How I Got My Book Deal

A Meditation on Dreams, Grief, and Toilet Emails

Dec 22, 2024

Just three of the thousands of pictures of me and my late cat, Kiara.

I got my book deal on the toilet three hours after my cat died.

Did you get whiplash reading that? Imagine how I felt.

Really, though: January 2, 2024, was the most bizarre day I’ve ever experienced. It was my one day at work within three weeks of PTO, so I had at least ten hours of work to do. The next morning, at 8 a.m., I had to fly across the country for two weeks to attend my grad school residency and assist an ailing relative. (It goes without saying I had not packed yet.) I was in the middle of querying, with a 30-person spreadsheet of agents—not even publishers!—I’d begun to contact in October. And at 10 a.m., my dad called me. Kiara—my childhood companion, my cat of nearly twenty years, whom I had first held while she was still weaning—had passed away.

As the kids would say, I “locked in”: Turned my phone off. Did as much work as I could. Went to the bathroom three hours later to void my bladder and cry. There, on the toilet, I checked my email. (As God surely intended.) Devastated, overwhelmed, squatting, I saw a message I had never expected. Subject line: “an offer for your book!”

What. The. Fuck.

Clearly, the universe was determined to transform Everything Everywhere All at Once from an excellent movie into the byline of my life. More to the point, talk about dreams colliding—like waves that crash against each other and both break. I think I was six when I first dreamt of getting a cat and, separately, of writing stories for young people. Twenty-one years later, my dreams passed each other on their ways into and out of my life. And, in the going, both faded.

Forgive me for admitting this, but I felt very little joy at the prospect of publishing D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. that first week. I was just too sad. Yet I couldn’t fully sink into the grief of losing my beloved companion, either: I was too busy studying and emailing and reading and writing and calling and screaming, trying to find an agent and deciding whether to accept an offer for my bookchild I had no real way of evaluating in just 10 days’ time.

These feelings keep reemerging as I think about the coming year. Probably because the anniversary of That Bizarre Day is less than two weeks away. I miss Kiara. As children, we spent so much time together that I started meowing and mewing. (I still meow, too often.) In the first month of COVID-19, I sewed a miniature yarmulke and tallis to throw her a belated Cat Mitzvah. (Don’t worry, I paid the pet tax. Scroll to the end.) I don’t know whether she thought I was her mother or her sister or her friend—anything but her owner, of course—yet Kiara took such good care of me. Sleeping curled in my armpit. Sitting with me for over a day, no food or water or litter box, while I recovered from surgery. Licking the tears off my face. Leading me to my bed and sitting on me so I had no choice but to fall asleep.

My baby, my precious, my beloved companion. How can she possibly be gone? I keep her ashes in a jar in my room and still, still, I reach when I cry, expecting to feel her.

In retrospect, January 2 summed up this year for me. It’s been tough, complicated, and overcrowded—full of life-expanding feats as well as dank, dark pits. I’ve seen the beginning of one dream and the end of another. I’ve held joy and grief in both hands. They weigh the same.

Yet I still carry them both. In the end, that’s been the most surprising part of this year—not the death of a cat I had started to think would live forever, not the adjustment to (effectively) three jobs at once, not the book deal from a publisher I had not realized was considering my manuscript in the first place. Me. I feel like I’m not supposed to admit that. But, God, am I proud of myself.

A thousand and one people have asked me how to get their book published. They’re seeking a right answer I don’t think exists. Every publishing story I’ve heard is uncanny and random, united only by hard work and a very good manuscript. That’s why, ultimately, I don’t think “How do I get a book deal?” is the right question. The one that’s been more interesting, important, and ultimately fulfilling for me came later: “What do I do after a book deal?”

My answer has involved a lot of floundering. Still, I’m moving forward. That’s a resolve I can take into the new year. And I encourage you to do the same.

Happy New Year, dear readers. Take care and take courage. Achieving your dreams won’t look the way you imagine. But you can, and you will. And by the end—good Lord—you’ll be proud of yourself. So proud, you may even try to purr.

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Abby’s Pop Culture Pop-Up

In the Nov. 27 episode of Las Culturistas, the premiere pop culture podcast (and no, they did not pay me to say that), co-hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang discuss a spate of supporting actor and actress contenders who (they say) should be classed as leads. Their conversation was my favorite kind, both thoughtful and thought-provoking, and I was thrilled to see writer Nate Jones offer his own take in Vulture a couple weeks later. I’ve seen three of the movies Rogers, Yang, and Jones discussed, loved them all, and have my own please-do-disagree-with-them takes:

Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain is… correctly classed as a Supporting Actor. I go back and forth on this one, because Rogers is right that Culkin’s character Benji and Jesse Eisenberg’s David have the same amount of screentime. But I would argue A Real Pain is devoted to trying—and failing—to understand Benji’s character. As a result, the film a) is placed firmly in David’s point of view, b) remains at a distance from Benji, and c) positions the viewer apart from Benji as a necessary part of storytelling. When I finished this movie, I loved Benji, but I did not know him. I did know David. I was David. This, to me, defines Benji as a supporting role—albeit an unusually present and robust one.
Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Perez is… incorrectly classed as a Supporting Actress. Jones proposes that the title character, played by Karla Sofía Gascón, “is the one driving the narrative.” But Saldaña has more than twice as much screentime as Gascón; she is the viewer’s vantage point into this world; and she is a far greater in-story presence than, say, Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (a story which otherwise has a similar structure). If I had any sway in show business, which I obviously do not, I would have classed Saldaña and Gascón as co-leads. They both deserve it.
Ariana Grande-Butera in Wicked: Part One is… correctly classed as a Supporting Actress. Hear me out: Yes, Kristen Chenoweth was classed (also correctly) as a Lead Actress in Wicked on Broadway. But I would argue that all the ways Jon M. Chu’s team has adapted Wicked for the screen have made Elphaba more clearly the main character. We see her childhood and upbringing; we see her private anxieties and angsts; we see her participate in the strengthened animal rights activism plotline. G(a)linda has none of that interiority. As a result, Wicked: Part One makes the “Good” Witch a supporting character in a way the Broadway show does not.

All this said, I do agree with Matt Rogers’ ultimate point—that classifying weighty parts like Culkin’s, Saldaña’s, and Grande-Butera’s as “supporting” takes focus away from smaller performances whose actors’ lives could be transformed by award recognition. (For instance, Clarence Maclin in Sing Sing and Danielle Deadwyler in The Piano Lesson, two movies I have yet to see.) I have no solution to proffer, but I would love to see more recognition for these actors. Perhaps an expansion in category size—from five nominees to six or even seven—could help.

D.J.’s Digest

Dear Father Time,

I’d like to stop the new year, please. It’s nothing personal. I used to love New Year’s Day: It’s one of the few days Mom doesn’t work, so she makes pancakes with blueberry smiley faces for breakfast. Once, she even got ambitious and made an elephant. (She needed a big pan for that.)

But if this new year happens, that means we’ll start next year—and we’ll have a whole year, my first ever, without Rachel. Surely you remember her. Red hair? Wide smile? Bright blue eyes? A kind of love some people don’t see their whole lives? Yeah, that’s her.

God, I miss her.

A day without my cousin is bad. A week is worse. A month is unbearable. But a full year without Rachel? And another, and another? I can’t imagine it. So it just can’t happen.

I’m sure you understand, Father Time. You’re a family man. Thanks for helping me out.

Sincerely,

D.J.

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Miri’s Music

“Hello Goodbye” – The Beatles (1967)

You say “Goodbye” and I say “Hello,”

“Hello, hello…”

I don’t know why you say “Goodbye,”

I say “Hello…”

Like many Beatles songs, this number puts a bright sheen on a tense subject. How fitting, for my dear Miri Gould, that it hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 two days before 1968.

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This Month’s Year’s Favorites

My living room. Check the lower righthand side to see a trunkèd friend holding down the Hanukkah fort.

In honor of the year’s end, you’re not just getting this month’s favorites. Behold: a Top Ranking of 2024:

Coziest Coffee Shop goes to… The Hungarian Pastry Shop, my all-time favorite coffee shop, which I wrote about in a previous newsletter; Au Lait, my favorite new coffee shop of the year in Washington, DC (also a previous feature); and Nervous Dog, in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. It’s a warm, cozy coffee shop with good food, great drinks, and kind staff. Every time I visit my parents, I end up sitting and writing there.

My Kind of Kidlit goes to… Too many titles to name! By some miracle, I’ve read 75 books this year. (Yes, I’m tired.) If I had to narrow down my top three kidlit reads, I guess they’d be (in alphabetical order):

Kindling by Traci Chee
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb

Really, though, this list feels incomplete. Check out the authors Emi Watanabe Cohen, Nina LaCour, Anna Lapera, Kat Leyh, and Angela Velez for even more great middle grade and young adult novels. I also want to give my monthly shoutout to Akwaeke Emezi’s Pet. My friend Alli gave me this book and put our shared feelings about it best: “Was it perfect? No. Do I prefer imperfect ambition every single time? Absolutely.” It’s a wonder of a story, a sensitive and imaginative metaphor, not to mention a sterling entry in my dear younger-YA subgenre. Please go read it.

The Most Excellent Elephants goes to… every single elephant that has ever existed. This one, I actually can’t narrow down. So I will merely spotlight the small stuffed elephant I’ve had for at least 20 years, which sits in my living room each holiday season to assert my Jewishness within my roommates’ Christmas décor. (See the photo above.) And I will encourage you to seek out elephants in your own life, as they are the world’s most wonderful creatures (in my humble, but correct, opinion) and they continue to need our protection.

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Announcements

This newsletter now has 100 subscribers! Thanks, y’all! I’ve found these missives more fun to write than I expected. I hope you enjoy them, and if so, I’d be so grateful if you subscribed and/or shared with your friends and fellow readers. Just hit those green buttons below.

D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. is almost done. Forreal, forreal. I’ve done my last in-depth edit; now, the incredible editors at Levine Querido are doing final proofs; and early next year (February, I think?) I’ll get a galley. Eeeeeeep! Here’s hoping I can give you even more announcements soon…

As for Book Two, hereby provisionally known as Miri Gould, it’s going well. I have yet again tweaked the timeline. But I think I’ve actually hit the right spot. (Finally.) Besides that… I’m going to keep Miri’s story to myself for a while. Let it gestate.

Thank you, all, for your friendship and support. I couldn’t have made it through this crazy year without you. Here’s to 2025 and all the amazing stories the new year will bring!

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