Hi, friends, 

The exhaustion has been hitting me hard. Little breaks here and there have not been enough. So now I'm taking a longer break, trying to restore some normalcy to my poor nervous system. It's been extremely helpful, and I've been feeling more hopeful. 

If you, too, have been hit hard by chronic exhaustion, don't forget that to "exhaust" means "to use up or consume completely; expend the whole of" (Dictionary.com). When you use something up, there's no more of it. And when the "it" is energy, or hope, and you've got no more, and you try to spend more of what you don't have, where does it come from? 

Your body. 

It eats away at us. Our bodies start breaking down, literally. They stop working and start being a heap of bones on the floor. 

And when you're a pile of bones, you can't help anyone. Because you're the one who needs help. 

I don't say that in a derogatory way. Needing help isn't a bad thing. But when you're someone who likes to help others, this is a reminder to get your own oxygen mask on first. You can't help others if you're in a heap yourself. 

Anyhow, all this is to say that I've been delaying writing my next message to you all because I've been putting myself back together. But you know what helps me put myself back together? 

Community! :) 

So I'd love to see you at my next event! It's happening this Saturday, October 11th, at 1 PM at Underdog Bookstore in Monrovia, CA.

What better way to celebrate Banned Books Week and National Coming Out Day than supporting a queer Latine author in a conversation with another queer author about how they came out?

My friend Scott Coon and I are having a discussion about the intersection of queerness and spirituality. As most of you know by now, Vessel is the story of a true believer trying to ignore her own queerness in her high-control religious environment, based on the story of yours truly. Come and listen to Scott and me chatting about cults, afterlives, and a dash of aliens--and how we both came out, ultimately arriving at a place of peace with our spirituality and our selves. 

Dearest readers: 

It's been a while since I've written because it's been an exhausting couple of months. I'm downtrodden from the constant displays of cruelty, domestically and internationally. All it does is make me want to write, but then I'm too exhausted to write. I need some levity and light. 

So I've decided which of my existing books will be published next: tentatively titled DON'T YOU DARE CLOSE YOUR EYES, a YA sapphic retelling of Disney's "Aladdin" set on an exoplanet with significant Latinx/Mezoamerican cultural influences. I have some vacation time coming up, during which I'll be rewriting the book, and I hope to publish it in 2026 or 2027. Keep an eye out for more! I'm thinking of releasing some excerpts through this newsletter.  

All right, I promised you more substance last time, so here it is. Be careful what you wish for, because this one's a long one (but also lovingly curated, so feel free to skip through and check out all of the awesome resources).