New Year Magic, Updates, and A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hello, dear ones.

It's been quite a minute since I updated my blog, and to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed by it. It feels like I've neglected my readers and am slacking in my career, going so long without posting, and even that feels a little sleazy to say, because it's not really my career that has been sitting on the back burner (quite the contrary—the last seven months have been a crash course in my professional development and my growth as an author), but my readers. I feel guilty. But one has to get back on the horse, as it were. Allow me to get you up to speed.

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My adventures as an MA student

Two weeks after my last post in July, I traveled to Gunnison, Colorado, for my summer graduate residency at Western Colorado University. As you can imagine, it's quite a drive from Central Texas to a tiny mountain town west of the Rockies. Thankfully, I had company on the way. My best friend and I decided to make a road trip out of it, and since it was my first-ever interstate trip, I was grateful for the companionship! We drove together from Austin, overnighting in Amarillo before heading to Colorado Springs to visit a mutual friend who moved there a few years ago with her family. After hanging out for a few hours and getting some very yummy ice cream, I left bestie with our mutual for the week before heading on to Gunnison by myself. This time, the audiobook of Mona Awad's dark academia horror novel Bunny, which seemed appropriate given that the FMC is a creative writing graduate student who falls in with a mysterious secret society of fellow female students with...secrets. I'm delighted to report that I have a new favorite author in my rotation. (And that my own graduate program is nothing at all like Samantha Mackey's!)

I somehow managed to drive alone through the mountains and reach over 7,000 feet without succumbing to my fear of heights or dying of altitude sickness, and was rewarded with this beautiful sight when I pulled into the graduate dorm parking lot at Western. I took it as a good omen, and I was correct.

I spent a wonderful week getting to meet and know my amazing professors and cohort in person after meeting weekly on Zoom for four weeks, attending amazing workshops from the other concentrations in the Graduate Program for Creative Writing (in addition to publishing, the GPCW offers concentrations in genre fiction, screenwriting, poetry, and nature writing), getting to share some of my own writing at the student open mic, and getting hands-on instruction and practice for what we need to succeed in the publishing industry. One of the reasons I chose the program at Western is the emphasis on independent, traditional, and hybrid models, which means I am truly getting a well-rounded education. If I had any doubts before, by the end of residency, I knew 100% that I had made the right choice in my grad school endeavor.

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I didn't get much of a break after returning home. The very next week, I started a six-week online professional certification course in book production, where I learned the ins and outs of the physical, financial, and logistical production process from none other than Vanessa Robles, the Director of Production at Penguin Random House! I completed a sample international production schedule for my capstone course project and earned my certificate in September, right as the fall semester started. It was full nose to the grindstone as my cohort and I worked as a team to put together a themed genre fiction anthology (I'll be able to share more details about that soon), and our individual capstones: reissuing a public domain work of our choice for publication through Kevin J Anderson's (my professor) publishing company, WordFire Press. I chose my all-time favorite book: Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. It has been my favorite book since I was ten years old, and my copy of the centennial special edition is one of my most cherished possessions. I still can't quite believe that I get to reissue it with a personal editorial credit. It's a little hard to believe, to be honest—it feels like all of my childhood dreams are coming true. I cannot wait to share the finished product with all of you at the end of the semester!

As if I wasn't busy enough, near the end of the semester, I took another big leap: I moved from Austin to San Marcos! There were many reasons why I chose to move cities, and I plan to lay down roots in San Marcos for the foreseeable future. I love living here: being closer to my partner, the slower (and cheaper) pace of life, the easier access to nature, and the wonderful spaces for creatives have physically and spiritually rejuvenated me in a way I didn't realize I needed. Plus, San Marcos is nice n' snug halfway between Austin and San Antonio, which means we can enjoy whatever we want to in both cities without having to pay city rent.

All of that's to say, I've been a rather busy bee over the last seven months. But now that I'm settled into my new place and routine, I feel refreshed enough to return to regular posting and creating. Here is a snapshot of my creative life this month.

New Year, Slowly Improving Me, New Magic

I love January. I've always reveled in New Year's Eve, but not because of partying or "New Year, new me" platitudes; I see New Year's Eve as a time for quiet reflection and gratitude for the twelve months gone by, and contemplation as we stand at the threshold of the old and the new. It's not about undergoing a complete personal upheaval (I believe the influencers refer to it as a "glow up," or something) or jumping into a bunch of unrealistic resolutions that will inevitably end in burnout and failure—January is deep winter, the time for rest, dreaming, and nurturing the little seed-sparks of our goals for the new year to take proper root in the spring. A time for enjoying the cozy comforts of our homes and rejuvenating ourselves after the hubbub of the holidays, so that we can bring our best energy with us in the coming months. For marveling in the frigid yet bare-bones beauty of winter—whatever it happens to look like in your particular geographic location—and finding joy in the first tiny hints that spring will be on its way in due time.

