They Picked Me!

And I had to wait ONE MONTH to tell you!

Aug 07, 2026

Hello my Dearest Readers,

I’m still a bit dumbfounded as I write to share this news:

I have been selected to attend the McCormack Writing Center’s Speculative Online Workshop this fall!

If you have not heard of the McCormack Writing Center (fka Tin House Workshop), let me explain why this opportunity is so momentous. The Tin House Workshop was founded in 2003 in Portland to “create a space that matched the rigor of more established East Coast workshops with a West Coast spirit that was more relaxed, non-hierarchical, and open to less-established writers.” Over the ensuing years, it earned such a reputation that, in the words of agent Danielle Bukowski:

… when I get queries from writers who say they attended a Tin House workshop, I pay closer attention. I know that it was a selective program, that they got talented faculty, and that the manuscripts that the writers who attend produce are high quality.

Many people apply to this workshop multiple times before they get in, and so I have to be honest, this news feels unreal to me. I do not have an MFA, and I do not have a single byline to my name. The one bestselling book I contributed to is nonfiction, and is a completely different beast from the one I’m writing now. By every measure the literary world recognizes, I should have been a non-starter.

And yet… and yet.

This opportunity says otherwise. Every application was judged on the strength of the first 4,000 words. Which means, out of over 500 applicants, I was one of fifty chosen to attend, and one of ten invited to join the workshop led by Chana Porter, the award-winning author of The Seep and The Thick and The Lean. Over several weeks this fall I will be in craft lectures, writing / revising sessions, and I will workshop mine and my cohort’s pieces with writers working at the highest level of speculative fiction. I will also sit down one-on-one with a literary agent, something I cannot fathom (and which also adds a not-insignificant amount of pressure and prep prior to the start of the workshop!).

Four years ago I set an enormous, occasionally ridiculous-sounding goal — to write not just one Masala Romantasy novel, but a trilogy. This opportunity is the first external evidence that I am not deluded — and that I’m not a hack without talent. This acceptance means that I have real writing chops undergirding my gigantic ambition, and I do not intend to waste the opportunity. I am determined to make the most of every lecture, every question, every feedback note, and to be a credit to the McCormack Writing Center name — and to myself.

So what does this mean for you, Dear Reader?

So many of you supported me when I did my fundraiser for my book those years ago. Your faith in me is not misplaced. With this opportunity, I am one step closer to putting a finished book in your hands. I want you to feel my characters and their journey so deeply that when you finish reading this book, you’ll want to flip back to the beginning and read it again. To do that, my workshop cohort will help me uncover honest, specific feedback about my characters’ arcs and plot that I cannot suss out alone. I will incorporate those notes into my revisions to make The Navagraha Chronicles an even more compelling story.

I promise to send dispatches from the workshop; the more immediate behind-the-scenes will be on Instagram, but I will share another missive when it’s done.