Donut Summer Pre-Order Campaign

also: I finished another book

Hey, friends! I finally got myself together enough to order some swag for Donut Summer.

If you pre-order, I’ll send you this art print and this colorful sticker, both of which make me smile. As I hope this book makes you smile, too!

I just realized the coloring of the sticker in the above graphic got weird, probably because Canva is a lifelong learning experience. But I’m really pleased with the quality of both, and it was particularly fun being able to order the sticker from a local Portland shop, Sticker Ninja. (They were super kind throughout the process and included a Dum Dum lollipop in my package! I was delighted.)

As this is my young adult debut, I thought it would be nice/emo to make the art print in the same style as the print I got done for my adult debut, Love & Other Disasters.

This is the sole print I have left from that L&OD campaign, and you do not even know how proud of myself I am that I have somehow not lost it. I even knew exactly where it was in order to take this photo!

The Penny and Mateo art print is by Bev Johnson; Dahlia and London was by Aishwarya Tandon.

These goodies will be prioritized for pre-orders from my local queer indie, Always Here! I will also have them at my launch event at Grand Gesture, and will gladly bring them to any other local indies that receive preorders, like Vintage Books, Annie Bloom’s, or Broadway Books.

If I have any leftover after that, and you’ve preordered elsewhere, I’ll be happy to mail some out as well. I’ll keep you updated.

I know you’ve likely heard this spiel before from other authors, but allow me to say it one more time: preorders are increasingly important in the publishing world, especially for young adult and middle grade books, and especially for books featuring marginalized characters, both of which many book retailers are choosing to no longer stock, or to stock in severely limited ways. It is a tragedy, really, of both capitalism and democracy (mostly capitalism), but any preorder from any bookstore in the country/world signals that they should stock that book for other readers. It really can make a difference.

Other than the aforementioned event at Grand Gesture on pub day (July 29th), where I’ll be chatting with Alison Cochrun!, I’m working on some other events in support of Donut Summer, likely in early and mid August. Including one on the East Coast!! I’ll keep you updated on that, too.

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Events Coming Up in June:

• Monday, June 2nd @ 7: In conversation with Jonny Garza Villa at Literary Arts, Portland: am I internally losing my shit about talking with one of my writing heroes? yes, yes I am

  

• Saturday, June 10th @ 7: In conversation with Alanna Bennett at Grand Gesture, Portland: in celebration of her beautiful YA debut, The Education of Kia Greer

  

• Saturday, June 14th: Signing as part of Charlie’s Queer Book Fair, Seattle: My signing slot is from 2-3 PM on Saturday, but Charlie’s Queer Books will be hosting a whole WEEKEND of queer fun!! I am so excited to be part of this
  

• Tuesday, June 17th @ 7: Author talk at Lake Theater & Cafe, Lake Oswego: I’ve been invited to give a chat as part of Lake Oswego Public Library’s author series, and would love to know—if you were attending an author talk (as opposed to a conversation), what would you most like to hear the author talk about??

I *think* this is all my June events! I keep saying yes to things and then having a hard time keeping track in my head, because I need to execute better organizational routines lol. But, I sincerely hope I get to see some of you soon!

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There have been a lot of things going on in my writerly world since I last wrote you all: I finished the first draft of the book I’ve been working on over the last year. I’m looking for a new agent. I went to my first ever writing retreat, and while I could only stay for a brief amount of time because of child care and life duties, I remain kind of in awe about how nice it was. I’ve been doing a lot of conversation partnering, while organizing more of my own events for the summer. There’s a lot I could write about every single one of these things.

In particular, I thought I’d want to talk about the book. In the final stretch of working on the draft, I actually spent a maybe weird amount of mental space drafting a newsletter in my head about what I’d want to tell you about this book. Because I feel like there’s this unspoken rule in publishing that you can’t talk about the books you’re actually actively working on, that you’re killing yourself trying to draft, until that book has a book deal, or a publication date, or until you’re however many approved months away from publication. And while I understand the marketing aspect of this (our brains are small and can only comprehend so much information; tell someone about a book that won’t be available for like two years and it’s likely to get lost), from a creative standpoint: it’s such bullshit.

