Happy New Year!

2024. I feel like I've been waiting for this year for, well, forever. Obviously that's not true—I don’t think teenage Chelsey had any thought about the year 2024 beyond, “Ugh, I’ll be so old!”—but this year will be the culmination of a process that began mid-2022, when I randomly decided to write a sapphic novel.

 

I am not a new writer. I’ve been writing stories since I learned how to read and write. The form, however, has morphed over the years, from short fiction in high school to three years of journalism classes in college, to research papers in grad school. From fanfiction in my 20s (don’t bother looking, it’s gone gone) to several years covering women’s soccer for a variety of outlets to attempting multiple fiction novels for NaNoWriMo. I’ve written a lot, but I’ve never published a book.

 

So I wrote one, and it really did start on a whim. The character of Quinn Kennedy came along and just dragged me with her. I finished in late 2022 and spent several months editing before I decided to start submitting to publishers. Why not? I felt like it was good enough (depending on the day), my friends felt like it was good enough, and what’s the worst that could happen? They could say no, said my rejection-sensitive dysphoria (thank you, ADHD).

 

But the thing is…they didn’t. The wonderful people at Bold Strokes Books took a chance, and here we are. 60 days until it’s available through the BSB website, 71 days until widespread publication. That’s wild. That’s WILD. The process has felt very long at times, and now that it’s almost here, it has felt very fast. I’ve been trying to build a social media following and learn how to market and create a website and editing again and again and proofing…all while writing my second novel (which now has a deadline-eek!).

 

So, I have been waiting on 2024. It’s here, and I’m so excited to watch people fall in love with Quinn and Chloe while they try so hard not to fall for each other. More on those two later, but for now, thank you for reading, thank you for visiting my website, and thank you for supporting the sapphic romance community.

 

Be kind and show love.

 

xoxo Chelsey