Therefore, it’s no surprise that I’ve been getting a lot of comments like this one on social media.

How did I even come up with this?

To answer this, some commenters have even speculated that I’m a cannibal.

Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t even really eat meat. If you ask my friends, I’m a notoriously picky eater. My main sources of protein are eggs and tofu. I also eat spam, ground meat, and really dry chicken breast. Shockingly, I also don’t eat sushi.

Whitefish started out as an obsession with fish.

Pro tip: for the tldr version of this post, there is a video on my Instagram that you can watch on 2x speed here.

I was getting my MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business at the time, and my friends who are passionate about the food and agriculture industries and much smarter than me were about to visit a fish farm. One of them was also reading a non-fiction book about how we came to eat fish (Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg).

The conversation brought me back to my high school debate days.

My senior year (really aging myself here) the topic was as follows.

Resolved: The United States federal government should establish an ocean policy substantially increasing protection of marine natural resources.

Put differently, I did a lot of research on the oceans, and, more specifically, fish, when I was younger.

Did you know over 90 million tons of sea creatures are caught every year? Almost 40% of fish stocks are fished at unsustainable levels.

The oceans are one of the biggest victims of the tragedy of the commons, which is an economic and environmental theory that when individuals have access to a shared, “common” resource, use of that resource for personal gain at the cost of the community will eventually deplete that resource for everyone.

Because oceans and fisheries lack comprehensive global property rights (most of the world’s waters are unregulated!), everyone can access the same waters and is incentivized to catch as many fish as possible.

Our oceans (and fish) are dying.

Yet, this is a policy problem not many are aware of or talk about outside of dolphins, whales, and sharks. Unfortunately fish don’t get a ton of love despite their importance to ecological balance and the preservation of the oceans themselves given they’re…well, fish.

I thought, I want to write a book about this. Like Tender is the Flesh but fish farming instead of factory farming.

But I didn’t have a plot, so the thought went into a notes app to gather dust along with all my other random ones.

Trust me, the list is chaotic. It looks like this.

That spring I saw a lot of fish. Fish in the supermarkets. Fish in food. Fish were haunting me.

I felt strongly that my desire to write a book about fish was different than that for the other ones on my list. I kept coming back to it—even as I was in the middle of writing my 5th book (a dark whimsical fantasy that is rogue video game mechanics meets Alice in Wonderland). What was to be my plot though?

I had no clue.

It didn’t click until I was scrolling on TikTok one night and stumbled upon a developing conspiracy theory: rich people are serving mermaid meat at dinner parties.

Oh, I thought then (and again later when I went down a whole Reddit rabbit hole, one thread from which is actually mentioned in the text of Whitefish itself).

Oh. This was it. This was my plot.

The story of mermaids being used as meat is not a new one.

It’s a common theme in art, anime, fanfiction, and has even been done in other books before (see Italian book Sirene by Laura Pugno). There’s also a sapphic short film that’s coming out called The Lovers by Heartbreak Studio that explores this (also about a chef and mer-creature!).

But I was seduced.

It occurred to me that I could explore my experiences working for and trying fit in with “the rich” in New York City as someone who grew up firmly middle class and as a second gen immigrant (I work in finance—yes, I know, I’m sorry), love for food and fine dining, and obsession with fish all at the same time.

As the saying goes, there are no new ideas—or something like that. The question was only how was I going to make this my own?

Fun fact, the reason why the mermaid in Whitefish is a merman, male, is because you don’t eat breeding stock.

The predecessors I was emulating were obvious from the beginning.

The Menu, for its exploration of fine dining culture. Parasite, for its critique on the class divide between the rich and poor. The White Lotus, for its holistic representation of the upper-class and both their excesses as well as humanity. And The Shape of Water, for its depiction of an intimate relationship between human and other.

More than anything though, it was Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee that gave me the physical form of the book.

Like Free Food for Millionaires, Whitefish is omniscient third person featuring multiple points of view, unapologetically New York, and full of absurdities while still being deeply grounded. I didn’t feel capable of writing this book until after reading this masterpiece.

It was only after I started writing and later edited that the connections to other media clarified.

