What We Found Instead: 3 days out

Notes on connection & joy from the final stretch before publication (plus last call for preorder gifts!)

What We Found Instead comes out in 3 days.

I began 2026 with real dread at the prospect of bringing out another book. Writing has been my practice and my process my whole life. But the external world of the industry and publicity and sales figures and best-of lists and how does your book measure up against everyone else’s and “Pay attention to MEE! Buy my BOOOOK!”…I really didn’t feel like I had it in me for a second round.

I did a tarot spread for the launch of the book at the end of January. I journalled. I thought about what the book’s about. And that led to a mission statement that named what I wanted to invite and create in this launch experience.

Mission Statement for the Launch of What We Found Instead

• This launch—and every event, conversation, post, ask, or piece of writing associated with it—is an invitation into connection, collaboration, or community

• This launch is an invitation into joy, friendship, growth, and self-becoming

• This launch seeks ways to support others and to create mutually rewarding opportunities for expansion and connection

• This launch invites aligned partners who are on their own path of self-becoming

• This launch invites glimmers and co-creative magic

And then I gathered a team around me, 21 writers and creatives and smart women with good ideas who are in my inner circle, so that I am not bearing this load alone. (They are wonderful; highly recommend this.)

That intentionality and support have helped make this launch not so much about me but instead about something larger I am creating, inviting others to be part of. They’ve made all the difference.

What We Found Instead is, ultimately, a story about connection, about chosen family, about friendship forged in crisis. It’s about—in the words of Inner Circler Cate Creede-Desmarais—“two women who want more than they have been allowing themselves, and who have to learn to trust themselves and each other to get it.”

I’ve had moments of overwhelm and exhaustion and stress as the launch period has ramped up, and I’ve definitely had moments (days/weeks) when I forget all about that connection and those glimmers and get buried under the to-dos and the frantic pressure to make something of this moment because your book only has a small window to become a successsss!

But then something will happen to remind me what this is really about. Something brings me back to my mission, back to the joy.

Here are a few of those things:

1. Opening my box of author copies.

The box had arrived days before, was sitting unopened on the dining room table because I did not have the bandwidth to perform for an unboxing video. Eventually I needed to get a book out to give to someone, and I said to Richard, “I guess you’d better record me opening this but I’m not going to be moved and I don’t have the energy to fake it; I’ve already seen ARCs, it’s not my first novel, the unboxing video is just an overdone obligatory performance that robs the experience of meaning.”

Then I opened it and promptly began to cry. Because it was meaningful!

Why did I think it wouldn’t be? Because I was exhausted and overwhelmed with tasks and had momentarily forgotten that publishing a book isn’t a giant to-do list but the fruition of a years-long vision and vast amounts of dedication.

It was my book! Finally between covers in my hands. I was verklempt.

And yes, then I did post it to Instagram.

2. Going to the CBC Sudbury studios for an in-person interview on a regional show called Up North.

With Jonathan Pinto for CBC’s Up North.

My family and I were just in Northern Ontario for 5 days. The occasion was a huge celebration for my parents’ 50th anniversary, chock-full of singing and family and so many people I hadn’t seen in years or decades. On the way out, I stopped in Sudbury for a radio interview—not only my first interview about this book, but an interview in the place where I grew up, in the place where What We Found Instead is set.

And it was just so special. I’ve done some big fancy interviews in the past, but to be acknowledged in the location where I once wandered around as a young aspiring writer yearning for more, to talk about my fictional rendering of this place for an audience that knows the place—it meant more to me than any big national coverage.

I felt so honoured to be a Northern Ontarian making art about Northern Ontario. I felt so honoured to be claimed by the place that reared me. Even though I admitted to a love-hate relationship with it (I did indeed once want nothing more than to get out, rather like Karl in the book), there is nowhere else that is so indelibly part of who I am.

And here are my parents, siblings, and I—all 8 of us—singing together at the anniversary party on my parents’ northern lakeside property.

3. Putting together a mini-musical of the book for my Brockville launch.

For The Mother Act, I had a theatrical book launch where the audience became part of the story and we recreated a portion of the book onstage.

For What We Found Instead, I have somehow gone from asking my barbershop chorus if they want to sing at the launch to…creating a musical? Sort of? We’ll see! It’s still coming together, but it is bringing me JOY! So is the support and enthusiasm of all my barbershop ladies who are gung-ho about my whacky plan.

For my next novel perhaps I will manage to have a normal, sit-down-for-a-staid-conversation book launch.

4. My preorder gifts.

I loved creating these. I put way more thought and care into them than was probably efficient (then again, you could say that about the novel itself). And I’ve been delighted by the enthusiasm with which they’re being received, because I think they’re pretty great!

When you preorder, you get something for now, before you’ve read the novel, and something for later, after you’ve read it. AND you get the novel itself! It’s a rich 3-in-one immersion in the Maggie-and-Eve universe.

But this is your last chance to get it!

Preorder the book before July 28 to get two gifts available nowhere else:

1. Still Lake: the prequel to What We Found Instead, an ebook that’s yours immediately upon signup

2. After the Last Page: a spoiler-filled private reader’s salon with me and Anena Hansen, my creative partner and best friend, who also helped inspire the women of the novel

More about the prequel

When you meet Eve in What We Found Instead, she’s living on a remote Northern Ontario lake. (Hiding, according to her brother.) That’s where Maggie tracks her down to let her know that Eve’s boyfriend’s work trips to Toronto are not just about work. He’s got a whole other life with a whole other girlfriend. And Maggie would know. Because Maggie is the girlfriend.

But before that happens, Eve’s got a history. The novel gestures toward this history but doesn’t fully take you there. This prequel is the only place to get it. It’s short enough to read in a sitting. It’ll prepare you to enter the world of What We Found Instead, OR it can be a delicious backstory deep cut for after you’ve read the novel.

More about the reader’s salon

After the Last Page is an intimate conversation between me and my best friend Anena, the person who helped inspire this novel and was present for every stage of its becoming.

We won’t be dancing around any spoilers. We are baring all: the process, the story, the story behind the story, the real-life inspirations. You’ll get an inside peek into where Eve and Maggie’s wounds, destructive patterns, and ultimate growth come from. You can ask all your questions!

Taking place live online August 26, one month after publication.

Here’s how to claim your gifts:

1. Preorder What We Found Instead in any format (paper, audio, ebook), from any online retailer or bricks-and-mortar store of your choice.

2. Let me know you preordered by filling out this form.

You’ll get Still Lake right away. What We Found Instead will be delivered to you on or right after the publication date of July 28 (or possibly before—a few people have reported already receiving their books). In August I’ll reach out with details about joining After the Last Page, once you’ve had time to read the novel.

All the details on preordering and claiming your preorder gifts are right here:

Thank you for being here! I’m excited to share this novel with you, to invite you into this world.

I’ll probably email you a little more frequently than usual over the next week or two because there’s a lot going on and a lot I want to share with you, but we’ll be back to regularly scheduled full-and-new-moon programming soon!

Warmly,

Heidi