I dream it, I work hard, I grind ‘til I own it.

It's my book announcement!

I am elated to announce that my debut, ONCE UPON A TIME IN DOLLYWOOD, will be released in Summer 2025 with Berkley/PRH. There are so many people to thank, from my agent and editor, to my mom, my critique group, and everyone who’s ever left a kind comment on one of my stories. If you’re reading this, I’m grateful.

But I’m also gonna take a page from Thee Niecy Nash and thank me!

Berkley has been my dream imprint since I read Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date back in 2018. I didn’t necessarily know that I wanted to publish anything traditionally back then, but I saw what she had done and fell in love with it, and just quietly imagined it for myself.

Not long thereafter, I picked up books like Little Fires Everywhere, Such A Fun Age, One Day in December, and Where the Crawdads Sing, and suddenly, being a Reese’s Book Club author was my only author goal. I literally put it in a couple of my early query letters. I was putting the cart way ahead of the horse, of course, but that was how much I loved their selections and everything they did for women’s stories.

Years later, when I was selected for the LitUp fellowship with Reese’s Book Club, they asked us our dream mentors. Jasmine Guillory was my answer. At the LitUp retreat, when we spoke of agents and Sarah Younger’s name came up, I told everyone in the room—my fairy god-authors—that she was a dream agent. And when I was querying and fielding agent offers and trying to make the agonizing decision about who to choose, anyone who mentioned submitting to Esi Sogah at Berkley shot to the top of my list.

I am an overthinker by nature. An over-preparer, if that’s a thing. I joke about how I’m manifesting my entire publishing career, but I’m maybe only half-kidding. There’s a LOT of luck involved in getting published. But there’s a lot of hard work and preparation as well. And I am so delighted that I managed to overthink my way into the exact place I wanted to be.

My favorite part is I have no idea what to want next. (I mean, a TV deal would be great. Hulu, Danai Gurira, feel free to call me!) Mostly, I get to just enjoy the ride now.