I know everyone’s experiences are different; maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. But I most want to talk about a book when I’m drafting it. I never feel better about a book in its entire life than I do after finishing that first draft. Because finishing a first draft is fucking HARD. (I should say, while drafting is extremely hard for me, my neuroticism also makes me draft as clean as I can, no matter how often people tell me the first draft should be messy. I felt anxious just writing that!! So. Maybe drafting could, in fact, be easier, but my brain won’t allow it.) We have made a new world, new people, out of nothing.

Yet, I often don’t talk about a book much when I’m drafting it, at least not in detail, even to the people I love most, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s because to do so is vulnerable and embarrassing, or because of these unwritten rules of you’re not supposed to holding me back. Or maybe just because as much as parts of me want to talk about it, bigger parts of me don’t. Because the book is still mine. I don’t want a single other person to look at it. Because once someone else does—it changes. As soon as an agent or editor looks at it, it changes. As soon as readers look at it, it changes. Even letting close loved ones look at it changes it, as much as you want all those people to look at it. Still, each new set of eyes adds another protective layer around my heart, another bandage preparing me for criticism, for misunderstanding, for my people to become marketable commodities instead of friends.

And then, even when everything goes as right as it can, by the time a book is actually published and I’m supposed to talk about this thing I made—even if I still love the book, and I do still love all my books, time combined with all those bandages have kind of dulled my rawest feelings. I’ll think of things to say about it, of course, but it almost feels like analyzing someone else’s book, sometimes. It’s so hard to get back to those feelings I had when I was first drafting, feelings that can mostly be summed up with: I love them I love them I love them, because by the time we get to publication, it has already been made abundantly clear that lots of people didn’t love them. So I bandage bandage bandage and pretend I’m as proud of myself as I was three years ago, or whenever it was that I got to be alone with my characters, alone in my love.

Anyway, this has turned quite maudlin, which wasn’t my hope. But this is all to say that I was going to tell you a little bit about this book as a way to both celebrate myself and say fuck you to those unwritten rules. And then I got to the actual finish line, and what do you know. It’s probably a combination of everything else happening in my writing world, but I started to feel a little fragile about it. Maybe I just want to be alone a little bit longer. I sincerely hope I get to tell you more about this book someday, but for now just know that I am, mostly, I love them I love them I love them. And I am, for now, proud of myself for writing another book.

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Before I go! As I want to get more in the habit of shouting about things I love here:

• Two of my favorite YA books of the year released this week! And They Were Roommates by Page Powars is possibly one of the most fun books I have read, ever? Jasper is perhaps one of the best characters I have read, ever? I just enjoyed every second of it. And it comes with a map!! I am so weak for a book with a map—especially when it’s a contemporary!! (Page was also kind enough to blurb Donut Summer in the midst of preparing for his own book release—he called it “heartwarming and authentic” among other nice things. I am, overall, incredibly intimidated by the YA community and accordingly was really touched by every YA author who took the time for me with blurbs.)

• Cecilia Vinesse reached out to me a few months ago to let me know we shared a YA editor, and I am so, so glad she did because it then put All Nighter on my radar, and when I tell you. I am obsessed. With this book. It has so, so many of my favorite things: told entirely over the course of one night! Enemies/rivals to lovers done to perfection! Jokes for days; this book is so fucking funny while also being so beautifully written and poignant. Love for Virginia Woolf!! I love both Tara and Autumn so much, and there is this one moment/theme in particular when you realize that your enemy sees you so much clearer than the people who are closest to you do? And ooooh, as an obvious Autumn, to be seen in that way by a Tara when I was a teen would’ve killed me dead. Anyway, this book is so good and you should read it.

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More next month! Here’s a flower and a dog for you.

xo

anita