Publishing news!

I’ve held this wonderful, precious news close to me for months. Was it too hard to believe such a big, big dream could be coming true? Was it that it felt strange, in the months after my brother died, to celebrate something so grand?

I’ve worked my ass off at my writing since I was seventeen (a few moons ago). I went through crazy-making years (decades) of submitting manuscripts and receiving what I’ve come to call ‘passes’ from publishers of all sizes. Agents too.

I wrote anyway. I wrote one manuscript and then another. The passes filled a letter envelope, then an 8x10 envelope (some of them are beautifully handwritten). I kept them the way one keeps memories of a wicked lover. I kept writing.

One Christmas break, I stumbled across the story of a formidable woman I call Belle Jane, who led a gang of cattle thieves in Saskatchewan circa 1920. I researched her world slowly, and then wrote feverishly, every day nearly seven days a week at dawn. I wrote while some other part of my mind was fraught with losing my brother. I wrote because in the dark in that other world, with Belle Jane, who could do anything, I felt the thrill of aliveness.

I was sure I was certified crazy thinking I was a writer who might ‘make it’ someday. But I love writing so I wrote anyway.

One day, I sent off Belle Jane in her manuscript, I Want to Die in My Boots. Some weeks later, the wonderful women of Touchwood Edition’s beautiful literary imprint Brindle & Glass had replied, wanted to talk.

And here it is, this novel, heading off after its first substantive edit, on its way. This formidable woman who overcame so many odds in such a dangerous time, I can’t wait for you to meet her.

Should be April 2025.

Here’s to working your ass off, writing through all the shit, courageous indie publishers, and all the women with pluck and strength who came before us.

I will say it always and now: Thank you Noel. Thank you Spokes.