book news – Chrys Buckley

INVISIBLE VIOLETS PLAYLIST EXTRAVAGANZA

September 13, 2026 Chrys Buckley

It’s finally here, whether or not you knew you were waiting for it: my book Invisible Violets, which is chock-full of music references, has playlists!

There are two versions. Both are built upon the references and allusions in the book and follow the text in order.

Invisible Violets Unabridged Playlist

The first version is the all-out, maximalist, go-big-or-go-home, completist playlist of excess.

Still, it was created with strict rules, though it may not seem like it. I will have further posts about how I constructed the playlists, what songs I had to leave off, and so forth, but for now, here is the feast of a playlist.

This playlist is essentially my debut book if it could only be told in songs.

Unabridged Invisible Violets playlist on Apple Music

Unabridged Invisible Violets playlist on Spotify

Invisible Violets Abridged Playlist

Aaaaand this is the playlist with a more sane length, distilled to only a hundred songs. The culling was painful and difficult, but sometimes we must sacrifice for our art.

I am not capable of giving a shorter version, so, this is as short as it gets.

Abridged Invisible Violets playlist on Apple Music

Abridged Invisible Violets playlist on Spotify

A Little Peak

To either entice or horrify you, here’s a word cloud of the music references in the book. By far and away the most referenced musical artist is Chris Cornell. And if you add up the references to him plus his bands, well, it gets even more lopsided. So if you don’t like that man’s voice, probably skip the playlists but also get your head examined.

Word cloud featuring musical references and allusions in the book 'Invisible Violets', highlighting artists like Chris Cornell, Tori Amos, Soundgarden, and Nirvana.

Coming Next

You all, I have so much cooking right now, you wouldn’t believe it. I hardly believe it. Who knew that finishing grad school would unleash me into the creative prime of my life?

I’ll hint at three things.

There’s something in the works to explore all of the music in Invisible Violets in more depth in ways that I hope are highly entertaining, and sometimes at my expense. Soft launch for that is scheduled (in my head) for December and the hard launch is January 1st, as this will be a hugely fun 2027 project.

A live show for Invisible Violets is in the works. Also look for more about that in 2027.

I’m working on Book Two. It’s very different from Invisible Violets in some ways, including structure, but there’s some overlap in topic, and of course, it’s still me with all my writing quirks and my incurable music referencing. I have never in my life had such a blast writing. Even when the writing is hard and it takes me seven hours to write three paragraphs (which for anyone who knows my typical writing process, this is not at all how I normally work) and even when I revisit things I really would prefer to pretend don’t exist and feel like I’m suffering for my art, it is still fun. Everything is hilarious if you give it enough time. For this one, I can’t give a specific date to expect it, but oh my freaking god, I can’t wait till I can. And the playlist for this project is going to make the Invisible Violets playlist look like a paragon of restraint.

Speaking of hilarious, I’ve been doing some stand-up comedy, but that’s a topic for another day.

Chrys

Blindness and Disability, Music, My Books, Writing

BACK COVER REVEAL!

January 23, 2026January 24, 2026 Chrys Buckley

First there was the COVER REVEAL.

It’s been a minute since then (!) and now it’s time to reveal the back cover of INVISIBLE VIOLETS: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays! You can find book info, including how to pre-order signed and personalized copies here.

With no further ado, here is the back cover:

Back cover of Invisible Violets on a textured purple background

Blindness and Disability, Music, Writing

COVER REVEAL!

October 21, 2025 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:

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

Music, Writing

The Call

April 1, 2025April 6, 2025 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.

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

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

March 19, 2025November 19, 2025 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