I'm Writing a Book

About a week ago I sent out my normal mid-month email. About an hour later I got a text message from one of my oldest friends congratulating me for signing a book contract. She's not very active on social media, and hadn't seen my announcement post on Instagram.

So consider this my official newsletter subscriber announcement:

I get to write the book I desperately needed between 2015 and 2020, when I was painfully rebuilding my identity as a Christian woman from the ground up. I needed to know that there was another way to be a faithful Christian outside of the restrictions that I felt within patriarchal religious structures. I did eventually come to a new understanding of the world and myself, cultivating self-compassion, and learning to embody my Christian faith in a wildly different way than I was raised.

In 2021, I decided to write a memoir. I quit a toxic job with no real plan. In 2022, I stepped into a new role with Parish Collective that began to heal my church hurt and remind me of my place with other Christians outside of my neighborhood faith community. That year I also wrote a 55,000 word manuscript about my simultaneous deconstruction and reproductive journeys (and also got back into therapy to process all of that). My dear friends Erin and Marissa served as my primary readers of those raw words on the page.

In 2023 I wrote a book proposal for my memoir. Several friends in the publishing industry generously looked at it and helped me improve it (special thanks to Sarah Carter and Shannan Martin). Eventually, I learned that memoirs are nearly impossible to sell unless you’re famous or tragic, so I pivoted. (RIP Meeting the Mother: On Being Born Again Into the Feminine Heart of God, writing you was very therapeutic for me, and honestly, you are perfectly tragic). In 2023 I started coming into my identity as a lay theologian and neighborhood pastor and I rewrote the proposal with the help of Gemma Hartley and Shannan Evans, focusing on the larger theological, cultural and other systemic issues beneath my story.

Last October I signed with my agent Morgan, and in February she started sending it to editors. In March I had calls to discuss the proposal with editors at two publishing houses, and in April I got an offer from Jessica at Westminster John Knox. In early May I signed the contract and got to writing!

As of this morning I'm 25,000 words deep into my new manuscript and so thrilled that I get to write this book. It's set to publish in September 2026.

I solemnly swear to keep you in the loop, dear newsletter subscriber, and offer you news FIRST next time.