Exciting news + how to get a nonfiction book deal

The route can be pretty twisted—very slow, and then very fast.

Well, it’s official: We got a book deal (and we can publicly announce it)! 🎉🎉🎉

I say “we” because that’s how it feels. So many people helped me get here—contributing their stories and expertise, reminding me to take breaks and touch grass via group text, listening to me talk about sibling abuse for the gazillionth time. It’s that validation and support—over years of struggle!—that’s made this project possible.

If you’re in my close circle, you’ve already heard a bit about what I’m up to (ha), but now that the Publishers Marketplace announcement is here, it feels really real.

So thank you. 🥹

Today, I wanted to share a quick update. My manuscript is in, we’ve undergone edits, and we’re onto next steps. The expected pub date for THE TIES THAT HARM is in early 2027.

To celebrate this milestone, I wanted to write a little reflection (which, on-brand-for-me, became quite long) about the book-writing process: How do you write a nonfiction book? How do you query an agent? How do you pitch it to publishers? And how do you get a book deal? The route can be pretty twisted—very slow, and then very fast. Let me take you on a journey…

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On April 23, 2025, my now-publisher made an offer around 7:30 pm. My agent and I talked through next steps, and an hour later, it was settled. I walked into the living room, shared the news with my husband, and burst out sobbing. I had been thinking about this book, this book built out of pain and confusion and the desire for healing and truth in the face of an unnamed trauma, this book I had written something like four times from the age of 16 to 32, and now, finally, someone wanted it.

I want to share my path here because just one more example of how it got done could help another writer looking for a roadmap feel a bit more supported. We don’t talk enough about the journey from years and years of writing alone and taking care of your little book baby you can’t help but believe in (at least on good days) to querying, getting an agent, editing the proposal, sending it out to publishers, and—dream scenario—getting a deal.

Here’s my story, plus some publishing advice (skip ahead to the highlights and bullets for key takeaways and resources).

Portrait of the artist as a young reader

Back to the beginning…

I read constantly growing up. Early in elementary school, I learned about the Holocaust in the GAP program. I remember one day, our instructor pulled us out of class and took us into a room where the tables were covered with black and white Holocaust photos. Walking silently from photo to photo, I became obsessed. I needed to learn more, and as soon as possible. The historical fiction section in the library became my home. I read every book I could find on the Holocaust. A fire had been lit.

After I read Anne Frank’s diary, I started trying to keep my own. It took a while—writing off and on for years—to finally make journaling a habit. In middle school and high school, it shifted into a compulsion. I’d get home, lock myself in my room, sit down at my desk, and write about depression and fear and my chaotic older brother.

Starting with Ms. Abee in sixth grade, my English teachers took me under their wing. Ms. Abee recommended I read The Scarlet Letter for our big book report project, so I did. She put my essays up on the projector as examples for other classmates. I glowed. Sophomore year, Ms. Smith did the same. The other student whose essays were pulled as examples was Thomas, one of my best friends, and we dreamed about being writers together, trespassing to journal in open fields, perusing the magazines in Border’s (RIP).

My junior year, I entered the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards, and although my creative writing didn’t place—which made me feel sad and rejected—I did get a national award for a persuasive essay against censorship.

My parents brought my little sister and me from Tennessee to New York City for the awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall, a big deal for people who only traveled for semi-annual beach vacations. It felt important. I was high with joy and potential, gazing up at the first skyscrapers I’d ever seen in the busiest, biggest, most alive city I’d ever been. I felt worth something as I read Sylvia Plath’s name on a line of banners displaying past winners. I quickly walked on and off stage when my name was called and did something I wouldn’t normally do: I flirted with a boy, an artist, in front of me.

Soon after, UNC-Chapel Hill’s writing program sent me a letter encouraging me to apply for a creative writing scholarship. The application was 50 pages of writing. I sped through a would-be novel called A Splendid Invisiblity (yes, it was really called that 😬), and proudly showed my favorite English teacher it all printed out after my high school sweetheart pressured me to be proud.

Like my close friends, I saw an Ivy League education as my escape. I didn’t get into any of my dream schools, and Chapel Hill waitlisted me after inspiring me to apply for that damn scholarship, but my backup, College of Charleston, was six hours from home, and I wanted to get away. Although I didn’t have the words for it yet, I understood that I needed to leave my childhood home in order to break free.

An education

At Charleston, I took creative writing classes with Bret Lott and Emily Rosko, switching from poetry to fiction and finally creative nonfiction. Not long into sophomore year, I wrote a book in a month, signed up for overtime hours, and tacked on a second part-time job. I felt like I was working on a master theory of the universe, stopped sleeping, and quickly spun out of control. Looking back, I now understand it was my first major depressive and hypomanic episode.

