Yes, I used all caps there. Why? Because I have some great big book news that is a long time coming. Drum roll please . . . My first novel, The Way You Sleep, will be published by She Writes Press on April 14, 2020. Mark your calendars! Why am I so so so excited? Because I've wanted to publish books since I was about, oh, five or six years old. And I can't wait to actually hold the book in my hands. What is the novel about? In the effort to test his own resilience, twenty-fiv

Social media writing groups are inundated with posts by excited writers exclaiming that they have written a draft of a novel and are now ready to publish! *Cue cringing* What I want to delicately remind these excited writers is that writing a novel draft is only the beginning. It is one of the most important things I try to teach my writing students: just because you have a first draft doesn’t mean you are ready to turn in the final. Now is the time to get your hands dirty--t

I was asked recently what my goals were for publishing my novel and after thinking briefly about it, I said, "to have people read it." It sounds simple, but I really want to push my work out into the world so others can sit down and curl up to it. And so I can move on to write new projects. Growing up, books made such a difference in my life that I would love for even one person to read a book I wrote and take something away from it. As I young girl, I remember reading young