Woodworking mailbag!

Happy Tuesday! Today, the paperback edition of my debut novel, Woodworking, is available for purchase! You can click the buttons below to do just that.

And if you want a signed copy, I'll be doing an event at the Bay Area Book Festival on Sunday and then an event at Village Well Books in Culver City, California, on Friday, June 5. Come say hi!

Woodworking is about the unusual friendship that develops between a trans schoolteacher and one of her students, the only other trans woman she knows, in 2016 Mitchell, South Dakota. It was named a Best Book of the Year by outlets including Vox, NPR, Elle, and Chicago Review of Books and named a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Transgender Fiction LAMBDA Literary Award, and Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Did I copy that list of accolades from my publisher? You bet I did.

In honor of this occasion, I thought I would answer some questions about the book from all of you! Those questions follow below.

Carlana (@carlana.net) asks:

Why did you decide to write each speaker in their own style? When did you know how Erica’s chapters would shift towards the end?

This question is one I get asked most often, and the real answer is that I just intuitively decided to do that from the very first day I started writing the book. I am not in any way an experimental fiction writer, but I read a lot of experimental fiction, and there's a playfulness to the text in that subgenre that I think informs how I approach writing fiction. I didn't know why these two would be in different voices (and tenses for most of the book); I just knew they were.

I later tried to justify it to myself by saying that Erica existed in literary fiction and Abigail existed in YA, but a lot of litfic is written in first-person and a lot of YA is written in third, so even that justification didn't make a lot of sense. It wasn't until I made the switch for Erica's voice that I figured out exactly what I was doing, even as some proto version of Bernadette's dream existed throughout. (Bernadette used to be a PoV character! She had two chapters that were essentially straight monologues! I'm glad I dropped this idea, but it did exist for a time.) That switch for Erica also existed in the very first draft, though it was something I figured out in the moment, while writing, and had never been the plan. In the first draft, it also happened at, like, the end of act two, which... no. It was so exciting that I knew I had to chase it.

A semi-common complaint about the book is that the Bernadette dream does too much to explain the central idea of how the book uses voice, dumbing down a conceit that is otherwise kind of subtle. And maybe! But just getting people to understand why Erica flipped to first-person was a huge struggle throughout the process, and that dream ended up being a tentpole in getting people there. I think a lot of people don't think about trans people in terms of authenticity but, rather, in terms of a sort of on/off gender switch, and getting those readers to understand why Erica's reoccupation of herself is so profound ended up being fairly important.

Billie asks:

As someone who grew up in Sioux Falls and has family both there and Mitchell, what was the most compelling thing about the setting you chose?  When you mentioned various locations like the Taco John’s and the Hot Air Ballooning Museum, what importance did they have to you outside of placing you in the town?

I have a friend who takes great, great, great pains to make sure every place she mentions in one of her books is exactly as it would have been in real life, to the degree that she will consult old maps and stuff. I have never felt that intense about making sure my geography is exact — there's a major cheat in book two that I felt the need to apologize for in the acknowledgements — but I do think that a sense of place is important to any work of fiction.

Mitchell seemed like a good fit for my first book because I knew it well from having grown up visiting it at least a couple times a week and also because it was going to be a very different setting from the ones that most contemporary fiction novels occupy. I didn't want to write a book about a bunch of trans women in LA or New York — though I love books that do that. The two books I was most inspired by in writing were Imogen Binnie's Nevada and Hazel Jane Plante's Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian), and both of those books sort of boil their universe of trans characters down to one dyad. I tend to start with a relationship when writing, then work my way outward from there, so setting the book in Mitchell allowed me to put more social pressure on that dyad. Consequently, I tried to keep overt transphobia off the page because the reader was almost certainly reading in more than would have actually existed at the time, both from cultural assumptions about red states and from how red states are treating trans people right now.

I think when I mentioned places that exist in reality, it was always an attempt to give a sense of what I loved about South Dakota that is now a little bit lost to me because I can't go back. Everywhere half-mentioned in the book is a place I have appreciated at one point or another, and it helped me ground the story in affection instead of resentment. I knew Erica and Abigail were going to have to leave, so I wanted to remind myself why they might have trouble with that.

Also, I think the soul of America can be found in chain restaurants, and two very important scenes in book two are set at a Cold Stone Creamery and an Olive Garden respectively. Thus, Johnny Carino's, Culver's, etc., etc., etc.

Jen (@transducer.bsky.social) asks:

How much did you think about the fourth-wall aspect of Abigail’s narration? Were there times in the writing process when it was more directly addressing the reader, or less, overall?