Of course this is Hannibal (think Will and Hannibal if one of them had a tail). This is also Saltburn—a similarity first pointed out by my agent. And more recently, this is Leviticus.

While I didn’t set out to write a love story, and I would certainly not describe Whitefish as a romance, it would be lying to say Whitefish doesn’t feature plenty of intimacy between its two central characters: Jun and the merman.

Sue me if I am a romantic at heart. Whether its neurotoxins or a chef’s obsession with good tasting ingredients, or actual “love,” I couldn’t help myself.

In the end, Whitefish became less a book about overfishing and fish farms, and much more a book about the rich and the horror of losing yourself to excess and paranoia and greed.

Yes, it’s a chef and his merman, but it’s also the rich family he’s entangled with. If I’m just trying to convince you to read it though, let me just say this:

Fish ****

Add Whitefish on Goodreads

I’ve been told that a Substack can’t end without some takeaways.

So, here is my advice if you are stuck, not sure what to write or how to make something commercial / high-concept / or whatever buzz word have you.

• Consume a lot of different types of media open-mindedly. You never know when and from where inspiration will strike

• Write down every idea, even bad ones. I keep a cluttered iCloud note, but others will journal, Notion, or even have a Discord server for themselves to idea dump in

• Don’t give up if an idea doesn’t immediately make sense as a book. Let it marinate. If it’s meant to be, it’ll come to you

• Read outside of your genre. There’s a lot to learn from every book. Technique is universal

• Mix and match. I’m a big fan of hodgepodging

• Ideas on their own are a dime a dozen (that’s also, by the way, why I’m not scared to share some of the other ideas on my notes app with you). Figure out your spin (angle). It’s all in the execution. I firmly believe that no two people will write the same book regardless of similarities in premise 😊

Add Whitefish on Goodreads

I also went back to working fulltime a year ago: August 2025, shortly after getting engaged. Whitefish was the first book I finished after returning to work. But I cheated a little. I already had 30k words on Whitefish before work came back full throttle.

For context, I work in finance. Think Billions or The Industry on HBO. That finance. Most of my weeks look like logging off between 11-midnight each night and working weekends. Even on days where the workload is lighter, I often come home exhausted with no energy left but to rot and scroll social media.

I asked myself: will I ever be able to finish another book again?

I started writing my 7th book, The King’s Last Woman, at the beginning of this year, over New Year’s week. I was in the Bahamas at the time and had just finished writing Whitefish (last words on Christmas Day!). Rather than take a break to celebrate, I immediately dove into the next project, a epic historical fantasy told as a tragic love story—and a book that has haunted me for years.

In the months that followed, I edited Whitefish for sub, sold it to Flatiron Books in the US and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, finished two rounds of developmental edits for it…all while writing 90k on The King’s Last Woman.

And, on August 16th, 2026, I managed to finish writing The King’s Last Woman, too. It ended up being 126k words and was completed during my two weeks August PTO (my team only takes two weeks of vacation a year, always during summer).

If you are sensing a pattern here, I have managed (so far) to balance writing and work by sacrificing my holidays (including 3-day weekends) and vacations to the monster that is my brain and its need to make fiction out of nothing.

Of course, the purpose of my two week vacation was not to write. The purpose was to relax, spend quality time with my fiancé, and slough off the burnout from a year of work. I was going to be in China, my favorite place in the world, and Bali (for the first time) for god sakes.

But, I also knew that if I didn’t write the last 30-35k now, I wouldn’t get the chance to for a long time. It was now, or never.

The flight back home was a rude awakening. I had gone awhile without drafting (Whitefish edits and a lot of hours at work) and was not ready to dive back in. What I hoped was an easy 6k over the almost 20 hour flight ended up being half that. I did manage to get some good sleep though, which meant exploring the moment we landed and some reading before bed.

Jetlag—my nemesis. If you do the math, writing 30k (at this point I thought naively that the book would be finished at 120k) over two weeks meant roughly 2k words a day. All I had to do was write 2k words a day, and I’d be finished with the draft by the time my vacation was over.

The only day I managed to write in Shanghai was the first. And only 1320 words.

