In 2012, two days after I thought what would become Daughters of the Air was finished, I started writing what would become Dreams Under Glass. Ten+ years and many drafts later, it is out in the world! Thank you so much to those of you who pre-ordered the book. If you'd like to help me get the word out, here are some things you can do:

• Join me at the launch party at Exile in Bookville in downtown Chicago on Thursday at 7 pm. I’ll be in conversation with Rebecca Makkai! RSVP here for this free event. Or join me at one of my upcoming events around the country. Bring friends!

• Buy the book at an independent bookstore to show booksellers enthusiasm for the book and support all the great work booksellers do.

• Review the book on Goodreads, Powell’s, Amazon (you can review without purchasing there), Storygraph, LibraryThing, your personal blog or wherever reviews are shared.

• Request your library purchase a copy.

• Suggest it to your book club. I will be happy to join a discussion over Zoom if you would enjoy that!

• Tell friends who read literary fiction, like a bit of dark humor, like Joseph Cornell or other surreal artists, stories set in New York City, or about struggling artists, or are interested in stories of the financial crisis of 2008 or the Bernie Madoff scandal.

• Let me know if you'd like me to read at your reading series or come talk to your students or would like to adopt the book for a course.

• Send me photos of you with the book and I will post it on Instagram! Or tag me, and I will happily repost. Tag the bookstore where you bought the book too!

Of course, these are all good things to do for any and all books out in the world that you wish to support. Thank you so much for championing literature!

Joseph Cornell, Untitled (Celestial Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova), ca. 1940, collage and tempera on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, 2002.58.36

I am so very delighted to share that I've just signed a contract with Lanternfish Press for my second novel, to be published sometime in 2022. Some of you following this blog may be familiar with bits and bobs from the book, which for many years had the working title Paralegal, and which tells the story of a diorama artist working as a paralegal during the economic crisis of 2008, in the same building in which the Bernie Madoff scandal explodes. (Binnie, the protagonist, is influenced by the surrealist artist Joseph Cornell, hence the choice in art for this post. This particular collage also been my laptop wallpaper for ages...) The project received early support from 4Culture and the Jack Straw Writing Program, and it's so exciting to shepherd it on toward existence in the world!

ETA: Here is the official announcement from Lanternfish Press!

I'm looking forward to teaching Found Stories, a one-day class at Hugo House this October 27 aimed at generating new fiction using found objects. There will be some very essential and very fun pre-class homework: I'm asking students to bring in objects that they find - post-it notes, mittens, music boxes - anything that will be helpful in generating stories, which, really, could be anything. I'll be bringing in a few of my own artifacts, and until class, I'm also keeping an eye out for goodies left on sidewalks, yard sales, and the like. But I'm really curious about what else people will bring. What stories catch your eye when you see something left behind - discarded or forgotten?In the meantime, here's a great story Andrei Codrescu told on NPR today about two items he found while moving: a box of chocolates wrapped in miniature covers of one of his poetry books and a bag of petrified pretzels. And here's a bit about Joseph Cornell, an artist I've been slowly reading up on who used found objects in his dreamy work .