to the Dominican Republic, and spent a long weekend in the sun for my birthday. It was lovely; she only had to stop me from telling a bride getting married on site to “get out now” once! But truly, it was lovely. I also just drove back from a beach trip I make every year to Delaware. I was hella worried that it would be a sad trip, because it is the family vacation I take every year with my children, and this is the first year we did it without their dad.

Readers, it was not a sad trip. It was gorgeous, sunlit, and refreshing. Because the thing is, the last time I went on this trip, I was being gaslit so hard that I believed it when my then spouse said he had to leave the trip early to go to work. (See this thread if you’re in the mood for drama; this newsletter is about joy).

When he left that trip, I had this moment on the beach with my two small children where they were both trying to run in opposite directions, also both into the ocean, and it was really stressful, but I managed to convince them to go out in the water, and then we all sat in the sun watching the waves and I thought to myself, no matter what happens, I am going to be OK.

That was June 2025. My life was about to fall out from under me, so when I went back this year, you can imagine how afraid I was.

But this year? This year the beach trip was glorious. I remembered things I had completely forgotten in trying to manage a man intent on avoiding real communication.

I remembered how much I love to run, absolutely run, into freezing cold water, the kind that instantly makes you remember how nipple-forward your bathing suit is, the kind that feels like a rush of adrenaline to dunk under. I remembered how I love to watch the way sunlight sparkles off of waves and ripples in the ocean and reminds me that I am in a vast and infinite universe with things like oceans, and sunshine.

I remembered how lovely it is to jump waves in that water until you get cold or bored, and then lay out in the sun and bask in the glow of it all until it gets too hot, and then repeat, hot, cold, hot, cold, all day.

I remembered how chuffed I am that my children have an uncanny knack for always winning the most enormous stuffed animals at the arcade in a seemingly impossible game, and then how silly it is to drive the things home, stuffed into the back or buckled in between the two of them.

I remembered, and then I remembered that this is a fresh joy that hits right every time, but that it is not new to me. I have always known how to build such a joy in my life; I know what it is to book a whirlwind girls trip to Sweden and jump into a freezing cold lake and then a sauna, and repeat, I know what it is to travel to Spanish-speaking countries, and pick my way through hesitant Spanish, proud of myself when I learn and remember more. I’ve done this before. I’ll keep doing it.

Anyway, the point I came to is that I am this beautiful love that I have always wanted. I have reached for my dreams, despite childhood poverty and parents (ahem, another story for a less joyful edition) in a cult, and I have done some amazing things with my friends and my sisters and my beloved children.

A man once vowed to support me in all of my enthusiastic pursuits, and then later told me that I want too much; that it wasn’t fair to him, why didn’t he get to want.

And the thing is, lovelies, that we all get to want. I am ambitious as hell. I am also joyous and a hopeless romantic and I reach for the things I want even if they seem unrealistic and impossible. Often I fail. Often I hear no. Often I fall short.

I have felt like Jay Gatsby so much this past year, reaching for a green light in the wake of people who carelessly wreck everything up. But the thing that I have that poor Gatsby never had is a willingness to find new lights to reach toward, to always believe that there is another light, maybe even another green light, to go after. And I have to seriously hope that means I won’t end up shot dead in a pool, lol.

Anyway, I thought for a while I would be like a phoenix rising from the flames of my entire life burning down. And I was that, and am that, and yet. I am also a whole person diving into a freezing cold ocean and remembering what it is to really fucking frolick, to wipe salt water off my face in all the ways, and to carry on, no less magical and whimsical and weird for someone else’s mistakes.

Not to get too woo-woo here, but there were some interesting coincidences that happened this month. I started rereading my friend Noelle Monét’s debut, Bound by Fury (for maybe the 10th time; my god this book is so beautiful and has been since I first read it WAY back when Noelle was a stranger I met on OG writing twitter. Literally I have been in their email yapping about how much I love Bound by Fury (then called Black Mountain Academy!) since 2021. But I picked it up to start again, and there was a Maya Angelou quote from “Still I Rise.”

And then I realized I have been seeing Maya Angelou everywhere. Like, on random art prints in a home goods store. In passing on the internet. In Noelle’s book, which you need to preorder RIGHT NOW, trust me you will thank me later.

Because I am chaos and read many books at once, I had to pause BBF to read a book I get to blurb, Scoring Positions by Ellie May, coming from Requited in 2027, and BOY was it fantastic if you, like me, are a fan of rewatching Off Campus over and over again. Think oh hey Garrett Graham what if you played baseball and held all the keys to my heart? Because that’s Elliot. And most importantly, Maggie, the other main character, is dealing with a lot of things, and relies on the poem Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou to carry her through.

There Maya Angelou was again. Reminding me that I am phenomenal, and I rise. JFC I get it universe!! Message received. Even the most recent episode of Love Island reminded me of Maya Angelou (still you rise, I guess, Trinity you are everything to meeee).

And this made me remember being 11 or 12 years old, in the seventh grade, preparing to move (again; I attended 7 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 2 high schools) and my friend, Stephanie, making me this goodbye card with a drawing and the text of “Phenomenal Woman.” Stephanie, girl, if you’re out there, look me up! I can’t remember your last name but it’s me, your friend Audrey from middle school FLEX (foreign language experience) class.

What I knew in that moment, despite the absolute shit of moving around, sometimes to my parents’ friends side rooms or basements, sometimes to an apartment if my dad told my grandma that time and she paid the rent, was that I was surrounded by a strong group of women, who would love me no matter what.

I need that reminder now, as I lean on my village to navigate what it is to raise children, balance a dream career and a return to a career I do love quite well, and also stepped away from when I achieved the dream. I am rising from the ashes but also jumping directly into the ocean. I am Phenomenal and made of magic and stardust and yes, a lot of the world is crumbling and many cruel men in power are making decisions that harm and annihilate humans and there are so many things that have gone wrong, so many green lights extinguished, people dead before they could bring the world the beauty they always had within them, and yet.

You are still here reading this newsletter, and so am I, and we get to work each day to heal the world just a little if we choose. And often, that starts with healing ourselves.

So if you’ve survived all that and would like to preorder my books, they are chock full of that same stubborn optimism and hopeless romantic idealism that have gotten me through every horrible situation in my life. May they bring even a handful of readers happiness and comfort and the will to keep carrying on and making magic.

Personal Space Issues - YA, ages 13-18, a paranormal romcom about two rival newspaper editors with serious Superman/Lois Lane vibes. Laura’s trying to figure out Josh’s secret and juggle her absurd conspiracy theorist dad and his alien podcast, and Josh is trying to hide from Laura AND her father that not only do aliens exist, but he is one. Oh, and, he’s totally into her but if he so much as touches her, she’ll know he’s not human.

Vengefully Matched - adult, 18+ or with parental guidance if you, like me, are cool with older teenagers reading clear, consent-forward on page sex. A witchy romcom in the Hallowcross series featuring a pranking, designer bad witch Priscilla Hart fake dating her workplace rival, Agatha Vanderbilt-Voisin, a preppy, pastel type A. For fans of Death Becomes Her, but make it (more obviously) sapphic. If you’ve rewatched the “Taste” music video more than twice this book is for you. And if you preorder from Park Books, my local indie, you’ll get an exclusive art print, which I will be revealing soon.

Hopelessly Teavoted - same ages as VM. A witchy romcom set in Hallowcross for fans of Pushing Daisies and the Addams Family. Azrael Hart and Vickie Starnberger are childhood sweethearts turned estranged friends turned reluctant colleagues in a quest to figure out what magical mayhem plagues Hallowcross, Vermont. They finally do realize they have feelings for each other, only to be cursed so that they can’t touch without dying. Good thing they’re creative 😉.

As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more soon.

Leave a comment

Share Just Your Cup of Tea

Subscribe now

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

But actually here are my top 5 albums for this big D:

1. Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party - Haley Williams*

2. Gaslighter - The Chicks

3. Silver Springs (the single; you don’t need much more than playing this on repeat) - Fleetwood Mac

4. Blame my Ex - The Beaches

5. Guts - Olivia Rodrigo

*also really anything Hayley, including Hayley covers of Fleetwood Mac

I have some things to say about all of this (the understatement of the century, lol), but they’re going to wait just a little bit. So for now, I will tell you exciting news, Hopelessly Teavoted NOW comes with a free fire starter.

That’s right folks! You can tear that dedication right out and burn it, and be part of a magical network of strong women fueled by loving whole heartedly and raging appropriately when that love is squandered and fumbled. More on this soon.

For now, just know that in my next newsletter, I will be writing about big Ds (divorce, dedications, and despicable behavior). TLDR: I regret nothing. I loved with my whole chest and loudly and immortalized that in a dedication, and the shame about this whole mess does NOT fall on my shoulders. It’s shameful to fumble big love, not to lean into loving and trusting another human.

More on all of that soon!

