My book has a cover: A small, good thing in a big, scary world

You can now pre-order my debut novel ✌️📕

2025: the year I become a published author. Yikes!

And I’m starting it with something very exciting…the cover for my debut rom-com, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

Here she is:

Pre-order the book here

And, yes, the release of the cover also means you can now pre-order the book:

(If you click the link above you can also read the blurb 🤗). Pre-orders are a big deal for new authors; they show booksellers there’s an appetite for the book, which means they’re more likely to stock / promote it when it’s released. So I’d be really grateful for any support, even if it is a bit weird ordering a Christmas book as far away from Christmas as possible…

What also feels weird is giving you a sales pitch while the world burns*. But, well, life on this here planet is weird, isn’t it? And as one of my favourite newsletters reminded me and other readers recently:

“It’s easy in a world so vast and complex to lose agency, or to feel that you have. But all that is needed from any of us, really, is the occasional ‘small, good thing,’ in Carver’s words. And who lacks the agency for that?”

So this is me sharing my small, good thing for today. And I have plenty more of them up my sleeve in the coming months. I’m really proud of my book and the story it tells, and hope it provides as many readers as possible with a pocket of joy and comfort once it comes out later this year.

Other book updates

• I’m very excited to be chatting with

  Nicola Washington
  and her brilliant community of authors next week about writing, rejection and everything in between. I believe a recording might be available afterwards – if so I’ll share it here when I can.

• I’m on the cusp of sending my line edits back to my editor. No, I didn’t know what ‘line edits’ were until very recently, either! Basically, it’s the point at which the structure and content of your story is pretty much locked in, and the final flourishes can be added (or removed 🥺) from your prose to make the story shine and sentences flow as nicely as possible. After this stage, it’s onto copyediting (usually undertaken by a third-party editor who does a thorough check for errors and inconsistencies) before the final proofreading stage.

• I’m due to have a chat with my local indie bookshop this week about some potentially exciting stuff for later this year – watch this space.

• I’ve made a teeny-tiny start on my second novel, more details of which I hope to be able to share with you at some point soon. The first draft is due in October – eek!

• A reminder that I’ll be appearing at the Meet Cute Book Fest talking about the importance of romantic fiction in June. Tickets are available here and anyone who buys one this month gets automatically entered into a draw for an amazing QWERKYWRITER (want).

• I’ve launched a new blog section on my website! Readers who’ve been here since the start might recognise the first post from the very early days of this newsletter, but I thought it would be nice to share my path to publication there as well as here. Speaking of which…

Huma Qureshi: award-winning writer and author of four books

I’ve admired Huma Qureshi’s writing (and knitwear) for years, so I was beyond happy when she agreed to share her own path to publication with us. Huma’s first book, In Spite of Oceans, was published in 2014, followed by How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures in 2021. Her acclaimed short-story collection, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love, also published in 2021 and her brilliant debut novel, Playing Games, was published in 2023. Huma also writes the amazing newsletter Dear Huma which I’d massively recommend subscribing to.

Huma Qureshi

At what point in your life did you think to yourself ‘Yes, I want to write a book’?

I’d always wanted to write a book, ever since I was a child – I just didn’t know how people made it happen. After university, I went into journalism assuming that was the way I’d make a living out of writing while learning about writing along the way. But that didn’t satisfy my very strong desire to actually write a book… I’ve written four books now and every day I still hear that voice that says: ‘Yes, I want to write a book!’ It’s an impulse I can’t shake off even when I have bad days and want to give up writing entirely (I never mean it when I say I do).

Do you have an agent? And what made you decide that choice was best for you?

Yes, I do have an agent, Laurie; she has been very good to me and very good for me! I was in a fortunate position of being able to choose from several who approached me after I submitted my short story collection, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love. I chose Laurie because I felt an instant connection with her. She understood my work and what I was trying to do without me ever needing to explain it. It is thanks to Laurie that my short stories ended up in a four-way auction and she secured me a fantastic two-book deal. She is endlessly patient with me but also pushes me and doesn’t let me give up. I was un-agented for my very first book, In Spite of Oceans, and I regretted not having an agent as there was so much I didn’t know. So, when I moved into fiction, finding an agent was my first step.

How long did it take from starting to write your first book, to people being able to buy it?

Looking back, all my books have been written in fairly short time frames. I was about three months pregnant when I signed my first book deal and my deadline was to deliver the manuscript before my baby was born. The book came out a year later and my then-baby was at my launch. I started my memoir in 2018 and began my story collection over the course of 2019, whilst finishing my memoir, and both came out in 2021. Playing Games took about twelve months to write and was published in autumn 2023.

Why did you choose to publish your book traditionally?

