D.M. Blackstone — Novelist

Works

Darkly funny upmarket fiction about messy women, the terrible things they sometimes do, and the deeply inconvenient business of surviving.

Forthcoming

Wildflowers

Upmarket Literary Fiction • Dual Narrative

Two women. Centuries apart. The same quiet war. Nell is a decade into a marriage that has been quietly curating her out of existence — and writing, in stolen hours, the story of a healer who refuses to be owned by the man who thinks she belongs to him. Neither of them needed rescuing. Both wrote their own ending.

"He should forget her, the one with the wayward hair. But he knew, marrow-deep, he would not."

Project page coming soon

Querying

Portrait Mode

Upmarket Fiction • Darkly Satirical

Five years after waking up beside her dead best friend, Maris is living in reindeer slippers held together by desperation, asking for rides to her knife factory job from an old hookup because she can't find her car after another bender, and answering to Mr. Kowalski — the sweet suspenders-obsessed boss who has given her at least ten last chances. Also she's been building an AI from Delia's digital footprint. It calls her silly moose. It won't tell the truth. She won't stop asking.

"Silly moose. Not goose. Maris's guts threatened to rupture straight from her abdomen."

In Progress — Concept Art

Third Coast

Upmarket Commercial Fiction • In Progress

A burned-out journalist from Buffalo arrives in Houston, where her roommate is currently obsessed with homemade hot sauces and a kid in a cowboy hat just walked a hog past a Starbucks like that was normal. When a body turns up on the Greenbelt trail, Kit suggests labradorite for a man's sleep apnea (and a CPAP), accidentally makes two enemies, and finds herself caring about a murder investigation she absolutely did not sign up for — along with Case, tent-dweller, amateur botanist, and person of interest, who is somehow entirely her problem now.

"Was tea a big thing here, or was she being initiated into a suburban cult?"

In Progress — Concept Art

Cigarettes & Milk

Literary Fiction • In Progress

A mother doing the math on what it would cost her to disappear the way some fathers do: without consequence, without explanation, without apology. What it costs a woman to stay. What it costs her to even imagine leaving.

"There was only so much of herself left to give."

Early Development — Concept Art

Contraindicated

Dark Comedy • Early Development

A burnt-out nurse practitioner. A healing retreat that smells like Palo Santo and broken dreams. A best friend who goes missing — probably. Equal parts psychological satire, rogue jungle medicine, and nervous breakdown. The most useful thing she's ever done.

"God, I'm so alone… it's kind of nice."

About

The mess is the point.

D.M. Blackstone writes upmarket literary fiction for readers who love emotionally unhinged characters, existential dread, dark humor, and the kind of literary gut-punch that makes you put the book down and stare at the ceiling for a while wondering what you just read.

Her books are all over the place in the best possible way. There's a woman disappearing inside a marriage who writes a gothic anti-fairytale featuring a historical healer only to find they're fighting the same war. A grief-wrecked woman building an AI bot from her dead best friend's digital footprint, waiting for it to tell the truth (it refuses). A journalist who doesn't plan to care about the body on the Greenbelt trail, and then does, because she's sleeping with the person of interest. A mother doing the math on what it would cost her to disappear the way fathers do, without consequence. And a neurotic nurse practitioner who fakes a mushroom trip to expose a cult, runs an illegal jungle clinic, and searches for her missing best friend, who was, it turns out, just having terrible sex with a man named Windstar.

The rest of the time, she manages marketing and data for an O-ring company, which is exactly as glamorous as it sounds and substantially more useful than an MFA.

The common thread is women who are a genuine mess and keep going anyway. With degrees in psychology and web design, she maps the exact points where internal systems crash and the questionable ways to survive the aftermath.

She is a mother of two, tolerated by two cats with yin & yang personalities that match their coats, and a member of Dreaming in Ink, a local writing group. When she isn't working, raising the kids, or fulfilling millions of obligations, she's writing. Or bugging family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers on Reddit for reactions because apparently “letting the draft rest” is a concept for healthier people. Note the distinct lack of sleeping.

She is currently seeking traditional representation for select titles.

Writing the 'because' when the 'and then' isn't enough. D.M. Blackstone has a flair for stories engineered where high-concept grief and serrated voice collide.

Based InWestern New York

RepresentationSeeking traditional representation

InfluencesFlynn, Atwood, Moshfegh, Atkinson, Waller-Bridge, Palahniuk

Currently WritingThird Coast, Cigarettes & Milk, Contraindicated

Currently ReadingDraft notes and her own sentences until they stop looking real

Recent ReadsVictorian Psycho, Overdue, Anima Rising, The Locked Ward

Spotify RotationAsal, bennytheghost, ZZ Ward, VEAUX, Donna Missal