Illustration by Hayden Williams

  • Into the Labyrinth #2

    Hi, folks! This one’ll be quick. First– friends, family, and fans– thank you for signing up. I appreciate it. I’m glad you’re here.  I just finished reading Isabel Allende’s HOUSE OF SPIRITS. It’s great, and reminded me a lot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE. I bookmarked a passage I thought was brilliant and had…

  • Into the Labyrinth #1

    I finally named my newsletter! And maybe I can cut and paste from mailjet?? We shall see. Hi, folks!I hope you’ve had a good month. It’s been eventful over here. For instance, it’s raining inside my garage office, thanks to LA’s atmospheric river. JT and I have been trying to find the source of the…

  • Evil Dead II (1987)

    I thought I’d seen this Sam Rami movie, but it turns out that Friday night’s screening at Vidiots in Eagle Rock was new to me. And I loved it. When I was in middle school, I rented Evil Dead (1981), directed by Sam Rami, and it upset me. For one, tree rape. For another, I…

  • Happy New Year!

    I’m writing this from my sister and brother -in-law’s house in Baltimore. They are great hosts to us every year. My sister in law has a giant library full of all the books I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t. I typically spend entire days perusing. I prefer the East Coast. Things move faster here…

  • Thanksgiving Update

    Hi folks! A few updates – Galleys of A BETTER WORLD are in! If you’re a reviewer, request one here. So far, reviews are strong. The book comes out in April and you can pre-order here. The galleys have some errors in them and people have written to me with concerns. Fret not! My process…

  • Brundlefly

    Last night I’d planned to catch the first ten minutes of Cronenberg’s The Fly and wound-up watching the whole thing. It’s still relevant, still heartbreaking. What interested me most in this viewing was the sexual politics. From the opening, brilliant scientist Seth Brundle is trying to bed journalist Ronnie Quaife. What follows is a charming…

  • Happy Halloween!

    Happy Halloween!

    Hi, folks! I’ve been meaning to send this out for a while now. But it turns out my husband and I are now professional chauffeurs. We spend a stunning amount of time carting kids all over the city. But We’re happy about it. There are tennis and soccer games, play dates, birthday parties, extra classes,…

  • Book Trailer (and other stuff)!

    My editor Loan Le at Atria made this very fun and very funny book trailer (whose size I’m going to have to figure out how to get right) for A Better World. Though it’s silly, it captures the essence of the story and the things A Better World lampoons in what I hope is a…

  • Death Valley is so Hot!

    Death Valley is so Hot!

    Hi, folks!  For research on a very fun story, I recently took a road trip with the family to Death Valley, the hottest place on earth, having reached a record 134 degrees in 1913. Happily, the hotel had air conditioning. The picture above is the evidence. Bad Water is the lowest point on earth, at…

  • A Better World (S&S April, 2024)

    A BETTER WORLD (S&S, April, 2023). I love this cover so much!!! In other fantastic news, Canelo Books announced that it’s starting a new horror imprint. It will be publishing from my backlist and I’m very, very excited. More on that to come. The books will be out and in bookstores soon, possibly before the…