diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 61d303fe..3b9ed973 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: embed
 Title: Extra Recipes for Encoding Predictors
-Version: 1.2.0.9000
+Version: 1.2.1.9000
 Authors@R: c(
     person("Emil", "Hvitfeldt", , "emil.hvitfeldt@posit.co", role = c("aut", "cre"),
            comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-0679-1945")),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index d0012ea4..e2eb0509 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 # embed (development version)
 
+# embed 1.2.1
+
+## Improvements
+
 * Make work with all versions of xgboost. (#267)
 
 # embed 1.2.0