On the bookish front, next up, I will be signing books at Browse About Books in Rehoboth, DE. I have been going to Bethany & Rehoboth since I was a kid, and I have taken my family there every single summer since my first kid was born, so I am so excited to sign books there.

I also have seen the initial cover sketch for Personal Space Issues, my YA debut, which if you don’t remember, is a Roswell x Superman x The Hating Game romcom romp, and it is beautiful. Like, SO beautiful. I hope to be able to share that and some gorgeous preorder art for Vengefully Matched in the coming months.

When Personal Space Issues comes out, it will also mark a rebrand for me as an author; that’s right, I will be Audrey Goldberg Ruoff professionally through the release of Vengefully Matched.

Then, in 2027, I am dropping Ruoff like it’s ME and I’m [redacted] when I see [redacted] at my job. Stay tuned in the future to fill in the blanks.

For now, answer a riddle: What do Megan The Stallion, Nora Ephron, Natalie Maines, and I all have in common? My next newsletter will dive in!

Until then, come find me in Rehoboth at Browse About Books on June 26 from 1:30 to 3:30, at Barnes & Noble Bowie on July 19 from noon to 2 p.m., and in Severna Park August 15 for Spark in the Park!

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. And now you can also preorder Vengefully Matched and add it on goodreads, too! Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff at audreygoldbergauthor.com.

If you’re part of that, thank you, truly.

So here are a few things to be hopeful about: the original Star Wars trilogy, and, to be honest, all of the additional movies as well, and pretty much any star wars books or comics, all of those things still bring me joy. Other movies that hold up to all my rewatches lately: Josie and the Pussycats, Empire Records, Superman (most recent), and always, always Practical Magic. If you’re watching your life burn down around you and looking for the ways to arise stronger from the ashes, I recommend diving into your own sacred texts, the things that remind you of who you are at your core; magical, salty, rebellious, loving people whole heartedly despite the risk, aware of the attempts of capitalism to control your mind, etc (why don’t we require people to watch Josie and the Pussycats?? Seriously, it’s so good).

In an approaching newsletter (not quite yet, but soon) we are going to get real and talk about some big Ds in romance (not just the bawdy ones you would think! But get excited, because also those), so let me remind you, first, to preorder Vengefully Matched, which is a bisexual and lesbian pairing, but as Priscilla likes to say, Can Still Go Bigger Than Any Guy.

Please preorder! That’s a big part of showing my publisher you’re excited about my books, which in turn makes them inclined to want more, and this is both art that I love making and part of how I make my living. AND, also, exciting news…

A Goodreads giveaway starts tomorrow for Vengefully Matched, and my publisher is giving away 100 print ARCs (yes 100! That’s 100 beautiful covers of Priscilla staring at Agatha like she could eat her, 100 times the phrase “I can teach you” and 100 times shenanigans and pranks that run the gamut from a simple weird barbie hex to involuntary flash mob participation, exploding kettles, glitter bombs, and more!)

The giveaway runs from tomorrow (April 27) through May 25, so be sure to head over tomorrow, first thing. I mean, LOOK at them:

There will also be a preorder incentive with Vengefully Matched art at my local indie, Park Books! I’ll have details a little closer to launch, but the way it will work is if you preorder from Park Books, you can get a signed copy and an art print (I’ve seen the initial sketches and when I tell you it’s going to be gorgeous, my god, I’m not lying).

I’ll give you a hint about the art: I’ve commissioned artsiidaisy (follow her on Instagram if you love beautiful art) who has done two previous illustrations for me. I would say that the song “Chaise Longe” by Wet Leg is another good hint for this art. It’s going to be epic.

Speaking of artsiidaisy, she also drew beautiful art for Hopelessly Teavoted, and one for A Sea of Stars and Fire, my put the Cruel Prince characters into the Princess Bride pirate romantasy that alas, died on the seas of submission back in 2024. Inconceivable! Who wouldn’t want a Jonah Hauer King inspired dastardly pirate with a secret?? But it has a special place in my heart, and the art is so good I’d like to share it anyway:

Here’s the Hopelessly Teavoted art, which I usually have copies of while I’m signing, so if you come see me at any event, I’ll give you one!

I’m back on my friendship bracelet shit, so I’m making those, and I carry romantic ones, blank bracelets with no words (especially for kids if you bring them). On a whim, I made some smutty ones, and people seemed to love them, so yes, I will bring more bracelets that say Good Girl (promise me that you will read it in your head in Rob Rausch’s voice reading the Snake Handler; iykyk, and if you don’t, you’re welcome) and Eat Me, Boobs, and Lick It, and other encouraging little catch phrases like that. When I make bracelets at home, my kids always make some that say Butt, and I’m thinking I’ll bring those along, too.

If you’ve got a good idea for a smutty (or non smutty!) bracelet, let me know! I make these to try to do art that is free and not monetized, and it’s fun to give them away at events. I do feel a little extra pang about the sinking of my old pirates because I would have SO many good pirate puns. (Walk his plank/swab that deck/polish that cutlass/plunder that booty/treasure that chest/hooking-up/etc etc they would be great bracelets, but alas, publishing is hard).

The good news is that I’ve got some other things in the works; I’ve just started writing what will either be the best or the worst book I’ve ever written, at some point there’s a contemporary Star Wars nerd X Empire Records romcom that will probably go out on sub sometime this year, I have several paranormal romcoms I’m hopeful about, and then I’m super excited for my YA debut, Personal Space Issues, and kicking around ideas in my head for what’s next in YA (ngl deeply thinking about what to do with teen werewolves and vampires; what can I say, I’ve been revisiting my own sacred texts).

And, in other news, I will be returning to teaching high school English full time in the fall after a year of teaching middle school ELA half days! I will continue to write all the time, too; not to worry, I still have stories to tell, and I’ll write early mornings, late nights, whenever I can, and then still spend every day yapping about books in both jobs because I don’t know any other way to exist.

I also just visited an indie bookstore I’d never been to before, Romance-Landia in Centreville Maryland, and it’s so cute. I will be returning, and you should check it out, too!

To recap: try to do things you love, read a good book (I just finished The Paris Match and I might go to Paris like I might REALLY go on book research), and don’t forget to check out that Goodreads giveaway!

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. And now you can also preorder Vengefully Matched and add it on goodreads, too! Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

In the spirit of honesty, I’m going through a tough time. The TLDR is that my sense of autonomy and the plans I had for my life have been completely upended.

So I am actively making space to celebrate this new book, even though it feels a little bit like trying to shove open a door that has a stubborn teenager pushing with all of their weight on the other side of that door.

It’s an image that actually was me at times, as a teenager, feeling deeply unstable and angry all the damn time. As an adult, I now know this had to do with the bodily impact of the stress of food and housing insecurity, and as I enter this scary period of my life, which I will share more about when I am ready, part of my overwhelming fear is that someone else’s choices can put me in a position that might send me into similar insecurity.

And, much like I did when I was desperately depressed and struggling at age 14, here I am at 38, also using books to survive it. Seriously, the reason I love books is that they have saved my life, again and again. They have given me a passion, and two careers now. The joy of sharing reading with my students and my own kids is a life raft I am clinging to at the moment.

I know that sounds terribly depressing, but if anything, it is also motivation to fight even harder and continue to read, write, and share books. This is why we should all be so against book bans that limit representation in literature. Simply put, books save lives.

I have personally handed children books that are banned somewhere else in this country and WATCHED their lives change, either because they see themselves reflected, or they have to grapple with something difficult that someone else experienced, or they are transported to a different world when they need that escape most.

THIS is why Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop said that books should be windows and mirrors and doors. We need all of those things to survive, to thrive, and to treat each other well. And I am starting to realize more and more that just like reading, writing many different books can also help us to understand not only the craft of writing, but how to be a better and more compassionate human.

I felt this deeply while drafting and revising Vengefully Matched, and I feel it now revising Personal Space Issues. I know what I am doing more and more, but part of that is also knowing what I don’t know, which seems paradoxical, but also kind of inspiring because it means that there’s always something to reach out for.

The English teacher part of me is a little concerned that the thing is Gatsby’s green light and we know how that ends for him.

I am just now realizing I have inadvertently illustrated this entire newsletter in Leonardo DiCaprio movies, so the important thing to know here is that yes, sometimes life is terribly unfair and we cannot control the green lights or the size of the door in the freezing ocean or what choices the people we love make without us. BUT, we still live in a world of beauty.

And, as a good friend of mine reminded me, no matter how awful this time is, personally, politically, and globally, I will one day get to look back and feel proud that I continued to make art. I have to believe that counts for something. I have to believe that art can mend the world, stitch by stitch.

For example, while we are talking about Leo movies, we live in a timeline that has the greatest performance of Mercutio that ever has been and ever will be, thank you to Harold Perrineau. Yes, I know that it doesn’t end well for him in this play, but also, honestly, as I told students for years, the reason so many people die in books is that death comes to us all.

