If Not You preorder campaign 🖋️📚

And the other part of knowing something

Big news for people who want me to scribble in their book

I’m partnering with Boulder Bookstore for signed preorders of If Not You! Each order will also come with exclusive goodies—more on that below.

Signing preorders for The Heartbreak Hotel at Boulder Bookstore last fall (pictured here) is one of my most treasured memories. And not only because they were so nice to me when I tested everyone’s patience by flipping back and forth from the title page to page 327, over and over, to make sure I wasn’t misquoting my own book every time I fulfilled a request to personalize someone’s copy with my favorite quote.

(Imagine typo-ing your own work? In your own handwriting? In a copy of your own novel? I did imagine it, vividly.)

If you’d like your book personalized with your name (rather than just signed with mine), or if you’d like me to write something specific in it, use the “Inscription” box to let me know.

Write something specific, you ask?? Last year I personalized books with requests for Lou & Henry’s song, their favorite place in Colorado, a Taylor Swift lyric that fits them. I wished people happy birthday and congratulated them on their engagement (and cried. I mean, what an honor). I wrote my favorite quote from the book, flipping to page 327 fifteen times in a row to double-check I hadn’t messed it up. I had the time of my life.

So, please: request anything you like! Know that each request makes my heart grow three sizes. And also know that if you’d only like your book signed, or if you don’t like paperbacks and would rather preorder the audiobook, or if you’re exclusively a library reader and plan to get your copy there—I am so grateful for you, just the same.

Every preorder from Boulder Bookstore will also come with:

1. A Wicksteed Resorts (Aspen/Bodega Bay) postcard illustrated by Dana Christopherson

2. A character art print illustrated by If Not You’s cover artist, Lila Selle

3. A “rivals to lovers” vinyl sticker complete with Mattie & Campbell’s dueling pens

As a refresher, If Not You is a rivals-to-lovers romance about Mattie French and Campbell Porter, copywriters with years of contentious history who get stuck together on a month-long work trip as their advertising agencies compete to win the business of a luxury resort.

Your preorder will ship to you when If Not You releases in September. A little treat for future you!

If there’s ONE way to best support this book, it’s by preordering it. I’d love for that to be through Boulder Bookstore, because indie bookstores deserve all of our love, and because it’ll make me happy to see your name and sign a book for you. But a preorder anywhere—in any format—is the most generous gift you can give to an author.

It might seem like a purchase now and a purchase down the road (when this book can be in your hands immediately) shake out to the same thing. But because of the mystical alchemy surrounding publishing, preorder sales get special attention: they tell publishers, bookstores, and other powers-that-be how much interest a book has before it’s even out, and that means a lot to a lot of people.

That said, talking about sales is very hard for me! So after

let’s move on!

The other part of knowing something

In April, I saw a screening of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World at the Boulder International Film Festival. A documentary about an exceptional and beloved woman that I attended with some exceptional women I love very much.

This beautiful film included recordings of Mary Oliver reading her work, and I was struck partway through by a line from her essay “Bird,” which I’d never read before:

This is not fact; this is the other part of knowing something, when there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief.

It’s rolled around in my brain ever since. Though I’m always hesitant to talk about what I’m writing next-next when my actual next book (If Not You) isn’t even out yet, I’ve spent most of my time lately working on my 2027 release (No Wilder Thing): a book about love, of course, but also in large part about what “the real world” is. What’s factual, or known, or real?

Who gets to decide that? Is it us? (It is.)

Not the birds Mary Oliver was talking about, but the baby robins that nested on my porch last month. Can you believe these faces?

My first car was a maroon Jeep that always pulled left: if I let up on the wheel, I started veering off. My brain is like that, too: if I let up, I veer off toward anxiety. My brain tugs in the direction of worrying.

That’s tough in times when “there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief.” My brain can talk me into thinking any manner of awful thing is on its way.

But that isn’t the entire quote—it begins with “This is not fact; this is the other part of knowing something.” Knowing. It seems to me that a creative life relies on this so much: trusting the knowing. Like the blind faith it takes to write a book when you can only see the story as far as your next sentence. Knowing, somehow, that you’ll get to the end. Or the belief that what you’re writing will matter to someone—that it’ll make someone feel a little more seen or a little less alone—and trusting that that’s reason enough to keep going. These aren’t facts; they haven’t happened yet. There’s no tangible proof to call on. But they’re the other part of knowing something.

I spent a couple weeks in Ireland in May, which was soul-nourishing for so many reasons. On our last night in Dublin, we stopped in a pub for a final pint. There was a man playing live music by the bar, and when we sat down, my friend clinked her glass to mine and said, “Do you think he’ll play ‘Wonderwall’?”

My laugh turned into a gasp as he transitioned to his next song: “The Boxer” by Simon & Garfunkel. I was flying home to Colorado in the morning, where my draft of No Wilder Thing waited for me. Already, the end-of-vacation weight was bearing down: sitting in that pub, I felt so intimidated by everything I still needed to untangle in the story. But then that song started to play.

No Wilder Thing is about two kids who grow up and fall in love — but first, they bond over “The Boxer.” It’s their song.

This wasn’t fact, but that man in that pub playing that song on my last night before home felt like magic that was meant specifically for me. It was a little nudge from the universe: keep going. It was the other part of knowing something.

Then—and this is a TRUE FACT—he transitioned into “Wonderwall.”

Spring bookshelf

Horror! Memoir! Romance!

I loved reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing before my trip to Ireland, a riveting nonfiction narrative about the Troubles (my editor recommended this one, and as usual she has impeccable taste). Mara Williams’ The Other Side of Starting Over had me openly weeping on the airplane (complimentary). Love Felt Like This is a hug in book form; Julie Olivia’s writing is pure sunshine.

I could go on and on about these, but this newsletter is already too long, so suffice it to say: I recommend all of them. And there may be some clues within about events I’m cooking up with author friends (you guessed it! it’s Patti Smith).

Thank you, as always, for being here with me.

Take really good care, and I’ll see you back here next time. ❤️

xo, Ellen

P.S. Here’s the link, one last time, to signed preorders of If Not You from Boulder Bookstore!