Category: Writing

Blindness and Disability, Music, Pop Culture, Science, TV, Writing

INVISIBLE VIOLETS is Available for Pre-Order!

Chrys Buckley

The title says it all.

Cover image of Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays by Chrys Buckley. Words are green against a textured background of different shades of purple. Near the top of the cover, there is an author blurb that reads, "A fierce manifesto about claiming your own story. This book will change you and linger long after the final page." This blurb was written by Tarn Wilson, author of In Praise of Inadequate Gifts.
Cover of Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays by Chrys Buckley

This whole thing about a book of mine getting publishing still feels so surreal, and yet here’s one more step in the book publishing process that makes it more concrete. My book is up on all the sites, available for pre-order.

This collection of personal lyric essays took eons to write, and eons to edit. It went through so many iterations, and I plan to talk through and demystify the steps of the process on here in time.

For now, just know that I’m so proud of this book and each essay within. There is darkness in these essay-songs, but writing was always a joy. Even when it made me cry, which was almost always, because I’m a sap like that. I can’t wait for you to read this collection on MARCH 13th, 2026!

I’m also starting an email newsletter that you can sign up for here for all the authorly updates!

Links to pre-order INVISIBLE VIOLETS: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays

Bookshop.org

pre-Order Invisible Violets on bookshop.org

Please support Bookshop.Org or one of your local indie bookstores!

Portland and Pacific Northwest Bookstores

Pre-Order Invisible Violets from Annie Bloom’s Books

PRPre-Order Invisible Violets From Broadway Books

Pre-Order Invisible Violets From Powell’s Books

PRe-Oder Invisible Violets From Darvill’s Bookstore
(starting Dec 12, 2025)

Other Booksellers

Pre-Order Invisible Violets From BOOKS-A-Million

Pre-Order Invisible Violets From Barnes & Noble

pre-Order Invisible Violets From Amazon

Blindness and Disability, Music, Writing

COVER REVEAL!

Chrys Buckley

The time is here. After rounds of editing, eproofs, print proofs, and another round of proofs, the book is locked in.

I spent all summer going over my book for what felt like a bajillion times. In fact, if I had to read any of it right now, I’d probably run away screaming because I’m SO SICK OF MY BOOK! Good thing there’s a fair amount of time until launch day (March 13th) so it can feel fresh again by then.

In the meantime, now that it’s all locked in, here is the cover:

Cover image of Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays by Chrys Buckley. Words are green against a textured background of different shades of purple. Near the top of the cover, there is an author blurb that reads, "A fierce manifesto about claiming your own story. This book will change you and linger long after the final page." This blurb was written by Tarn Wilson, author of In Praise of Inadequate Gifts.

It’s a typographic cover rather than an image-based one. One thing I’ve learned through this process and my work at Ooligan Press is that covers often look duller in print, and a lot darker. So stay tuned for future reveals. The back cover will be coming soon, and so will an unboxing video when the author copies arrive!

~Chrys

Writing

Predictable Post-Term Energy Curves

Chrys Buckley
A red saucer chair surrounded by bookshelves

A little over a week ago, I finished my second (of three) year in my grad program in Book Publishing. As with so many things, it went by both quickly and slowly.

It was often a frenzy. Especially this past spring term. I can say definitively it was the most intense term I ever experienced. And yes, that includes med school. I’m sure I’ll get more into the details of the term before too long on here, but now, in the more immediate aftermath, just thinking about it makes me too tired to function.

Since the term ended, I’ve gone through some swings in energy. And I’m remembering and realizing that it’s almost always this same pattern. The terms and the workloads may change, but this after-pattern is pretty constant.

I wonder, does anyone else have this same pattern too?

Continue reading “Predictable Post-Term Energy Curves” →
Blindness and Disability, Music, Pop Culture, Science, Writing

Catching Up with Chrys – a Time-Lapse in Taylor Swift Songs

Chrys Buckley

Before my last spate of posts about my publishing journey (on the submission, the award, and the call), it had been over four years since I updated this site. Last I left off, it was the fall of 2020, and I had decided to leave medical school.

A lot has changed since then, so I thought it was high time to catch you all up, bring some continuity to this site, and fill in the plot holes. Anyone who knows me or has read this site before will be unsurprised I’m doing it through songs.

Here we go.

time lapse still of a road going into hills
Continue reading “Catching Up with Chrys – a Time-Lapse in Taylor Swift Songs” →
Music, Writing

The Call

Chrys Buckley

In light of the amazing publishing news I posted last month, I want to post about different parts of the process. Mostly, that’ll entail looking back at how I got my manuscript ready for submission, but today I want to talk about the call. It’s important to me to be as transparent as possible, especially for other writers reading this.

I was home sick from work. A bug had been rampaging through my grad program, and it was my turn. So I’d gone to bed early the night before. This was a good thing, because when I woke up, I had an email from Jill McCabe Johnson, the publisher at Wandering Aengus Press, sent the night before, asking if we could find a time for a call so she could ask me something.

After running through about fifty-three thousand possibilities, I settled on suspecting what she wanted to discuss would be something like, “We’d like to publish your book, but…” I couldn’t imagine she wanted to call me just to reject me–I remembered how when I was applying to medical school, a call meant you were getting in, and if they wanted to reject you they’d do it with an email or a notification posted in their online portal–and the need to ask me something wouldn’t likely apply to a straight-up acceptance.

Mostly, I was shocked that they could have an answer for me so quickly. I’d expected to wait until April, at least.