When we read a narrative, we see the entire span of the character’s story, so naturally it often ends in death, because that is the human experience. It’s not meant to be depressing, but rather a reminder not to take it for granted. That is why I try as much as possible to remember Mary Oliver. But I will take this opportunity to note that I have written a YA romcom and two adult romcoms, and all three of them have a happy ending. You’re welcome.

I hope you keep writing and reading, and make choices that leave you and the people around you with more choices in the future, not less. I hope you are well, and that een when you are faced with sadness you can frame it as awful, AND more reason still to enjoy the time you have with the people you love.

And, because it is a job I love and would like to continue to do, I hope you order Hopelessly Teavoted, preorder Vengefully Matched, and when it’s available, preorder Personal Space Issues so that I can keep writing books. You can also request from your local library! We love libraries.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. And now you can also preorder Vengefully Matched and add it on goodreads, too! Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

Vengefully Matched is available for preorder now, and you can also add it to goodreads. Illustrator Camila Gray has once again made my wildest dreams come true; just LOOK at them. I give you Priscilla Hart, mistress of darkness, sister of Azrael, and Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin, the incoming Witchery Council president and preppy, polished ray of sunshine who grinds Prissy’s gears.

Here’s the marketing copy:

“From the author of Hopelessly Teavoted comes a witchy, sapphic rom-com about a mischievous runaway bride and her prim-and-proper Witchery Council rival that must fake-date in order to catch a would-be murderer—and accidentally fall in love.

Priscilla Hart does not do regret—except maybe for the small matter of fleeing her own wedding in a cloud of magical fireworks. Now the town’s most infamous runaway witch, she’s determined to rebuild her reputation on the Witchery Council and prove she’s more than a scandal in heels.

Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin, the newly elected council president, is everything Priscilla can’t stand: composed, proper, and infuriatingly perfect. But when a string of dangerous magical explosions points to Priscilla as the culprit, Agatha makes an impulsive move—announcing that they’re dating—to save her from exile.

Faking a relationship in public should be simple…until late-night arguments turn into slow-burn attraction, and the two discover that something wicked is brewing in Hallowcross. To survive the magic—and their feelings—they’ll have to stop pretending and risk falling for real.”

MORE THAN A SCANDAL IN HEELS, folks! I can’t wait for October 6.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. And now you can also preorder Vengefully Matched and add it on goodreads, too! Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

This episode of Audrey is called Publishing Tea. (read that in a Bluey voice if you are a parent or simply a human who knows the deep love for an adorable dog cartoon that will make you weep).

But wait! I do want to, along with the shop talk, preview that my cover reveal is coming up soon, and with it, preorder links for Vengefully Matched. Later this month, I think.

Now that I’ve teased that, tea time! I really appreciate it when authors are honest about their publishing experience, especially in a way that helps people understand better how to prepare for and navigate a career in publishing. I also appreciate when people are transparent about where they are in the process or what they have experience with; for example, I do not love when people dole out advice about things (or, ahem, publishing lanes) they haven’t actually experienced. If you wanted to self-pub, I could tell you very little about that. I have only traditionally published a book. And, full disclaimer, I have a second coming out this fall and then hair full of secrets, but I think I would call myself a new-ish author. Post debut, but not yet mid career. I’ve seen some shit, but there’s a lot more to see, I’m certain.

I got home from work after posting something vulnerable over on threads and a few people liked it so I thought FINALLY something I want to write about for a newsletter that isn’t spilling heartache on a page or penning thoughts that might cause people to do a wellness check.

The inspiration is that many authors have been sharing publishing details, so this is the TLDR version:

So if you want advice from someone who is really experienced, you could talk to a mid-career author, or someone who has been doing this for decades (a lifer? A story mage? Is there a good name for that?). I think of myself as a midcareer teacher, in year 16, so in my math that means I’m a toddler author. I have debuted, I can only walk a little bit, I sort of get how to do this but I might occasionally also try to stick a fork in a socket or eat cat food (metaphorically).

I do have one thing working in my favor for advice giving, and that is that you can independently verify that I am anti AI and pro the writing process, as well as in favor of critical thinking and careful reading. AND I can speak to a 6 figure book deal, the kind not made by generating as many sad spaghetti-shaped sort-of-like-imitation-books and throwing it at the proverbial wall. So the reason you might read and at least consider this advice is that I know what it is like to write, revise, polish, and sell a book in this specific climate. Also, to any major news publication that would spotlight someone peddling AI drivel: eat my shorts.

And, lolsob, it’s a challenge. A brief recap of my journey: I started writing books as a child, it took me decades to finish one, in 2020 I sat down and decided I must finish a book, I first queried in 2021, I watched MANY books die in the trenches, and I was first agented in late 2022. My book sold in late 2023, I watched two other books die in the submission trenches, I watched my book get delayed by 6 months, I switched agents in early 2025, and then I finally published in September 2025. It’s been a journey.

Every book I write takes different skills, different writing muscles. Sometimes they’re hard to plan, hard to draft, or a real bitch to revise. For some books, every step of the way is a struggle, and yet I do it, because that’s what writing IS. Working hard to create something beautiful and meaningful, and knowing that all the tears and sweat and years culminated in a book I’m proud of writing.

So here’s what I want to get candid about: advances! I was extremely, extremely lucky after a very slow burn sub process. A lot of people told me romance books either sell like hotcakes right away or not at all, but mine went out in January and happened to sell in October, when several editors got in the spirit of the season.

Am I allowed to do this? I’m going to. I got what publishing calls a “good” deal for Hopelessly Teavoted. That was an astronomical number for me as a debut author. I’ve been a public school teacher since 2009, and I work in a state where teachers are paid comparatively well. We obviously should be paid much more. I’m sorry, as I’m willing to point out to any entitled kid hopping out of college to work in tech, teachers should also be making 6 figures. Per year. FROM THE GET GO.

I said what I said.

Anyway, if you’re new to publishing, the terms are so weird. But I myself am strange and unusual, so here is an extremely weird guide to them.

But anyway, when I started teaching I think my annual salary was in the low 40k range. When I got that book deal, because I have a master’s degree, 15 years of experience, and National Board Certification (fun fact, I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher!) My salary was in the high 80s.

So the publishing deal was literally more money than anyone had ever offered me for a year of work, let alone at one time. But, as anyone in publishing probably knows, that wasn’t at one time! Advances are paid out differently depending on the publisher and also the size of the advance. I’ve been told it is now pretty standard to split anything over 60k into fourths. That advance is in four chunks, called splits, all of which require agent fees and taxes. Here’s what my schedule looks like*

One quarter on signing

One quarter on D&A (delivery and acceptance, which means you have to get your edit letter, finish your edits, and go through as many rounds as it takes for them to be accepted)

One quarter on publication

One quarter 12 months after publication

If it helps to think of this as a timeline, the book sold in October 2023, I got the signing split in early 2024, which was actually speedy for contracts, and then the D&A in late 2024. So that delay meant, unfortunately, that I did not get paid again until September 2025. Because I will get that final payment next September, this means that I’ll be paid over three years. And in the spirit of transparency, the advance is much less than my salary as a teacher would be over three years.

I do want to note that I would only later learn from talking to other writers that an agent can negotiate advance schedules that are more front loaded, so the last two splits could be smaller. That did not happen for HT. It can vary from publisher to publisher and agent to agent, and also can vary based on how much leverage or competition there might be, the sales track, etc.

So yes, my book is out, but I have not yet received the final chunk of my advance for it. Which would have been really surprising for 5 years ago Audrey to know!

For a while, there was this big drama on the internet about whether authors should leave their jobs when they sell a book, and I will say, when I left mine, that was a mistake. Not for the reasons you think! I needed to at the time; childcare was expensive and complicated, as were my specific family needs. I was only able to leave because at the time I lived in a two-income household with someone who already carried insurance for the family. Reader, this is a story for another day, but DO NOT do what I did.

Really, I’ll tell that story another time. But I will say, I’m back in the classroom again and if I had to advise past me, I’d say hey girl, don’t quit that job or give up that tenure until you can be your own two income household by yourself. Your person could get hit by a bus! Or lightning! That bus and lighting could be person shaped. You never do know what’s going to happen.

But I digress.

Back to publishing. That advance is extremely, extremely good. But there were a few things that were stressful that I did not foresee.

First of all, my book was originally slated for April 2025. So I was counting on getting paid an advance when I signed, another D&A advance in early 2025, and then the third in April. It really did make sense; child care where I live is SO prohibitively expensive that three out of four of my splits plus the money saved on child care was the equivalent of my salary.

Except the delays taught me a thing: do not count on living on any money from publishing until it is in your hot little hands. I’m serious; even people who have not been delayed in actual publishing often get delayed in payments, and signing requires contract negotiation, which can take MONTHS.

