If you bought Sublimation, I hope you’re enjoying Sublimation. If you haven’t bought Sublimation, please buy Sublimation, and then you will have bought Sublimation. Or convince your local library to pick it up.
Cool and good things have been happening for Sublimation: USA Today Bestseller List! Amazon “best books of 2026 so far” in the SFF section! Spotify, Apple Books, and Audible Staff Picks of the Month for the audiobook! Other stuff I’m not remembering because I’m on the way back from a wedding and very tired! It has been an embarrassment of riches, really, and I hope the novel continues to find its readers (and if you’re in the UK/not the USA or Canada: Sublimation will be out in your area in like, two weeks).
If you’re in Chicago, there are signed copies at Madison Street Books and Unabridged Bookstore. If you’re in New York, there are signed copies at Yu & Me Books and Dungeon Books in JC, and there will probably be more signed copies sporadically around as I go sign stuff later this week.
Going on an author tour is a little bit like being a real d-list celebrity. You haul your ass around different locations and try your best to be charming and have good conversations with people and if you do your job right, then people go “alright. I’ll buy that book.” Crazy how that works. To everyone I saw in real life: it was lovely to meet you, and thank you for coming out!
We’re doing two things here today. First, restaurant recommendations from places I hit up while on tour. Second, things I’ve learned on book tour. Feel free to scroll to whichever is most interesting. There’s going to be a secondary missive later this week where I talk about everyone I talked to’s books, but this post was already getting sort of long.
IZ FOOD RECCS
Cool Restaurants and Cafes I Went To (Because in Another Life I Was A Food Influencer):
Pamela’s Diner in PGH
Someone recced this to someone I was with (I forget the details). I went here with some of my other author friends before the book festival really got rolling. It was a cute little diner with very nice waitstaff and really good crepe pancake things that I’m forgetting the name of. The regular breakfast stuff was good too—though I’m biased by loving diners just generally speaking.
Pranakhon in NYC
I’ve tried to go here like three times randomly walking in and they’ve always been busy (I think this is more due to my bad luck then them being particularly vibey). The Tor team and I went here for dinner pre-Strand-book-launch and it was really good Thai food, I don’t have anything exciting to say other than I’d come back here on a date.
Yafa in Boston
This place was SO cute. And their chai and baklava was incredible, as was the Jerusalem bread. They give free samples when you walk in, which completely sold us on getting way too much baklava because the samples were amazing. Had a really nice breakfast here with very good company :> (And this was Rebecca’s suggestion, shout out to R.F. Kuang for elite taste in cafes)
The Place in Guilford
J and I stumbled upon this completely randomly on google maps while we were trying, and the idea of it was so wild to me that I was like I Guess We’re Eating Dinner Here Tonight. As an experience it kind of ruled. Weirdly good steak. Clams were a little gritty but tasty and the experience was good enough that I can deal with a little sand.
Frank Pepe Pizza Napoletana in New Haven
This place has been around since 1928, and J had been meaning to check it out for years. I was obviously on board because: pizza. We got the clam pizza and their seasonal special, and next time I would get two clam pizzas because they were fire. Think spaghetti vongole but pizza.
IZ TOUR
Things I have learned from being on tour:
People actually read this newsletter and my website. That’s quite alarming to me. Maybe I should up the production value of this content. You gotta understand, when I write these, I mostly feel like I’m monologuing onto a page, so now I’m a bit like. Hm. Perhaps we should make this a better experience for the reader.
I need to wear makeup and put on a nice shirt for podcast appearances, I keep forgetting that video podcasts exist. There were a bunch of times where I thought I could get away with wearing whatever garbage I threw on or that the lack of makeup wouldn’t make that much of a difference, and boy, was I wrong. If you’re doing podcasts, remember my words. Wear something you’re ok being videotaped in. I fucked up multiple times with this.
I’m not very used to being photographed or videoed and my god. I get why celebrities get eating disorders. Sorry, a couple of these bullets aren’t very girlboss realizations, but I’m both very vain and used to being able to control my image. That I can’t control it as much anymore actually really bugs me, as does the double standard between what guys can get away with and what women can get away with regards to appearances.
This is sort of a weird profession, in that the act you commit to enter it is introspective and independent, and then the act you commit to get people to read your novel is extroverted and very much about making connections. These are, in some ways, mutually exclusive skillsets, and it troubles me, a little, that we may be selecting for one and not the other in our authors.
I’m lucky: I actually really like talking to people! It’s been fun! Thank god I have a podcast so that I’ve practiced doing it! So far, my favorite type of event has been doing an “in conversation” thing with another author, and I also really like doing signings and having a Quick Chat with people. That being said, I live in fear of fucking up someones personalization.
It’s way scarier to do an event when your mom is in the audience than to do an event in front of strangers. Very scary. Very very scary. It was very sweet of her and my dad to buy a book at both events she showed up at, though. And it was really wonderful seeing a bunch of people from different parts of my life all showing up in a bizarre crossover episode.
Train is by far my favorite way to travel. It’s weirdly relaxing and I usually get a bunch of work done (I wrote a lot of this newsletter on the train).
Even if it’s June, you have to bring a sweatshirt everywhere you stay because hotel rooms….cold. Train….sometimes cold. Plane….sometimes cold.
After a while, I began to feel like I was in a separate liminal location other than wherever I was physically located, and that liminal location was called “traveling” even though I technically had a couple of days at home between Pittsburgh and Boston.
I don’t know how people do extended tours. I was doing things for a week and that was already a lot. I can’t imagine being on the road for like…two weeks….three weeks…
I’m always freaking forgetting what book I’m reading whenever I get asked. It’s driving me nuts actually, everyone asks about what I’m reading and the problem is I read a lot less when I’m drafting, and also I keep forgetting titles as soon as anyone asks about them. I have to start keeping a list so that this stops being a problem. I will probably learn nothing from this.
Instagram isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and neither is making video/photo content. Maybe in another life I would have been an influencer.
It’s sort of humbling to realize that real human people liked the words that I wrote, and that the real human people will go to a location to hear me speak about them. I write fiction mostly in the vain hope that my heart can reach out of its chest and grab yours in its metaphorical fist. It’s a little startling to find out that I am occasionally effective.
anyway, that’s all! I’m going to pop in your inbox later this week with a bunch of book reccs and media reccs though, for, you know, when you’re done with sublimation 😉 (ok the real answer is that everyone i talked to was cool as hell and was someone who’s books I already loved, and woe, book reccs be upon ye)