Blame it on jetlag making me go to bed every night at 4pm, the 3am work calls I was getting up to take, Shanghai’s blistering heat, or just general exhaustion from the year prior that my body needed to recover from…

I was, to put politely, screwed.

I did take cute author pictures though, including on theme ones for The King’s Last Woman, which was the main purpose of my stop in Shanghai.

By the time I arrived in my hometown, Xian 西安, I was mostly recovered from my sleepiness. I managed to write the target word count of 2k during the flight between the two cities and was ready to makeup all the lost word count from Shanghai.

Cue family, my next big boss.

Turns out, when you haven’t seen your favorite aunt and uncle and cousin and haven’t spent time with your aging grandpa in over a year, it is hard to step away politely with the excuse: I need to finish writing this book that might not ever see the light of day.

I did still manage to squeeze some words in, just not at much as I wanted to.

At this point in my vacation, I wasn’t ready to give up on the goal of finishing the draft by the end of it, but was, at the same time, struggling to see how it was still possible.

If you’ve been keeping track of the math, you’ll know that I had written about 9k during the first week of my vacation (which, wow, because even though I goofed off so many days, words add up!).

I had seven days left to write another 21k. It felt impossible. I was also beginning to realize that the book may be longer than the 120k I had planned for. Chapters in my outline kept becoming two and three and so on. I was royally ****ed.

Bali came to my rescue.

We stayed half the time in Ubad (3 days, 6249 words written), in the most beautiful resort amid emerald rice paddies and waterfalls. We even had a private pool. I ate three meals at my leisure, drank n number of smoothies and juices, and wrote by the pool every day. It was just me and my fiancé, and he was happy to let me write to my heart’s content.

It turns out, nothing unlocks my ability to write like sunrises and sunsets and the sound of water rippling.

Then, we were off to the beach.

Seminyak (3 days, 7983 words written) was a different paradise than Ubad, bustling with activity and nestled by the sea. We stayed right on the water, and, candidly, did not leave our hotel.

These were my last days of vacation, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than write. I took breaks for meals (which we enjoyed to the sound of waves), walks on the beach, and a dinner show with fire, but otherwise, my eyes were glued to the screen. Thankfully, I could not have asked for a more breathtaking writing environment. With a glass of wine in my hand and an order of truffle fries, even though I was “working,” it still felt very much like vacation.

I had three chapters left.

Three chapters (or 9k words). I could do this.

I told myself, if I can write 2 chapters on the plane and 1 chapter on the weekend after landing back in New York City, I will have achieved my goal.

I slept most of the flight.

Oh chat, I was cooked.

Rather than finish two chapters, I finished one. Which, to be fair to myself, ended up being 5k words (more than the 3k per chapter I had anticipated). The plane was landing, I was back in America, and I was still at least 6k short of finishing.

To save time, I ordered takeout while in the line for immigration, ate as soon as I got home, didn’t bother to unpack or even shower / brush my teeth, and immediately got to writing.

It was nearing 10pm on Saturday. I had just hit 120k in the book.

Everyone, myself included, was telling me to go to bed. Just finish it on Sunday!! Except, I couldn’t just “finish it on Sunday.” I had a meeting in Boston on Monday for work, which meant I needed to catchup on all the work I’d missed on Sunday in preparation for that meeting. There would be no time to write on Sunday.

It was either pull an all-nighter and write another 6k+ or give up on finishing this book.

So:

6 Hours Later:

3 More Hours Later:

My Diet Coke and I finished writing The King’s Last Woman at 6:30am. I hadn’t slept in over 24-hours, during which I managed to write 12k+ words. It was my most productive writing day ever. I also felt like I was about to vomit and was seeing stars in my eyes. None of that mattered.

I was done.

I remember vividly a conversation that was had in one of my writing Discord servers during this vacation. Several authors were discussing how they never write or edit on vacation to avoid burnout. Some of them write fulltime. Some have less taxing jobs that allow them to write more during the week.

It made me a little down to read in the moment. I thought, I also want to have a relaxing vacation where I can be fully in the present and not stressed about word count!