I don’t want to overwhelm with too much tea at one time, so I think I’d like to also add this one: Early in my publishing career, I really thought everyone I met—other writers, agents, etc—would have my best interests in mind, or at the very least, if they didn’t, not be so concerned with thinking about me that any of their drama would be about me. I think this mindset comes from my time teaching. When students are dramatic, or mean, or have bad days, it’s never about me (though I do make mistakes as a teacher, and when that happens, I try to own them, say so, and make it right). I give extra understanding to high school kids, and now that I work with middle school, even more so. Those are children! They’re learning and growing! Yes, they can be manipulative when they want to be, like all humans but it’s generally motivated by things they need that they’re not getting, or something they need to communicate that they don’t know how to communicate.

Adults who are manipulative or liars or reluctant to take responsibility for mistakes are also motivated by those things, because behavior is communication, it’s just that when they are people you’re trusting with your work, they can have an impact on your whole career. I can’t help but want to stay earnest and hopeful, and trusting, so I don’t want to go full Fox Mulder and say trust no one.

So, rather than trust no one, I think what I want to say is to keep in mind that people, especially people you do not know in real life, should earn your trust. Trust is earned.

If you’re keeping track, that’s three rules of Audrey’s Tea Time:

1. Do not quit your day job unless you already have enough money to support your entire household for the foreseeable future and carry insurance on your own

2. Do not count on any publishing money until you physically have it. It is not like another job where you’re promised a pay check on a specific day.

3. Remember that trust needs to be earned.

Anyway, I hope that’s at least somewhat helpful. In the spirit of full honesty, if you’re reading this and thinking holy shit, I hate that I got a much smaller advance than Audrey, that’s a normal human response. Comparison is the thief of joy and all, but it happens. I am definitely guilty of seeing a significant or major deal, thinking why not meeeee and pulling my hair out (often literally, yay anxiety and a handful of other fun accessories an Audrey™️comes with).

The important thing is that when you feel that jealousy, you write it in a happy little diary, and you don’t go from “why not me” to “they don’t deserve it if I don’t have it” because that could be true, but it also could be totally untrue! And also, in life, people do not get what they deserve, otherwise, obviously, some of the least thinking and most cruel and violent people wouldn’t be armed militias literally murdering people in the streets and tearing small children away from their families. Bad people don’t automatically get bad things and good people don’t by default get good things, and unpacking that is a big part of attacking a system that props up corrupt billionaires and blames people for things like not having enough money to afford a home and food.

My point is, I wish I could wave a magic wand and grant each of you exactly the publishing journey you deserve. I wish I could do that in my personal life, too, and at my job as a teacher. My gosh, it would be great to have a magic wand, but I don’t. All I have is tea, and advice, and the good fortune to have sold another book and found another job teaching so that I can, in fact, continue to survive. And the thing is, I am lucky. I get to talk about words all day with students, I genuinely enjoy teaching, and I get to also write books for a living. I am also intensely unlucky in my personal and private life, though I won’t get into that. I wish you, dear reader, all of the former and none of the latter.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff on my website.

Let’s start with what we are leaving behind in 2025.

Here it is. In 2026, we are done taking high roads. We are doing curses. Casting spells. Wishing everyone, especially everyone in charge doing evil, especially ICE and orange monsters, but also middle management level monsters, too, EXACTLY the life they deserve, just like Stevie did.

Make sure to go to the spot at four minutes and 30 seconds, when she turns to Lindsey, stares him straight on and sings her heart into the world. WORDS, friend! They let us immortalize the truth.

Anyway, as Stevie knows, words are immortal, women are powerful, and art can solidify the truth for all time. This is a good lesson for writing and for life: you can reject other people’s warped reality, no matter how powerful they might seem. You can sing your truth directly into their faces. I like to think about the part of Agatha All Along where putting something into a song IS a spell; writing a book is very much the same.

Which takes me to the good!

I have seen the cover of Vengefully Matched, and it is SO FREAKING GOOD!!! If you want a little teeny snippet of a preview, and many pictures of me cosplaying the cover, you can check out my instagram post.

I hope to have preorder information and a cover to show you all soon. Newsletter subscribers will get to see it first, so sign up if you love beautiful covers with big “Taste”/Death Becomes Her vibes. Fun fact, my favorite thing about my cover is that when I sent it to my bestie, she was like ….is this us? And we were in no way inspo for the cover, but it IS us none the less. So also expect the two of us dressing up as my cover sometime in 2026.

I also hope to have some other publishing news to share soon, but knowing publishing, that could be any time within 1 to 6 business months. Get excited, but do breath work rather than hold your breath. Actually, that’s good advice for publishing in general.

And finally, you can come and see me a few places in the coming weeks!

Here’s where:

Signing at the Barnes & Noble in Whitemarsh on January 25 from 1-3 p.m.

Signing at the Sip N Shop at Crooked Crab Brewery & Pizza Kitchen (which has delicious beers and pizza) on February 15 from 1-4 pm

On a panel at the After the Roses: Rom Con presented by Park on Main and the Carroll County Library on February 28 from 1-2:30, with a signing after it. That last one requires registration, but it’s a panel full of amazing authors, including Sarah Adler, Isabelle Engle, Lindsay Hameroff, Nikki Payne, and Leslie René, so it should be fun.

I’ll bring free art prints and an only somewhat cringeworthy punny sense of humor to all of these events. Outside of that, if I’m scarce, it’s because I am busy juggling the end of a quarter & grading & start of a new quarter in school AND multiple publishing things and deadlines AND life, so basically I run on coffee, fumes, and sparkling cherry cola flavored celsius, which is, of course, the best celsius.

Take care of yourself this year, fight against fascism, and keep reading.

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. Visit my website for other fun updates.

Share

Leave a comment

I barely managed the emotional energy to send out that first December newsletter, so imagine my surprise when I sat down today with a list of things I need to be doing and instead of doing any of them, typed out another one instead. I don’t know, I just felt like this had to be said. There is some good in the world, and it IS worth fighting for. Samwise Gamgee wasn’t wrong. But just a warning, this will not be about books at all. So if you are here just for the books, that’s OK! I’ll see you in 2026 back on topic. This one is for the strugglers. It’s me! I’m struggling. This might be heavy. But I hope it's helpful, too.

In case anyone else needs it, I’ve been surviving this season with the poetry of Maggie Smith, libraries in general, and the reminder to myself that if I feel helpless in my own life, literally the only thing I CAN control is how I choose to help others. Seriously, I have been going through Goldenrod with the voracity of a woman who took her two small children to the library just this afternoon and let them play on the computers for an hour so she could read a whole book of both heart breaking and heartwarming poetry.

When I read those poems, gosh do I feel seen. It turns out there are a lot of us (here, on planet earth) going through some tough shit right now. And understandably our own suffering always seems most urgent, even though there will always be people who have it worse. So I thought I would try to make this mini special edition extra newsletter a brief guide to how to deal with life when you are in absolute agony. That whole advice to write because someone has a wound in the shape of your words (another poem!)

Anyway, here is a brief, incomplete, and imperfect list of things to do when you feel awful.

Item one. Try to help other people. This was honestly the most pressing reason I decided to send this second December edition out; I had set up this MD Food Bank fundraiser that I meant to share in my December letter, but I forgot. There are plenty of other food drives and food bank fundraisers, too, if you’re looking for something local to you. One thing that I have been trying to do to mitigate my depression in the past five years is when I am able to, if I have the funds for it, when I feel at my lowest, I try to help someone. Just like, as a little ok my own pain is a reminder that if the universe is hurting me so much, it’s hurting others, too, so maybe I can try to make life a tiny bit softer for someone else.

For a variety of reasons I do not have a whole lot of extra funds at the moment. I’m FINE (if I say it over and over again it sounds even more convincing, I swear) but things are tight. So this season, I set up the above fundraiser, and then just set it in my instagram bio, and here now in my newsletter. It won’t cure your sadness, but trying to help when I can and encouraging others to help when they can does make me remember all the people who have got my back if things take a downturn. It doesn’t have to be my food bank, go ahead and donate to any food bank, any thing that helps. It would be ideal if we taxed the wealthy at much higher rates and used that money to make sure no one was hungry, but we don’t have ideal, we have what we have, and so we keep going, doing the best we can to help each other.

Item two. Find reasonable gratitude. I don’t mean toxic positivity; we don’t have to be grateful for people treating us poorly and we don’t have to make the best of a bad situation. But we can look for people whose presence is a light in dark times. This will be the most liberal millennial thing I write, and I am writing WHILE WEARING my active listener support NPR sweatshirt, but I’ve read several NPR articles about how writing down things or people you are grateful for is good for your health. Plus I saw that one episode of the Office where Jim writes down what he is grateful for and I used to do that at an old job, write down my family and my health, and sometimes other things like Beyonce and strawberry flavored Chobani yogurts.

So this is what I am grateful for at the moment.

