Blog
New High-Art Magazine Named After a Snail?
I'd never heard of abalones, a type of sea snail, until my friend Lucy Grecu announced the name of her new magazine. The Abalone is a high art magazine...named after a sea snail. Honestly, that sounds kind of incongruent to me. High art? Doesn't that mean snobby?...
I’m Nothing Without You
Dear Reader, I don't know if you've realized this, but you hold all the power in our relationship. When I put my heart out there, it's in your hands...on your bookshelf I am accepted or rejected. If you like my books, you can leave them five stars on Amazon. If you...
I’m turning down a book award?
There are a LOT of scams aimed at authors. Awards, book club features, fake publishers. It takes so much time and energy to sort through the noise. Scammers like to prey on everyone, but author scams seem to work especially well because writers are looking for...
Book Festivals, Conferences, and More
After I spoke underneath the World's Largest Mailbox, I wasn't sure what could top it. Was that one of my career goals? No. Was it extremely fulfilling? Yes. Luckily for you, that won't be the only chance you get to meet me, either online or in-person. I'm...
How The Place I Grew Up Shapes My Writing
I grew up on the edge of a rough neighborhood. Sometimes there’d be gunfire so close it sounded like it was in the backyard. One time, a police squad with K9s and a chopper were out looking for a wanted criminal in the creek about fifty feet from my backdoor....
Why I Talk About Clean Fiction So Much
I was thirteen. I ventured into the teen corner of our local library, my footsteps hushed on the gray carpet flecked with small green lines. No one else was in the little corner alcove where the teen books resided, but the place seemed hushed. Subdued. Bathed in a...
Why I’m Obsessed with this YouTuber…
This post contains affiliate links. I'm one of those people who won't watch a YouTube video for weeks or months, and then goes down an internet rabbit hole. If you ask me, YouTube is one of the safest places online. Every time I upload a short to my YouTube channel, I...