I considered not having a launch party for my book. I’m not a big fan of being the center of attention (which is funny, because when I was ten years old this was my favorite thing ever), and I didn’t want to hand sell books to close friends. I was excited for them to buy it—I just didn’t want to be the one selling it. But publishing a book…
When I finally felt as though I had a reasonable draft of The Dream Peddler, the one I began sending out to agents, it came in at right around seventy-nine thousand words. This was a nice length for a debut literary book, as in, appropriate to the genre and not so long as to be scary. I had cut many things, because I tend to go on and…
I’ve moved around a lot in the past decade, and I’ve had to cull my writing friends from a number of different sources. The first time I joined an actual writing group was when I moved to the outskirts of Philadelphia and found one through Meetup that was only a few minutes from my children’s school. In many ways, Just Write changed my life. I had started a…
A debut year for any writer is exciting and joyful. And it can also be stressful, frightening, frustrating, and lonely. In my little corner of the world, it’s been hard for me to find other writers to connect with, although I’m lucky to have a small circle. Even if you live in a big city, though, with lots of different writers’ groups available, the odds of…
I’m always interested in talking about formal education when it comes to the arts, because these are vocations for which anything goes—you can study painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, or you can paint in a completely naïve, unschooled manner, learning everything by feel, and the validity of your art will not necessarily be affected. You will simply invite different kinds of judgement. I always go…
Like most writers, I’ve been an avid reader since the day I learned to read, and some of my fondest childhood memories are of the independent book stores I frequented with my family. Every time we visited the small town in Ontario where my grandparents lived, for instance, a visit to the bookstore was in order. My parents would let my brother and me browse for ages and…
Aloha. K.A. Doore wrote an essay yesterday about the reader’s buying power and how the support of an independent bookstore helps save jobs and sustain a vibrant literary community. I have nothing to add to her excellent work – she said it so eloquently. I want to say that I’m so deeply grateful I have the love and support of Counterpoint Press. This amazing independent press was brave to embrace…
I am absolutely thrilled to welcome our fellow debut author Kristin Wright to the debutante ball this week. Her southern gothic suspense Lying Beneath The Oaks was recently released in January, and I know I’m not the only one who’d been looking forward to that for many months! Kristin is a native Midwesterner and a graduate of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan Law School. She works…
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, The Dream Peddler was directly inspired by my love of reading and my adolescent obsession with Emily of New Moon. There is nothing greater for me than reading the work of authors I love in order to be inspired. If I’m in a bit of writing doldrums, I’ll just pick up a book (a fabulous literary one, usually) and in no time…
Aloha! What I like about my debut novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues: it’s short. Also, I think it’s full of suspense. What I love about writing in general: I get to tell stories, I get to try out new writing techniques. I get to read books about craft. I get to write poems. I get to attend writing conferences and workshops, where I meet other writers and poets…
