ANNOUNCEMENT!

Draft one of Coven was complete, and the day I finished it, I sat back, wiped the tears from my face, and felt a deep sense of pride.

Choke and Burn felt simple by comparison. Creating a story, even loosely, based on my own life required much less effort, and while I truly love those books, I looked at Coven through a completely different lens.

This book required hours of research. I wanted historically accurate pieces. I wanted to be sensitive to victims of violent sexual crimes. I wanted to honour the children our system has repeatedly failed.

I read police files, listened to victim testimonies, and stockpiled news articles for reference. I consumed an enormous amount of traumatic material while working on this project, and somehow came out of it no less angry than when I started.

After multiple rounds of edits, I finally felt like I had something solid. Something I was proud of. Something I was excited to share.

And then I had to figure out what came next.

The year before, after finishing Choke, I had done some casual research into literary agents. I was still incredibly new to publishing and had very little idea what I was doing, but that rabbit hole eventually led me to Carleen Geisler.

I liked her immediately. I followed her on social media, promptly forgot that I had ever researched literary agents, and carried on with my life.

Months passed. The holidays came and went.

My original plan was to self-publish Coven as quickly as possible. That plan was delayed when some of the artwork arrived later than I had expected.

Weirdly, that delay changed everything.

Before I could move ahead with special editions and self-publishing, I saw Carleen post a new-year call for queries.

I read through the kinds of stories she wanted to see and started checking boxes.

Then came immersive settings, platonic love, complicated family dynamics, weird real-world plots, ambiguous endings, darkness, revenge, spiritual practices, and more.

I read the post over and over, mostly trying to find a reason not to submit.

The only real reason I had was fear.

What if the book was rejected? What would that feel like when I believed so strongly that the story mattered?

Eventually I wrote the query, sent it to a few friends for feedback, sat there with sweaty palms and a racing heart, and pressed send.

The automated response said it could take up to six months. I submitted on January 5.

A few weeks later, while digging through my Sent folder, I realized there had been a response waiting for me.

They had asked for more information. I somehow managed not to see it for eight days. Then came a follow-up.

The next few weeks were chaos: sending material, waiting, refreshing my inbox, trying very hard not to become the person who bombarded an agent on Instagram.

I work in GovTech sales. I am intimately familiar with long sales cycles. Apparently none of that prepared me for querying a novel.

We eventually scheduled a call for February 13, after Carleen had read the full manuscript.

I went into that conversation trying not to have expectations, while obviously having every expectation.

There is something incredibly validating about hearing an industry professional say they enjoyed your book and believe in it.

And with that, I was incredibly proud to announce that I had signed with Carleen Geisler, who was then with P.S. Literary Agency.

Coven was heading into its first round of professional edits, and suddenly this thing that started as an idea in my head felt very, very real.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for supporting this wild ride.

None of this would have happened without the people who encouraged me, read the words, shared the books, sent messages, and kept believing in me when I was still trying to figure out whether I was allowed to believe in myself.

The little girl who wrote stories and dreamed about doing this for a living still cannot quite believe this is her life.

Chase your dreams. Let your belief in yourself be unwavering. Surround yourself with people who believe in you too.

Thank you for believing in me.