Last Post Before Launch!
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🐑 A GOOD ANIMAL updates
“Not sure if you’ve heard, but I have a book coming out??!” 🙃
I feel like all I’ve been doing for the past two months is posting nonstop about A Good Animal coming out. Thankfully, in one week, I’ll be put out of my misery. A Good Animal will be in the world on Tuesday, February 24, and I will finally be able to start posting about how it’s out, instead of how it’s coming out. Just kidding. Well, probably not.
Speaking of, book launch! All are welcome. Come listen to Ellen Airgood speak eloquently while I hyperventilate and call myself a published author for the first time.
I’m still in scheduling mode, but have solidified several great events in February and March. More to come!
Some amazing, exciting things have happened in the last month! First, the BIG one: Book of the Month selected A Good Animal as a February pick and made it available to readers almost a month before publication. It took some mental adjusting on my end to get used to the idea that people were actually reading my book, tagging me on Instagram, and sending me messages. But I’ve now come to terms with the fact that people are in fact going to read my book. My editor called me back at the end of November to let me know and I’ve been keeping the secret for quite some time. Cat’s out of the bag. I posted an unboxing video when I got my BOTM delivery and saw my book for the first time. Pure delight.
More trade reviews: A Good Animal has received some amazing trade reviews already from Publishers Weekly (starred), Library Journal, Kirkus, and Booklist, but last week I received what I think is my absolute favorite one, even if it wasn’t starred. Melissa Brown at BookPage wrote,
“Maurer plumbs the depths of unabashed and bare-faced young desire just as thoughtfully as she maps the contours of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. A Good Animal wears its heart on its Carhartt sleeve and makes the reader feel all its longing and want.”
Gah! I just love that so much.
Writing North Book Fest: I’ve been thrilled to help Meagan Francis (I’m 100% the grunt) with the planning of the Writing North Winter Book Fest, the first literary festival of its kind in Manistique, Mich., just off of Highway 2 in the heart of the U.P. It’s going to take place on Saturday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, Mar. 1 and it’s jam-packed with free and ticketed events, including readings, signings, panels, workshops, kids' time, and a really cool evening literary salon. I’m seriously so excited to meet other Great Lakes authors like Karen Dionne, Bryan Gruley, Ellen Lord, T. Marie Bertineau, Anne-Marie Oomen, Helen Raica-Klotz, Mikel Classen, Steve Amick, Carol Dunbar, Iliana (Lane) Regan, and Dave Dempsey. An event like this in the UP is much needed, particularly in the winter when we’re feeling so beat down by the snow. Meagan and event host The Mill Manistique are giving Yoopers something to be excited about in what can be a very difficult time of year. I’m looking forward to seeing this festival expand in the coming years.
Tickets are available at https://www.writingnorth.com.
An essay in an anthology: A year ago, I wrote an essay about what it’s like to live in the UP in the midst of climate change and submitted it to a call for papers by Mike Welch, the editor of the Chicago Review of Books. He accepted it for his anthology, On an Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes, which is coming from Belt Publishing on March 10, 2026. It’s a beautiful anthology, filled with such wide expression for the place I call home. I received my contributors copy last week and drove it around to show it some of the places I wrote about.
🪟 The view outside my writing window
Something a little different this month: the view OF my writing window, care of Moose. The snow has been so deep, I had to make him some roads through the yard with my snowshoes. Now he can get to his favorite tree and to the pond.
📚 A beautiful thing from a book I’m reading
My new best #2026debut buddy, Kate Crane, author of the forthcoming What Ever Happened to Eddy Crane?, recommended I read The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King as a balm during these turbulent political times and in the weeks leading up to my launch, when my emotions are virtually uncontrollable (currently, pretty positive, which is why I’ve used so many exclamation points in this post!) Specifically, she told me to listen to the audiobook, which is narrated by LaVar Burton.
Oh, she was so right. Although I grew up watching mostly Canadian children’s shows and will always be partial to Mr. Dressup, I appreciate Mr. Rogers, and this book is as soothing and comforting as any episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Reading the following quote, I was reminded again how many small childhood traumas I was working through while writing A Good Animal, the death of pets, the role of religion in our family life, leaving home, the weight of tradition. Writing is a powerfully healing act.
“All our lives, we rework the things from our childhood, like feeling good about ourselves, managing our angry feelings, being able to say goodbye to people we love.” —Fred Rogers.
What I’ve read since I posted last
I’m still celebrating the fact that I finished Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lawry. I need a reward of some sort. I haven’t yet figured out what that is. Meantime, I also read the following books which were soooooo much more enjoyable:
A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers (Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics) by Julie Barbour
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
The Net Beneath Us by Carol Dunbar
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
Thanks for taking Exit 394!
A little about my book:
A GOOD ANIMAL, a coming-of-age novel set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press on February 24, 2026.
Staying is his dream. Leaving is hers. One secret threatens them both.
In the farm country outside Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan—a border town where life moves slow and dreams run fast—most kids want out. Not Everett Lindt. He’s set on staying put, rebuilding his family’s sheep farm, and carving a future from the land he loves. Then he meets Mary, a new girl in town with restless energy and bigger plans. When their relationship reaches a crossroads, Everett sees a life together; Mary, however, is desperate to find a way out. Together, they make an impulsive choice—one that will change everything.
Tense, lyrical, and deeply felt, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut breathtakingly captures the ache of first love, the beauty and brutality of rural life, and how one decision can echo through generations and shape who we become.
And a little about me:
I'm a writer in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. where I live with my family and miniature Dachshund. I went to Albion College and Eastern Michigan University and completed the Stanford Continuing Studies certificate in novel writing in 2022. Place deeply informs my writing, particularly how it influences identity and choice. You can learn more about me and read some of my other writing at www.saramaurerwrites.com.
What’s Exit 394?
Looking forward to reading your new book!
I’m really excited for you Sara!!