My family moved to the United States from Taiwan when I was seven. To help us learn English, my mom used to take my sister and I to the library and that’s where my love of reading started. I couldn’t get enough of books. I read any and everything, regardless of subject matter or genre. I plowed through books like the Cam Jansen series, Encyclopedia Brown, and then eventually the…
I’m turning forty this year. And when you’re a middle-aged mom writing science fiction at four in the morning, it’s hard to look at all the startling young ingenues in their adorable city apartments, writing life-changing novels, getting MFAs, doing interviews with Lithub— —Let’s just say that I’ve been there. I understand. I thought my life was over in my early thirties when I turned out a truly awful epic…
I don’t have any magic formulas for the books I selected and used as comparable titles — except if you consider reading, as I do, as a superpower. A few years ago I wanted to start sending out my own book. I attempted to take stock of what I loved to read and re-read, the books I kept returning to for inspiration and solace: The House on Mango Street by…
I get easily excited about ideas. If you sit me in front of a computer long enough, I will inevitably start writing. Drafting is the fun part. Drafting should be the stream of consciousness part, the unfiltered part, the part that is done out of joy. In drafting, there is no judgment, only indulgence. One is able to describe a house or a room or even a bowl of soup…
I’m so, so happy to feature poet, novelist and now, non-fiction author Elizabeth Rosner on the blog this week! Elizabeth and I are literary agency AND publisher sisters – both represented by the wonderful DeFiore & Company in New York, publishing our books with the incredible Counterpoint Press located in Berkeley, CA. Elizabeth is the author of five, count-em five, books — and most recently her first non-fiction/memoir Survivor Café: The Legacy of…
Like Louise, I have a towering stack of to-be-read books. The pile is threatening my bed and I’ve had to stack up the overflow on the shelves. I keep the TBR books faced out so I can always grab them. Of course these piles are deceptive because it doesn’t show the twenty or so unread books I also have on my Kindle. You can see by these piles that I…
As I write this blog post on Thursday afternoon, half of my mind is on the reading I will be doing tonight. The truth is, I don’t want to do it. I’m here to tell you that in the annals of authordom, I’m more J.D. Salinger than J.K. Rowling. If I could get away with being a recluse, I gladly would. To repeat, I don’t want to do the reading…
I had a dream for KILMOON’s cover. I wanted it to look like a “big book.” By this I mean that I wanted my name to be as prominent as the title. In the realm of mystery/suspense/thriller, the bigger the name on the cover, the bigger the author. It’s a branding thing. If your name is above the title — whoa, definite big time! I thought a lot about branding. I thought…
Today we welcome Gigi Pandian, one of the nicest people on the planet and author of the acclaimed Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mystery series. Her debut, ARTIFACT, was named a “Best of 2012” novel by Suspense Magazine. In Artifact, historian Jaya Jones discovers the secrets of a lost Indian treasure may be hidden in a Scottish legend from the days of the British Raj. But she’s not the only one…
We are pleased to welcome Julie Anne Lindsey as our guest today. Julie is a self-proclaimed word nerd who would rather read than almost anything else. She started writing to make people smile. Someday she plans to change the world. Most days you’ll find her online, amped up on caffeine and wielding a book. Julie’s newest novel, DECEIVED, is available September 18th on Amazon Barnes & Noble Book Depository and…
