(How many of you even remember the song that I used as the subject here? Do I even want to know the answer to that?)

Happy September! By now, most kids are likely back in school, temperatures are (finally) starting to dip just a bit, and some people are already excitedly digging all their spooky season decor out of storage. Here in the south, schools have been back in session for a month, but I grew up in Pennsylvania starting after Labor Day, so I'm sending a virtual high five to all the parents who are just now emerging from the chaotic haze of summer break. Cooler temperatures here are still definitely warm, but no longer pushing three digits, for which I am grateful. Gives me more time to commune with my plants.

And yet...

Of course, back-to-school comes with more than just the smell of sharpened pencils and the cacophony of the car line. This week, just a couple days ago, two more children and two more teachers lost their lives to gun violence at the hands of a fellow student, a 14-year-old child who had been gifted a weapon of war by his father. Four lives lost, countless more ruined, including that boy and his family.

If you've read You Shouldn't Be Here, you know that I included an active shooter drill. It's not explicitly what the book is about, but it does speak to the culture that the characters live in, and the power that the villain wields. I decided to write it in after my own kids came home from school last year talking about their own drills—if you haven't had kids in school in the past couple decades, you may not realize that active shooter drills are now a regular part of school life across the country, along with fire and tornado drills—and there's a substitute teacher in the book who callously informs her teenage students after the drill that they'd probably all be dead in a real active shooter situation, since they weren't quiet enough.

Yes, this was a thing that a real substitute teacher actually said to my actual child. In real life, the students were too stunned to push back. In the book, a few of them do, and get sent to the principal's office for their troubles.

Then the story moves on, because the characters have things to do, ghosts to investigate, disappearances to solve. In real life, kids and teachers have to move on to tests and homework, dates and football games and band practice. Some reviews have called You Shouldn't Be Here too "political" or "woke" for including this, and the subsequent conversation characters have about gun control. But the reality is that it would be less realistic to not include an active shooter drill at the beginning of the school year. Most schools in the U.S. have either already had one this school year, or will be having one within the coming weeks. That's the world as it is.

It doesn't have to be this way. It isn't this way in most other countries in the world. Even here in the U.S., deaths from mass shootings dropped significantly during the 10 years in which we had an assault weapons ban, and then jumped up as soon as it expired.

We currently have one presidential candidate who bragged to the NRA that he "did nothing" to change gun laws, and his running mate saying school shootings are just a "fact of life."

The other candidate does not agree, saying that "it does not have to be this way," and has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, and red flag laws. Her running mate has said "I know guns. I’m a veteran and a hunter. But I’m not going to let anyone make this about the Second Amendment when it’s really about our first responsibility to keep our kids safe."

If you are eligible to vote, you can register to vote and/or check your registration status here. Election day is November 5.

Looking toward fall

Speaking of voting, I have two events next week as part of the You Shouldn't Be Here tour, and at both events, I'll be giving away some prizes to a few lucky attendees. All you have to do to be eligible to win is show a valid voter registration (and I'll even have QR codes at the events for people to scan and register/check their registration right there)!

On Thursday, September 12, at 7:15 pm, I will be in conversation with Becky Albertalli at Virginia Highland Books in Atlanta, GA. You can register for that one here.

And then on Saturday, September 14, at 3:00 pm, I will be in conversation with Beth Revis at Firestorm Books in Asheville, NC. You can see more details about that event here.

Both events are free to attend and open to the public, and I think a local baker friend is even bringing a custom cake to the Atlanta event! If you already own a copy of my books, feel free to bring them with you and I'll be happy to sign them! However, if you do bring books from home, I would encourage you to also purchase something at the event to support the bookstore (anything you want; not necessarily one of our books, since they're being gracious enough to open their doors to host us.

But that's not all! On Saturday, September 21, I will be participating in Back to Back Books in Bowling Green, KY, which is taking the place of what used to be the Southern Kentucky Book Festival. If you've attended that one in the past, this festival will be smaller, but will still have plenty of fantastic authors participating.

I'm especially excited that I get to be in conversation with headliner Blake Crouch for his 2:00 presentation! I'm a big fan of his books, and am really looking forward to getting to discuss superpowers, alternate realities, and writing about scientific innovation that feels just baaaaarely out of reach.

In October, you can find me at the Southern Festival of Books here in Nashville the weekend of the 26-27th. The official schedule hasn't been released yet, but I've always enjoyed attending this free festival that brings in tons of fantastic authors. I loved getting to participate from the author side last year, and am looking forward to doing it again next month!

Then in November, I'll be at the Kentucky Book Festival in Lexington, KY on November 2, and at Books By the Banks in Cincinnati, OH on November 16. Look for more details about both events as they get closer!

What else is new?

I am still decompressing from attending my first-ever Bouchercon, which was right on the heels of Killer Nashville. Fortunately for me, both of these mystery/thriller/crime fiction conferences were local, but attending both back to back drained my energy dry, and I've been sloooowly recovering all week.

At both conferences, I participated in and attended some panels, signed books, and spent lots of time hanging out with existing writer friends and getting to know some new ones. I even got to spend some face-to-face time at Bouchercon with my publicist, Megan Beatie, and my editor, Megha Parekh, which was delightful since we typically only get to communicate through email.

Both conferences were a lot of fun, but also extremely draining for this introvert homebody. Suffice it to say, this has not been the most productive of weeks.

I also recently took my oldest kiddo to college—our house feels weirdly empty now, even though there are still three of us here (and two dogs, a bird, and literally hundreds of fish)—and our youngest is back to school, which means that in between all the travel and events, I'm trying to get back to some semblance of a writing schedule. I will admit that I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it.

Currently, I'm in various stages of progress on a couple different books, and also am thinking of trying my hand at some short story writing. I've never spent much time really honing that skill, and I think it would be a good muscle to exercise. Plus I'm in that scary-fun space of having nothing under contract at the moment, which means I can work on whatever I want, but not with quite the same amount of freedom I used to, since I really should attempt to sell something soon if I want to keep up this whole writing-as-a-career thing.

Still, I find I don't feel the same degree of pressure and anxiety I hear other authors express when they're in this space. I'm guessing this is mostly because I spent so long with my agent submitting project after project before we finally sold I'll Stop the World that my brain has already released a lot of the antsiness and impatience that tends to accompany a publishing career. There's nothing quite like taking eight years to sell a book to recalibrate your brain's perception of what a "short" vs. "long" time is, or disabuse you of most illusions of control. So I'm moving forward, but I'm not going to break my back to do it. I wrote You Shouldn't Be Here on a major time crunch, and I'm enjoying the roominess of taking my time with the next one... whatever it may be.

Until next time, here's to happy bees, sleeping in, and remembering to vote.