Book deal!!!

A very professional title for this post. I’m not freaking out or anything. Which is all to say: yes, what the title says. I’m writing a book. My Parents Are Dead: What Now? A Practical Guide to Your Life After Their Death—based on my dead parents website—is forthcoming from Quirk Books.

I’ve known about this since November and I couldn’t tell anyone it was torture. But we hopeful authors must all wait for Publishers Marketplace to break the news, as is tradition. Now for the important question: on what inanimate object should I print this announcement as a keepsake? Coffee mug? Blanket? Suggestions welcome.

I am enormously grateful to my agent, Zoe Sandler, for helping me shape my proposal and for putting me in touch with awesome editors. And I am absolutely psyched to be working with Jess Zimmerman—a particularly awesome editor, in my opinion.

This may seem like an overnight success story, but it’s really not. I graduated from my MFA program in 2016. I queried more than 70 agents before Zoe took a chance on me. We tried to sell one novel and failed. We tried to sell another novel and failed. I’ve written another full novel draft in the meantime, and two other partial drafts. I did launch my dead parents website less than a year ago, so this particular book deal has been relatively quick—but then, my parents did have to literally die for this to be something that even crossed my mind to write. I’d rather have them back and not have a book deal, but c’est la vie. It’s weird that I can’t tell them.

Anyway, if you’re a writer or any other kind of artist, I just want to validate your journey. There is no correct or standard timeline. Just keep doing what you do. You’ll get there.

Sending a hearty thank you to everyone in my life, you included. I am fortunate to be constantly up to my eyeballs in love and support. I can’t wait to share this book with you.