What happens after your debut book is published? Would you do anything different for your second novel?
These are the questions I so often want to ask debut authors but never get the chance to unless I bump into them at an event or we cross paths in DMs on social media.
So, Debutiful’s launching a new Q&A to catch up with some of our favorite debuts as they launch and promote their next books.
First up is Ariel Delgado Dixon, whose first book, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, was a Debut Debut Book of 2022. Her sophomore book, Sourland, came out in June 2026, and I caught up with her via email for this new series.
Sourland is about two women battling for control of a Northern California farm after its enigmatic owner suddenly disappears, forcing them to confront old rivalries, buried secrets, and the lingering influence of the woman who brought them together.
Ariel! I loved your debut novel, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, so much! What was the post-pub life like for your debut?
On the heels of post-pub, a lot of change whirled into my life. I busted my ass farming, had a freak near-death experience, bopped around at residencies, read the book to folks in different corners of the country, from Idaho to Key West. I also moved up to Western Mass, where I live with my partner and wife-to-be Allegra Hyde. I teach writing at Smith College, and farm on the weekends. My first book feels so far away from me now. It’s a time capsule of 2020 to 2022, the years when I finished writing it, got an agent, sold it, up until it got punted into the world during a cold February. And then nothing crazy happened. I don’t think I found a large readership, by any means. These days, I think I feel less like an imposter and more like someone who just wants to make art. …Does that sound Zen?
Was there anything (good or bad) you learned about the publishing industry you wish you knew before pubbing your debut?
The first go around, I was very, very green. My reference point for the capital-W Writer’s Life was a few gossipy stories from my professors in MFA and maybe Jo from Little Women? Even now, most of my friends are outside of the writing world and I live pretty far from the center of things, here in Western Mass. There was, and remains, a lot to know—about marketing, the expectations (or lack thereof) from your publisher, how the back and forth of editing can go, how long it takes for a book to come out, how many emails are involved, how many favors you have to ask, and—at least for me—how anticlimactic it can finally feel once a book gets drop-kicked into the public sphere. I wish I had been more confident, even prescriptive, the first time around. I thought being deferential was most polite, but now I think it’s the artist’s job to see the novel through to the end, all the way, as you imagine it—and also to do some shepherding of the Book as Object, its aesthetics and final form. I learn by doing, though, so I’m still picking up lessons as I go.
You’re back with Sourland. When and how did you start this book?
I started this book in 2020, in the fresh wake of my first book, though it took a good two years to really find momentum and the correct register for the novel’s voice. I must’ve tried twenty openers until I found what I was looking for. The short version of this novel’s origin story is that I have spent much time alongside farmers and weed empresarios both, and that came in handy when writing about the outlaw life of cultivating weed for cash millions. Growing under the sun is a dying way of life, and my hope is this book has a preservative quality. I worked on it in Humboldt in an off-grid cabin, in the snowy mountains of Idaho, in South Philadelphia where I lived during much of this time, and in Brooklyn, where I sometimes hung around a small-time kingpin who had a million golden stories about getting ripped off, smuggling cash and product, double-crosses, and the lonely life of being a successful criminal. This book is bursting with those tales, and I’m glad they get to live someplace where other people can get in on the dirty secrets.
Remind me, was this part of a two-book deal? Or… what was the process of getting this from draft to sold and published?
This was part of a two-book deal, so the general premise of Sourland was bought alongside my first book. I’ve learned some writers may not like this set-up—too much pressure to make something on someone else’s timeline. For me, it’s the closest to job security you can get, and I like being under the gun. But my bizarro near-death experience bumped back the timeline, and my acquiring editor, Andrea Walker, sadly moved houses. This meant I was paired with someone new, Marie Pantojan, at Random House, and the timeline kind of reset itself. She was coming to the manuscript for the first time, I worked on subsequent drafts, and so on. This was also a book that shrunk down from a totemic 600+ pages to its slimmer sub-300-page form. Though I can get impatient with publishing’s pace, in this case, the extra months really let me grow into the novel and get it leaner and meaner.
Is there anything you’re doing differently now for your sophomore book that you didn’t do for your debut?
I’m trying to have a little more fun. This time around, I’m doing things differently with events. Instead of the classic reading, in conversation format, Sourland’s events involve a little mischief and mayhem. Some audience participation, some volunteers, some interactive theatrics… one of which is called The Nightmare Blunt Rotation. The events will be spread out into the fall, across Massachusetts, New Jersey, Idaho, L.A., and maybe a couple other spots on the horizon. I also wrote an accompanying nonfiction piece, called “The Service” published by Dirt, that draws from my brief era under the wing of a Brooklyn weed magnate. Beyond my wildest dreams, he agreed to sit with me for an extended interview, and I loved showpony-ing those great tales of his that became fictionalized in the novel, instead letting them all hang out on the record.
What have you been reading lately you can recommend to Debutiful readers?
This year, I reread Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta, whom I admire greatly. I also read Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon. I loved her 2024 song “BYE BYE” which plays in my head whenever I pack a bag. My dear friend Mary Pauline Lowry’s novel, Last Night was Killer, is a fucking romp. I’m currently reading Tears of the Truffle Pig by Fernando Flores, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, and Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. I like reading a bunch of books at the same until one inevitably takes the lead…