But I am also so privileged to be able to take myself to some of the most beautiful places in the world and be surrounded by family and friends who love and support me as I do what I love most: write.

What a privilege it is to burnout when it comes to writing.

I have given everything I am to book #7. I hope you will see that if you ever have a chance to read it. Until then, I leave you with a snippet…

…and the pitch.

If you are interested in reading The King’s Last Woman someday, the best way to support me is by showing love for my debut. You can add Whitefish on Goodreads now or follow me for announcements about arcs, pre-order links, and more.

Add Whitefish on Goodreads

But this Substack takes place after the book deal.

In these three months, I joined the famed “Debut Discord” and met my fellow 2027 debut authors, got to announce much earlier than expected (read: scream to the world that I’m finally going to be a published author), and wrestled my way through two rounds of developmental edits (of which the first round crashed me out on astronomical levels—experience my crash-out here).

I don’t have a cover, much less arcs. I haven’t sent out requests for (or received) blurbs. I’m not a lead title with con invites, marketing budget, and a publicist already planning events. I don’t have a film deal or foreign rights sold (yet, fingers crossed).

I’m still more than a year from release.

…on the other hand, I’ve already experienced an incredible number of small (less splashy) joys on my debut journey. Unexpected ones. Ones I don’t hear talked about often.

But small is also worth documenting, because I only debut once and therefore every moment is precious (happening, to me, for the first time).

So, as they say, romanticize your life or what have you and stop and smell the roses. An accumulation of small joys can be just as meaningful as the movie deal every author dreams of.

Think of this as my tell-all, diary, and thank you’s rolled into one sentimental list about publishing “happenings.”

Meeting my editors in person

Living in New York City and paying astronomical rent does come with some benefits. I met Kate & Sophie for dinner & drinks at Barnjoo, right next to the massive Barnes & Noble in Union Square, two weeks after accepting my offer and we spent the evening gushing over Whitefish. At the time, they were in the middle of finishing their edit letter for me and had a number of fun fish facts to share as a result 👀 (you’ll have to read to find out).

I was also lucky enough to meet up for lunch with Delayna and Maddy (my UK editor and agent) during an unexpected and unrelated work trip that brought me to their side of the Atlantic. And the vibes were just as good. We discussed all the edits I was in the middle of making and books (movies, video games) we were excited about against the backdrop of a gorgeous London day. I left full of Mediterranean food and great appreciation for the team that had gathered around me to bring Whitefish to readers everywhere.

Meeting fellow debut authors in person

Turns out there are a lot of us in the city. Writing (and the debut journey, in particular) can be lonely, but having a community makes it a little less scary. I’m thankful for everyone who has organized get-togethers or simply reached out to set-up time over Instagram. Pictured below is Maxine Charles (). Her fantasy, Riddlers of the Thorn Wood, comes out spring next year with Little, Brown.

The mug

I ordered my mugs as soon as the announcement came out. I think this one is a rite of passage for any author. Not pictured below is the framed print of my deal announcement I now have hanging above my desk as writing motivation. (Fun Fact: Whitefish was originally titled Fish Bones & Caviar!)

Setting up an author bank account (it feels official now)

Besides having to tell HR and Compliance at my day job that I was going to be publishing a book, I also had to set up a bank account to manage all the finances associated with finally being an “author.” There’s no money in it yet, but having a credit card to use for “business purposes” makes everything feel so official.

My publisher posting me on their socials

Shoutout to the Flatiron social media team for already making me feel so loved and included in the family. It’s such a small thing, but whenever they post about Whitefish or repost my posts to their story and feed, I become so excited for what is to come. I think we’re going to make a great team.

It was pretty embarrassing when they reposted one of the meme reels I made though…because why am I the least serious of their authors?!

Receiving early messages of enthusiasm from some of my favorite authors

Since my announcement, I’ve received so many messages of love and support from authors I admire. Whether its offers to blurb or just excitement about reading / pre-ordering, the community has really put its arms around me.

I’m still, understandably, starstruck. As a reader, I can’t believe this is happening to me. What do you mean the writers of some of my favorite books want to read my writing? I am also so nervous. Here’s to hoping Whitefish doesn’t disappoint.