1. My sisters & my children & my friends

2. The roof over my head

3. The little box of chocolate covered pretzels with holiday sprinkles that I bought on sale, which is a little bit stale but still delicious

4. You, my reader, reading this newsletter, maybe reading my book.

Item three. If you write books, or make art, keep writing. Keep making your art or your music or your craft, because no one else is going to make your version of it if you don’t. For more on this, see the above “Why Bother” poem. It’s always good advice.

Item four. Find a safe place.

A library, if you will. As a child I walked myself to the local branch of my library every other day. I walked there to bring home shopping bags of books and I walked there to sit and read quietly and I walked there to talk to librarians, who were always kind grown ups. I walked there to play Oregon Trail for hours, crowded around clunky computers with all my friends, naming each person in the party after someone there and howling with silent, library-voice laughter when they got dysentery, or failed to ford the Oxen across the river. I walked there for things I didn’t even realize until I got older, like the sign on the inside of the bathroom stall with instructions for performing routine breast exams, or the deep lore of the world hidden between the pages of the books on the shelves. I lived a thousand lives, scattered across both coasts of the country as a child, stretched across six elementary schools and two middle schools and two high schools. College was the longest time I ever stood still at one place of learning, unless you count the times I taught in the same place for much longer. But every place, every one of them, had a library.

Some days I have found myself on autopilot, driving to one of those old libraries, sitting outside in the parking lot even though it is closed, just so that I can feel that old sense of safety, just so I can shut my eyes and say listen, you are not dead. It could be worse. Maggie Smith would say this place has good bones. You have good bones.

Listen. We have already survived so much, it’s true, but the thing about surviving is it doesn’t stop a person from having to survive more. We can make something beautiful out of things, even out of sadness. Find the helper or be the helper. Find the things worth your gratitude. Make your art. Find your safe place, find your people. If those little hobbits can brave the fires of Mordor, my gosh, I can make it through the year 2025.

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

Subscribe now

I’ve been struggling a lot lately with personal life events, and the subsequent mental health issues that are my normal mental health problems compounded by the stress of unexpected change and loss, so my newsletters have been shorter than usual. Sparse, and riddled with grief. And to be honest, though I write romantic comedies, those are always full of grief, too. That’s why I often add traum and drama to the description for a romtraumdramacom.

Actually, my writing has been that way for a while, because, well, I have known a lot of grief. I have survived a lot of things, some of which are too private to share on main, at least for now. But I do think that people like me, who struggle with depression and who struggle with a lot of trauma also deserve laughs and romance. We belong in romcoms, too, even if that might cause discomfort for people who believe that the genre is only for happy sunshiny low stakes problems.

I can be ok with other people’s discomfort, if that discomfort is in the pursuit of including something important.

Anyway, I think about dying a lot. Which is why I am OK writing death. It’s the natural conclusion to everyone’s story, after all.

I have been lucky now in several medical and emotional crises. I survived. And I like to think that at the end of all the emotional carnage, I deserve happily ever after. And that other people like me deserve that too. So when I see anyone claim that my book is too political, that we can simply escape by writing books that make everyone feel comfortable all the time, well, that makes me angry.

And I am, in fact, very motivated by spite. So I push on, continuing to write, dead sure that we do not have to repeat the past simply because it is easy and muscle memory. We can do better. We can be better, even if the change is gradual. And on that note, let me tell you a little bit about my next book, Vengefully Matched, a stand alone companion to my debut.

Priscilla Hart is a witch, like her brother Azrael (hey, Hopelessly Teavoted, for those of you who long for the pining of Lee Pace in Pushing Daisies all those years ago). But unlike her brother, she’s the younger sibling, and she’s in politics, specifically witch politics. She is set on this very specific dream that she has always had, so much so that she’s blinded to the reality of the ways that dream doesn’t actually work for her anymore. And she’s coming off of a particularly terrible break up (so sorry if you were rooting for her and Evelyn in Hopelessly Teavoted; they are not, in fact, endgame) and she has a lot of personal growth to do.

Enter Agatha, who is type A to a fault, overly organized, almost maniacal in her zeal for planning and control. Agatha has to learn to let go of her stickler ways, and Priscilla has to learn to be a bit more responsible and mature, because frankly, a good relationship requires both people to commit to becoming better, to growth, and to change.

Ultimately, Priscilla is grappling with the grief of losing her parents, who are dead, but also with the grief of not getting to be there when her brother and his beloved contacted their ghosts. She’s a younger sibling, a prankster who acts like nothing gets to her, but of course it does! She might be magical, but she’s still a person! A person who can’t get the posh little pink suit her rival at work wears out of her head, who is obsessed with the witch who beat her for council president, who is furious with Agatha for that win AND for being so damn cute.

So in short, they’re a mess. Priscilla takes pranking a little too far, and Agatha gets a little too mad, and all the while, someone is messing with mortality and immortality (a la Death Becomes Her! This book really is for everyone in love with Isabella Rossellini, and everyone rewatching Sabrina Carpenter’s amazing “Taste” music video featuring Jenna Ortega still). Are you shipping Wednesday and Enid? Helen and Madeleine? Elle and Vivienne, as a friend just pointed out to me, and now I can’t unsee it? This is for you.

And it will be some time until I can show you all, but I have seen the cover of this book, and good grief does it tick every single box of dreams I had for it. It’s so good. I can’t wait to be able to share it. One thing I will say is that, as it should be, it is both very gothy and very pink.

Which brings me to another cryptic vague point, because it is the season for Jonathan Bailey and the combination of pink and green for good. If you like pink, I also have something cooking that is GREEN. And that’s all I will say about that.

More soon.

Subscribe now

Share

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you have read it, or even just add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

I’m still kind of on and off social media as I deal with a lot of big changes this fall and juggle teaching, writing, and parenting, BUT despite it all, my hair is once again full of secrets!

Subscribe now

Because it’s publishing, I can share them in probably 6-12 business months, lolsob.

Anyway, here’s where you can find me in October!

I’ll be signing at Barnes & Noble in Annapolis on October 18 from 1 pm - 3 pm. Come see me; I’ll have art, stickers, tea, and friendship bracelets, in addition to halloween candy because ‘tis the season.

Then you can come see me at Steamy Lit Con in Anaheim. I’m very excited; it’s been years since I’ve made it to the West Coast, which fun fact, is actually where I was born. Not in California, though. I was born in Seattle and my family moved to Maryland when I was 5, and I’ve lived here on the East Coast since. I can’t help but admit to the fact that something about flying West feels like home, no matter how infrequent it might be.

And finally, if you’d like a signed copy of Hopelessly Teavoted but can’t make it to any of these, please order from my local indie, Park Books! They still have signed copies and when they run out, I’ll pop by the store to sign any additional copies for people who would like that. They ship, and it’s nice to support an indie book store. Alternatively, you can order through Bookshop.org and pick your own local store to support.

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. If you’d like a free way to support, check the book or the audiobook out from a local library and leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, and any other place on the internet that allows you to talk about it. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

I had an absolutely wonderful time celebrating my launch at Park Books and then heading up to New York for an event at the Ripped Bodice. I’m writing this newsletter on the train back to Maryland, and tomorrow I’ll be signing at the Barnes & Noble in Columbia with Brigid Kemmerer.

By the way, every time I go to NY on the train, I am reminded of how much I love trains, and how absurd it is that we haven’t invested in the infrastructure of high speed rail in this country. Trains are awesome.

Anyway, if you’d like to order a signed copy of my book, Park Books has plenty in stock, and they’re my local indie, which means that I can always offer signed copies if you order from them! There are also signed copies at The Ripped Bodice in Brooklyn, and I’d recommend if you want to get your hands on one, you do it soon, because I’m not sure when I’ll make it up to New York next.

If you’d like to get it signed live, and you’re in the area, come see me at Barnes & Noble tomorrow!

I’ll also be signing at the Park Books on Main in Sykesville, MD on October 11, and I will be at Steamy Lit Con at the end of October, which means you can also preorder books through the Meet Cute Bookshop through Sept 21 for pick up at Steamy Lit.

And, of course, you can order the book from wherever you order books online!

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

It’s HERE!

As THE Mariah Carey would say, it’s TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME. But wait, it’s not time for a classic holiday jam; it’s time for Hopelessly Teavoted, my witchy debut romcom.

It’s a day and a season and a year of so many emotions, so forgive me here if I keep it once again short and simple and just say where you can find me and my book.

Tonight, I’ll be at Park Books in Severna Park, MD where you can come and see me, and where you can order a personalized copy of the book. I’ll be in conversation with Avery Flynn, who’s Head Witch in Charge just came out earlier this month, and is absolutely hilarious and sexy and just a treat to read. This is a ticketed event, so click now and sign up if you’re coming!

You can also support local stores on Bookshop.org, and you can get Hopelessly Teavoted wherever you buy or order books as a paperback, as an ebook, or as an audiobook, narrated *perfectly* by Kelsey Navarro Foster and Tim Paige.