It never occurred to me not to be published traditionally. It was the only way that I’d heard about or read about or researched. All the writers I admired were traditionally published and I wanted to be published in the same way. I was only vaguely aware that there were other options.

What part of the writing or publishing process do you find the most annoying?

I used to find it annoying how my manuscript would invariably be returned to me with edits always just in time for my children’s school holidays when my capacity to work was somewhat diminished! This was in no way deliberate, just sod’s law, but having an agent meant I could ask her to in turn ask the powers that be to time things a little better for me, so after a while that stopped happening. I don’t know if ‘annoying’ is the right word, but I am always saddened by stories of brilliant books by brilliant authors that just didn’t get anywhere because they didn’t get the same promotion as the bigger names who arguably didn’t need all the promotion in the first place.

Plotting or pantsing: what’s your happy place?

I wish I was a plotter; I feel like life would be so much calmer if I were, but it just doesn’t seem to suit me, try as I might! I’ve accepted now that I just have to take a leap of faith and let the story unfold as I work it out in the writing, on the page.

What was your first ‘I can’t believe this is happening’ moment as an author?

Do you know what? I don’t know that I have one. I have been so lucky with reviews and critics and press, but there’s a switch that goes on inside me and I end up keeping it all at arm’s length. Maybe it’s a self-protection thing, but I feel like I have to maintain a distance about it all. That said, it was a funny moment to walk into a large Waterstones in central London and see my face blown up on a massive poster promoting my event; I tried to sneakily take a photo on my phone, and bumped into a guy browsing books who looked up at the poster, then looked at me, and then said, ‘Oh, she looks like you, doesn’t she?’

What one thing is the most surprising thing about being an author?

Before I was published, I never really understood when authors would say in interviews that when a book is done, it’s done – like it’s left them. I had always assumed that, if I ever got to be so lucky as to write a book, it would stay with me forever. It’s weird how little I remember about my books now; by the time the rush of publication day is over, I’m very ready to create some distance and move on.

If you could change anything about your path to publication, what would it be?

I don’t know that I would change anything. I think it happened as it needed to happen. Even the hard bits. I used to feel like I was behind – my first book came out when I was 34, my second and third books came out when I turned 40 and I was 42 when my first novel was published. But I don’t think I could have written any of them sooner; they wouldn’t have been the same. I wouldn’t have been the same. I needed and wanted that gap between my first book and the rest in order to discover who I was. I wanted to be there for my children and experience that new chapter of my life, before realising what I wanted to do with my writing. I’ve faced setbacks and bad luck along my publication journey that have knocked my self-confidence, but I am starting to see that – even in those perceived failures – there’s been something for me to learn from.

What would be your dream achievement as a writer?

I love cinema and films and I have wondered often what it must feel like to watch a film adaptation of a story you’ve written. I would love to see one of my short stories turned into a film.

What's next on your publication pathway?

After taking a break from the intensity of the last few years, in terms of back-to-back publications and deadlines, I’m tentatively working on some new short stories and have a few ideas for novels swimming in my head. I’m at that stage where I feel ready to write again, open and curious to see where any of these ideas or stories might lead. It makes me feel like I’m reconnecting to some part of myself that I’d lost touch with for a while, and that’s a lovely, reassuring feeling.

I’m so excited to read more stories from Huma in the future. Huma also teaches creative writing via her website. The Quiet Words – her flagship, eight-part course on writing creatively, exploring your writing voice and fine-tuning your craft – is available now (and if you sign up to her newsletter you get 25% off all her courses).

Huma also has a new Substack called Scenes From Home, a place where she writes vignettes on the little things that make up daily life and explores all the things she loves from books to interiors. For short story fans, check out Reading Alice & Others, Huma's short story Substack. You can also follow Huma on Instagram here.

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Are you an author who’d like to share your own publication journey in this newsletter? Get in touch!

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Things I’ve enjoyed recently

📰My pal

Halina

’s new newsletter, Tiny Blankets, is a must-subscribe if you want a monthly round-up of the best Kindle deals. She’s also an up-and-coming author herself.

📚I’m currently loving this collection of graphic essays by Sarah Firth. It’s genuinely brain-rewiring stuff.

📺I FINALLY finished watching Rivals last week. Utter perfection.

🎧Not much new music has caught my ears so far this year, but it’s early days. I’m collecting everything I’m enjoying in this playlist. ALWAYS feel free to send me songs.

Gif via @introvertdrawingclub: I do not use generative AI in this newsletter, or in any of my writing.

*If, like me, you’re struggling with the general state of things, I highly recommend this article by

Gina Martin

, in particular the audio version. I urge you to listen to it with your eyes firmly closed and your phone firmly down 🫂