🏃‍♀️November marathons, how to write scenes readers can visualize, & a Most Wonderful improv show🎄✨

Welcome to my November author newsletter, pals!

Greetings from yr friendly neighborhood novelist.

Monthly writing tips, pop culture recs, and secret peeks into the publishing process. Let’s go!

Marathons, plural.

November: did it even happen, and who has the receipts?! The New York Marathon was a bright spot—my wife (pictured), mother-in-law, and I popped up to the end of our street here in Williamsburg to cheer on the runners—my kid loved getting some high-fives! Later in the month, I got to see my lovely editors, Emma and Katy, and editor-in-chief Whitney (all pictured), at my imprint’s annual Friendsgiving potluck at the Penguin Random House offices. I signed 300-odd bookplates for Most Wonderful’s inclusion in the Love, Parnassus book box, a subscription offered by the Nashville bookstore owned by Ann Patchett herself! And I got to overshare at a lovely book party organized by Australian Women in New York (AWNY) in Manhattan.

I also hosted my first writers’ retreat of the cozy season in the Hudson Valley, which is always a joyful…