I knew that, at some point in December, I would be able to feel the rich smugness of having drawn a comic ahead of time to save me from myself—and we have reached that point! Little do you know, simply by gazing upon it, that I drew this comic two weeks ago.

This past weekend I was in New York, meeting my new editor for the first time (hi Lea!) and the rest of my fabulous publishing team (hi Nicole, Lauren, et. all!), not to mention spending some wonderful downtime with many dear friends. I even got to meet a baby so fresh from the womb that he doesn’t quite have a handle on how to use his own gastrointestinal tract. (Hi Oscar!) All in all, it was pretty great.

Now I’m tired from a long day of travel (it is, I must say, a uniquely unfair feeling to get efficiently across the country from New York only to be stuck in Phoenix for more than twice the time it would’ve taken me to drive to Tucson, but c’est la vie), so instead of writing much more here, I will share a couple of cool things with you:

I have a story called “Pitter Patter” in the latest issue of the Harvard Advocate. New fiction, ready for you right now!

My new novel, Invitation to a Bonfire is in the spring 2018 announcements over at Publisher’s Weekly! Hooray! (N.B. there are SO MANY titles I’m excited to read on this list: 2018 is going to be a great year for fiction. Also, please feel free to pre-order Invitation to a Bonfire from your local indie bookstore, or from wheresoever you are inclined to do such a thing! Then, come June, it will arrive at your doorstep like a gift from the past. Just like, in fact, since that’s what it will be.)

Yay! That’s it! Alabama did us proud.