Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

A writer takes a minute for a closer look

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  • Do it now, and later, too

    A favorite one-liner: I used to just crastinate, but then I turned pro. If there were an Olympics for putting things off, I would have been a contender for most of my adult life.

    Not anymore, though. I’m back in the ranks of ordinary. I do put things off, like getting that tiny chip in my windshield fixed before it turns into a full-fledged crack. But I pay bills on time. I may fail to wash the lettuce before it liquefies. But I do make appointments to have my teeth cleaned. (I once went six years between dental appointments.) I was death on houseplants. Always meant to water them, yet rarely did. Always meant to write another chapter on that novel I started but would go months between actual writing.

    Something happened when I began dancing regularly. I practice Nia, a fusion of modern dance with martial arts and healing arts like yoga. I’ve written about it many times. It’s meant for dancers, not observers. Watching Nia is not like watching ballet or hip-hop. It’s all about how the dance makes the dancers feel.

    Researchers have uncovered benefits to dance. Multiple mental processes require attention: moving in time to rhythm, learning and then remembering specific choreography, staying aware of other dancers. All of that helps develop neuroplasticity, the building of new neural pathways that keeps brains healthy. And then there’s the release of mood-managing chemical messengers. Dopamine supports memory and motivation. Endorphins deliver a kick of euphoria and reduce stress. Serotonin regulates mood and reduces worry. Dance gets them all circulating.

    I don’t know of any research that specifically says a regular dance practice helps people get stuff done. But there are studies that show dance strengthens the executive function parts of the brain, which is where goal-setting, planning tasks, and controlling impulses reside.

    It may help that I dance at a studio with positive messaging on the wall. Over the years, I’ve internalized that message of working for things I can’t stop thinking about.

    I still have undone tasks, but they no longer linger months or years. And none of them are the kind where the delay costs me money or hurts others. I rarely kill houseplants through active neglect.

    Why am I writing about this now? Well. My life is busy. I have a novel coming out in two weeks. There are many tasks associated with marketing and publicity that have made me procrastinate my dancing. It’s been two weeks since I was on the dance floor. And all those benefits of dance? I can physically and mentally feel their absence.

    That’s a mistake I won’t make again. I can’t ever be too busy for dance.

  • Welcome rituals for the dark

    Welcome rituals for the dark

    We’ve been kicking through the colorful leaves, stepping out at night for a look at the bright moon, and enjoying the sun still coming our way this autumn.

    But I’ve taken a page from the Scandinavians, who welcome their long winter by creating a cozy interior vibe. I embraced this tradition after visiting Stockholm last year. Cozy, for me, meant buying a few special lights and placing them strategically in darker corners of the house. It was a psychological boost; don’t ask me why. It made last winter somehow more charming. When spring showed itself and the days grew longer, I stashed all the lighting and forgot about it right up until last week, when I couldn’t deny how short the days were getting. The lights have come out again. They don’t blaze up a room; they need the darkness to deliver the glow that delights me, especially in the early morning, when I’m making coffee.

    I also got out a hand embroidery project I’ve been waiting to launch. I used to do embroidery all year round. Not anymore. I put it away last April in favor of outdoor activities like gardening. Now it’s become a thing to anticipate when the days are short.

    This is a starter project from a kit by one of the most skilled embroiderers out there, Mary Corbet, who has had a website for twenty years and has amassed some of the best how-to videos and picture instructions on stitching techniques I’ve encountered. This project involves beading with tiny, tiny beads that require a steady hand. I’ll finish it soon and get back to my preferred projects, bringing birds to life with thread.

    Without ritual, seasonal changes just happen to us. Because I have this plan: special lights, favorite craft, I feel some control. Not over the weather—the blustery days, the low ceiling of clouds, the spitting rain, the driving rain, the freezing rain—but over my own internal weather.

    And that turns out to be its own kind of fine.

    Photos by Susan Palmer

  • Readers who preorder, give books a lasting boost

    Cover of the novel The Booker Rebellion

    In 2025, Publishers Weekly estimated that about 4 million books were published in the United States, about half of them self-published. The rest came from small independent publishers or from the megapublishers known as the “Big Five” in the world of books. Twenty years ago the number of new releases annually was somewhere below 300,000.

    The number of people reading has barely budged in that time frame, so new books land in a crowded universe.

    Here’s an easy thing that family, friends, and fans of an author can do to help: Preorder the book, either online or through your local independent bookstore.

    Those preorders are often recorded as sold on the release date of the book. That looks like a surge to the online algorithms. Booksellers in brick-and-mortar stores see that surge and decide the book is worth ordering and having on hand for in-store shoppers. Or putting it on a display table or in a store window. In a sea of millions of titles, they need help sorting the signal from the noise.

    The early reviews of my YA thriller The Booker Rebellion offer some promise that it’s worth the price. Last month, Publishers Weekly BookLife singled it out as an editor’s pick. About this time last year, I didn’t have a publishing contract but I had racked up 70 rejections and wondered whether I was just wrong about the quality of the story I’d crafted. It’s a lovely confirmation that I was right to keep sending it out.

    Here are a few of my favorite lines from critics:

    “Palmer’s willingness to take children seriously is reflected in her capable, appealing heroes.” —Kirkus Reviews, Oct. 1, 2026

    “The mystery itself is satisfyingly complex, traversing a mesh of hidden FBI agents, incompetent militias, and drug dealers, and Palmer’s emphasis on respect for the great outdoors makes this a compelling story that nature-lovers won’t want to miss.” —Publishers Weekly BookLife, editor’s pick, Oct. 19 2026.

    “Any book that opens with a fourteen-year-old sneaking into the woods at midnight and finding a cougar mid-meal has my attention. Susan Palmer’s The Booker Rebellion earns that opening scene and then keeps earning the ones after it, which is not something I say about every thriller that lands on my desk.” — Leah Tran, San Francisco Book Review

    “Palmer knows this terrain literally. She’s an Oregon journalist, and it shows in the blackberry tunnels, the basalt alcoves, the specific ache of thirty miles to the nearest town. The forest isn’t backdrop. It’s the thing that keeps the Booker kids alive and the thing that nearly kills them.” —Chicago Book Review

    So, thanks in advance for preordering The Booker Rebellion. And for every author you know or whose work you like, subscribe to their newsletter. We all have one. That’s where you’ll find the earliest information about upcoming books, early excerpts, and even the occasional giveaway.

    Here’s a link to my newsletter, The Way In. It’s on my official author website. I hope to see you there.