I’ve had three books come out this exact week in June. None of them as complicated as City of Likes. When I talk about what it took to get this novel into the world, the PTSD comes rushing back. It wasn't just the rejections on the first submission or the post-pandemic editors who decided nobody wanted to read about privileged women in Lower Manhattan. It was the self-delusion it took to keep moving forward. It was picking myself up off my bathroom floor then sitting back down at my computer to write another 75,000 words. Being told "no" has always activated me in a way that shuts down my normal circuitry. For some reason I can't recognize it as information. I hear it as a dare. Instead of stopping me, it almost propels me. Which sounds inspirational unless you are the person living with me through the process. I've run marathons, I've had children, I've been in long relationships, but nothing took more willpower than prying open this door that everyone kept saying didn't exist...