Fourteen Boxes

The Books Have Arrived

Aug 05, 2026

The Arrival

This past week has been one of the busiest I can remember at the studio. Sanding Holdfast frames has become a lifestyle. Sand, flip, sand. Drop them in the right bucket. Then hand file the inside burrs and drop them in another bucket. Next is labeling each numbered colony with their map coordinates with a fine sharpie, twice. The twice is for checking my Rachel Math. 1,152 tiny frames is a lot of counting.

Then I coordinate with my king of the shipping department, Robert Ordell Ozenbaugh to be sure we match up. We have slipped into a system of batching five colonies at a time. I have learned that being quiet is the best approach for this stage, both for him and for me. Asking questions while counting is the wrong kind of distraction.

So, when I spotted the UPS truck and then heard its horn beep, my brain figured it might be the latest clay stamp I had been waiting on. I turned the corner of the house and heard the delivery man yell, “I have a bunch of books here!”

It didn’t click.

“Books?”

“Yeah, fourteen boxes of them!”

Then I understood. My wonderful book designer, Randie Snow, had not given me tracking or a heads up about when the books might arrive. I was figuring late August. I had also figured I might get one copy delivered ahead, to review it before the final big ship.

“Oh, shit! Those are MY books!” The driver smiled, genuinely happy for what he could feel was a moment. I nearly climbed into the van, like Luce always does, looking for her cookie.

My next move was to run back to the shipping department yelling, the books are here, the books are here! It was a moment in time and I am enjoying the feel of it as I write this.

And now I am walking around a wall of boxed books, stacked in the studio, a bit afraid to open them with my steel stained fingers.

But I must resist handing them out or shipping them because September 13th is set in stone. No one gets their book until the first reading event at The Ruins.

All books ship on September 14th.

I love the little Ruins book. I love looking at it repeated in the boxes with my husband’s face in mosaic on the cover. It has weight and fits nicely into purses for carrying to coffee shops or riverbanks. Its smooth matte cover feels good in my hands. Seeing the chapters, the artwork, the three tiny tesserae as scene breaks between sections gives me a thrill. All those design decisions now real in a physical artifact.

Thank you again to all you beautiful pre-orderers. Your early and generous payments helped me get to the place where I now get to look at a wall of 500 books for the next month and treasure the feeling of firsts that can never quite be repeated.

I have made one exception for someone who is permitted to read the book before the special event on Sept 13th. My mother.

She already has reviews…

“Well, I can tell you this. Nobody who picks this book up will be sorry they did it.”

“It is such a treasure, Rachel. I feel like I am in a wonderful storybook, one of my favorite places to be.”

An entirely unbiased assessment.

There is still time to pre-order Ruins State of Mind. You can get a special first edition signed copy or the even more special signed and numbered Printer’s Circle copy.