So much has happened since we talked last! Let’s just jump right* in.
*Just one thing before we do: if you haven’t seen it, and if you’re interested, I finally wrote my “how I got an agent” blog post. Enjoy!
on revision: ‘too pretty to lie’
Last newsletter, I was working on a massive revision with my agent for this manuscript. The revision, which took me 4 months, is now complete! And now…*drumroll* I’m on another round of revision. *sobs* At this point, I’m on month 8 of revision. The story has leveled up so much I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I’m ready for it to be finished.
The hope is (if I work fast enough, and if agent likes this new revision), we can go on submission to editors this fall. Please cross your fingers for me. I’m ready to chuck this manuscript—preferably at editors’ inboxes, but at some point, the trash might do.
about the book:
snippet:
“This only stands if you make no contact with my sister. I swear to God, if you pull her into whatever ugly wreck of a life you run, I’ll drag you to the police myself.”
Right. Guess we weren’t being too civil then.
I nodded, stepping back and tucking my curls behind both ears as I gave him the confirmation. Turned and started walking. When I’d gotten off the grass and onto the pavement, I craned my neck back as if I remembered something. He was still watching me. My voice was soft when I gave him my advice. “You’re never going to be president, you know. You missed the window, [REDACTED]. The time for a moderate mixed man was in 2008.”
His brow twitched. I didn’t look back again.
On my way exiting the yard, I stopped by the statue of John Harvard. A group of tourists were crowded and lined up in front of it for pictures, their lips stretched into wide smiles, hands up on their hips as if to lay claim to the university. A Korean family took their place for photos, and the dad raised his daughter in his arms. “Rub the foot,” he smiled, “And next time we come, you will be student.”
I approached to warn them, my mouth parting open. But then it was too late. She’d touched it, and then they were all three laughing. The camera went click.
I moved closer, to the left of the block the bronze sculpture was set on.
They told them it was good luck to rub the foot, and that was why it was gleaming yellow while the rest of the sculpture was almost black. They didn’t tell them that one of the infamous student traditions was urinating on it. Sick. Sicker even when the visitors were often hopeful immigrants.
My fingers trailed over the school crest on the block. There was irony in the whole “Statue of Three Lies” thing, even more when considering the crest spelled their Latin motto: “Veritas.”
Truth.
How absurdly satirical.
It would be satisfying then that an institution built on lies and on stolen land, financed with the labor of enslaved people, and with buildings that, in the 21st century, were still named after slaveowners, would in four months time be pillaged by two dirt poor children of immigrants.
on life
I graduated! My family & church threw me lovely (if almost too big) grad party! College is now done! I’m so scared!
on traveling
June 2023 — I went to NYC to get my visa for China and also see the city with a friend who’d never been before. We then traveled to Philly to visit another college friend and had a lovely girls weekend.
July 2023 — I went back to Ethiopia for the first time in a decade. One of my college roommates (pictured above in the green dress) traveled with me. Saw my grandma, cousins, all the kiddos. Ate amazing food. Went ziplining. Rested. One month wasn’t enough.
August 2023 — Traveled with roommate to China, got to see some of her family. Visited Beijing and Shanghai. Taught a writing seminar to the sweetest highschool students. Ate amazing food. Climbed the Great Wall. Such a good good time.
what’s coming next
In less than two days, I will be getting on a flight to England to start my Creative Writing MSt. I will be there for nine months, alone. It will be the first time, in 14 years, I leave home for this long since I landed in the U.S. from Addis Ababa.
I’m grieving the people I’ll be leaving behind, my siblings who will grow up without me, my friends who will almost all be in the U.S., starting PhDs, starting jobs, starting their first year of adulting without being right across the hall from me.
It will be a year of new—stories, friends, loves, experiences, self-discoveries, tears. It will be the first, and maybe the only, time in my life I get to focus on writing full time. I know how much of a privilege this is, how unlikely it is I will get an opportunity like this again, and I do not take that lightly.
reading & roaring with praise
Friend Book Of The Month:
HOW TO FIND A MISSING GIRL: Thriller? Trail of missing girls? For fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and Veronica Mars? Please. Yes.
Current reading:
COUNTERFEIT by Kirstin Chen
SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid (for the third time)
Current listening:
PUBLISHING RODEO PODCAST on Spotify. So. Good. I’ve never been able to get into podcasts despite several attempts over the years, but this one has changed everything for me. If you are a writer interested in traditional publishing your books, this this a must listen.
Right now, it’s past midnight and the house is quiet save for the scuttling of mice downstairs. The window is open, a cool summer breeze drifting in. I’m in my childhood bedroom, sitting on a bed that’s now too small for me, listening to Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap. Tomorrow, everything will change.
Tonight, there’s this.
Terrified and thrilled,
Birukti