Well, it’s official—The Song of Orphan’s Garden, my very first book baby has been born! And what a long labor it was! I got my publishing offer for this book at the end of August 2022!! For those of you who’ve been part of this blog for years, thank you for all your support. For… Read more »
Writing
Cover Reveal for THE SONG OF ORPHAN’S GARDEN!!
It’s finally here!! Today I’m revealing the cover and official blurb for THE SONG OF ORPHAN’S GARDEN!! This gorgeousness was illustrated by the incredibly talented Maxine Vee. The cover design (and beautiful interior design, which I can’t wait for you to see) is done by Meg Sayres.
Announcing My Debut MG Novel in Verse!
I’ve been hinting and hinting, and now I can finally shout the news from the rooftops: ORPHAN’S SONG, my MG novel in verse is coming in early 2025! I got the offer from Feiwel & Friends back in September and signed the contract in December, so it’s officially official! You can find my announcement on… Read more »
Off On a Basement Writing “Retreat”
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to try to hole myself up in the basement and focus on writing for a whole week. I have no idea how successful this will be, but I figure it’s worth a try. I had been considering going on a real writing retreat, but right now my family’s quarantined anyway until… Read more »
The Wonders of a Writing Accountability Partner
I told you all in my 2020 Goals post that I’m trying to focus on writing goals over reading goals this year. That seems like it should be a no-brainer, but somehow while I typically don’t have any problem finding time to read, I always find a million excuses not to write. I have learned from “author… Read more »
An Exciting Announcement… (I Got an Agent!)
I know I’ve been killing you guys with the hints, but I can finally say it … I’m now represented by Deborah Warren at East/West Literary Agency!!! I am beyond excited to announce that I am now represented by the amazing Deborah Warren @EastWestLit!! ??So honored to be on this publishing journey with her and… Read more »
Things I Didn’t Know About Publishing (And Things I Know I Still Don’t Know)
When I started writing, I wasn’t really doing it with the hope or expectation of getting published. I honestly felt like I was starting too “late.” I mean, when I was younger, I had dreams of being a writer. I took novel writing classes and did workshops and tried (and failed) to be disciplined and actually… Read more »
Top 10 Writing Tips I Learned at WIFYR
I took in a lot of fantastic writing advice at the WIFYR conference. I thought I’d share my some of the lessons I learned with all of you. All of these came from the breakout sessions or keynotes. I tried to keep these specific to writing advice rather than publishing/querying advice, but I’ll probably do… Read more »
Why Is Voice in Writing So Hard? And Do You Think About It When You Read?
I actually started writing this as a completely different post (how I read differently now that I’m writing more seriously), but I ended up writing a lot about this voice, and I decided to go with it. Maybe I’ll write that other post another time. But for now, I’m talking only about voice. What is it that… Read more »
Do Author Bios Ever Make You Want to Read a Book?
I recently got a publicity email from Clean Teen Reads that caught my attention. First off, I have to mention that the cover of one of the books featured was the first thing that caught my eye. I get promo emails from publishers all the time, and I often just kind of skim through them… Read more »
