WE DID IT JOE!
BOUND BY FURY coming to you in 2026 with S&S!!
At thirteen years old, six months deep into a stay at a state-run long-term lockdown residential treatment facility, I had an idea.
For context, my mother came to visit every other weekend. They would lock us in the visitation room, stopping by periodically to peer at us through the slit of a window at the top of a heavy metal door.
Every other week my mother brought me books. Books I would read and reread. Used books and new books. Books from the library. I’d take these books and they’d be inventoried. The pages checked for weapons or drugs, the book inverted, spine cracked, pages splayed, yanked apart and shaken like the lining of an empty coin purse.
I ignored the sneers from some of the other kids, the taunting by the staff… I must think I was so much better than everyone else.
I would call my mother collect on the pay phone and tell her about the stories I was reading.
The majority of these stories are ones we know and love to this day. Twilight and the Blue is for Nightmares series, interspersed with bodice ripper romance from the hospital library (a dusty room filled with tattered mass market paperbacks and broken typewriters, remnants from when the building was a WWII hospital).
I devoured the stories and dreamt of worlds of my own, scribbled on looseleaf paper with dull, flat-topped pencils.
One story idea took hold of me in a way that would change the trajectory of my life.
A girl and a boy, enemies bound together, destined to fulfill an ancient prophecy.
But at the time, I couldn't conceive of a world, even of my own making, that had a main character that looked like me. Where stories that felt authentic to me, could be told.
I tried, and failed, to write the blonde hair, blue eyed protagonist I was used to seeing. In the end I tucked the idea into the crevices of my soul, and forgot about my dream, about the story, about a world where poor Black girls grow up to be authors.
I kept writing, in secret. Angsty raps and slam poetry about absent fathers and what I would come to know was a lifetime of abuse. I wrote short fiction and narrative nonfiction, I started a blog I told no one about, that didn’t get views, and that still sits, stagnant. Maybe I should update it finally. Or delete it forever before someone else reads what are certainly, my terribl(y) emo poems.
Over time, and with lots of therapy, I got well enough to go home. I fought my way to graduation, and tried to go to school to become a TV writer. But still, there was that feeling. That I wasn’t good enough. That people who come from where I came from, who had the disabilities I have, who look like me—the fight is too tough, too vicious. And maybe I just wasn’t vicious enough. Didn’t want it badly enough.
So, I moved home. I went to nursing school. I stopped reading for fun to make room for vigorous hours of studying. When I stopped reading, I stopped writing. I got a nice, practical, well-paying job.
Years passed by, and I all but forgot about my dream. About the little girl and boy. The prophecy. I can look back now and admit, though I didn’t understand it, something was missing.
I got married. I got pregnant. With twins! And in 2020, in the face of the pandemic, working in the ER, I was forced to leave the bedside for my own health, and in the silence of my home, I found my way back to books.
I fell into whole new worlds, just like I had as a kid. Only this time, things were different.
I found an evolved publishing landscape that finally had characters and worlds that I could recognize.
Alone, with two screaming babies and no plans to return to nursing, I was emboldened to dream again. To write this story that I had been harboring in my soul, inspired by the early 2000s paranormal romance I loved so much, only Black and spooky and authentic to me.
And thus, BOUND BY FURY was born!
It has been known by many names over the years online. It is the first book I ever wrote. It is the book that got me my agent(s). It is the story of my heart, fifteen years in the making.
And today, it is my honor to announce that BOUND BY FURY will be published with Margaret K. McElderry books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, slated for Spring 2026!
I am enormously grateful for my incredible agent, Jenissa Graham at Bookends Literary—a true, unflinching champion of diverse stories, a genuine, kind soul who walked me through every step of the process as I took editor calls from the hospital with my son (more on this in a later letter), and who has made this an effortless, collaborative experience.
If you had asked me in 2021, when I’d just finished drafting the first iteration of this book, who my absolute, DREAM editor would be, I would have said Sarah McCabe. I would have said McElderry books. A force in the YA Fantasy space, I am still in disbelief that this is the team I get to work with. I could never thank Sarah enough. Her vision is everything I hoped for and more!
Truthfully, I wouldn’t have gotten here without the support of my incredible writing friends, who have turned into real, lifelong friends, without the writing community as a whole. You welcomed me in with open arms, despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. The information, the critiques, the pitch events, the connections to other writers, the blog posts—I wouldn’t have done this without it all.
But more than anything, I am extraordinarily grateful for the Black fantasy authors who have paved the way for me and Harper, who have inspired me to dream, who I am speechless and humbled to stand beside.
But in light of the recent election, it is clear that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. I do not take this responsibility lightly, and I am thrilled to hold that door wide the hell open for BIPOC, queer, and disabled authors to come in alongside me.
I’m still figuring all of this out—I hope to have a Goodreads link available for people soon! But until then, here is an unofficial blurb for BOUND BY FURY, and an exclusive first look at an incredible piece of character art by the incomparable Nicole Deal.
BOUND BY FURY is LEGENDBORN meets MYSTIC FALLS:
When her 16th birthday comes and passes without the magic promised by her now deceased grandmother, Harper feels vindicated in her doubts about Gigi’s fanciful stories featuring pretty brown girls with magic in their blood. But when a rage-inducing encounter brings forth strange new abilities, Harper follows them to the one school she promised she’d never attend.
Perched atop a small Appalachian town called Earnest, Black Mountain Academy looms in the background of every memory worth having. Creaky, old, and haunted by the town’s racist past, Harper is sure BMA has the answers she’s looking for. But when the truth about a missing student parallels her life in more ways than one, what Harper finds is more sinister than she ever imagined.
Ancient magic, a deadly prophecy, and Kai Matsoukas—her childhood best friend turned disgustingly hot mortal enemy. The closer she gets to the truth, the clearer it becomes: if Harper wants to survive BMA she’ll have to do two things first. Kill Kai Matsoukas and transform into something she never knew existed.
A prophecy incarnate.
—
I know this is a very vulnerable post, but I’ve always been very honest about where I come from and what it took to get here. If you take anything from this (other than you should preorder BOUND BY FURY when links are available lmfaooo), I hope you take the understanding that it does it get better.
Even in times like these. Even when everything feels hopeless. Even when you’re a thirteen-year-old ward of the state, reading books to escape your reality, with absolutely no knowledge of all that will come to pass for you, and no hope of surviving your childhood, it does get better.
Life is never easy, being human is especially difficult. Caring for others, for the world, championing equity and diversity, safety and equality, peace for all people, and the pain associated with that, is nearly unbearable.
But I take solace in the fact that we are not alone.
To all the publishing professionals out there working tirelessly to combat censorship and book banning, risking your own careers to uplift marginalized voices in a sea of white mediocrity and supremacy—I see you.
If you would like to help me announce BOUND BY FURY on socials, I would be so so SO grateful!
Here are some images you can share if you want to! I’m not announcing on socials until today at 1030 am EST so if you could wait to post until 1045 I would really appreciate it!
*If you use the images with the art, please be sure to tag andersartig_designs!
Or feel free to make your own art!
A million and one thanks to everyone who has supported me along this journey so far!
BOUND BY FURY is the first in a series, so I’m excited to say that this is only the beginning!
With love and solidarity <3
xoxo,
Congratulations, Noelle. What a long path, but you have made it.
So, so happy it’s official! Congratulations!!!