Breaking In: July/August 2026

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Honey 

(Literary thriller, May, Random House) 

“Honey is about the sticky politics of race, gender, and violence— but told through the eyes of a serial killer.” 

Writes from: I’m based in North London, and tend to write in a number of different spots - cafes, libraries, my bed. When I really need to concentrate though I go to Dorset, where I grew up. There’s something about being surrounded by the fields that really helps me listen to the story.

Pre-Honey: Ever since I was little, I knew that I wanted to be a writer. As I kid, I was endlessly scribbling down stories and calling them novels. I didn’t have my first experience of being published, however, until I was twenty-one when I won the British Vogue talent contest. It was incredible to see some words of mine in print. I was published a couple more times inThe Mays at Cambridge, but otherwise, I was pinning all my dreams on this first novel.

Time frame: It took me about a year to write a first draft. I was working full-time for most of that year, so writing here and there. I probably had 20,000 words by the summer, and then I got fired. It’s funny how things go, as being fired was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I decided that, for the next three months, I would burn through my savings and finish the book.

Enter the agent: I was told about my agent, Niki Chang, after reaching out to another author who was very generous with her advice. She told me that Niki was wonderful and I should submit to her, she also gave me the names of a few other agents. I must have submitted to about five agents, expecting to hear nothing, but Niki replied within 25 minutes. I got nos from everyone else, but had signed with Niki within the week—and she is wonderful!

Biggest surprise: When I first finished my draft, I had the opportunity to go to the London Book Fair. I was always aware that publishing is big business - but walking by all those stands, books, editors, agents … I don’t think I was prepared for seeing it so face-on. Going to a fair like that isn’t something I would recommend a writer do, but in a way it was helpful. It made me understand that, while what you’re creating can feel like your whole world, to publishing it’s just a small drop in a big, busy ocean.

What I did right: I was somewhat strategic about the book I decided to write. If you’d told my younger self that my first novel would be about a serial killer, she’d be very confused. I chose this story, however, because I knew that the themes I wanted to write about—race, gender, academia, violence—would be difficult to package. So by wrapping them in a genre-specific novel about a female killer, I had a much sweeter (pardon the pun) pitch.

What I would have done differently: So far, there’s nothing I could say that I’d do differently. I feel incredibly lucky as my publishing journey has been beyond anything I hoped for. Now, waiting for the book to come out into the world, I’m jumpy with excitement and nerves.

Did you have a platform in place?: I didn’t have a platform in place. I definitely see how for certain branches of writing building a platform—be that social media followers or Substack readers—can be incredibly helpful. And perhaps I’m old fashioned in my thinking, but when it comes to novel writing I like to think that if the focus remains on the work, then a platform naturally forms.

Advice for writers: When I was little, I hated rules, reading instructions, or following recipes—but my mum would always say, "You have to know the rules to break them." I think it’s excellent advice as it teaches that creativity is wild, but it’s also rooted in craft, and the discipline it takes to learn that craft.

Next up: At the moment, my head is a million miles away, trying to finish my second novel. The story is softly dystopian, exploring the climate crisis, migration and the question of having children in uncertain futures.

The Missing Magic of Sparrow Xia 

(Middle-grade fantasy, May, Scholastic) 

“In a world where only kids have magic, Sparrow Xia is determined to get stronger at Zenith Academy and win the respect of her family before her time runs out, but at her new school, something threatens the very magic that Sparrow is told is the most important thing about her.” 

Writes from: Pasadena, Calif.

Pre-Sparrow: I was an artist in the animation industry prior to this. My days were spent fleshing out the worlds that other people had written, designing their sets and props. When I wasn’t doing that, I was grappling with my own search for purpose and feeling the effects of sky-high expectations—how kids are often made to feel that they have to have it all figured out before their time runs out.

While between jobs (and trying not to think about all of that), I started a personal project to add to my portfolio—a redesign of the Lord of the Rings (LotR), set in an ancient fantasy China. The project went viral on then-twitter, where I met my agent.

Eventually, all those feelings became the emotional core of the book that I would soon write.

Time frame: The first draft took about a year, written in the mornings before work, and then later, all day after I got laid off. After the first year, we went on submission, and that draft needed lots of edits (like, so many). All in all, from inception to sending off the final draft to my editors was about 3 years!

Enter the agent: Back to the LotR-in-China project—a project I started for my own gratification. (I needed more portfolio work, I’d told myself. Common advice amongst the animation community was to ‘put out what you wanted to do’. I wanted to do fantasy projects, I wanted to draw fantasy worlds!) The work I made went reasonably viral, shared beyond my expectation of the animation community.

Lydia Silver, who was then working at Darley Anderson, sent me a message, asking if I’d ever thought of writing a book. I said I hadn’t, but that I’d love to try. We’ve since parted ways after she moved to Soho Agency, and I remained at Darley Anderson with my now-agent Becca Langton, but I’ll forever be grateful to Lydia, who somehow saw a twitter thread of art and took a chance on me.

Biggest surprise: Timeline expectations. I’m so used to quick turnarounds and tight deadlines in animation, but publishing has its own rhythm—one that often means a lot of waiting. My tendency to fret, previously curbed by the fast pace of animation, would run rampant until I learnt to let things unfold at their pace.

I was also surprised (and moved) by the passion and energy of everyone I had the pleasure of working with. As first experiences go, I feel incredibly lucky that everyone on my team has capital-P Passion.

