Welcome!
Welcome to Novella, Michelle Richmond’s author newsletter. If you are already receiving this newsletter, you may have signed up on my author website or on the Random House website before I moved to Substack and renamed it Novella.
If you’re new here, subscribe for free to receive an audio story every month, plus occasional book news and reading recommendations. I am also writing a serialized novella and would love to have you on that journey.
Paid subscribers get every chapter of my current serial novella, What Brings You Back Home, and access to the full archives—every post, every story, all audio. Paid subscribers also get a complimentary paid subscription to my other newsletter, The Wandering Writer.
Wait, what? Who are you?
Hi, let’s back up. I’m Michelle! (As a clerk at the Walgreens in Winston-Salem told me not so long ago, “Nobody has that name anymore.”) I’ve published eight books of fiction, including most recently THE WONDER TEST and THE MARRIAGE PACT. Back in 2007, I published a novel called The Year of Fog, which is about a child who goes missing in the fog on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. I can’t believe it has been more than fifteen years years. Time is a mystery. Pretty much the only thing that hasn’t changed in those years is that I drink a lot of coffee. A LOT. You’ll find a more complete bio on my author website.
If you enjoy traveling, wandering, and wondering, you might enjoy my other newsletter, The Wandering Writer.
*To get the best reading experience and leave comments, please read Novella on the free Substack app.
Thank you for reading!
Why are some posts paywalled?
I am using Substack as a working notebook to compose both a novella and an essay collection. Because writing is my livelihood and I plan to publish some version of these posts in book form in the future, I am making certain posts available to readers who feel strongly enough about the work to support it with a paid subscription. I have had the good fortune of connecting with readers through my books for many years. Substack is another way to continue this conversation with dedicated readers, and to bring high quality writing to the readers who value it most.
Additionally, in the past year, the rapid advancement of AI has highlighted the importance of protecting one’s work from corporate theft. AI language learning models scrape publicly available posts with no regard for copyright. Recently, this has resulted in authors having deepfake books sold fraudulently under their names on Amazon. Most of us saw this too late and are now trying to play catchup.
I will continue to make some posts available to everyone, while rewarding paid subscribers with exclusive fiction, essays, and audio.
Michelle’s Books
The Wonder Test (2021)
The Marriage Pact (2017)
Hum (2014)
Golden State (2014)
No One You Know (2008)
The Year of Fog (2007)
Dream of the Blue Room (2003)