Lott helped me get a personal essay about Italy published in College of Charleston Magazine. I presented at English Day on Madness and Creativity about the Romantic Era. And after an intro to philosophy class and one world religions class, I became obsessed with both, but ultimately got a degree in what I was still focused on—English and creative writing. Restless and with just enough AP credits to get away with it, I graduated a year early.

I applied for a Fulbright to study Buddhism in Thailand and teach poetry and got berated at the review panel for pitching something so aimless and unmarketable. I got waitlisted, then dropped.

Broke, I had to move back home. I did freelancing for pennies on oDesk (now Upwork) and felt dried up, like my degree was worth nothing. Teaching ESL seemed like the next opportunity to get away and make a little money. I applied for a job in South Korea but didn’t pass the initial screening because I was on antidepressants. I applied for another gig in a small town in Poland and got it.

I fell in love with Poland and wrote another book (none of these “books,” I knew, were publisher-ready). I loved teaching ESL—the cultural exchange, friendship, and conversation with high school and adult students, the simplicity of the lesson planning for kids, no take-home work. I tried to get a job in Spain after my year was up, but they wanted to pay me under the table, and I wasn’t willing to take that risk. I returned home, got a community college tutoring job, and applied for grad school.

I wanted to apply for a PhD in religious studies, but my closest mentor in undergrad had fallen ill and couldn’t write a recommendation. I also worried about the financial viability of a degree in religion and philosophy, so I decided to apply for an MFA in creative nonfiction instead. I vividly remember my mouse hovering over the application button for UNC-Wilmington. Was I really going to pay $60 just to get rejected? I almost didn’t do it, because $60 felt like too much. It was a big investment for me at the time.

Months later, UNCW was the only school that accepted me, with a graduate teaching assistantship.

Tuition was waived year one, second and third years I believe I made a $13,000 stipend (something around there). I don’t know why I thought I could live on that and freelancing, or how I did. I could hardly afford half of a one-bedroom apartment and started going into credit card debt. My boyfriend at the time—from a hyperwealthy family—literally lived on his mother’s credit card. Our relationship was not equitable, and by the time I got to Wilmington, it was clearly abusive.

I remember I fantasized about coconut shampoo like the kind my aunt had at her house, little luxuries. Because of the abuse, I developed severe anxiety and struggled to leave the house for anything but work or groceries without a black lab we adopted.

My beloved Forr. 🧡

I worked so much I hardly had time to write or consider leaving. Didn’t have enough money anyway. During the MFA, I wrote the least while trying to afford the program with minimal debt.

My first reading, my boyfriend got up on stage and cussed out the entire room. I was so humiliated it felt like ego death. Not long after that, I found myself on the other end of a locked door as he tried to kick it off its hinges to get in. Not long after that, one of my few acquaintances offered a spare bedroom for something like $500, a blessing I could afford. Finally, I got out.

My Holocaust Narratives professor, Katie Peel, recommended me for a graduate assistantship in the English department to help Mark Boren, another professor, create a database on the history of student protest. He encouraged what quickly became a hyperfixation on Serbia, Otpor!, and their support of movements for democracy around the world. He gave me an extension into summer to make a little more money.

I became obsessed with power and resistance (this is a story of many obsessions). Boren mirrored my enthusiasm and encouraged me to write my first oped for the News & Observer on the absurd disparity between graduate teaching assistants’ poverty and debt and the president’s salary, mansion, and perks. I reached out to CANVAS, Otpor’s legacy organization, and considered moving to Serbia, but I met someone who made me want to stay before I could take off again.

Half a year later, my acquaintance’s boyfriend became abusive and ultimately targeted both of us. This was the most extreme domestic violence I’d ever experienced. I moved to the beach 30 minutes away just to feel safe.

In the midst of all this chaos—two back-to-back moves due to domestic violence—my thesis was so ragged I worried I wouldn’t get my MFA. My advisor, David Gessner, was gently supportive. Another, Clyde Edgerton, said it was ready to send out (a kindness). Another, who shall not be named, railed at me for most of the defense, covered her copy in red ink, and suggested that I did not know how to write about the topic we were both drawn to.

I hate to say that the experience left its mark, but I also want to be honest because the way our mentors treat us matters. I did not revisit my thesis for about five years after that.

Shortly before a tough defense.

Into the real world

Out of the MFA, I made very little money freelancing. My first gig was $25 blog posts for clients like flooring and home organization companies. I also got another community college tutoring gig. I can’t even begin to list the many terrible writing gigs I ran through. One of the worst, I remember, was focused on male enhancement supplements (welp).

I had this strong feeling that I was too good for this work. I didn’t have any reason to believe that, actually—I belonged in the trenches like any beginner—but I just felt like I deserved better. Ira Glass speaks to this well: the gap between taste and ability. I wanted to write about other things, important things. I wanted to get back to New York City but assumed I couldn’t afford it. At the very least, for a little dignity, I needed money I could live on. I often cried over credit card bills as the debt would not stop piling up.

The breakthrough came when I saw a job post on Binders (a group for women writers on Facebook). A journalist with a decade of experience was offering an internship, $10/hour. I applied immediately. Soon after, she hired me. She taught me everything—how to email sources, find sources, structure an article, quote, paraphrase, research, cite, pre-research, pitch, ask for more $$$ (“Always ask for more money!” she chanted). Then she hired me as her assistant, with a raise. Eventually, she gave me two editors to pitch, and they accepted me. Other editors began to accept pitches on spec. The clips slowly built up.

Since leaving an abuser and losing a dear friend to another, I’d always wanted to write about domestic violence. After I read Rachel Louise Snyder’s No Visible Bruises, I saw my path. I dedicated my career to it.

My first print story was on supporting domestic violence survivors.

After a handful of low-income years, I was in inescapable debt. When my grandmother broke her hip and back, my then-fiance and I moved in to take care of her. During COVID, I made about $45,000, then $60,000, full-time freelancing. I wrote about anything anyone would pay me for. I tried to carve out beats in domestic violence, mental health, and trauma, but I was constantly battling burnout.

In late December, I got a surge of energy, stopped sleeping, got a ton of amazing ideas, called up all my friends to share them, and thought I could write a book in a week. I pitched major outlets and got in. By June, I had to take the whole month off. What I didn’t know then—or really, wasn’t ready to accept yet—was that these brief blips of bliss followed by long depressions were hypomanic episodes.

I got out of debt after a year, but caregiving for my slowly dying grandmother in a rural area, overwork, and the fall of Roe drove me into the deepest depression of my life.

My husband and I moved back to North Carolina for a senior health writer opportunity with a startup. I did not like the culture, but they offered around $78K for easy SEO articles and I was burned out, so I could not say no. We were able to buy a new mattress, bed frame, couch, have some emergency savings, but the depression got far worse. In my early 30s, I was finally diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, and—at last—found medication that worked.

The newfound joy and clarity allowed me to quit my soul-killing job and get a part-time job tutoring at a community college (again). The pay was surprisingly pretty good ($41/hour), and I realized I could comfortably and happily live on less. I freelanced part-time and wrote for a domestic violence nonprofit part-time (another Binders gig).

The medication gave my life a level of stability I did not understand until I saw the results months later. While I was always creative, hard-working, and fixated on the same topic I’d been writing about since 16, now I could outline a book, set monthly goals, schedule writing sessions, and finish a book. I did so according to my own schedule, in one year.

My husband and I were on the lower end of middle class by then, living paycheck to paycheck. I’d saved up some money from the corporate job, but I still had this constant fear of not being able to make rent. In a desperate bid at financial stability, I decided to apply for a Masters in social work (a choice I’ve since learned doesn’t make sense).

Agent shopping + going on submission

In the meantime, I wrote a query letter (thanks, Jane Friedman). And a book proposal (Jane Friedman, everybody!). Here is my very quick guide to the proposal, what I call the best worst part.

I ultimately queried dozens of agents, searching through listings on Manuscript Wishlist, and later, paying for a one-month subscription to Publishers Marketplace to look for dealmakers with their search tool. I got a request for 50 pages from a dream agent, then 100 pages, then a form letter rejection to which I said, No notes?! About ten manuscript/proposal requests from others followed.

I got into the social work program. Toured the campus. Did all the signups. I tried to be positive, but it sort of felt like giving up.

One agent asked for a call after reading the query letter and one chapter. We clicked. She was a major dealmaker. Against logic—because I should have thoroughly considered all options, right?—I canceled all other agent calls and went with her a few days later. (Reader, it was the right decision).

With one week left to commit, I deferred the social work program. I wanted to write the damn book. School would get in the way. I knew with this agent I had a chance. I gave it my all. It was, I told myself, the better investment.

