October 20th, 2025
If you know anything about me, you know how much music means to me.
When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it, talking about it, sharing it, obsessing over it, consuming it whole. It inspires and infects everything I do.
That includes my books. (This goes back to my very first novella, Them, whose inclusion of Lady Gaga was actually mentioned in the Faribault Daily News review.)
Folks seem to like it when I share these (I’ve curated playlists for Cold World, The Weirdos, Brushfire, etc.), so here’s the soundtrack behind Maple Island. Some of these songs appear in the story itself; some will give you more insight into the characters, ideas and themes; some of these are straight up spoilers. But all of them were essential parts of my life and process as I wrote this book.
Enjoy, and feel free to listen to the linked playlist on YouTube.
1. Run – Collective Soul
2. Obsessed – Mallrat
3. My Blood – Twenty One Pilots
4. Kinky – bby
5. You’re a God – Vertical Horizon
6. Yours – Now, Now
7. Stranded – Plumb
8. Making Me Crazy – Colin Bracewell
9. Wild – Troye Sivan
10. Insensitive – Jann Arden
11. Defibrillator – Mallrat
12. I Want You (Fever) – Momma
13. Whatever Forever – Ber
14. Quiver – Dora Jar
15. Hungry Eyes – Eric Carmen
16. Ankles – Lucy Dacus
17. Kiss The Rain – Billie Myers
18. Too Much – Carly Rae Jepsen
19. Never Too Much – Luther Vandross
20. Never Be The Same – Camila Cabello
21. Novocaine – The Band CAMINO
22. Color You In – Yam Haus
23. If We Were Vampires – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
24. All My Ghosts – Lizzie McAlpine
25. I Think We’re Alone Now – Tiffany
26. How Bad Do U Want Me – Lady Gaga
27. Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat – Del Water Gap
28. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover – Sophie B. Hawkins
29. Everybody Wants Somebody – Patrick Stump
30. I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) – The 1975
31. Hands Clean – Alanis Morissette
32. Church – Fall Out Boy
33. Virtue – Mallrat
The Den 