On Friday (September 19), I’ll be living my dream with an event at the Ripped Bodice in Brooklyn, in conversation with Laura R. Samotin, author of The Sins on Their Bones and The Lure of Their Graves, both of which are jam packed with joy, agony, and yearning, just the way I like them. This is also a ticketed event; be sure to click that link if you’re coming!

I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Columbia on September 21 for a signing with Brigid Kemmerer.

On October 11, I will be signing books at Park Books on Main in Sykesville.

And at the end of October, you can catch me in Anaheim, CA for Steamy Lit Con.

If you’ve picked up Hopelessly Teavoted and find yourself thinking, gosh, I love this Priscilla Hart character, she’s a hot Aubrey Plaza esque gothy firecracker, a mistress of darkness and a prankster extraordinaire, good news, me too! I love her so much I wrote her a book, Vengefully Matched, a standalone companion novel in the same universe as Hopelessly Teavoted! More details about preorders for it as soon as they’re available, but it’s slated for fall of 2026.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

First of all, look at this cover! It’s going to be a book so soon.

It’s almost time for Hopelessly Teavoted, and as we get close to that, I wanted to send out a quick update about where you can find me and where you can preorder! As always, you can find the book wherever you buy books, you can support local stores on Bookshop.org, and you can preorder an ebook or an audio book, narrated by Kelsey Navarro Foster and Tim Paige, both of whom are so fantastic that I absolutely cannot wait for this.

My launch is going to be at my local indie book store, the amazing Park Books in Severna Park, MD on September 16. Preorders from Park can be signed and personalized, so be sure to get those in now; they ship, too, so even if you’re not local, you can preorder! This is a ticketed event, so be sure to click that link if you’re coming!

And if you’re near New York, I’m so excited to say that I will be at the Ripped Bodice in Brooklyn on September 19, in conversation with Laura R. Samotin, whose books are absolutely fantastic, too—don’t sleep on ordering them. This is also a ticketed event; be sure to click that link if you’re coming!

I will also be at the Barnes & Noble in Columbia on September 21 for a signing with the incredible Brigid Kemmerer, an event I am super excited for, both because I love Brigid and her books and because I frequented the Mall in Columbia so much as a teenage shopper and as a retail worker for years, and it’s pretty cool to go back to it as an author.

And then on October 11, I will be signing books at Park Books on Main in Sykesville, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to make it up to Park’s second location.

Finally, at the end of October you can catch me in Anaheim, CA for Steamy Lit Con. This is a ticketed, multiday convention with tons of authors, and you can still get tickets for it!

In other news, I’m returning to the classroom this fall, this time on a new adventure teaching middle school ELA with a fantastic team that I’m super excited to be joining. Between that, my kids, and revisions for Vengefully Matched, I’ll be busy, but I will email and post updates if there are any additional events that we squeeze in.

And in case you missed the announcement for Vengefully Matched, it’s a standalone companion novel in the same universe as Hopelessly Teavoted! More details about preorders for it as soon as they’re available, but it’s slated for fall of 2026.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

I am so excited to share that Hopelessly Teavoted is going to have a companion novel, VENGEFULLY MATCHED! It’s also set in Hallowcross, VT, and it’s about Azrael Hart’s sister, Priscilla Hart, prankster extraordinaire, mistress of darkness, and all around wicked good time.

If you’re looking to preview some of my inspiration, here’s the first mood board I made for these two:

Here’s the current face cast:

And here’s the “Taste” music video, which I have watched COUNTLESS times in preparation for writing; obviously this COUNTS AS WRITING and the watching is for research.

And then the poster of Death Becomes Her, because I have always thought, these two beautiful women should obviously be fighting over each other and not some guy.

If I’m scarce for a little while, it’s because I’ve got my head down drafting and my kids are home for the summer, but rest assured I’ll keep you all posted. There’s still a Goodreads Giveaway for Hopelessly Teavoted through June 30, and I’m hoping that I’ll have some launch information later on in this summer, since it’s now 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 34 minutes until the release date. Read that in the voice from the narrator of Pushing Daisies and you’ll know what it sounds like inside my head.

More soon!

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Me. It’s me. I’m counting; I have a literal countdown app for it. It's going to be a whirlwind of a fall; I have a lot of irons in the fire involving publishing and work outside of publishing, and I’m very excited for what’s to come. Part of this excitement of course includes anxiety and nerves, so I am also trying to let myself fully be in moments and celebrate good news.

Here’s some: Atria is doing another 100 print ARC giveaway of Hopelessly Teavoted! This one runs from today through June 30 and you can enter on Goodreads.

What better way to celebrate Pride month than to seek out a book about a pansexual king and a bisexual baddie just totally down bad for each other??

Hopelessly is set in a fictional Vermont town called Hallowcross, and Hallocross is SO gay, and I love it there.

Here’s more: I finished my second pass pages last week, which means that the inside of this book is officially done! At this point, the book has been through more than ten rounds of revision: five before querying, two before submission, two rounds of developmental edits, copy edits, and two sets of pass pages. I’ve read it more times than I can believe, and so many professionals have guided it to its final form lovingly. So if you do find a typo in there somewhere, that little mistake earned it! It worked HARD.

I’m really proud of this book, which I started drafting in 2021, and I’ve learned so much along the way revising it. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

TREAT YO’ SHELF to what I’m reading right now:

Every Step She Takes by Alison Cochrun - Sadie is 35, and struggling to figure herself out, stuck in a cycle of feeling both that her life is missing something and that she is too old to find out what that something is. Her sister convinces her to do a walking tour—Portugal’s Camino de Santiago—and when the plane hits turbulence on the way there, she blurts out a confession to her hot seal mate, Mal: she’s a lesbian. Mal turns out to also be going on the same tour as Sadie, and the tour turns out to be specifically for queer femmes, a fact Sadie’s sister left out of her convincing. I love that both the characters are grappling with big feelings—identity for Sadie and grief for Mal—and I love that the journey of walking mirrors their journeys as people and together. And because I am this person, now I am also very much determined to walk this particular path one day.

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Are you ready for it???

First, let me start with one of the first memes I made about this book for a little how it started, how it’s going moment….

How it started:

How it’s going:

Hopelessly Teavoted is available for request on NetGalley and Edelweiss. Stay tuned for some exciting things coming this month!!

That’s all! You can request Hopelessly Teavoted on NetGalley or Edelweiss, and I’m both excited and terrified for this new exciting stage of “other people are going to read my book” so I will be half agony and half hope, a la captain wentworth and another classic, please enjoy:

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Request Hopelessly Teavoted on NetGalley or order it or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

And I’m on pass pages, which means basically that I’m reading the typeset version and both falling in love with it all over again AND agonizing over every sentence; very normal nothing to see here. Also, you can preorder my book during the Barnes & Noble Preorder sale that goes through tomorrow (Friday, April 25), or you can wait until Indie Bookstore day Saturday and preorder from your local indie!!!

Preorders are important because they tell publishers that people are interested in a book, which helps them buy more books from authors. And let me tell you, I have STORIES in me, and they’re weird but also maybe wonderful. So please preorder and help me keep telling those stories.

Speaking of stories, it’s story time!

This one is going to be about learning competence, confidence, and some hard lessons about writing. One thing that is true for me is that there is a difference between being technically able to write and being confident enough to share that writing. We all know people who have one but not the other, or who are stronger in one than the other.

The trick is to eventually grow into both.

Which of course, only works if the person is willing to learn and grow. One thing is certain: neither you nor I nor anyone else on this planet can force another person to be willing to learn and grow.

Anyway, it took me a long time to learn those things when I was working as a teacher. I was an adequate teacher for the first five years or so, and I do think by the end I was really quite good at facilitating learning. And I sort of thought that moving from teaching to writing would naturally transfer skills of competence and confidence. But it turns out that for me, it would take more time to build confidence as a writer.

Plainly put, when I started writing in composition books as a middle schooler, I was too scared to show it to anyone. And as a teenager, I continued writing anonymously on livejournal AND deadjournal (I had both; people contain multitudes) and then when I got to college, I gave writing nonfiction news and fiction in writing workshop classes a try. It was then that I learned the extent to which other people have Opinions, with a capital O, about my writing. And I’m not going to lie, that crushed me a little. I leaned safely toward copy editing and training new reporters on my college paper and in my journalism classes, and then, when I switched to majoring in literature, I spent the majority of my time analyzing great authors rather than showing my own creative work in public.

It was in these years that a handful of professors encouraged my writing, praising voice and word wielding even within critical analysis. These were small seeds of confidence planted, seeds that could be nourished later.

When I first started teaching, I had this dream that I would have plenty of time. I started a novel I have never finished. I worked so hard to try to make time for writing, but I was living in a cramped studio apartment, working retail nights and weekends in addition to teaching full time to make my rent and student loan payments. I got to a point where something had to give.

