Want to predict the future? Write a novel.

Is it a coincidence, or am I psychic? No, wait, it's a third thing...

Writing a novel is a psychic experience. I’ve suspected as much for quite some time, but I worry that I sound a little off my rocker when I say it, like someone who puts a lot of stock in TV mediums or Tony Robbins. I do not. But I do put a lot of stock in patterns.

My debut novel is a queer romance, yes, but it’s more broadly a book about change and growing pains that was heavily inspired by my hometown coffeeshop. It felt a little on the nose, then, that shortly before that book’s publication, that coffeeshop closed its doors for good.

I felt like I had jinxed it, that writing my novel had been the equivalent of casting a spell. Pour one dirty chai latte and the concept of change into a cauldron and…voilà. So it is written, so it shall be. But that sounds silly, yes? The thought that my work of fiction could predict something like a business shutting down?

Emma Gannon doesn’t think it’s silly. She’s one of my favorite Substack writers, and last week, I was relieved to read her post about the psychic nature of writing a novel. Emma’s experience with her debut wasn’t unlike mine: she wrote her first book, then watched the themes and events of that work of fiction play out in her nonfictional life.

Is this all a coincidence? Human beings trying to make magical sense out of a life that has never promised anything but mess? Perhaps, but I believe that we write what we know, and it makes good sense to me that a deeper part, a part only accessible to me through writing, knows something before my outside world catches up.

Which brings us to my second book. When I first set out to write it, I didn’t plan on writing about grief. For the Bride was meant to be a wedding rom-com a la the movie Bridesmaids (and it is!), but the more that I wrote, the more that a minor detail—the death of the main character’s father—grew into a major detail and eventually became the lens through which we experience the entire story. Alice is grieving the loss of her dad when she’s asked to be a bridesmaid in her best friend’s wedding, and the book is her balancing act between grief and joy, bereavement and celebration. Alice concludes in the end that, “it’s always and, never or. Grief and joy. Light and dark. Multitudes, all playing out at once.”

Friends, I lost my grandfather this week. This Saturday, we’ll lay him to rest; then, two weeks after that, I will set out on my book tour to celebrate the release of my second novel. Like Alice, I will try to balance it all, and while I don’t really think I cast a spell by writing about grief in For the Bride, I do think I did what I needed to do before I knew I needed to do it. Writing this book was an exercise in learning to grieve; it had me digging up and processing repressed grief and working through feelings about people I may lose soon. There were times during the writing process that felt truly impossible. I was paralyzed by this thing that I had to keep writing about and somehow spin a happy ending out of it. I had nothing to give and still had to find a way to give this book my all, and I’m not sure how I did it, but I’ll do it again and again. I can do it; Papa told me so.

It’s always and, never or. Grief and joy. Light and dark. Multitudes, all playing out at once.

It was a couple weeks ago, the day Papa and I said our goodbyes. We had a nice long visit, several hours of the Cubs game and conversation in his room at the rehab facility. When my dad left to pick up Grandma, it was just Papa and me; I pulled up a chair to his bedside and laid my hand over his, his skin so soft and tissue paper thin. We talked about baseball and music and love, and Papa reminisced on a birthday surprise I pulled off for his 90th, more bounce in his voice than I’d heard in a long time. His blue eyes were as bright as I’ve ever seen them when he looked at me and said, “I really think you can do anything.”

Sp I will approach these next few weeks with the same confidence my grandpa had in me. I will grieve. I will write. I will celebrate and sign books and watch the Cubs play. I will balance it all because I can do anything. So Papa says, so it shall be.

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It’s a weird time to be marketing a book, but I do hope you’ll join me on my book tour for For the Bride. It’s easier to celebrate through the grief with a few friendly faces in the crowd. Love you all.