I can’t post this announcement until after Christmas, because this is a super secret big surprise for my parents, so I’m scheduling this post to go up the day after.
But as of writing this in mid-November, I’ve just ordered the proof copy for The Hopeful Wanderer!
It is…it’s going to be real. I’m going to hold this book in my hands.
I spent just about every minute of the past week and a half formatting and formatting and freaking formatting the interior and the cover. No compromises, I wanted it to look so good. I’ve loved the Wanderer. You’ve loved the Wanderer. They deserve the very best.
My parents are getting the first copy ever for Christmas. They’ve shared something like half the Wanderer posts from my blog, told me how much they love the stories, and nudged me and nudged me to create a print copy. This project is for me, but it’s also for them.
Cover reveal coming soon! (aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!)
P.S. Want a sneak peak into the book? Check out the updated and expanded release of “Evidence of a Struggle” straight from the upcoming novel-in-stories!

Summer’s Latest
Beneath the Bluebonnets: Tales of Terror by Texas Women
Read my eco-horror short “Well Being” in this fabulous new anthology, in which a mother follows strange impulses from tainted water to find her daughter.
From Mary Shelley to Tananarive Due and Mariana Enríquez, women have long shaped horror—often without equal recognition. Living closest to the genre’s edge, women know these fears firsthand: lost autonomy, violence, childbirth, survival.
Set in Texas, a land of haunted histories and increasingly restrictive laws, Beneath the Bluebonnets emerges from the raw intersection of terror and endurance. Written by twelve Texas women writers: R. J. Joseph, Lauren Oertel, L.H. Phillips, Kathleen Kent, Madison Estes, Jess Hagemann, Emma E. Murray, Jae Mazer, Iphigenia Strangeworth, Jacklyn Baker, S.G. Baker and edited by Carmen Gray, this collection is urgent, unflinching, and deeply haunting—stories that refuse to look away.