What I did right: The LotR project is where I see it all beginning, and the one thing I did for that was allow myself to like what I like. Which sounds strange when talking about one of the most beloved fantasy stories of all time, but I think any person working in a creative field knows this— we constantly have to harness our creativity, but professionally. We edit, streamline and polish our skills and craft, and it’s easy to do things in service of industry rather than joy. While I was making the art for that project, I constantly worried about how ‘relevant’ it would be. Would people like it? Was it too out there?

As it turned out, it was just out there enough, and liking the things you like unapologetically really can lead to some amazing things.

What I would have done differently: I wish I could go back in time and give three-years-ago-me a hug and tell her it’s all going to be OK. I must have spent countless days agonizing. Looking back, I wish I trusted myself more and enjoyed the process more. After all, you only debut once in your life, and it seems a waste to spend half of that experience worrying about whether one is "good enough."

Did you have a platform in place?: I have a platform in that over the years people have followed my social accounts to look at art I make, but it’s always been more of a catalogue and journal of the work I make than anything else. Anything past that starts to feel not-good in my brain, so I’ve let that be what it is. Still, I hope that people who follow me for my art would be interested in my writing as well.

Advice for writers: As it turns out, advice for drawing and writing is similar at the fundamental level: Get it down on paper first, then make it better.

Iterations are your friend—don’t be so afraid of the work involved that you miss out on the pleasure of the process and the gratification of the outcome (almost always, a better version of the thing you’ve made.) Of course, there is a point where you have to stop and decide that it’s done, but at least for me, a common struggle was that writing something is often a monumental task that seems to require being done over and over again. As of yet, I’ve never regretted having to redraw or rewrite something, even if at the beginning I had to go lie down on the floor and bemoan for a bit. It’s okay if that’s part of the process, too.

Next up: I’m working on the sequel to The Missing Magic of Sparrow Xia at the moment. I can’t wait to dive back into the story and world but also swirling in the back of my mind are the threads of a few different projects that want to be written as well, though at the moment they’re at that amphibious stage of evolution, not quite solid enough to share about yet!

Website: LeiaHam.com

The Wildcraft Drones 

(Solarpunk short stories, May, Stelliform Press) 

“A collection of stories exploring the evolving relationship between humanity, nature and technology in a future where agriculture is rewilded into AI-managed food forests.” 

Writes from: San Francisco.

Pre-Drones: The spark for this world came to me after taking my first ecology class just over a decade ago. At the time, I was writing a lot of corporate web copy, with some science journalism on the side and a bunch of bad science fiction no one wanted. Since then, I’ve had about 40 short stories published, including a few of the ones in this collection. Between the contract signing and the publication of The Wildcraft Drones, I wrote my whole second book, which is a sword and sorcery novella coming out next year.

Time frame: I came up with the initial concept for a world where drone-managed food forests have replaced industrial agriculture in 2014, wrote a vignette about it, then a bunch of life stuff happened. Sometime around 2018, I decided to make it novel. Several drafts later, I’d queried a few dozen agents and taken some writing workshops, and rewrote my favorite part of that novel as a short story, which was published in Asimov’s. At that point, I had so many ideas for other stories set in that world that I started to think about the possibility of a collection. That took a few more years to come together, as I was writing a lot of other stuff and also working day jobs in between.

Enter the agent: I’m actually currently querying! For this book, Stelliform Press had an open submissions period where they were accepting unagented submissions, and I sent them a collection of all my climate fiction, which was later narrowed down to just the ones set in The Wildcraft Drones timeline, which was great, because it meant that I got to write more stories for it.

Biggest surprise: Mostly how long it takes. For near-future science fiction, it’s so stressful. Everything is changing so fast. When the contract was signed, the publication date was still two years out, and some of the stories were already a few years old. It’s just absolutely unreal how much can change in two years. Especially regarding climate policy and A.I. So, a lot of how this book still lands now that it’s out in the world is pure luck, and the rest is thanks to the tons of research I did.

What I did right:  Kept going. Stubbornly. Spitefully. To my own detriment.

What I would have done differently: It’s tempting to say that I would go back and rethink my world-building to not rely so heavily on technology, because one of the main things I learned writing and researching these stories was all the very many flaws of the techno-optimist approach to climate change. (The “we’ll invent our way out of it” mindset.) But writing these stories was how I learned that. So, I hope that this book becomes a bridge for other people the way it’s been a bridge for me, from the very tech-forward mindset I was in when I started, to the realization that the most impactful solutions are already here: food forests, indigenous land management, housing justice, sustainable economics, and rewilding.

Did you have a platform in place?: I’ve been on socials for a long time, and learned to focus on just the channels that give back what I put in. That’s not just follower engagement—that’s mental and emotional energy. I’m not trying to grow fast, I’m trying to grow in a way that doesn’t burn me out. Another lesson learned from studying ecology. (And from burning out a lot.)

Advice for writers: Everyone says community and it’s true, it’s the most important thing. But I’ll add that having at least one other totally different creative pursuit is so, so valuable. Music, drawing, photography, whatever it is, it’ll give you another way to think through your ideas when writing stalls, and it’ll help you see and describe the world in new ways. I can’t tell you the number of times drawing has led me to ideas for my stories that I never could have thought up in words alone.

Next up: I have a sword and sorcery novella coming out in 2027 (not announced as I’m writing this but the contract is signed!). And I’m looking for an agent for a science-fiction novel, writing another one that’s about halfway done, and there’s more short stories on the way! Look out for “Jurassic Perk” this summer in Kaleidotrope!

Website: TKRex.wtf