I was finally on my way! I had started my Young Adult (YA) Fantasy novel over 20 years earlier, building the world, the characters, and the story in fits and starts on vacations or in between life’s daily demands, mostly surrendering to my reality. Then in July of 2019, I retired and I promised myself… Read more »
Seven summers ago, I walked into a small conference room at the Writer’s Digest Conference, wondering what I was doing there. The topic was YA literature, and while I was interested in YA, the novel I was working on was for adults. I think it’s safe to say that if there had been anything more… Read more »
Since the start of our first COVID-19 shutdown in DC back in March of 2020, it’s felt like everything has existed in a constant state of freefall. Though I have tried for a consistent daily routine, I haven’t had a traditional 9-5 working schedule since leaving my communications job at the end of 2018. Prior… Read more »
Call them what you will. Nonwriters, Muggles, Philistines. Just kidding. We know them. We love them. They’re our parents, our friends, our partners and significant others. They’re the people in our lives with whom we share everything. But sometimes we aren’t always sure how to share this one thing with nonwriters. You know, one of… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Sara Schaff. Sara Schaff is the author of two short story collections The Invention of Love and Say Something Nice About Me. She is a CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist in fiction and a finalist for the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award for short fiction. Her writing has… Read more »
In the fall of 2016, after I had been living abroad for five years, my second child was born. My husband, two daughters, and I were living with my mom. I had no friends. I was exhausted, lonely, bewildered, and often angry. The world had shifted around me, and I no longer understood it.I felt… Read more »
Hey, writers! Today I want to talk about authentic author brand building. In other words: how can you establish yourself as a real human being, rather than as a robotic, faceless business? An author brand boils down to a couple key features: what sets you apart from other authors and, more specifically, what readers love… Read more »
The pandemic has taken a lot from us. As authors, it has been a huge blow to our options for growing our community—events, libraries, book shops, conventions, festivals, workshops. I could go on. But it can’t steal your platform. I know: it’s hard. Even I, extreme introvert extraordinaire, have missed face time with readers and writers…. Read more »
Hey word nerd! Jeanette the DIY MFA Curriculum Unicorn (aka Curriculum Director) here. I’ve been a fellow word nerd since early 2018 when I ran across Gabriela’s Stop Dreaming, Start Doing video series. At the end of the videos, I flipped to the next blank page in the journal where I had furiously been scribbling… Read more »
Does the idea of marketing yourself and your books make your head hurt? You are not alone! While writing books comes naturally to us, marketing seems so vague and complicated. And yet it’s a necessary evil that must be overcome if we want to be successful indie authors. We scour the internet, listen to a… Read more »