One of the handful of things that barely changed from the very earliest draft of Woodworking was Abigail's introduction chapter, the second chapter in the book. If I were redoing the book from scratch, I probably wouldn't cram quite so much into one chapter — seriously, it's kind of breathless in how much it attempts to do — but I think that is part of why it's so fun. Generally, I hate dropping a lot of exposition on the reader all at once, which I think is kind of a flaw in how I structure things, but by the end of this chapter, you know 80 percent of what you need to know about Abigail and her life, and at least 10 percent of what remains is stuff she's actively avoiding thinking about. The chapter also serves as a benchmark to let those who are going to find Abigail's voice hard to take see just how voice-y she can be. She calms down a lot over the course of the book.

Anyway, the first sentence of that chapter is "Everybody always asks me the same three questions, so I'm going to answer those questions right now and pretend you're not fucking rude for fucking asking, even though you are." So, for as long as Abigail has existed, she's broken the fourth wall. It just felt right to me that she would be talking to someone, but I also sort of always intuitively knew she wasn't addressing the reader so much as some unseen interlocutor in her head.

It honestly didn't strike me until very late in the process of writing the book — during the last proper draft, actually — that the person Abigail is addressing is probably some version of herself. There are chapters in the book mostly written in the second person, and the narrator of those sections has a very snotty teen vibe, which my editor kept trying to get me to pull back. But I think there's a reason I was writing like that: When Abigail "breaks the fourth wall," she's talking to a piece of herself she's sort of sealing off from the reality of her identity, the piece of her that might go deep stealth someday. Abigail doesn't address this unseen person less as the book goes on — she's literally still doing so on the last couple of pages — but her relationship to them is more collegial, more friendly. She hasn't totally abandoned the idea of woodworking, but she's making her peace with the idea that she probably won't.

I am loosely working on a book set in 2027 in which Abigail would be a supporting character (though not a point of view character). I imagine that version of Abigail, older and wiser, would do a little less of this chatter with some other piece of herself — but hopefully not none of it. After all, I talk to myself all the time, and I'm so much older than Abigail.

Jade (@avocadosuper.fan) asks:

My question is: We get a glimpse of Abigail’s life in college. I am stuck wondering quite a bit about Jeannie and Brooke. B sends her darling Caleb to Evanston, but what about her sister?

Jeannie is enough of a side character in the book that I never felt compelled to figure out too much about her, but I know that she did, indeed, go to college, probably a state school in Illinois, and she met her husband either there or shortly thereafter. He works in tech, and for a long time, they lived in Seattle, until I realized that the montage that closes out the Brooke chapter worked better if it kept moving eastward, so I moved them to the other end of I-90 and situated them in Boston. (This is also how the Frasier producers decided to set that show in Seattle, since Cheers was set in Boston.) (Also, Mitchell is on I-90, and it passes through Chicago as well. I liked imagining the sisters linked by geography in this way.)

Jeannie is most important to the narrative as a good mom to a trans daughter, and for a time, the book ended at Thanksgiving 2017, with a brief scene where Abigail, home from college, bumped into Brooke at Walmart. When I moved the scene back to December 2016, I kept some of what was working about that scene — Megan with a girlfriend, the trans woman working as a greeter — but there was less dramatic impact to Abigail seeing Brooke literally six weeks after she last had. And anyway, the reason to have Brooke in that scene was to have her introduce her niece, Emma, to Abigail, thus continuing the book's theme of these invisible communities forming among people without them always realizing they are. It just didn't make sense for Brooke and Jeannie to have actually reconciled by December 2016, but, in my heart of hearts, Jeannie and her family spend Thanksgiving 2017 in Mitchell. I think Jeannie is pretty clear-eyed about why Brooke had to leave their childhood home, so I don't imagine reconciliation is that difficult. I'm sure it also takes a while.

I don't think this question was about Caleb's sister, Ruth, but in case it was: Ruth eventually ends up at the University of Minnesota and occasionally makes things awkward for Abigail. If any of these characters was going to survive a Die Hard type scenario, it is unquestionably Ruth.

Bridgett (@bwrites.bsky.social) asks:

Was there any scene or sentence that was particularly difficult to cut?

There were three major drafts of Woodworking: the first, the revision I did for my agent, and the revision I did for Zando. In between those first two, I cut a scene set at a convenience store in the middle of the night during a freak snowstorm. It involved Erica and Constance having a fight while Abigail was also in the car, then Erica going into the store out of stubbornness. (I forget the exact specifics.) There, the clerk is very obviously MAGA, and the tension in the scene is that Erica has her nails painted, and the man has already clocked that Constance is driving and see this as "weak" on some level.

Now that I'm typing it out, I can see why the scene didn't work in what Woodworking became. In general, the book's nods to the rise of Trump work best when they are just a little bit obscured, and the scene itself was much more of a tense thriller vibe than the dramedy the book evolved into. But in a vacuum, it was always a scene I liked, and when I think about things I cut that I miss, this always jumps to the very top of the list. I did take bits and pieces of it for the section where John and his friends notice Erica's nails, so it wasn't all in vain.