Continue reading “The Call” →
Blindness and Disability, Music, Pop Culture, Science, Writing

After all the Years that I Stood There on the Sidelines Wishing for Right Now

Chrys Buckley

Sometimes your dreams come true. Your ship finally comes in. You get your turn. This is one of those times for me. I hope this will be the first of many times I get this news. Even if that does come to pass, nothing will ever feel quite like it does right now. I know that, and I’m savoring it, because it still doesn’t feel real.

About a month and a half ago, I did a thing.

Today, I get to tell you that my book manuscript won the Wandering Aengus Press prize for nonfiction, which means MY BOOK IS GETTING PUBLISHED!

We haven’t set an exact release date, but are looking at sometime next spring, perhaps next March.

I’ll have a lot of work to do for my book over the next year. I couldn’t be happier to be working with Wandering Aengus Press and their team. I worked on my manuscript, an essay collection, with their due date in mind and didn’t submit it anywhere else.

The contracts are signed, the process is underway, and most days it still doesn’t feel real. I have waited and worked for this since I was a little girl writing stories in my room.

There’s so much more to say. I plan to post lots about the process as it happens, as well as the process that led to this book and this press. So stay tuned for lots more goodies.

For now, I’m just basking in this once-in-a-lifetime feeling of this writer dreams coming true for the first time.

Chrys

Blindness and Disability, Music, Writing

Yesterday I Did a Thing

Chrys Buckley
Screenshot of Duosuma Submission Manager showing trail to table and Wandering Angus Press Book Awards submission

Yesterday, on the new moon and the lunar new year, I submitted a full-length book manuscript to the Wandering Aengus Press Book Awards.

The manuscript I submitted is a collection of fourteen personal essays. The topics I explore within the pages are pretty reflective of this site in general but with less Breaking Bad. Not none, mind you, but less. There are essays discussing blindness and albinism and disability, essays about medical school, essays featuring the internet of the early 2000s, essays touching on pop culture in so many forms, essays rooted in land and place. Under the surface, they’re all contemplations of choice and time and memory.

They all, and I do mean all, touch on music in some way. In fact, I have a playlist underway and it is both massive and amazing.

My title, at least for now is

INVISIBLE VIOLETS: An Album of Personal Essays.

In some ways, it’s been in the works for over a decade. In other ways, it took shape over the last two or three. In yet another, it came together over the last eight weeks.

I plan on posting more about the process, as it’s been a wild ride I’d love to share.

But for now, for my first post in over four years, I’m just gonna bask in knowing that I did a thing.

Music, Writing

The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Seven: Recovering a Sense of Connection

Chrys Buckley

fall flowersWeek Seven: Recovering a Sense of Connection

Listening

In this section, I liked the juxtaposition of thinking of creativity as “getting something down,” like transcribing, instead of having to think it up.

For writing, that comes pretty naturally to me. And maybe that’s especially true since I write a lot about real life, explore past experiences, and so forth. When I’m doing other things, especially working out on the elliptical, or listening to music, or walking alone, I often just have words and feelings I want to write down. I pre-write in my head a lot, always have.

Nowadays, I do less of it because there’s just so much other stress and noise, and I drown it out with too much podcast listening and pop culture consumption and social media distraction. But still, this notion of getting something down feels natural to me when it comes to writing.

That said, I don’t think what I’ve written has ever, in all my years, really lived up to what it was in my head. I wonder if that’s true for all writers? It’s something I’ve come to accept: that even though in my head I’m pre-writing in words, when I get to actually putting it in words, it never quite matches or captures what I thought it would.

Continue reading “The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Seven: Recovering a Sense of Connection” →

Music, Writing

Creativity Goals Check-In October 18, 2020

Chrys Buckley

goals12Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • work on blog at least five days – two, maybe three?
  • at least five sessions of digitizing old writing – Six.
  • work on disability letter for the school – not at all.

Music

Lifestyle

  • sleep without the phone (a struggle you can read about here) – this will put me at 210 nights (30 weeks) in a row – oh boy, yeah, I broke my streak after 206.
  • write Morning Pages every day – YES.
  • don’t look at phone until after Morning Pages every day – did this a couple days, until I broke the phone streak above.
  • do an Artist Date – yes, went to The Differentialists group, which I love. It’s a group started by some classmates where we work through medical mysteries, and it feeds my imaginary life of being House.
  • finish sorting through clothes – still in progress.
  • finish sorting through books – still in progress.
  • sort through file cabinet – Yes, completely.
  • sort through storage – not started.
  • sort through kitchen cabinets – almost done.

Reflections on the Week

Continue reading “Creativity Goals Check-In October 18, 2020” →

Music, Writing

The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance

Chrys Buckley

neapartment

Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance

The Great Creator

This section strikes me kinda off. I hate to say that but it’s probably the part of the book I have the biggest problem with, and not in a grumpy, skeptical way as I do with other essays in the book.

A lot of the quotes are obnoxious and somewhat contradictory to things she writes. And I think things she writes contradict each other and the lack of internal consistency bothers me. So does the feeling that this chapter drives home, that yeah this is written for middle class people or above, SES-wise, and that bothers me.

But I also think about how AW came out in 1992, and given book publishing timelines and her own telling of how AW came together, she probably wrote a lot of it in the ’80s, which was a different time in terms of cost of living vs. wages, families being okay on just one salary, and so forth.

It just seems like it’s geared towards people who are depriving themselves of joy out of some idea of martyrdom equals goodness, and I get that, but there’s something glib about it that I don’t like. Like yeah, a lot of people would love to dump a drudgy job, or put art first and money second, but for a lot of people that’s just not possible because the money concerns are survival concerns. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A lot of us would like to prioritize creativity more, but it’s hard to do if your basic needs at the base of that pyramid aren’t met.

Continue reading “The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance” →