Christen Randall

Anyway, drink coffee and make art, pals. 💖

Also Tag Yrself, I’m The Emerson.

Listen I am an ARTISTÉ with that rainbow light reflection on their fingers okay?!??!?!

Text message from:

EMERSON PIKE!

have you ever been to Golden Gelato???

its on Pike Street

which was not named after me but should be lets be real 💅✨

and their fall menu just dropped and they have maple pecan biscotti gelato 💅✨✨✨

BRB just casually crying at 9:43AM on a Thursday.

Real talk, I wrote this book because it’s the book I needed when I was a teen. I know authors say that a lot, but it’s true—if I had read this book when I was 15 and in Hollis’s place (or, heck, 25, or 30, or—), I feel like it would have saved me from internalizing a lot of really fucked up stuff about myself and the way I love and move through the world. My secret hope was always that Hollis find even just the one reader who really needed her, to help save them from some of the hurt the world can instill in us as queer, or fat, or anxious people existing. If I could do that, I told myself, I’d be doing well.

If Hollis’s story spared you from even the smallest amount of that, Anon, then I’ve done it. Thank you for this gift.

I also wanted to say just how much I loved your book, and how much it’s changed my life for the better since I got it in June. After I spotted it in a bookstore I decided to get it for an overnight school trip so I had something to read, and I was completely blown away. I’ve read it about a dozen times since then and it reignited my love for dnd back into a roaring flame. I was having a lot of issues with my campaign as a first time dm and after hearing Gloria’s descriptions of the world, how alive and vivid it was, I instantly knew I needed to do that too. It also made me realize that the party I was creating an adventure for wasn’t a good situation, and it lead me to starting a new campaign. Our very first session, dnd became a completely different world for me. It was like Gloria’s campaign atmosphere got directly transferred into my own homebrew world. It continues being the only book I’ve read in the past three months, and every time it loses none of its magic, or it’s comfort to me. I’ve never loved a book more, and it’s inspired me to try working on my own book again. Thank you so much for writing this.

Okay discovering my Asks box has been a treasure.

Hi! I’m a little late to the (adventuring) party, but this is FANTASTIC and I love everything about it! As you might imagine, as someone who writes books for a living I am kind of the perpetual DM myself, and for a long time (a long, long time ago now) I felt like I wasn’t Doing It Right because the kinds of stories I liked to tell at the table were not traditional D&D stories. Writing Gloria was, for me, a way to be tender with the part of myself that writes campaigns (and books!) in a different way. I am really glad some of Gloria’s sparkle rubbed off on you and your game, too. She’s cool like that, that Gloria.

This is the best message ever!!!!!! Those are exactly the vibes I tried to capture in this one. I hope reaching out to your friend went well. Funnily, TNGR coming out reconnected me with one of my very old friends. I kind of love the idea that this is a little piece of magic the book holds for both of us.

How did I not know these were a thing???

Oh look my super neurodivergent queer YA romance is up on Netgalley!