Sharing art of my characters knowing readers will get to meet them (for real) this time

Commissioning character art has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. This time, though, readers will actually get to meet the characters behind the art. And I will finally, finally, finally get to order a bunch of prints of my favorite commissions and send them out to readers as a token of my appreciation for their support. I can’t wait.

Getting a Goodreads Author account

I found out by pure accident that my UK publisher had put Whitefish up on Goodreads (I don’t even know if they know I know, don’t tell on me). Either way, I claimed my Goodreads Author badge immediately after. After battling to make sure Whitefish was attributed properly to me rather than the other Catherine Cheng on the site, I was officially a “real” author.

Reaching 1,000 adds on Goodreads

So began my long and arduous journey to get adds. Trust me when I tell you, the needle is tough to move as an author. There isn’t much you can do besides relentlessly shouting about your book on social media and hope someone will hear you. Most of the high #s of “want to reads” you see on Goodreads are the result of publishers running multiple Goodreads giveaways to drive traffic.

Still, I was determined. Maybe I had a chip on my shoulder. I wanted badly to prove to myself that Whitefish had a market.

What you see below is the result of continuous showing up every day on social media to talk about my book. 1,000 was reached through 20 per day—individual readers interested in Whitefish who accumulated in count over time. I am so proud of myself and also grateful to every reader who took time out of their day to add Whitefish to their shelves.

Being shouted out on YouTube

I almost fell out of my chair when ’s video on upcoming books was sent to me. It felt so surreal seeing Whitefish mentioned in a YouTube video alongside a collection of books I can’t wait to read. I am still shocked that it was.

Book mail from Hachette UK

When I came home to a huge box from Hachette UK, I immediately dropped everything else to open it. Thank you to the lovely Delayna for sending me the most gorgeous selection of Hodder / Hodderscape books, including Kitten by which I immediately devoured. I am so lucky.

Kitten and Fishbone Cinderella not pictured. See the full unboxing here.

Support from booksellers, book influencers, and a small but growing number of readers

I have nothing to say except Thank You. Your messages have made so many of my days. Publisher support for debut authors, especially when you’re not a lead title, is never guaranteed. Because of this, knowing I have support amongst all of you, makes me less scared going into this upcoming year.

Love notes from my editors after edits

I would screenshot you what they wrote…but I don’t want to spoil the book for you! Suffice to say, as much as I crashed out over edits, they were so worth the effort, and I’m so happy my editors agreed.

Mentioned as a comp on r/PubTips

Being considered as a comp is a niche author dream, but certainly one of mine. How cool is it that someone thinks highly enough of Whitefish whether premise or positioning to evaluate using it as they draft their query letter? Good luck with querying beesontheceiling, I’ll be thinking of you and wishing you well.

And, yes, I do lurk on r/PubTips. Please feel free to engage with me there.

My dad writing about my book deal on his WeChat

Writing is something my parents and I have had many arguments over. Their concerns are valid. It’s a tough living trying to sustain yourself off an author’s income. In the end though, no one was happier or more proud to hear about my book deal than my dad—though he couldn’t resist throwing in a line about not quitting my full-time job at the end.

Messages from you all (my dear Substack readers)

I conclude this Substack with a direct message. If you read this far, maybe it means you found some of the ranting, stream-of-consciousness, and sappiness that was the above enlightening.

Since starting this Substack, I’ve received many messages from writers sharing their own experiences with drafting, editing, querying, submission, and traditional publishing. My goal is to continue being honest with you all as I document what remains of my debut journey. This is what I would have liked to read (and still want to read / do read) as I daydream about what it means to be a traditionally published author.

Thank you for giving me a platform to share.

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This was back in May (read about it here). It was a whirlwind few weeks of emotions and celebration. Then, I settled in and prepared myself for a long, silent wait. If you don’t know, sometimes months can go by between closing a deal, getting to announce the deal, and getting your first round of edits. Publishing moves very slowly behind the scenes, hence why books don’t get published until often 18+ months from when they were acquired.

I was wrong.

Less than two weeks after getting my offer, my book deal went official on Publishers Marketplace. And less than one week after that, my first edit letter landed in the inbox.

