*whispers* I’m going to be published!

I am so excited to finally be able to share the news with you 🎉 My debut young adult horror, TWIN TIDES is going to be published by Delacorte Press Fall 2025!

I’ve been pretty obnoxious and have alluded to ✨ vague ✨news on all of my socials, so thank you so much for putting up with my shenanigans. I still can’t quite believe it.

I want to name how lucky my publishing journey has been. I say this not to discount my work, or the work of those rallying behind me, but to recognize how much publishing relies on these ‘lightning-in-a-bottle’ moments. I’m lucky that my lightning strikes have happened just at the right times.

Firstly, I’m so grateful that my editor, Bria Ragin, who found potential in my messy, grieving girls. I conceived of this project so long ago, and to see it come to life as my debut is still unbelievable. I also owe many thanks to my agent, Katelyn Detweiler who helped shaped the early versions of this project and was amenable to the many additions I wanted to make (cough multiple POVs and epistolary aspects). 😅

A few special shoutouts to the many friends (and my husband, who just celebrated a birthday. Cheers to 33, my love!) who took a look at versions of this project and cheered me on. I could not have done it without you. This little community of mine is by far the best thing to come out of my writing journey.

I owe a lot of gratitude to younger me, as well. From roleplaying on Neopets forums, writing Narnia fan fiction (specifically William Moseley as Peter, ahem), to a plethora of very angsty poetry: your creativity and daydreams got us here. I’m sorry for ever feeling embarrassed over it (and shout out to my middle school class for voting me most likely to write a novel).

And lastly, to Momma Nguyen and my uncle. You saved my poems and bragged to your friends about me. I know you would have been so happy. I can’t imagine a version of me who could have done this without your love ❤️ the most bittersweet part of all this is having to undertake this new journey without you.

Ma da in Vietnamese mythology are the vengeful ghosts of drowned victims who must claim a new body in order to move on. So many ghost stories, especially of colonized peoples, are involved with being trapped by and within violence. This novel explicitly asks whose violence is responsible for these ghosts in the first place.

At its core, TWIN TIDES is an exploration of grief, greed, and broken family ties amidst a small town plagued by a drowned ghost. I’m so excited for you to meet my messy, haunted girls.