i used to think that happy endings were only in the books I read

"butterfly" by crazy town & love y'all fest

I just got back from Love Y’All Fest in Atlanta and thought I would tell y’all about it! (Yes, I did find myself saying “y’all” SO much more over the past few days . . . it just crept in!)

As a side — not really side, more like an overall framing? — note, I happen to have read several newsletters lately that got more meta about the actual act of drafting a newsletter, like whether you should stick to the same format every time, if you should use bullets, if you should use headers, whatever! I have to say — I do stress about “how to write a newsletter” sometimes, but one of the parts I love about putting one out every week is that I just kinda . . . do it. If I started thinking too hard about whether I’m delivering consistency or whether I should’ve chosen a different format, etc. then it would become more like posting on Instagram lolol which, despite being arguably less WORK I actually find way more stressful.

Which is all to say that I’m just going to chronologically list some of the highlights from my time at Love Y’All in bullet points because that’s what feels easy and natural to me, and Crazy Town’s “Butterfly” is like my clickbait “Number 4 will blow your mind!!!” because you’ll have to wait to see why I chose it for this week’s song.

• True story: I invited myself to Love Y’All the minute I saw Nikki Payne had signed up for it. I basically want to be wherever Nikki Payne is at all times whenever possible, so the minute she announced she was going I was in the comments like, “Are there spots still available?”

• It was so nice to have a festival (relatively) close to home! It took me approximately 7.5 hours to drive there (4.5 hours to get just outside Atlanta and then 3 hours to get to the actual hotel, that is an exaggeration lol but not by much). I listened to some of the audiobook for Laura Piper Lee’s Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair and a steady stream of nostalgic faves (Green Day, The Offspring), so the hours passed like no time at all.

• Jo Segura and Jen Comfort lured me out to karaoke with the promise of their rendition of the Phantom of the Opera duet, and it did NOT disappoint. Other standouts were Julian Winters’ performance of “What’s Up” (he threw parts out to the crowd! when the lyrics go and I step outside he did little steps! this was NOT his first rodeo!) and a rendition of “Stay (I Missed You)” that had me out of my seat and singing along until someone threatened to hand me a mic lolol.

• Jen Comfort also performed “Butterfly” by Crazy Town, a song I have not thought of in what feels like a billion years. I also had never really listened to the lyrics of that song but . . . wow. Poetry month comes early! My favorite portion for the slant rhyme alone:

  Time is passing, I'm asking could this be real?
  'Cause I can't sleep, I can't hold still
  The only thing I really know is she got sex appeal

  Is that too long to get a tattoo of, do you think? Would it fit on my lower back?

• The first day, I got McDonald’s for lunch and who did I run into but the delightful Celestine Martin and Tati Richardson. We spent most of our lunch gassing each other up for the sheet BRILLIANCE of choosing McDonald’s. It’s fast! It’s consistent! I felt like a walking, talking commercial for the rest of the day describing how fucking SMART that decision was, and here I am! Still laying out for one of the most popular brands in the world! Disgusting!

  

  Tati, Celestine, and me glowing because our lunch cost under ten dollars each and only took half an hour. (Photo courtesy of Tati Richardson.)

• I had to moderate a panel on “Setting the Mood” and I was SO nervous for it. If you talked to me in the 24 hours leading up to the panel you already know this because I undoubtedly Made It Your Problem lol. The panel ended up going really well, I think, largely because it turns out it’s not that hard to fill half an hour talking to really smart, lovely people about their wonderful books.

• Then I was on a panel about sports romance, where it was fun to get to talk more about The Art of Catching Feelings, and LOOK at the way Susan Elizabeth Phillips is looking at me!

  

  I grew up reading SEP books, you have no idea! This Heart of Mine! It Had to Be You! Kiss an Angel! Honey Moon! Nobody’s Baby but Mine! Okay, I’ll stop, but this was a big moment for me. If I had known I would’ve brushed my hair lol

• Then came the main part of the festival, where authors got to sign their books and meet readers! It was SO nice to put faces to so many names I recognize from social media, and to anyone who came up to get a book signed or just say something kind about my books, I really really appreciate it!!! It’s beyond special, and just in general I loved spending a weekend surrounded by people who were so passionate and excited about reading romance.

  

  Peep my Phoebe Bridgers “Garden Song” tattoo which I am now realizing I never sent a healed picture of to my tattoo artist and maybe that’s why he’s never posted about it in the two years since I got it. Whoops. (Photo courtesy of Lauren Wright Payne.)

• Like one of the most special things that happened — just LOOK at this art one reader Liam made for me of Asa and Lauren from Cold World!

  

  The flirty little playfulness in this picture! Asa’s hair! Lauren’s tights! I’m obsessed with it.

• By the end of the first day, I was BEAT, but some friends had the right idea to order pizza delivery directly to their room, so I ended up joining them for dinner and hanging out the rest of the night there!

