Issue #83: All About My Novel (!) Coming Next Year

And my daily writing routine.

Morning Person is a weekly newsletter packed with obsessively-curated recommendations and ideas—let’s get to it!

📚 Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey: The number of you who DM’d me to read this book, by Monica Heisey, about a woman who gets divorced at twenty-nine! (Is it weird to say I’m touched?? I am!) Heisey’s book had been sitting on my shelf since I bought it on my birthday last month, but I finally cracked it open at your insistent recommendations. A much-needed balance of hilariously spot-on (Of divorcées, “In the movies, you are Diane Lane, or Keaton[…] who is her own boss and knows about the good kind of white wine.”) and insightful (“‘One day,’ she said, ‘and it will surprise you how soon this day will come, but one day you will wake up and feel good.’”), read if you enjoyed Queenie or Sorrow and Bliss. Also loved her feature on Cup of Jo this week.

🎥 ‘The Quiet Girl’ in theaters: There are few things a solo movie outing can’t fix or, at at the very least, make better. On Sunday, I took myself on a spur-of-the-moment date to see this slowly unfolding Irish film set in the ‘80s, in which Cáit, a young girl, is sent to live with her mother’s cousin and husband when her own family can’t afford to take care of her. On Cáit’s first night at the house, the wife comes into her room and whispers, “If you were mine, I would never send you to live with strangers.” Over the course of a summer, Cáit forms a bond with her new caretakers and learns, bit by bit, the secrets they hold and what it is to feel loved and cared for. Beautifully shot, the depiction of a slow, domestic life on an Irish dairy farm felt like a balm.

🍝 Creamy Goat Cheese and Vegetable Pasta: I recently went to my friend Haley’s for a casual weeknight dinner and she whipped up this simple, yet delicious spring pasta. She made a few tweaks to the recipe, including doubling the tomatoes and quadrupling (!) the goat cheese, and served it alongside an herby Molly Baz salad. My contribution to the evening was Sweet Laurel’s chocolate chip cookies, which made for a perfectly satisfying, classic dinner.

When I say I have been bursting at the seams to tell you this news: I sold my book!!

My novel, You’re Safe Here, will be published in 2024 with Scout Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Although I can’t give away too much at this point, I can offer a little sneak peek: My book alternates between the perspectives of two women in the near future who find their lives entangled with an enigmatic founder and her tech company’s launch of a groundbreaking new wellness product.

Many of you will remember that I began alluding to the book last year when I signed with my wonderful agent, Claire Friedman. After creating a list of dream editors and publishing houses, we sent an exclusive draft at the start of this year to the editor who would become my editor, Taylor Rondestvedt. Her vision aligned perfectly with mine and I signed in January, then waited patiently for the official announcement this morning to share the good news with you! So much more is to come, including more on the book itself and the inspiration behind it, as well as the process of querying (finding an agent) and submitting (finding a publisher). Excuse the outburst, but: IT’S ALL HAPPENING!! Until then, I wanted to share everything I couldn’t about the process of writing my novel, including my highly specific routine and writing essentials: