Some news

A dream is one step closer to becoming a reality.

So besides being my sober date, June 20 now holds additional significance for me. Yesterday I became an agented author represented by Rachelle Gardner.

If you want to write nonfiction or memoir, you must assemble a book proposal and write down your ideas for a book, outline chapters, define your target audience, and draft a few sample chapters. I've had the book I want to write sketched out in my head and various Google Docs for years. And over my sabbatical last month, I finally made space to get it out on paper—forty-one pages, to be exact.

Once you assemble your proposal, you must find an agent to represent you and your book to publishers. If a publisher likes it, that's when you get a book deal and get to the work of bringing the book to life.

I shared my proposal with a few trusted friends hinting that I was looking for an agent, and one of them read it and introduced me to Rachelle Gardner of Gardner Literary. Rachelle helped launch the writing careers of New York Times best-selling authors like Rachel Held Evans, Jen Hatmaker, Austin Channing Brown, and countless others. And she represents some fantastic writers like Sarah Bessey, Marcie Alvis-Walker, Matthias Roberts, Kaitlin Curtis, and Cole Arthur Riley, all of whom I admire and respect.

I thought little would come from the introduction but less than 24 hours after sharing my proposal with her, we were on a Zoom call, and she offered to be my agent. I was and still am in shock over all of this.

I had a few conversations with trusted friends to process everything, and yesterday, on my second sober birthday, I officially signed the contract to have Rachelle represent me and the book I hope to bring into the world. Everything about how this came together felt right, and I am incredibly grateful, humbled, and hopeful for what lies ahead. It all happening on my sobriety date felt significant, too. I acknowledge NONE of this would be possible without my sobriety. Being sober gave me space to dream again about becoming a writer. It got me to take writing classes, get to writing retreats, and have the margin to start writing again here on Substack. And now that dream very well may become a reality.

Thank you for being with me on this journey—now the work begins!