October Recap
Work progress, Halloween, endless sickness
It’s a stormy day today, which somehow feels like an appropriate reflection of my internal, chaotic pre-election anxiety and general rage/grief at the state of the world. My studio is on a second story, and looks out on the neighbor’s huge plum trees, so I feel a bit like I’m in a strange, calm tower surrounded by absolute turmoil outside.
October feels like it passed in a flash. Much of it was a lost in a work blur as I rushed to finish the first of my picture books currently under deadline. And I’m very excited to report that… I DID IT! I FINISHED ONE OF MY BOOKS! It feels like an absolutely massive feat. It always does, but especially this time, considering the many ways in which I’ve been struggling with work over the last couple years.
I haven’t had much time to celebrate however, as now I’m thrust into the thick of my second deadline, for Around the Wheel of the Year, a book I co-created with
, which was just announced in Publisher’s Weekly the other day! Coming Spring 2026 from Chronicle Books.
I’ve had some grief throughout my pregnancy at how much time I’ve had to spend working, rather than resting and luxuriating in this both exhausting and beautiful liminal phase of life. I wish I could be spending more of (what I expect to be) my last pregnancy just soaking it up. But I also feel intensely determined to get a bunch of stuff DONE before my maternity leave so that I can take a (slightly? since I’ll have a toddler too?) more profound break after the baby is born.
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