People always use that metaphor of juggling balls and how it’s ok to drop as long as you’re not dropping the glass ones. Anyone who has known what it is to work to survive knows that the glass balls, the ones that break, if you are poor, are the ones that make money.

So I stopped writing for a few years. In fact, sadly, I also stopped reading for pleasure. I was lucky because I taught high school English, so I was still reading during these fallow years, and because teaching is a creative art, if you’re doing it right, I was still flourishing in designing lesson plans that were engaging and required my creativity and that of my students.

But I was sad, hollow in a way, because my personal creative wells were in stasis.

In the wake of a rough patch of early twenties romantic catastrophes, I picked up poetry and short stories. They were bleak, but they eventually grew happier as I did, and I took up journaling. And truly, once I got my depression under control as an adult, I was happy, and I was reading again, voraciously, back to hundreds of books a year, and writing in my journal. I felt alive and powerful in a way I hadn’t in a long time.

My creative process receded for a while again, like a tide rolling out, while I looked to other goals. I decided that it was important to me to be head of a high school English Department before age 30. And so I did it, and at age 29, I had my first child, and took over a department. While I found parenthood and my career rewarding, I have to stress how difficult it is to balance, and how little forgiveness there is in the general structure of the American workplace for family in addition to careers.

Then before I knew it, I had two very young kids, a job as a teacher and a department chair, and a pandemic hit. I left the school I loved to work closer to home, and in the summer in between schools, for the first time in a long while, I had nothing to prepare. I’d wrapped the old job and I didn’t start the new one until August.

So for the first time in years, I sat down and I wrote with the intention of completing a novel. And I did. It was a time-looping, six-POV witchy new adult book. In every way it was more book than I could take on, in a space and age category hard to sell, but I didn't know that, and I didn’t care. I just cared that I wrote a whole book. And so I set out querying it, knowing nothing about query letters, and really probably not doing it “right” until after I wrote my second book. This is the first thing I learned the hard way:

1. Make sure you know what a query letter should do. You’re selling the characters, a taste of the plot, just enough for the agent to want more.

I was querying too widely at this point, but I didn’t know yet how to narrow the search. The third book was a campy vampire book. And it was then that I learned an important lesson in querying:

2. If you’re writing something that is in a saturated market, or a space that isn’t actively being purchased, make sure it stands out. Narrow your querying list to agents with interest in and experience selling books like yours.

The fourth book I wrote felt special. It was an upper YA portal pirate fantasy. And when I was asked to make significant changes to the book in age range, content, and genre, I did it, even though my instincts revolted. I told myself I didn’t know enough to trust my instincts. The book sank to the bottom of the metaphorical publishing ocean. I learned a hard lesson:

3. People sometimes have different editorial visions. It is OK to push back. If a change doesn’t resonate, don’t make it. Confidence means knowing when to reject suggestions.

Back before I was agented, I wrote my first ever adult romcom. I think it was book 5 (fun fact; Hopelessly Teavoted was the seventh full length book I ever wrote). I describe it as a grumpy Henry Cavill in a bathtub type gets snowed in with a sarcastic, jaded reporter who is fleeing career and relationship failure. Friends who have read it still send me memes or videos of Henry Cavill and of female journalists in romcoms (Andie Anderson! Sally Albright! The list goes on). One of my sisters even sent me a Henry Cavill pillow, which I lovingly call Henry Cavill-ow (see picture). But sadly, Breaking News and Snowfall (I know, CLEVER) never went anywhere! My first agent didn’t have time to read it, and then we sold Hopelessly, and it just kind of fell to the wayside. I learned a lesson here:

4. Sometimes, books just die, for no good reason. It’s sad. But, if you want to write, you just keep writing anyway.

And so I did! I kept writing anyway. And in the spirit of total honesty, I have yet to sell another book! But I also have many more ideas, and many more drafts, and I intend to keep writing until I do. And in the meantime, I at least have my Henry Cavill pillow. You should know that all Goldbergs have some amount of a weird sense of humor, because rather than sign her name to this, my sister sent Henry Cavillow with just the following:

Did I have a brief moment where I was like omg, has Henry Cavill sent me a present? Maybe. Also my birthday is in JUNE, lol. I sort of raised my sisters and you love to see your kids turn out with your same weird sense of humor, so this cracks me up.

This is the pillow, which can be rubbed so the sequins turn black and hide his majestic face. The cat was not included and he is skeptical about my antics here.

Anyway, the point is, do your research, make sure it stands out, trust your instincts, and keep writing!

Thanks for reading, and good luck to you now that you know you can pretty much get a pillow with any face on it off of Etsy.

Subscribe now

Share

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

1. You can preorder my book, gosh please do, I will be HOPELESSLY TEAVOTED to you for it. Preorders are important; they let publishers know there is interest and that helps authors to keep writing books! This item is brief. The rest of the newsletter will really be about the next.

2. Change is tough.

First, a few thoughts on discourse (haha SORRY 💀) that every few months, rises from the dead like an immortal, as though it could be Madeline Ashton or Helen Sharp, body falling apart and held together with airbrushing and super glue, a finger popping up here and an odd head rolling across the internet floor there.

I have my reasons for thinking about Death Becomes Her, and reason number one is obviously Isabelle Rossellini, who by the way is on my list, and as much as I love Winona Ryder, will never be bumped. Reason number two is obviously the “Taste” music video, which requires no further explanation.

But I digress.

Back to the disk horse.

Here [people on the internet] come again 🎶 …

…suggesting that romance and romantasy books aren't worthy and that lit fic OR fantasy books written by men are. And here I am just wanting to love books.

And honestly, one of the biggest—and best—changes in my author career has been shifting from trying to write literary fiction to writing what I love most: kissing books. Was it scary? Yes. Did I worry people would take it less seriously? Absolutely. Did that prove to be true, many times over? Yup. But the thing about big changes, and I am willing to hold your hand when I say this, because I feel like I needed someone to hold mine, is this:

You can’t make a big change based on what other people are going to think or how other people are going to feel. And part of what makes change so scary is that you also can’t predict, or control, the way people around you react to those changes. You just have to figure out what it is that YOU need to do, and make that happen.

But I can promise that the most agonizing changes, the things I really tore myself up over, like switching genres when I returned to writing in 2020 after starting and stalling and stopping for two decades, those BIG scary changes are usually the best ones.

And the facts here are these: This month, I finished copy edits, after two rounds of what I would call extremely loving developmental edits, and I just know that every time I’ve revisited this book—every revision before querying, every revision after, every revision with my editor—it becomes better, and stronger. Each read through, each CHANGE polishes the message, the line level writing, and the nuance. I have crafted this with far more care and thought than any of the academic writing I have ever done, including for my Master’s Thesis (which was in English Education, tldr we do need a department of Ed, like, VERY MUCH, but I digress).

Change sometimes hurts like hell—I know this because I can now attest to the fact that many emotional support commas have been removed from my work, and that I fear it is stronger for it. Like, I LOVED those emotional support commas. I damn near wrote “stet, for voice” next to every single one of my commas, knowing full well that they were not, in fact, for voice, but for my love of the curvaceous little mark. Stet, by the way, is a proofreading mark that means “let it stand” in Latin, and in copyediting it’s a nice way to say no thank you to a suggested change.

My point is, the book has been clarified, adjusted, fine tuned, and I know it is stronger for it. Sure, I realize I cut a few GREAT jokes* in early edits. It was hard to change, though! I really did wax poetic about many commas that on an intellectual level, I knew were unnecessary. But on an emotional level, those commas meant the world to me! And what if taking them out changes the tone ever so slightly. What if taking them out makes it WORSE?

It turned out the solution to this, as it so often is, was to sleep on it. I recommend the same for facing bigger changes, too. I went to bed clinging to those commas and woke up knowing in my soul that I could let them go. A journey ™️! But the point is that it was an intentional journey. And I, and most of the romance writers you read, take that journey so seriously. We craft our books with care, we shepard them into the world, and we know they are worthy. We have to, for there are already too many people who have decided they are not, sight unseen.

I’m sure I will waver in this (anxiety, am I right?) but I am starting to know, deep in my soul, in some part of me that makes me who I am, that my romance book is important. That it is revolutionary. And that many, many, many romance authors before me and others now and still others who come after all of us have written and are writing and will write greatness, too. The Norns, the fates**, the muses, tbh we are all always going to have been and going to be and going to do. We are part of the academic conversation, that ongoing thing that weaves together Aristotle and Sartre and, yes, knotting, and extremely good girls, etc.

Anyway, when it comes down to it, I think a lot of people are afraid of change, and I think because so many of us have been taught the same (often very important) literary works all throughout school, it can be scary to change. So the idea of recognizing the merit of romance, especially as a thing that is often considered to be for women in a world where power, respect, fame, and success are all sometimes considered to NOT be for women, well, that can be scary. But if I can give up my emotional support commas, surely you can understand why the Dickens I’d want you to sometimes give up your Charlie D in favor of, well, Charlie and Nora (and, ahem, dick ins) for instance.

