Roller Coasters, the Writing Life, and the Fight for Faith
dear friends + writers,
Another year is coming to an end. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t accomplish all of my goals in 2025. I started a new novel but I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like. I started an essay but let it die on the vine. I have a short story percolating but can’t quite get a bead on it. I read a lot of books, but not as many as I could have.
BUT I did make creative progress this year, no question. I deepened my own commitment and intensified my ambitions. Also, I sold my third novel, GIRLFRIENDING, and I’m so excited to tell you that it will hit stores on February 10, 2026.
so what did I do with my year?
In 2025, I loved this book and this book and this book and this book. I loved every issue of this magazine. I continued to be grateful for the creative support of this software.
Also, I turned 50 YEARS OLD and became a gamer for the first time in my life. (This is the game I play, both parts I and II, and I strongly urge you to play it, too, so we can talk about it.)
I bought a miter saw and trimmed out my previously bare kitchen island. Next I’m going to replace the builder-grade baseboards and door casings in my hallway.
I swam a LOT of laps at this pool and did a LOT of hot yoga at this studio.
I toured colleges with my oldest kid, and took a nine-person family road trip to ride roller coasters, one of which was terrifying and unpleasant.
See photo for my petrified smile. See photo again for the wild expressions on my children’s faces.
Reader, I rode this thing twice.
Side note — the Etsy seller who made the matching shirts we all wore to Disney and Universal Studios turned out to be, coincidentally, my elementary-school best friend. I love how small the world can be.
writing + pub news
The novel I’m writing now is born from the bizarre experience of being a sports parent, except it’s a little dark and might end with the first gasps of an apocalypse. We’ll see. Its working title is WHAT A GAME.
Girlfriending — which is available for pre-order already, yay! — is far from dark. It’s a swift, light, funny story about a recently divorced, perimenopausal mother of two who, with the support of her ride-or-die best friend, goes on ten first dates to heal a broken heart.
I’ll be doing a spcial pre-order through my publisher, Third Rail, later this month, and with it readers will receive the book, a signed bookplate, cute goodies, and a live, 3-hour Writing from Life craft workshop with me. This offer will be limited to 100 people, so let me know if you’d like that link when it’s ready so you can snatch it up.
Also, I’ll be participating in two Literary Galentine’s Day events, one in Minneapolis on February 11, and one in Madison on February 12, 2026. Save the date(s)!
icky task, lovely results
Last month, I did the uncomfortable but unavoidable thing where I ask writers I admire to please read Girlfriending and go on record as liking it, as if they don’t have enough on their plates.
Oy, blurbs.
But writers are great people, and here’s a taste of what they had to say about Girlfriending (blush, I’m so happy!) . . .
“I swallowed GIRLFRIENDING down in one big, thrilled gulp, not having realized how thirsty I was for exactly this calmly mesmerizing and fresh book about midlife. Also? It made me want to be a better person, somehow, even though it’s sexy, page-turning fiction (i.e. not self-help). I am a huge Susanna Daniel fan and will be for life.”
— Catherine Newman, author of Sandwich and Wreck
the bread + butter
Next year will, I hope, keep me busy with editing, coaching, and teaching. I love it and I’m good at it. So if you or someone you know would like to work with me this, there are a few options starting next month.
THE WRITING COLLECTIVE, a twice-weekly body-doubling group, re-starts January 13. Live on Zoom.
BEGIN YOUR BOOK, a one-session guide to quick-starting your novel or memoir, with a focus on craft choices and scheduling. Live on Zoom.
VISIONS + REVISIONS, a yearlong workshop for writers of short stories and essays, also starts in in January. Live on Zoom.
BOOK IN A YEAR, a yearlong, small-group workshop for novelists and memoirists, also starts in January. There’s space in both the live-in-person and live-on-Zoom sections as of today.
For writers who want supporting writing a memoir or novel, or writers who have a finished draft, I’m an eager and supportive coach and editor. Contact me if you’d like to work one-on-one.
so what’s this about faith?
I copied the following bit of wisdom from somewhere, and I’ve been circling back to it when my fear rises:
“Writing a beginning feels like active curiosity;
writing the middle requires bravery;
writing the ending asks you to surrender.”
If you’ve worked with me, you know I’d like to add something to this advice about faith.
Like fear, faith is rising and falling in us all the time. But it’s essential to making creative work and the most powerful antidote to fear. When faith and fear are in battle in me, I try to remind myself which one I’m rooting for. And why.
In 2026, may your faith triumph over your fear.
all best to you + yours,
(More) Advance Praise for Girlfriending —
“GIRLFRIENDING is a novel to read in a passionate rush, immediately start again in a more savoring way, and then press into the hands of everyone you know. This beautifully-written tale of marriage, divorce, love, sex, and everything else brims with compassion, shimmers with truth. Destined to be the dog-eared bible for those going through midlife queer awakenings (and their girlfriends, who will undoubtedly steal it). Susanna Daniel is a treasure. ”
“A magic trick of a story about a life that’s been knocked over and broken open, full of vulnerability, generosity and desire. This novel literally makes me a happier person.”