• This is tangent-adjacent, but I was at a baseball game last year with my friend Carmen when she made an offhand comment about how she’d never seen me as an introvert. It kinda floored me, to be honest, because I’ve ALWAYS thought of myself as an introvert. I’m a Pisces. I’m a middle child. I’m an introvert. The idea of hanging out with large groups of people stresses me out; spending a lot of time around people sometimes drains me; I feel awkward making small talk; I have a very high tolerance for Being Alone; in fact I often prefer it; and on and on.

• And YET. I have to say. At this festival, any time I had the choice between Hiding Out in My Hotel Room and actually Going Out and Being with People, I chose the latter! It wasn’t a hard choice, either.

  

  I do want to hang out and have pizza, but I have my priorities.

• (It was this episode btw, which made me feel a little homesick because it was set in Tampa. “He would troll Nebraska Avenue looking for his next victim” the voiceover would say, and I’m just lying back against my pillows, like, aw, Nebraska Avenue, I know that place.)

• So maybe I’m not as introverted as I think! Maybe that’s one of those stories I’ve always told myself about myself that can be rewritten a little. Or also maybe people were just very kind at this festival and the vibes were good and I was feeling it.

• The hotel room pizza hangs were some of my favorites, especially because they led to this gem:

  

  Forget the way SEP was looking at me, LOOK at the eyes CMM has for my friend Megan!!!

• Basically, my friend Megan went to this Hallmark festival where she got to meet many of the channel’s stars, including CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY!!! This picture is now my phone’s lock screen and will remain that way for a long time. I think it’s hilarious.

• My other favorite brand of hangs were the ones in the hotel lobby, where I chatted with so many cool people it’s impossible to list them all. It wasn’t all fun and games, though, because Nikki Payne and I were also on security detail:

  

  Full 360 degree view here — ain’t NOTHING getting past us. (Photo courtesy of Nikki Payne.)

• Nikki was an INCREDIBLE moderator for the “Crafting Chemistry” panel, to the surprise of literally no one. She just lights up every room she’s in, she is SO smart and funny, her books make me laugh and FEEL THINGS, if you are within 7.5 hours of a Nikki Payne event I highly recommend you go. This panel was amazing and I felt so energized and inspired afterward.

  

  Me with fellow Berkley authors Jo Segura and Jenna Levine, whose debuts Raiders of the Lost Heart and My Roommate is a Vampire came out last year! (Photo courtesy of Lauren Wright Payne.)

• Then there was the Battle of the Tropes panel, where we were divided into teams and had to give the hard sell for our assigned trope. Julian Winters did a brilliant job MC-ing, which is not a plot twist if you were paying attention about the way he killed at karaoke. I feel like my team was robbed, not based on any actual evidence but just based on the natural competitiveness that arises the moment I’m put in a team and pitted against another team lol.

  

  WHAT am I doing here. Posing for a board game box? The section on Clubs and Activities in a college brochure? Overacting for Tyra’s catalog photo shoot that is the one time it’s okay to be Commercial, apparently? The next shots are of me looking at my watch and me pretending to hail a taxi cab. (Photo courtesy of Lauren Wright Payne.)

• After the conference was all over, I went out for a fancy dinner with some people and it just felt like the perfect ending to a perfect weekend. Some things I’ll remember from that dinner: how cool Jen Comfort looks walking backward in her long coat; how passionate Jo Segura can get about beans; Elizabeth Everett saying “pearly tip” a lot; how it took going all the way to Atlanta to get me to get together with Paige Lavoie who’s from Orlando and a delight; how fucking DEEP the guy’s voice was who refilled our water, truly I can’t do it justice, it was an INCREDIBLE voice; the way headlights from parked cars would BLAST us through the window like we were in a police interrogation; if I’m being honest my Introvert Tendencies most come out around dinners like this because I get such anxiety about ordering the wrong thing, saying something stupid, having to pay a lot of money, possibly spilling something on myself, you name it, I’m worried about it. But it was lovely.

• My Introvert Tendencies also come out in that I always look forward to quiet moments I have to myself in an otherwise jam-packed trip. In Atlanta, one of those came when I walked over to a local bike/coffee shop, Guild + Journeyman, which was just charming. Perfect vibes.

• The man working there made me a latte in the 20 oz. tumbler I had with me, but it only filled it up halfway. “I could make you a double, but then you’d be supercharged,” he said kindly, like he was really looking out for my caffeine intake. Then he seemed to think better of it. “Do you want a double?”

• I asked if I could also order a pastry, and there was only one left. “It’s a day old,” he said, “so you can have it on the house.” It was something with pistachio, and it was delicious. He saw my name tag and asked how the conference was going. “You’re a writer?” asked another woman who was either a regular or who also worked there, I have no idea. “That’s wonderful.” There’s something very uniquely lovely about being engaged with as a writer by someone who’s not super plugged into the industry and only has something simple and genuine to say like, “That’s wonderful.” I can’t explain it but I really cherish it.

