I’ve spent the last two days outlining how I’m going to approach publishing this fall. Rather than treating everything I write as a single body of work, I’m organizing it into ecosystems built around the books I’ve published, the books I’m preparing to publish, and the books I plan to write in the future.
Each ecosystem has its own focus while naturally overlapping with others where the subjects intersect.
Dear Indie is my writing advice column. It covers the craft, business, and realities of writing and publishing.
Because I Bore Witness is where my political education, social observations, and personal history come together. Although it stands as its own work, it naturally overlaps with My Demons Have Demons, the memoir I plan to release next year.
Saint Woman, The Witch Hare, and My Demons Have Demons make up The Tapestry of Me, a trilogy exploring different facets of my life and the reclamation of self.
Saint Woman is the book I used to come out of the closet. It is about accepting myself fully after compulsory heterosexuality stole so much of my life. It is my reclamation of identity, body, and sexuality. Saint Woman II is a follow-up inspired entirely by reader requests for more educational content and sapphic-themed poetry, expanding on many of the conversations that began with the first book. Because it continues the themes introduced in Saint Woman while exploring them in greater depth, it belongs within the Saint Woman ecosystem for both organizational clarity and ease of readership.
The Witch Hare is my book on faith, religious studies, and spiritual reconstruction. It explores the experiences and beliefs that shaped my life and the path that ultimately led me to witchcraft, which I believe saved me. I’ve also begun outlining future articles on the history of Christianity, the history of witchcraft, women’s empowerment, and related subjects that naturally belong within this ecosystem. The Witch Hare includes a concise history of Christianity’s relationship with witchcraft, making it, alongside Saint Woman and Saint Woman II, both a personal narrative and an educational work. This ecosystem is where I can continue sharing historical research, religious studies, educational essays, and explorations of faith that expand upon the ideas introduced in the book.
My Demons Have Demons is my memoir of growing up in a dysfunctional family. It is the root from which much of my nonfiction work grows. It asks the why, what, when, where, and how of who I became, tracing generations of trauma, survival, and dysfunction while searching for hope, even if my understanding of hope doesn’t resemble its conventional definition. I also plan to expand this ecosystem beyond the written page with a companion podcast. For some time, I’ve envisioned accompanying the book with The Tapestry of Me Podcast, where I can explore the stories, research, and family history in greater depth. I’ve already begun experimenting with audio for the project, referring to it as a “pod doc”—short for podcast documentary.
I’ve also been working on my website, lbachman.com, for quite some time, continuously refining and updating it. It now serves as a streamlined landing page and archive for my work, while moving the bulk of my publishing to Substack. My goal is to keep the website simple and easy to navigate, with Substack becoming the primary home for these ecosystems as they continue to grow.
Leave a comment