April 24th is Indie Bookstore Day and to celebrate, I wanted to shine a light on my favorite local indie, Blue House Books in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blue House Books is everything you want from a local bookstore: not only filled with amazing books from every genre you love to read, but owned and operated by a warm and welcoming bookseller. Samantha Jacquest is a one-woman small business maven who started…
This week’s topic is all about highlighting the resources that helped me along the way to publishing. The websites and podcasts I’ve listed below were (and are) all invaluable sources of information and support in a journey that can often be a lonely one. So saddle up and read on for my favorites: First Draft with Sarah Enni There is so much here to love about Sara Enni’s podcast. She…
If you ask most professional writers, they’ll tell you they’ve been writing since childhood, and the same is true for me. I dreamed of writing a book and getting it published for almost as long as I can remember. But how do you actually go about writing a book? I had no idea… and it showed in my writing. For more years than I can honestly count, I worked on…
I wrote last week about how I hadn’t planned on becoming a writer, and how writing was something I came to after being unemployed for a long time. So already my path to publication was a little longer and had more forking paths than some people. I completed the rough draft of my novel in about six months in 2011, and I spent the next four years first learning how…
It is my pleasure to introduce Elizabeth Gonzalez James, who will be taking on the the role of News Flash Organizer and Topic Whisperer which I have managed for the past Debutante season. Elizabeth is the author of the forthcoming MONA AT SEA, a sharp and witty debut launching in the Summer of 2021 that asks, When we find what gives our life meaning, will we be ready for it?…
Television news is a young person’s game. I first heard that assertion from my broadcast journalism professors and class advisors, and then later from workshop presenters at national industry conferences. The statement was an undercurrent that gradually grew into a drumbeat for us who toiled as young reporters at stations in small town America. We were encouraged by our colleagues and mentors to keep our resumes and news clips up…
As a kid, I absolutely adored reading for pleasure! When school was out during the summer, my very favorite thing would be getting a fat stack of books from the library and diving into new worlds like a solo adventurer. The phrase ‘summer reading’ brings up the fond memory of our local library’s annual summer reading contest. Each year, the Mt. Healthy library held a scavenger hunt style reading competition,…
Growing up, I knew I had an overwhelming passion for reading and writing. But as a first generation daughter of Jamaican immigrants, and I knew my family had high expectations for my career path. I made murmurs that I wanted to be a writer, but they said you should want to become a lawyer, think of the steady money and prestige! Entering the fashion industry was a type of compromise…
I am excited to introduce our guest author for this week, Suzanne Nugent! Suzanne Nugent is a writer committed to exploring women’s lives and relationships through poignant comedy and drama. She holds a dual degree in journalism and film from UMass Amherst and studied screenwriting at UCLA. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting and has received accolades from the Denver Film Festival and the San…
Being any type of artist takes support, emotional and especially financial. I have found that being a writer definitely requires financial sacrifices. For me, I recognized that I had to change my lifestyle in order to write my novel. I could not continue at a high pressure, high stress 40+ hour job and have the ability to craft the novel resting on my heart. I shifted to working freelance, and…