Obviously, as a millennial, I can't talk about Change without mentioning the poet Tupac Shakur, whose song, “Changes,” moves me basically the same way Hamlet does—that indecision! IS life worth living? Especially if we don’t see any changes? When the old way doesn’t work any more we have to change, especially when the old way includes systemic inequity. To be honest, this is the antithesis to the entire MAGA movement. We can choose to pretend that things were once so great, to cling to the old ways that CAUSED harm, or we can turn and face the changes, a la another poet, David Bowie. Now I kind of want to write an essay on David Bowie & Hamlet & Tupac, but that feels like a topic for another day.

Back to the point!

Change—whether it’s a big life decision, or shifting genres, or as seemingly small as an emotional support comma—is scary AF. It really is. But as much as we might, in the immortal words of Fleetwood Mac, be afraid because we HAVE built our lives around a thing, we can also rebuild. It’s part of the beauty of being human, that capability.

And I hope that if you need to, you make a good change.

*What do you call a careless space pilot? HAN YOLO! Is only one example.

**From Norse Mythology, because who amongst us did not have an obsession with the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda?? What can I say, the same professor at UMD taught Tolkien courses, and I took them all. I would have followed her and her mythology courses to the mountains of Mordor themselves. I’m very cool, yes.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for tolerable cat, dog, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

And so this Wednesday, I’m ready. I am going to choose joy, and no wizard that there is or was (cough bigots in charge, cough salutes, cough) is going to bring me down.

Anyway, this is going to be the ultimate Wednesday post, because my spooky sparkly book has a cover!!!!

Subscribe now

Isn’t it gorgeous?? The artist is Camila Gray (@camisgray on instagram) and I have long admired her work on incredible books by Jo Segura (check out Temple of Swoon and Raiders of the Lost Heart) and Liana De la Rosa (Ana María and the Fox, Isabel and the Rogue, Gabriella and His Grace), as well as all of her fantastic art on instagram. I was so excited when I heard she was available to illustrate, and my cover designer at Atria did a stellar job of putting it all together. Truly, I am overwhelmed by how much this cover nails the vibe of the book, and by how much my whole team—editors, marketing, design—seems to really SEE it. It’s spooky, it’s sparkly, and it’s bisexual. I love it.

Azrael Hart and Vickie Starnberger are so perfect here, and that little cat? That’s Emily Lickinson! Azrael is an angsty witch in all of his feelings. He is allergic to cats, but adopts Emily anyway, and finds that she is quite worth taking benadryl to have in his life. I will note that my children saw this cover and said this is really pretty, but it would be better as a book and a cover if I had written a black cat into the book. Which is fine, because they definitely can’t read it until they are much older than elementary school. So in my next book, I’ll write a black cat. Salem, my actual cat, is a little black cat, and he is the very best cat in the entire world, I’m sorry to tell you, even better than Emily Lickinson. I know, it’s hard to be better than Emily. She loves hope, and things with feathers.

Here’s the book in a sentence:

An angsty, anxious witch returns home after his parent’s death to discover that his former childhood crush has bought his parents teashop, and has feelings for him, too, only to be cursed so that he will die if they touch.

Here’s the book in a paragraph:

Mourning the death of his parents and his career, Azrael Hart returns to his hometown of Hallowcross, Vermont. He discovers that his childhood crush, a sunshiny girl with death powers, Vicki Starnberger, is fighting to keep the tea shop she bought from his family. When they’re forced to work together to face a magical threat, they finally figure out their feelings—just in time for a curse to keep them from laying a single ungloved finger on each other.

If you’re reading this and thinking, wow, I need to read that book, you can add it to a want to read list on Goodreads or preorder it here. You can also request it from your local library; authors LOVE libraries.

Now, to play myself out with a little song…

I want to give a special shout out to my friend Gina Orlando, who reminded me that jokingly calling this romcom a romtraumdramacom was the perfect opportunity for me to combine genre mashing AND Chappell Roan, two things I love dearly.

So, sing it with me, to the tune of Femininomenom:

Can you write a book with some fucking tea?

Hit it like rom - traum - dram - com

Get it hot like Alderaan*

Make a bitch go on and on,

IT’S A ROM DRAM TRAUMA COM**!

*So sorry, RIP the planet Alderaan and every fictional person who died that day, however, as a lifelong Star Wars lover this is a reference that popped into my head and once it happened, I simply could not ignore it.

**It is, in its heart, a romcom, though. It’s set in our world, but slightly kinder, and with magic. It has an HEA, only the truly evil are no longer with us at the end, and it posits the idea that grieving people, we deserve love, and magic, and comedy, too.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for mediocre cat and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.

It doesn’t feel like a bad way to close out the year. Anyway, this is going to be short, and focused on what I am looking forward to in 2025. La, la, la, laaaa, you can picture me singing along to a musical loudly in a voice that once caused critics (some other girl in the freshman dorm showers when I was at UMD) to say things like “Um, could you not?”

Back to books!

First of all, I am obviously so excited that 2025 is the year that HOPELESSLY TEAVOTED will be published. Fall is a long time away, but every part of my publishing journey—querying, submission, revisions—has been a slow burn, which feels fitting, because I do love reading and writing a slow burn. It’s been agony waiting, but the pay off? The pay off is going to be fire.

More immediately than the release, I’m so excited that sometime next year I will get to share a cover. It’s not finalized, but I’ve seen draft versions of it, and when I tell you that it is SO GOOD that I jumped and gasped out loud in a coffee shop, I mean it. I was with some lovely writing friends but I also was so excited that a stranger turned to me, too, and asked what had happened. It’s that good.

The designer and illustrator are both wildly talented. I am so very grateful that every stage of this, including revisions and design, have made me feel like my editor, my designer, my illustrator—the entire team working on this book—really get it. That is the dream, right?

On that note, when I can share the cover, I’ll probably share it with newsletter subscribers first, so please sign up! And along with the cover will come pre-order links, which will make it feel real! In the meantime, if you’ll indulge a moment of self promotion, you can add my book on goodreads, and I would be forever grateful for it.

I’m looking forward to giving myself writing freedom and writing prompts in 2025. What I mean by freedom is, I will allow myself, once again, to dive into new projects, no matter how bonkers. What I meant by prompts is that I will keep using non monetized art, like journaling, doodling, and tarot pulls, to ask myself questions.

I am no expert at tarot, but I love the idea that pulling a card means interrogating how I’m feeling about a topic. I think of it as a writing prompt, and I’m fortunate enough to have friends who are really good at it and help me enough to muddle through. So here’s a pull I did for 2025, inspired by my friend DeAndra Davis. If you like stunning prose and YA books, you can preorder her debut, All the Noise All at Once, and trust that ALL of her work is brilliant and lovely.

You could probably do a prettier, more circular spread, but I had a teeny table so you get what you get! Again, I find it useful to think of this as not set in stone or any sort of strict prediction, but rather a way to examine what I’m thinking and feeling already, and to sit with my instincts, my knowledge, and my goals.

Also, going back to doodling things in a sketchbook this month has been so nice for me, because even when it’s about my writing, it’s so obviously non-monetized and sloppy, and I enjoy that. I like a thing that just gets to be what it is.

One of the best bits of advice people give for after a book deal is to find hobbies that aren’t for money. Which is why I love you, colorful pens and little journals, and also BG3. Baldur’s Gate is really out here getting me through a lot, and I have a writing friend to thank for that, too!

I was lucky enough to mentor Lenora Woods for SmoochPit last year, and her debut is this absolutely gorgeous romcom featuring the characters in real life and in their D&D game, and the speed with which I picked up both D&D and BG3 after reading is a nod to her skills as a writer. You can preorder Roll for Romance here. I am working with a new mentee for SmoochPit this year who ALSO has a fantastic book I can’t wait to yell about one day, and that I’m in the process of picking a RTM mentee to do the same.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

TREAT YO’ SHELF to what I’ve been reading lately:

Wedding Dashers by Heather McBreen: A sexy romp in which a best man and maid of honor are thwarted by airline cancellations and forced to make their own way to a wedding in time. A-plus banter and steam.

Illusions of Fire by Nisha Sharma: Based in tales from the Mahabharata, the characters in this YA fantasy set in our world are descendants of Hindu gods, making it a perfect read for slightly older readers who grew up on Percy Jackson and seek that same kind of demigod drama, epic fights, and romance.

First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison: I’ve lived in Maryland since I was 6, and this is a love letter to the city of Baltimore, and to love itself. I have heard it described as a modern Sleepless in Seattle in Baltimore, and it fits that description so perfectly, from the lonely yearning all the way through the beautiful, hard earned love story.

Up next:

The Love Lyric by Kristina Forest

Worth Fighting For by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Add Hopelessly Teavoted on goodreads or follow me on instagram for dog, cat, and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.