One major problem: My book proposal did not match my query; I had promised sweeping creative nonfiction and delivered a memoir with 5% research. My agent encouraged me to seek an agent for a memoir, if I’d like, or write the bigger book with her. Another agent was, indeed, interested—but only if it was memoir. I decided to try to live up to my own vision. That meant interviews with dozens of survivors, a few experts, and a completely reworked proposal and sample chapters.

I’m shocked and a little dismayed to say it took about eight months, but it takes time to write when you’re working full-time. We edited it. My agent and her assistant sent me a pitch letter and list of editors/pubs. I sent potential titles. They suggested a better one. We sent it out on a Wednesday in April.

A few days later, we got a call request. Then another. And then another.

The next week, we had calls Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Friday editor asked to shift to Monday, a good sign. We agreed. Monday happened to be the one day I had off from the tutoring center.

The next day, we got the offer.

And…that was it. We were on to the next step. ~The fun part.~

Some light reading.

Going on submission (a.k.a. pitching publishers) was the single most anxiety-inducing, terrifying, exciting experience of my life.

No one…had told me this. No one had really walked me through the proposal or querying—the best guide I had was Jane Friedman. And no one had talked to me about going “on sub” as they put it. I wish I’d any idea how much of an emotional upheaval it could be.

I cried for hours the day we went on submission (Don’t know why! Was just emotional and terrified!). When we met, I fell in love with editors’ stories, how they connected with mine, and their editorial visions. When we made the book deal, my heart exploded.

Going on submission was one hundred thousand times harder than querying. Most nights, I couldn’t sleep or only sunk into this shallow semi-sleep, my brain playing book talk and trying to predict the future.

It was a unique hell. And, of course, you also know you’re blessed, and you worry about complaining to your friends who desperately want to be in your shoes, but you also desperately need people to talk to.

If you are here or will be soon, join On Submission on Facebook, where you can post anonymously. It helps.

Looking back, I can think of a few things I’d tell anyone who wants to do this.

What worked for me and what I learned:

• Weave writing and reading into the margins of your life. I wrote in my phone when I woke up with ideas, wrote in the bath after work, wrote weekends, wrote at work when I could get away with it. I tracked reading in an Excel sheet and used that reading as fuel for writing. Nothing—nothing—was an excuse not to write.

• Pay your bills in whatever way preserves your ability to write. I learned that it was best for me to live on as little as possible to pursue the bigger goal. It was risky, and financial stress was my biggest stress, but it was worth the time I had to write. As much as I dreamed of being a full-time journalist, doing quite a bit of content writing and tutoring at a community college—a lighter lift plus a social outlet—helped preserve brain power for projects I cared more about.

• Never stop pitching.

• Always ask for more money.

• Read your idols and copy their roadmap. Follow them. Read their bios. Try to do what they did, as much as you can. Hell, reach out to them. Many will respond. Some could become friends and mentors.

• Build a beat. Set up Google Alerts for what you want to write about. Read all the books to learn the history you don’t know yet but need to know. See yourself as a part of a community and conversation, and strive to become an expert so you can contribute. Think of this as a yearslong, never-ending project—an awesome one!

• Kick the door open and join online support communities to network. LinkedIn, Binders, and Twitter gave me opportunities I never would have gotten otherwise. I didn’t realize until I wrote this what a major role Binders played in my life, and I’m forever grateful. (Also true: for every acceptance, there were far more rejections).

• Use Publisher’s Marketplace to search for agents.

• Query a lot and fast. Rip off the band-aid.

• Follow your gut. Choose an agent you trust who deeply understands your decisions and pushes you to be better.

• Celebrate every step. It’s a long haul.

• Be prepared for your mental health to be shattered on submission. Do everything you can to support it. For me, that looked like heavy rap, heavy climbing and lifting workouts, long hikes with a friend, distractions, touching grass, dinners and group chats with friends. A husband who insisted I go to bed. Use your full toolkit. You will need it.

• If it dies on submission, mourn and then write the next book. See FB’s On Submission and Sub Stories for more insight. You’re far from alone. Sometimes it takes two, three, eight books. The only difference between authors who find success and those who do not are the authors who eventually find success never gave up (Nina de Gramont said something like that, and I think she was right!).

Looking back, there were many times I could have given up, so many rejections over the years. The most important work usually pays the least. Issues with trauma and mental health complicated my journey at times, but I thought they were important to include in this story, to show some bumps on the road and the importance of personal and professional support. Writing about it, shaping it into art and service, also helped.

If you like to write, if writing is what you do, you just keep doing it. You know this already. It is not a choice or a hobby. It is just what you do because you are a writer.

If you have a story to tell, tell it. Think of someone out there who is just waiting for you to write the book, think about your past self who needed it.

That’s it. Just keep going.