✨FAGIN THE THIEF is here!!✨
I'm so grateful for everyone who's rallied around me and this book, I can't even tell you. This is my third novel, but in big ways it feels like the very first—so much has felt new and exciting, thanks to my incredible team who's put so much work and love into getting this story out in the world.
One thing that hasn't changed, though: I love this book.
I've loved these dirtbag characters since the minute I felt brave enough to start writing them, and over the years they've become my most problematic friends. I hope you enjoy spending time with Jacob Fagin half as much as I did.
Chicago: come out to @bookcellarchicago tonight at 7 to celebrate the launch! I'll be in conversation with the spectacular Julia Fine, and I'd love to see you there. (Second picture is me saying hi to my event promo post-it in TBC's window this morning on my way to get a celebratory breakfast sandwich, as Fagin would have wanted me to.)
me every time I'm handed another AI-generated document that uses 11,000 words to say a grand total of nothing and is going to take the entirety of my work week to fix.
I hate AI. so much. you can make me sit through eight million "AI-first" corporate trainings but you can't convince me that the slop I'm looking at with my human eyeballs isn't slop.
AI is going to save some people time, maybe, because it lets them do a BAD JOB and then leave it for me to spend 20 hours fixing. or not! maybe I'll let the robots win and we can all just stare at words that say nothing until we give up on human language altogether, embrace the silence, and diminish and go into the west!
(these viewpoints are my own and are not representative of my employer &c, but you knew that)
HistFic Hive, this one's for you: I'm so excited to be part of @hnsnorthamerica 's virtual Day Camp on June 15!
I'll be speaking on a panel about the weird, winding road to historical fiction success with @donnaalward and @p33ddy , who are both so smart and creative and (I'm sorry for this LinkedIn word but it's the right one) entrepreneurial. I learned a lot from them in just our quick prep call, so imagine how much YOU can learn by joining us when we're fully on topic.
Plus, we're a lot of fun as people generally. So, like, come hang out.
Registration is open now: follow the link in my bio!
#hnsdaycamp2026
What a fabulous week in New York for the @mysterywritersofamerica Edgar Awards! It was such an honor to be nominated, and congrats to @robertcrais for a well-deserved win in a category full of incredible talent and also me somehow. An absolute joy to spend a few days with some real all-stars of the genre!
1 - Team Fagin at the Crime Oscars
2 - Poe Tote (pote?) which will now be joining me everywhere
3 - My stacked category
4 - Central Park lookin nice
5-9 - Where my entire April paycheck went
10 - Self-portrait of the author at the Met
Spring reads a little brighter. 📗
We welcomed @rapscallison , author of “Fagin the Thief,” for a morning of storytelling and conversation, sharing the inspiration behind her novel and connecting with our audience in a thoughtful Q&A. 💭
Our Author Breakfast series is nearing its final chapter for the season. Learn more at sjjcc.org/authorbreakfast.
#SJJCC #Bookstagram #JewishBooks #JewishAuthors #JewishLiterature
In this episode of Get to Know, we sat down with Edgar Award nominee Allison Epstein.
Here’s a sneak peek as Allison shares an early writing memory and reflects on how her understanding of publishing has changed since those first ambitions.
Watch the full interview on the Outliers YouTube channel or listen to the conversation on the Outliers podcast. 🎧
#writer #writingcommunity #writersofinstagram #writingtips #books
What an incredible night at the National Jewish Book Awards! The organizers and leadership at @jewishbookcouncil are absolutely amazing and deserve the world for their work supporting Jewish books. I'm honored to be recognized and to have met so many other amazing authors tonight! I took no pictures at the event because I was busy Living the Dream but here is 1. my ✨award✨ and 2. the harried but excited selfie I took at the hotel immediately before going to the reception and immediately after a series of comic mishaps that belonged in a 2000s sitcom.
If you were thinking "maybe I should go to the Edgars Symposium at the end of April," but the deciding factor was whether or not I had spent three minutes making an absolutely terrible graphic to let you know I'm on a panel and want you to come see me, well then, this is your sign! Registration is at the link in my bio. The tiny Poe who lives in the Canva Pro asset library wants you to.
Congrats to the 75th National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists! Celebrating Jewish books means celebrating our enduring connections: to the past, to each other, and to the larger Jewish story. I am so grateful to Jewish Book Council for their work in lifting up Jewish voices. I am especially moved that this year’s Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year is Hostage, by Eli Sharabi, who endured 491 days in Hamas captivity. Bearing witness through storytelling is an act of solidarity and empathy. I’m also deeply honored to have been in conversation with a number of this year’s winners and finalists on The Five Books. Hearing directly from these authors about their work and their journeys has been profoundly meaningful. Mazal tov to all the honorees. May their words continue to inspire, challenge, and connect us. 📚✨
Congratulations to Zeeva Bukai and Allison Epstein—winners of the Debut Fiction Award and the Fiction Award, respectively. And congratulations to Yishay Ishi Ron (with translator Yardenne Greenspan), winner of the Book Club Award and Hebrew Fiction in Translation Award. See a full list of the winners at the #linkinbio.
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Fagin the Thief is the winner of the 2026 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction??
I am so, so grateful to the @jewishbookcouncil for the incredible love and support they've shown me and Fagin, not just through this award but over the entire past year while I've been sharing it with JBC member sites. It's been such a joy to talk about this book with people who are as excited as I am to read about Jewish characters who aren't heroes, aren't villains, aren't flattened into a message or lesson, but are just as real and human and messy and complicated as anybody else.
Also I still feel like a kid who snuck into the room where the real adults are doing Literary Things, because look at that shortlist again! Look at the full list of winners! Those books are AMAZING! Who let me in here?
