Ryan T. Pozzi

Update: A librarian at the Wisconsin Historical Society saved the day! What a hero. In case you're wondering, kids, THAT is how you get your name in the acknowledgements. 🙂

P. T. Barnum gets a chapter in my next book and I'm swapping emails with several library systems to track down a 19th-century edition of one of his books.

This is a bit more involved than wandering down to my local library like I usually do when I need a source. I feel like such a professional!

Maybe that's the problem - too loud/scary in the world right now for braided narratives and time skips.

This one is well-written and pretty interesting when I can follow what's going on. For some reason, I'm having trouble staying with the throughline. I think I lost my footing after the first Salazar time jump.

Can't tell yet if the problem is me or the book. If you've read it, what did you think?

I hope so. Being so early career, I still feel a bit of a pull to be visible where the largest collections of readers are but if we see a sustained trend away from GR I'll be thrilled.

In the meantime, I started using StoryGraph and I've been tempted to try Margins.

Yeah, never show weakness or whatever, but...

Goodreads is a seriously tough neighborhood! I'm not "in danger" for a few more months yet, but I'm REALLY not looking forward to it.

V different genre, but just for quality if The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake only has a 3.25 out of 5, I'm screwed.

I'm really just trying to get a Wikipedia page.

I mentored dozens, launched 3 NPOs and 6 companies, done press all around my state, and I'm about to be a debut author with a global top 50 house.

There's a page for animals who've gotten fraudulent college degrees, but I'm not "noteable" enough. 😑

In honor of everybody's favorite recent adaption.

On This Day in History: March 12, 1837
Robert Southey told 20-year-old Charlotte Brontë that literature shouldn’t be a woman’s life’s work. In 1847, Brontë replied by publishing Jane Eyre. History is full of men projecting their own limits on women.

Mostly you point out my flaws. I don't penalize for truth-telling.

Blocking abusive trolls is a no-brainer. I've started blocking people who say little dumb stuff that gets under my skin.

It's called self-care, Susan!

Just to make fun of Publishers Marketplace deal size language, today my endorsement package went from "nice deal" to "very nice deal" with six weeks to go.

Will we make it to "good deal" or "significant deal" in that time? My pending maybes say chances are good! (🤞 for Barack and Michelle lol)

I'm so wired. 🙃

I know I compared it to querying, but I think it actually feels more like gambling (which I did a bit in my misspent youth.)

Develop a defensible system, know the odds, play* the people, not the cards, know when to walk away.

*as in highlight their interests, customize the pitch

Him: My folks are nervous about my career prospects.

Me: Don't worry. My parents hyperventilated about me all the time, but then they died so it was fine.

My wife: *grabs arm* Get over here! You are not allowed to be comforting anymore. You're really bad at it.

🤔 When she's right, she's right.

Them: [Major retailer] is on my shit list.

Me: Makes sense. Corporations don't care about us.

Them: Yeah, I'm not going back there.

Me: Okay, but isn't that an Amazon driver pulling up outside?

Them: Yeah. Why?

Me: 🤦‍♂️

Private school vouchering was only defeated by 125,000 votes. Only a crazy lib like you would think that meant we didn't want it. 😵‍💫

Reread Still Writing. I'd forgotten many details. While we do diverge on small points, it's no surprise that I read Shapiro. She references so many of the creatives who found their way into my debut.

If you haven't read it, she's frank. Even abrupt. Still deeply caring and constructive, though.

Book endoresement requests are so weird.

On one hand, I'm getting rejected pretty frequently. On the other, some insanely successful creatives have welcomed me to the profession, given me advice, wished me well, and promised to be first in line to buy my book this fall.

It's all the validation! 🥰

It sounds crazy, but of the 208 agents I queried in 2025, I only pissed off one of them. After we sold my debut to Bloomsbury, I learned that my acquiring editor worked at that agency for 14 years. I've stategically not mentioned that I infuriated her old boss.

I was tempted, but the "small town-ness" of the publishing industry had already been drilled into my head. It would be just my luck some snark would slip in there and then three years later that agent is now working as an acquiring editor and they pass on my manuscript.

Story time for my #amquerying crew:

I think my favorite part of querying was after I signed with an agent and he'd sold my book.

I still got late rejections for at least six months after and every time I'd delete the email, stand up from my desk, and walk away saying, "Bah, who needs ya anyway?"

I get it. I haven't branched out as much as you have yet, but I'm banned from Facebook and Twitter. I think the rest of Meta's platforms will get to me eventually.

I love a good plague reimagining (usually.) Makes me wish I lived closer.

Even if this reads as a takedown to you at first glance (it doesn't to me, but I get it), take another look at Niko's thought here.

Art criticism is analysis, evaluation, and response. If you've never said anything positive about a creative work, it undermines the value of your fault-finding.

💯

It didn’t take long to unseat Stephen Graham Jones as my read of the year. Long live Emily St. John Mandel.

Station Eleven is unnervingly intimate for a novel about the collapse of civilization. I’m lukewarm on post-apocalyptic fiction, but this one gets at the human condition without melodrama.

I dug it. (Maybe not the end, but no shade. Sticking the landing is hard.)

My agency is shopping my translation rights at the London Book Fair this week. That's cool, man.

Not supposed to talk about it since a poor result (always possible) could reflect poorly on the book. Still, my pal @justinhayneswriter.com says you've gotta find joy where you can in this business. 😁

We're very privileged, compared to many, but some days it feels like too much to face all at once.

I've been staring blankly a lot today. I feel wrung out. All I can think to do is to try to start again tomorrow.

I'm happily married and my (possibly doomed because it's a) midlist author career is still intact. I'm grateful.

In the meantime, how's everything else going?
❌ Med bills
❌ Foundation issues
❌ Job stress
❌ Our health
❌ City services
❌ State civil rights protections
❌ National everything, basically

I don't do pity marketing, so this isn't that, but I do believe in transparency. (Why I thought it was a good idea to bring a belief like that to publishing, we'll never know.)

The burdens are heavy today. Our home, our town, our state, the country - it seems that everything is wrong at once. 🧵