I also originally had five flashbacks to Erica and Constance's marriage, and the fifth flashback – in which Erica nearly came out to Constance in the wake of a colleague's funeral – was a pretty late cut. If anybody ever asks me to post a "deleted scene," I would probably post that, simply because it would need very little work to be out there in the world without seeming to contradict the events of the novel. Also: The scene was very loosely inspired by something Pamela Adlon said at a Better Things screening. Which is maybe interesting.

This question actually made me think about something I added super late in the game. The scene where Abigail, Jen, and Ron go to meet with Abigail and Jen's parents was one of the very last full scenes I wrote for the book, not appearing until some iteration of the Zando draft. It now feels to me like it was always there, but, no, for a long time I really did think the book would work best without Abigail's parents appearing on page until the very end.

Ben asks:

I'm curious as to how you feel like your relationship to your characters has continued/not continued since the book was declared "done." Do you ever miss your characters and find yourself writing or thinking about them again? (I don't necessarily mean in a sequel-ish way where you're intending to put what you're writing or thinking together for publication, more just whether you end up vibing with them again.)

There are some characters I almost never think about anymore. I really don't know what story I would write about Erica after the events of Woodworking. I imagine she goes on to have some fun adventures living in Wisconsin with Helen, and I think there might be a fun story to tell about her dating someone awkwardly. But Erica exists literally as a way for me to tell a transition story in a non-conventional way, so I can sort of sneak in all the other stuff I'm interested in. Once she has come to a place of peace with her transness, her journey, such as it is, is "over." I've always been curious about her relationship with her family, and I'm sure I could write a dozen Erica/Constance short stories. But her arc feels most complete to me at the end of the book.

Similarly, I'm not really tempted to do much more with Abigail, though I can tap into her voice more readily. I'm definitely interested in seeing what she would be like as a therapist because I think she'll be quite good at it, if a bit impulsive in a way that might seem unprofessional. I am reasonably certain she and Megan had sex at least once. Did that lead to anything? I'll let you decide for yourself.

I loosely kicked around a Woodworking sequel set in the summer of 2020 and centered on Brooke, Emma (her niece), and Danielle, playing around with tense in the way the first book played around with voice, with Brooke existing in the present, Emma in the future, and Danielle in the past. I might still do that someday, but it started to feel like too much of a bummer to see how vibrant Danielle's life was and just gradually move to the winnowing of opportunity Emma would see, even with a supportive family. But I do still think about Brooke and the "family" of characters around her a fair bit.

The character I keep trying to shoehorn into things is Constance. I'm not done with her, and I want to see what she's up to. So, if there's a Woodworking character who still speaks to me, it's her. I have sometimes said she's the character in the book who most reminds me of myself, so I guess that tracks.

If you read my second novel, there's a very brief mention of a character from Woodworking, so I guess my books occupy some sort of "shared universe." Thus, any of these characters might turn up again. But I'm much more drawn to the characters in book two and can't stop thinking about them.

Talcott (@talcotts.bsky.social) asks:

What’s everyone up to here in 2026?

Take everything below with a grain of salt. None of it is canon. I just think it's funny.

Look: If Abigail and Megan hooked up and if it was a good time for both of them, I'm not sure they would stop. I think Abigail is more straight than not, but I also think she just wants a place where she feels safe, and Megan will always represent that to her. I also know Lily is a huge Megagail shipper [editor's note: yes I am], so this answer is for her. Regardless, they're living in Minneapolis, and Abigail is wrapping up her PsyD. Megan is probably doing some sort of political organizing.

I feel quite confident Erica ends up in a polycule without quite realizing it at some point. Like she just thinks she has fun roommates she sometimes has sex with and doesn't think through the implications. She is definitely a very good and very annoying theater instructor. Constance lives in LA. I think she exists in a constant series of Kelly Link short stories. Helen is in the House of Representatives, representing whatever congressional district Madison is in. She constantly worries about gerrymandering. She is pretty reliably on the left side of the Democratic caucus but probably has slightly heterodox views on agriculture and gun control, like many Dems who grew up in rural areas.

Brooke comes out publicly at some point, and it probably ruins her life somewhat. She and Bernadette become tight. (I've always pictured Bernadette with a conservative streak, less politically and more in the sense of "The world was better when men wore hats.") I think Brooke and Victor are ride or die. Caleb has yet to publish a novel, but he's placed a few short stories. His day job involves some sort of soul-crushing technical writing. Ruth singlehandedly stops a bank robbery at some point.

Hank DeWaard and Isaiah Rose continue to prosper.

Jessica asks:

This has been nagging at me for over a year: What was in the swimming man’s briefcase?

Whatever was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. And a towel.

Thanks for the great questions, everybody! And here are those paperback purchase links one more time! Or order it from your local bookstore! I'm sure they'd love that!

A Good Song

(I mean, I had to.)

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