Release Day: Standing on the Edge of Possible

This is what debut release day feels like to me. It feels like I've just climbed this really huge mountain and I'm a few feet from the top. A few steps from this wide open world. And all the hard parts of the mountain behind me have sort of slipped away in this moment. All the bad weather conditions and falling rocks and everything else aren't weighing me down because I'm a few steps from so much possibility.

Possibility to me isn't awards or lists or great reviews or anything like that. Possibility is the idea that somewhere today some teenager who I've never met, never tweeted, never FB-friended, never interacted with, might be standing in front of a bookshelf in a book store and pull out my book and think, "Yeah, I'll try this." Possibility is someone waking up to this book on their e-reader and finishing it and feeling like this one meant something to them. This one mattered. Possibility is the idea that half the proceeds from this book will be funneled back into a rape survivor writing workshop. Or two. Or three.

If you ask anyone who knows me, they'd say that I'm a glass is half empty sort of person. This likely comes with the territory of working in rape activism for so long. But today, right now, in this moment, I feel like I'm on the edge of something bigger than my pessimism. Something bigger than me. That I'm putting something into this world of possible. And all I have is gratitude.

Thank you, my dear friends, for being on this journey with me. Thank you for giving me this day. And thank you for tomorrow when I'll look at the next mountain and think, "Oh, I'm never going to be able to climb THAT one." Thank you for holding the ropes and bearing my weight and catching me when I fall over and over again. Thank you for standing on the edge of possible with me and reminding me that it's okay to hope for change, to want to leave the world in better shape than we found it, to believe.

And so I'll leave you with my favorite comic of all time. Bill Watterson's last comic, drawn when he was on a different edge of possible.



Ben could date anyone he wants, but he only has eyes for the new girl — sarcastic free-spirit, Ani. Luckily for Ben, Ani wants him too. She’s everything Ben could ever imagine. Everything he could ever want.

But that all changes after the party. The one Ben misses. The one Ani goes to alone.

Now Ani isn’t the girl she used to be, and Ben can’t sort out the truth from the lies. What really happened, and who is to blame?

Ben wants to help her, but she refuses to be helped. The more she pushes Ben away, the more he wonders if there’s anything he can do to save the girl he loves.

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