I can't believe I finally get to write this out: I sold a book! It's a contemporary YA novel called Tell Me Everything, and it will be published by Scholastic in early 2019. (You can add it on Goodreads now!)
Here's a little more detail...
YOUR SECRET’S SAFE … UNTIL IT’S NOT
Ivy is the shy artist type and keeps a low profile—so low that she’s practically invisible to everyone at Belfry High School except for her best friend, Harold. As sophomore year begins, Harold takes up a hundred activities, leaving Ivy on her own. Luckily she’s found a distraction: the new anonymous art-sharing app, VEIL.
Soon Ivy realizes that one of her classmates is the VEIL user who needs new paintbrushes … and another is the one visiting the hospital every week … and another is the one dealing with their parents’ messy divorce. While she’s too scared to put her own creations on the app, Ivy thinks of an even better way to contribute—by making gifts for the artists she’s discovered. The acts of kindness give her such a rush that, when Ivy suspects Harold is keeping a secret, she decides to go all in. Forget gifts—Ivy wants to throw Harold a major party.
But when all those good intentions thrust her into the spotlight, Ivy’s carefully curated world is thrown into chaos. Now she has to find the courage to come out of the shadows—about her art, her secrets, and her mistakes—or risk losing everything and everyone she loves the most.
I've been writing this book since May 2016. It's been a joy and a struggle, and I'm so excited and proud. When the book comes out--in early 2019--it will have been 10 years exactly since I started writing fiction. That's a blog post for another time, but suffice it to say that I am overwhelmed and humbled to finally be able to share more of my writing. What a privilege.
Endless thanks to Amanda Maciel, my editor at Scholastic, who has worked with me to write this book once, and then again, and then once more--never losing her energy or enthusiasm. Amanda is a brilliant writer in her own right, and it showed in her deeply thoughtful notes.
I cannot thank my agent, Sarah Burnes, enough for working with me since 2013 and never losing faith. Thank you for believing in all my wild ideas, and taking my extra-long phone calls.
And thank you to everyone who was interviewed for First Draft (my YA and MG author interview podcast), and for everyone who listens. I've felt like a fraud at times, talking about writing books when I don't have anything outside of a short story on the shelves. But everyone involved in that project has been loving, supportive, empathetic, and trusting. I could never thank you enough.
I love Ivy, and her bestie Harold, and the strange oceanside town they live in. I can't wait for you all to get to visit, too.