I was at an out-of-town, very important work meeting when I got the email.

I read the subject line and immediately felt my stomach drop. I knew I couldn’t open the edit letter then (though I wanted terribly to), because if the edits were “bad,” I wouldn’t be able to focus for the rest of the half-day long meeting I was leading. But it was also all I could think about. I was so scared!!

I did the only thing I could, I sent it to a friend who had also beta-read the book.

She advised me not to open it until the weekend (it was a Thursday). To sleep on it and gather my courage before reading.

I read it on my flight home.

My immediate reaction was tepid. I can do this. This isn’t so bad. (My editors had previewed a lot of their edit vision on the call and I had been noodling on said vision; I had a plan!) Then…I kept reading.

The edit letter was 9 pages long and 5000 words, of which, the first page was just compliments.

But I am a writer, which means I also have a tendency to be incredibly self-critical and defensive, so rather than bask in the many compliments, fun fish facts, and clear love my editors have for the book, I immediately anchored my self-worth on the number and breadth of edits, which included a suggestion to overhaul the ending completely and significant changes to the character arcs of several side characters. Cue, crash-out.

You see, I am a drafter. I love the process of discovery that comes with drafting, the excitement of writing something for the first time, figuring out the plot and characters, and the feeling of finishing that first draft. I do not enjoy editing. Because editing to me, feels like undoing everything I discovered and fell in love with over the course of writing.

And though this was not the first time I had rewritten a book in service of making it better (I rewrote the horror fantasy we put on sub before Whitefish completely, from first sentence to last), I really, really liked this book as is. I thought it already “worked,” and I was worried these changes would somehow make it “worse.”

I thought, did I make the wrong choice? Should I have gone with an editor(s) where the editorial vision was less extensive?

My very wise friends tried to comfort me. Sleep on it, they said. You will feel better in the morning. And if you still don’t agree with the edits, you can discuss them with your editors and come up with different solutions.

All of the above is true. If you are ever in my situation, I recommend you do exactly as prescribed.

But I am not very good at going to sleep with a to-do-list hanging over my head.

Rather than sleep, I started outlining.

If you haven’t heard of the reverse outline, it is a very nifty tool. Basically you read your draft after you finish it, outline it, identify the problems and fixes, and then write another clean outline to guide your “second draft,” including hints on what to change in each scene / chapter, etc.

I have never reversed outlined. I probably never will.

Instead, I skipped straight to the last step: making an outline for my second draft. For me, something about just writing out the events of the “fixed” book versus fixating on what needs to change makes me less stressed. It fools my brain into thinking I’ve already done the work, even though the work is yet to come.

By midnight, I had “re-written” the entire plot to address my editors’ various suggestions. Exactly 12 hours had passed since I received the edit letter.

I woke up the next morning feeling much better about the edit letter. Because I had an outline that told me exactly what the new draft would look like, I was no longer so attached to the existing draft. It also helped that I forced myself to focus on the edits that I was particularly excited to make (including a mid-book plot twist that had been in my head since the call and that I literally was gnawing at the bars of my cage to write).

It also helped that I surrounded myself with books I loved and that were also comps for Whitefish during this process.

It was like a summoning circle. I would read a couple pages and it would inspire me to edit. Reading books that I aspire to is also how I keep myself motivated when I’m drafting.

I could do this.

More importantly, I had plenty of time to do it. My editors gave me until mid-August to turn in this first round. Which meant I had a little under three months to edit the first half and effectively rewrite the second.

I started the very next day. It was Memorial Day Weekend. I thought: If I can get a good head start over the three-day weekend, I will finish on time for sure.

I ended up editing 1/3 of the entire book over the next three days.

The question then, is how did I do it? The necessary disclaimer is I don’t have kids, I am an introvert, and writing is my #1 hobby (I don’t have many others, not even exercising). Which meant I basically chained myself to my desk, couch, and bed that entire weekend.

But it also helped that the first half of my book didn’t need very many edits. I was primarily line-editing and making small in-scene tweaks to set-up for changes that would happen later in the book. I only wrote two brand new scenes this first weekend.

