My debut novel comes out today. Here’s where it’s kept people company.

Notes on achieving a lifelong dream while still having to do laundry.

My debut novel Be Well comes out today.

That sentence was so weird to write just now. So I’ll do it again.

My debut novel Be Well comes out today.

God, that is cool to read back.

There she is. Order your copy here.

Anyway, yes, my debut novel Be Well is out today from Heliotrope Books. I’ve promoted this book via podcast interviews, essays, and Q&As; branded bookmarks and glasses cleaning cloths, an improv show (yes, really), and unabashedly wearing a t-shirt that says “ask me about my book” in public. I’ve talked about it endlessly, using book updates as my go-to response whenever anyone asks how I am. I’ve been planning an entire book tour for months.

And now it’s finally publication day.

If anyone asks what I’m feeling right now, oddly enough I don’t have many words, at least none of the five-dollar variety. I don’t have any wisdom to impart or anything super-witty to say. I’m excited and ecstatic and overwhelmed by the never-ending book promotion checklist and my brain feels like the inside of a washing machine as the spin cycle is winding down.

Speaking of which, I need to fold my laundry.

That’s the thing about your very first book finally being published and seeing the light of day after nearly seven years of edits, pitching, querying, more revisions, being on submission, and even more revisions until your eyes cross. It’s the deepest joy possible, seeing something you created reach readers and being validated by the publishing industry and reviewers. But life still goes on–you don’t magically change overnight after becoming a published author.

It’s like when you were a kid and you woke up the morning of your birthday, and your parents asked if you felt any older. I rarely felt older, even if I had just crossed the rubicon from nine to ten years old. I sometimes feel older in the mornings now, especially if I’ve done any sort of heavy lifting or had more than one glass of wine, but that’s a different story.

Speaking of which, stories are why I do this.

Stories are extremely important to us as humans. They’re how we make sense of the world and do the impossible-seeming work of changing our minds. Stories have made me feel differently about so many people, cultures, historical events, and emotions. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to do that for other people too.

Stories are the reason I spend so much damn time in Canva.

My goofy-ass book¹ is meant to entertain, but I also hope it’s a fun way for readers to see people who might otherwise be portrayed as one-dimensional cartoon villains as complicated humans.

I have no idea how Be Well will fare on the lists, rankings, and round-ups in the future. But I know that right now, people are ordering it, reading the pre-ordered copies they’ve already received, or sharing what they thought of an advance copy. That’s what’s making this whole thing magic right at this very second. Be Well, my book, my very first book, is going with people to all sorts of places and keeping them company.

As of this writing, I know that Be Well has been read and cackled at while someone waits all day at jury duty selection. It’s been a light on a new mom’s phone in the darkness of 3am, “when only God and the devil are awake,” deep in the newborn breastfeeding trenches. It’s been joyfully, relentlessly promoted by my own mom. It’s part of bedtime wind-down “me time” for a grandma babysitting her toddler granddaughter. It’s getting passed around to friends and put in Little Free Libraries across Orange County, Kansas City, New England and Washington, D.C. It will accompany someone on a road trip with her new dog to visit home in Canada. It will be one of the first books on the bookshelf at someone’s new permanent home after losing their house in the 2025 L.A. fires.

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me get here. You can order Be Well from wherever you like to get books right now. I hope you enjoy it, tell your friends about it, leave a review, and keep telling me where it’s keeping you company. I want to keep up this feeling as long as possible.

1. The back jacket copy:

Summer 2009: Brand-new college graduate Ann Ward has sent out nearly three hundred job applications, but nobody will employ her. The last thing she wants to do is leave Los Angeles, return to her desert hometown, and live in the shadow of her fame-hungry televangelist father–and it’s starting to look like that’s her fate. Thankfully, Ann’s luck turns after a humiliating failed job interview, when she meets the magnetic founder of upscale holistic wellness collective Sagebrush. She’s quickly drawn deep into the privileged, demanding world of Sagebrush, inventing Anneliese - a dubious new persona - to fit in.

But when her funds run out and her lies blow up, Ann must choose between facing reality or doing whatever she has to do in order to get the future she wants. Both a “funny ha-ha-” and a “funny oh no” read for anyone who survived the Great Recession, Be Well explores just how easy it is to believe in something unquestioningly–and lie to ourselves and others–when everything feels uncertain and the future isn’t guaranteed.