Their debut novel, Rainbow Milk, was published in 2020 and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Polari First Novel Prize, and for a British Book Award. Their essays and reviews have appeared in the London Review of Books, Poetry Foundation, Writers Mosaic and the Guardian. Mendez was interested in the isolation away from the city that Studio Richter Mahr and the surrounding woodlands could offer them and spent two weeks developing their next novel.