So, I told myself, this is a good start, but there is a lot to do in the coming weeks.

What I didn’t expect was for the momentum to continue.

The following weekend, I edited another 25% of the book. The weekend after that, another 25%. And, during the final weekend, a little less than a month after receiving the edit letter, I wrote 10K brand new words—and turned in my first round of developmental edits two months early.

Now that I am on the other side of these edits, here are my honest reflections:

• It feels bad until you’re done: I love, love, love, love, love this newest version of Whitefish. But it didn’t feel that way until I had made the edits, written the new scenes, and sat back in relief that it was all done. Even now, I’m still nervous whether my editors will enjoy this new version as much as I do. What I do know is that if I hadn’t been willing to push through my initial crash-out to do these edits, this book wouldn’t be as good as it is today.

Them:

Me:

• Take your time: I am happy I finished my edits early because work ended up becoming very busy as soon as I turned them in. But I am also very tired as a result. My lovely, very productive editors are also planning on sending back round 2 of edits first week of July so I might find myself back in that editing cave again very soon

• I still enjoy drafting best, but editing can be fun too: I added in new plot twists, character traits (including something very creepy and voice-y), and some very fun taglines. It felt almost as good as drafting.

All this to say, I did it! At least for now.

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My agent sent out my sixth book, a literary horror where a Michelin-starred chef indebted to a wealthy New York family spirals into madness as he grows increasingly obsessed with the merman he is supposed to serve them, out on sub on March 31, 2026. We received our first call request on April 14, 2026—exactly two weeks after. Four calls with US imprints later, we had three offers and went into auction. A separate four-way auction in the UK followed in short order.

By May 8, 2026, I had decided on which offer to accept on both sides of the Atlantic and it was official…

Whitefish comes out in 2027 with Flatiron Books in the US and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK!! 🐟

Add Whitefish on Goodreads

I am extremely grateful to have landed what many in the industry might consider a “unicorn” deal. Interest came extremely fast and from many different corners of the publishing industry (independent to big 5 publishing houses, literary to commercial imprints, senior to junior editors). But the truth is, nothing about this victory feels fast.

The truth is, Whitefish is my Book #6. Over the 2.5 years since I started writing again (“again” meaning for the first time since high school, when younger me from 10 years ago realized writing wasn’t going to pay the bills) to receiving my debut book deal, I have written 6.75 books—not counting discarded projects.

Of the 6.75 books:

• Book #1 (Romantasy): Died in the querying trenches

• Book #2 (Romantic Fantasy): Landed me 46 (!) full requests, 6 (!) agent offers (including the one from my dream and current agent), died on sub

Disclaimer: I did receive a offer for Book #2 for Canadian rights from a Big 5 and contingent UK interest (…too risky to publish without corresponding US interest). I ultimately decided to turn down the Canadian offer in pursuit of debuting in the US, where I live.

• Book #3 (Horror Fantasy): Died on sub despite being indisputably my most popular book amongst friends and beta readers

• Book #4 (Romantic Fantasy): Skipped over for sub, too “literary” and “experimental” for the market—think The Spear Cuts Through Water x Piranesi

• Book #5 (“Cozy” Fantasy): Skipped over for sub, Book #6 was just better (“better” meaning higher concept, more commercial, easier to sell)

• Book #6 (Literary Horror): Whitefish! Sold at auction…

• Book #7 (Historical Romantic Fantasy): Still drafting. 90,000 of 120,000 words written

I thought a lot about every book that came before Whitefish during these last few weeks, in particular the two that died on sub. Indeed, it was impossible not to. Editors kept bringing them up.

I jumped on calls with 9 different editors across 8 imprints, and almost every one of them asked whether Whitefish was my “debut.” Debut here meaning “the first book you’ve written.” When I answered no, they collectively expressed sentiments of Oh good, that makes much more sense—suggesting Whitefish was too good to be a debut.

Reflecting on these conversations, I asked myself whether they were right. Had I earned the right to get a dream offer on Whitefish by working hard and becoming a better writer through the drafting and editing processes for the 5 books that came before it?

