In An Interstellar Burst...

So much is happening in the world and in my life. This week, Redhook, the sibling imprint to Orbit Books announced my novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves for winter of 2022. I’ve been working toward publishing this novel for the better part of ten years now. It’s part of a three-book deal with the second and third titles TBD. Those other books might be related to Ballad, but then again, they might not.

When I first started working on the book, it was for a lark. I didn’t have an artist who could help me make it into a comic, as I’d first envisioned, and my intention was to solidify it quickly and cleanly and get it out into the world so I could switch my focus back to “more serious work.” The joke was on me, the more I wrote, the deeper the book became. It began a way of examining my love for New Orleans, its people, its culture, its music. A couple years in, I began to realize that this book was the most important thing I’d ever written.

As I’ve worked on this book, I’ve met Elvis Costello, President Obama, friends, lovers, and even my dog Karate Valentino. (He’s only been with me for about three months now, but it seems absurd to me that I’ve ever lived without him. Fortunately, he’s only 2, so I can look forward to a long and adventurous life with him.) I’ve worked on a comic book project (God of the Depths. More on that later.) And even joined the Board of a local theater nonprofit (The NOLA Project.)

One of the strangest things about doing this work, getting an agent, and beginning the long road to publication is the way it interacts with my feelings about current events. I suffer from depression—or at least I think that’s what it is. After all, the shadows massed all around us are so dark and so threatening that the idea of “feeling okay” seems ridiculous. Regardless there are times, like this holiday season, when I feel so divided from my family and other loved ones, that in many ways it feels like I’m sitting at the bottom of a well.

I don’t write to combat my anxiety and depression—at least not primarily. Relating the work I do to closely to my sense of self and of well-being seems dangerous to me, so I try to maintain the idea that writing is something I do, not something I am. Anyone who has known me for more than ten years will understand this as a seismic shift in my approach to life and writing. There were times in my life where it seemed like fiction and poetry were the only things I lived for. I don’t regret those years—I needed that sort of focus to achieve my dreams even in the face of mental illness and emotional ruin—but especially since I turned 40, I’m trying to remember that there is more to life than the work I do.

I’m about to turn 41 this Monday, and while turning 40 made me wonder if I’d ever learn if all this work was worth it, I’m excited to get older, and hopefully a bit wiser. I find myself reflecting differently on my work, on my emotional attachments, and of my place in the world. Even living through these disastrous times, I feel both capable and hopeful. Anyway, even if there are only a couple of you paying attention to these little notes, I appreciate you.

More importantly, I’d say, I appreciate me.