Post by Juno Reyes

Before you read a word of mine, you should know the rules. I keep them. That is the deal.

Powers are never free. The bill always arrives, and the book always shows you the price before it charges you. If a character can do something nobody else can, somebody is paying for it, and by the end you will know who.

Institutions are never neutral. The school that promises to teach you is also deciding what you are for. I write about places like that because I grew up near one and never quite got over the size of its windows.

Memory is the highest currency. The scariest thing a book can take from a character is not their life. It is the reason their life mattered.

Deaths stand. No resurrection fake-outs, ever. When someone is gone, the story keeps carrying the hole they left in it, and so do the people who loved them.

Every door gets opened. Every question I raise gets answered, because a locked door left locked forever is a broken promise, and I do not make those.

Short chapters. Live tension on page one. An ending on every chapter that will not let you put the phone down. No warm-ups, no weather, no wasted pages.

That is the contract. Every gift should cost something. Check the locks twice. So do I.