To a certain extent, this is fair and accurate. Whitefish is certainly stronger in craft than Book #1, which died in the querying trenches. It is also certainly more grounded than all of my fantasy writing and explores more contemporary and resonant themes (class rage, capitalism, immigrant ambition).

But none of this is the reason I believe it sold while my other two didn’t (yet).

One editor asked me: “You have so many projects. You also write fantasy, right? Why choose to debut with horror?”

The answer is simple, and almost capitalistic: Whitefish is what the market wants at this particular juncture of time. It is high concept, commercial, and easy to pitch. I can give you a dozen media comps for it, each of them popular and household names (The White Lotus, Parasite, The Shape of Water, The Menu, The Bear, Succession, Saltburn…)

Editors were already asking for it in their rejections of Book #3—which hurt very badly at the time.

Comparatively, my fantasy and genre-blend projects before Whitefish are significantly less “pitchable.”

Do you shelve it as fantasy? But it has romance. Is it romantasy then? But it doesn’t have a happily ever after. And so on.

Getting a book deal is about more than craft or the quality of the writing. It is also about premise, luck, and landing in the right inbox at the right time—a lot of which is completely out of your control.

Maybe that isn’t fair. But publishing is a business at the end of the day. As someone who works in business and wrote the vast majority of these books during business school, I understand this better than anyone else.

I am still unsure whether my more experimental projects will go anywhere. I sure hope so! But nevertheless, I am grateful for them and how they challenged me. Whitefish wouldn’t exist without the lessons they and cram-writing so many words across so many disparate genres taught me.

There is nothing to do except keep writing. The dream is not only to be an author but to simply write.

More about Whitefish then…

It was Tuesday (April 14). Book #6 had officially been on sub for two weeks. Mentally, I had already written it off. This was my third time at the rodeo, there was no reason to believe this time would be any different than the two others.

I threw myself into drafting Book #7 as a distraction, certain that the best outcome was another quick death. Both Book #2 and Book #3 took less than 3 months to die. At least I had the great privilege of having an agent who was incredible at getting quick responses. Whatever. If it dies, I would sub another. I was used to this.

Then…

Cue me waking up at 5am to an unexpected Instagram notification. An editor we had subbed to in the UK followed me overnight. Thirty minutes later, my agent emailed. I thought, is the UK agent reaching out for a call or with an offer? Instead, it was a call request from one of my dream US imprints.

On Thursday (April 16), another call request came in. On Friday (April 17), a third.

My agent set an official deadline based on this interest in the US for one and half weeks later. A fourth call request came in—along with two offers in the UK (including from the editor who had followed me on Instagram).

The days leading up to the US deadline were some of the most anxiety-inducing I’ve ever experienced. My agent kept telling me the offers would not come in until literally minutes before the deadline (noon), but I was unwell. To me, no offers in my inbox meant delayed rejections. No one was going to offer. We shouldn’t have set a deadline.

Spoiler alert: my agent was right. I worried and spiraled and didn’t sleep for no good reason.

On April 29, 12:00 EST, almost exactly a month after Whitefish was sent out on sub and not a day or hour before, we received three offers in the US. Before the week was over, we closed with Flatiron Books—who also happened to be the first call request, first call…serendipity.

Before I could even process the news, my agent updated all the UK editors who still had the submission and set a deadline for them as well. When publishing moves, it moves fast.

On May 8, a week after we decided on an US offer, we were looking at another four in the UK. Unlike in the US, we played catch-up in the UK, doing 1/2 of the calls after the offers themselves came in. In the end, I went with Hodder & Stoughton, who also happened to be Whitefish’s most enthusiastic reader since the beginning of sub, and my first good news. (Again, serendipity.)

After 2.5 years of not knowing whether my words would ever make it into the hands of readers, I had a book deal.

During said months and years, I read countless posts like this one, trawled through r/PubTips, the Facebook OnSubmission group, and two handfuls of Discord channels. The goal was always to feel some inkling of hope about my own prospects. So, let me leave you with some hopeful words to end:

I sold the book. Everything is worth it. Keep writing.

(If you’d like to support me, you can add Whitefish on Goodreads here!)