  

• Of course y’all know I’ve been on my bike journey, which I had to mention since I was standing in a bike shop. They were so pleased to find out that I’d found my way back to biking. “You feel so free, don’t you?” the woman said. “You feel like a kid again.” I don’t know why I’m bringing myself to tears writing about this half hour I spent in this bike/coffee shop lol, but anyway, I highly recommend it if you’re in Decatur.

• One thing I did not do much of this past weekend was SLEEP, between the way the light from the lobby came in through my inadequately-curtained window and then housekeeping came INTO MY ROOM at SIX FIFTY IN THE MORNING on checkout day. Like, I’m leaving in a few hours and then you can turn the room! Does housekeeping even usually come the morning of checkout? I was so baffled. But at least I was able to roll over, bleary-eyed and not wearing my glasses yet, to see a picture on my phone’s lock screen of Chad Michael Murray looking lovingly at my friend.

Overall, I had a great time at Love Y’All Fest. I know these festivals can get expensive, and can be stressful — I’ve laid out some of the ways I myself get stressed about them! But there’s just something so fucking pure about being in a space surrounded by people who feel like YOUR people, who have strong opinions about tropes, who talk about fictional characters like they’re real, who understand that things like “should they kiss in the rain or should they kiss under the mistletoe” ARE craft questions, actually . . . if you’re into romance and this kind of thing sounds fun to you and you have a chance to go, I think you should! My main pieces of advice are to make sure you carve out time to eat (McDonald’s is always a valid option); push yourself a bit to go out and meet people; but also know your limits and know that sometimes there’s FOMO and sometimes there’s JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) when going back to your room and watching Friends reruns is the best possible use of your time and energy.

Currently reading . . . I powered through a bunch of books before the festival because I was moderating a panel with those authors on it, so I’m going to give you a quick reason why you should pick up each of them:

• Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair by Laura Piper Lee - I love Laura’s voice! It’s so funny and fresh and engaging. Hannah Tate is a new mom whose baby daddy ex is low-key a piece of shit but don’t worry because there’s RIVER. Gorgeous, technophobic, thoughtful, gentle River.

• A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalia Caña - The HISTORY between Lola and Saint, I was trash for it. In the opening chapter, set back in high school, you find out that Lola is the one who gave him his nickname. It’s a scene that I really felt in my gut and then when they meet back up in the present (with their abuelos at each other’s throats in the nursing home lol) I was HOOKED.

• Kiss and Spell by Celestine Martin - One thing I love about this cozy romantasy is the way that Xavier and Ursula’s relationship develops slowly, as a true friendship into a courtship. Sometimes I think about how few dates we actually get to see in romance novels! You can just really see how they care about each other and respect each other. This *is* the second book in a series, and it does one of those things I love where it takes an “unlikeable” character from the first book and you get to see her in a deeper and more nuanced way, so while I highly recommend this book you can also start with Witchful Thinking and then read this book after if you want that experience!

• The Single Dad Project by Naima Simone - I have already been a Little Weird in Naima’s DMs about this book lol. I just think the first chapter in particular is a MASTER CLASS. Because she has to get these two characters to meet at the bar and decide to have a one-night stand, she has to make it hot, but she has to add some vulnerability, too, and man does it deliver!!

watching . . . In hotel rooms, I just want to watch TV that is comforting and familiar. Friends reruns are always on, and they happened to be toward the end of the show, so I got to see Monica and Chandler’s wedding and also the series finale. Because of that, I also couldn’t help but bring up Friends as examples in several of my panels, including:

• a reminder that the nice thing about writing a book is that if you wrote your characters doing some Weird Shit at the beginning that doesn’t make sense by the time you get to the end, that’s what revision is for and that’s the beauty of getting to know your characters as you write. I’d cut that “Ross has a monkey” subplot right out!

• the reason why Ross and Rachel end up being kind of a toxic ship (in my opinion! allegedly!) is that most of what you see is Ross putting her on a pedestal, lashing out at her, undermining her career, etc. etc. I *don’t* think the writers sufficiently sold Joey as a viable alternative (it felt a little last-minute), but I think they easily could have! Or I mean, they could have if they weren’t trying to make the Joey spinoff happen lol.

• all network TV shows, honestly, are very instructive as to how much TONE matters and how you can create it. Because one episode I happened to catch (that I did not remember!) was the one all about how Ross accidentally makes a sex tape of Rachel? I was a little shocked — it just seemed much racier than I thought they would’ve put on Must See TV or whatever. But the TONE of the show makes it all more funny than actually sexual, and that’s why they get away with it.

listening to . . . I have been listening to a ton of stuff, and yet truly it is nothing but come my lady, come-come my lady on repeat inside my skull. If you have talked to me in the last two days I didn’t hear a word that came out of your mouth. you’re my butterfly, sugar baby. I’m sorry, you were saying?

preordering . . . February continues to be LOADED with incredible romances coming out! Here are just a few I have on my radar:

• Right on Cue by Falon Ballard

• How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

• The Partner Plot by Kristina Forest