Guest Author

Interview with Sarah Kuhn, Author of HEROINE’S JOURNEY + Giveaway!

Saturday, July 7, 2018
0 comment

The last time someone asked me for a recommendation of a really fun book, Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex is what leapt to mind. Asian-American superhero ladies kicking ass to protect San Francisco from demons as quirky as they are deadly — What’s not to love? But the books also have real heart: the heroines are wrestling not just with their superpowers, but with the chaos of modern existence: life, love, money, status, social…

Read More >>

Interview with Book Publicist Andrea Kiliany Thatcher 

For Industry Insiders week, I wanted to introduce you to Andrea Kiliany Thatcher of Smith Publicity, whom I worked with in the months leading up to the release of my memoir,  Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home.   Andrea Kiliany Thatcher is a Marketing Manager and a Book Publicist at Smith Publicity. Andrea has a long relationship with the independent bookselling community having been a bookseller and social media manager for…

Tuesday, June 26, 2018
0 comment
Read More >>

Author Interview with Lisa Romeo + GIVEAWAY!

Saturday, June 23, 2018
2 comments

I first met Lisa at HippoCamp 2016 where I attended her incredibly useful session on writing about one topic across multiple pieces. That was my first writing conference ever, and I was so intimidated by everyone that I only spoke to something like five people, of which Lisa was one. We chit chatted in the waiting area to pitch agents and editors for our then-unpublished memoirs, and although I don’t…

Read More >>

Interview with Rowenna Miller + Giveaway of TORN

Saturday, May 19, 2018
0 comment

This week, I am excited to introduce Rowenna Miller to the Debutante Ball! I know Rowenna through her editor, who was my editor back before she moved over to Orbit, and I’m delighted to have made her acquaintance this year. Torn is one of my favorite things that I’ve read in the past few months, a delightfully unique take on fantasy fiction. Rowenna sets her story in a world analogous to 1780s/90s France/England,…

Read More >>

Interview with Catherine McKenzie + Giveaway of THE GOOD LIAR

Saturday, May 5, 2018
0 comment

I am having all kinds of success with my author interviews lately. This week is another biggie: Catherine McKenzie, who I met at the Writer’s Digest Conference in NYC a few years ago when she was a presenter. Catherine’s previous books have been highly acclaimed bestsellers, and her latest, The Good Liar, is no exception: named by Goodreads as one of the hottest thrillers of 2018, it’s been busy racking…

Read More >>

Interview with Meg Wolitzer + GIVEAWAY For THE FEMALE PERSUASION

Saturday, April 14, 2018
3 comments

I met Meg Wolitzer in Iceland. (How great is an opener is that sentence? I could hardly have invented better words to pass myself off as some sort of globetrotting, namedropping force.) I am going to have to tarnish the portrayal of my image a bit by fessing up that I didn’t just serendipitously encounter her traipsing up an Icelandic glacier or pounding bourbon in a Reykjavík bar; Meg was mentoring a…

Read More >>

Interview with Zoraida Córdova

Saturday, April 7, 2018
1 comment

This week, I am so excited to introduce Zoraida Córdova to the ball! Zoraida has written adult, YA, and short fiction; Labyrinth Lost was a fantastically inventive YA fantasy novel, and it’s one of the most exciting books I read last year. Zoraida’s also a fantastic public speaker. Her keynote at last year’s Sirens Conference was thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking. The second book in her Brooklyn Brujas series comes out in June,…

Read More >>

Interview with Crystal Wilkinson + GIVEAWAY For THE BIRDS OF OPULENCE

Saturday, March 31, 2018
0 comment

Crystal Wilkinson was a guest lecturer my first semester of my MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She spoke eloquently about circular, fragmented, and braided forms. She spoke about how Point of View can circle overhead like a bird, coming to rest over different people. I wrote it all down very carefully, because I was not particularly good at writing linear stories and it was the first time I heard…

Read More >>

Interview w/ Lindsay Ribar + Winner’s Choice Giveaway!

Saturday, March 24, 2018
0 comment

This week, I have the pleasure of welcoming to the ball one of my oldest friends within the publishing industry, Lindsay Ribar. Lindsay was actually one of the first people who ever knew anything about From Unseen Fire, as she was one of the agents I pitched the book to back at a Harry Potter convention in 2012! I was brave enough to pitch to her, honestly, only because her younger sister…

Read More >>

Interview w/ Jessica Strawser + Giveaway for NOT THAT I COULD TELL

Saturday, March 17, 2018
7 comments

I am all kinds of delighted to be able to interview one of my writer heroines this week. Jessica’s Strawser’s debut novel, Almost Missed You, was named to Barnes & Noble’s Best new Fiction shortlist upon its release in March 2017 and it was one of my favorite books of the year. I’ve admired Jessica for years at the fantastic Writer’s Digest Conference held in New York City each summer;…

Read More >>