Instead of resolutions, I like to set New Year's themes. This gives me a general focal point to build my goals around, rather than an overwhelming to-do list I'll never finish. 2026's theme is "Health and Wealth." I realized that, over the last couple of years, I've been so laser-focused on my career and school that I haven't taken as good care of my body as I should. I don't want the consequences of poor health habits to catch up with me as I get older, so right now I'm focusing on making some much-needed lifestyle adjustments while keeping in mind that health equals wealth—not simply in terms of money and career, but wealth in every area of life. If you sacrifice health for wealth, you'll eventually have neither, and then where will you be? I'm getting my physical health back on track while also making sure I pay attention to and give proper care to my mental, professional, financial, and relational health. Everything is connected, and everything counts!

What's on my 2026 TBR?

Another confession: I fell brutally short of my 2025 reading goal. I set a milestone of 100 books, and only clocked 33. (But for what it's worth, I read one for every year that I've been alive!). Despite this crushing blow to my reader's ego, I've set the same goal for 2026 (shoot for the moon, and whatnot). Right now, I'm reading several books for school on publishing, authoring, and book marketing. For fun, I'm reading the first Emily Wilde book for a book club with my friends, and am halfway through Murder at Holly House by Denzil Meyrick (a Christmas murder mystery) and finishing an audiobook of The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo. Let me know what your TBR looks like in the comments!

How's the writing going?

I have a special surprise coming in February, but you'll have to be patient and wait for the big reveal! Keep an eye out here and in my newsletter. I would say follow along on my socials, but that leads me to another announcement:

I have deactivated all of my social media accounts except for Instagram.

I'm ready to break up with social media. Our relationship has run its course. I've been slowly shifting back towards a more analog life for the last year, and it's encouraging to know that I'm not the only one longing for a life lived mostly off my phone. I'm not in the market for a flip phone at the moment, but I'm limiting how many apps I use, cutting way back on subscription services (it's a scam, anyway), and scheduling content creation, posting, and scrolling time into my weekly routine so that I have strict time parameters around my Instagram use. I already feel freer and happier. Besides, the truth is that we don't really own the content we post on social media, and we have no way of knowing what will happen to these platforms over the next few years. Authors, artists, and small business owners would do well to spend less precious time and energy posting on socials and more on building a solid audience through long-form media. As for me, I'm using Instagram for supplemental content and putting the brunt of my energy into my blog, newsletter (you can sign up here!), and Substack. You can also find me on Goodreads and Fable if you'd like to connect there. (Alright, I suppose those are still *technically* social media sites, but at least they are focused specifically on what I love most—the reading and writing of books!)

My writing routine is also going analog, mostly. ​I plan to go further into this in a future post, but here are some of the changes I've made so far:

• Going back to handwriting complete first drafts before typing them up in Scrivener.
• Keeping a strict notebook organizing system (that only makes sense to me).
• Scheduling designated time for project research, and saving pertinent finds to Scrivener that I can access offline to reduce distractions and side quests.
• Making use of all the scrapbooking and junk journaling ephemera I've accumulated with the clichéd intent of "using it someday" to make individual scrapbook portfolios for each individual project. (See? I knew ​I would find a use for it eventually!)

I am also currently in the middle of a six-week masterclass on Dark Academia! I have been wanting to break into dark academia writing for some time, especially for a new dark fantasy series I'm plotting. I'm enjoying the course so much and can't wait to apply everything I've learned. I turned in my first assignment last Sunday and am eagerly awaiting feedback!

Okay, ready for the Big Announcement?

*drumroll*

I am rereleasing Hooves, Horns and Roses AND Cats Are Sluts as special revised editions this year!

You heard that right! I am rereleasing both of my books for mass distribution through IngramSpark, and to celebrate, I am sending revised and expanded special editions out into the world! There will also be some Very Special merch available, contests, and a few prizes for lucky readers. I will give you all a timeline update very soon, and I cannot WAIT to share my new and improved little book babies with all of you!

That's all for now. Thank you for sticking around!

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