January 27, 2025

I am reeling from awe. A dear friend, who beta read ALL IS WELL, recently surprised me with four postcards that she hand-painted with watercolors. With her permission, I am sharing them with you all, and I wish I could rent a Times Square billboard to show off one of the most touching gifts I’ve…

November 30, 2024

Currently, I am in throes of writing book #3, THE WITHERWOOD CHOIR, and by #3, I actually mean book #4 (because the first book I wrote, THE LAST GODDESS, absorbed its twin in the womb and popped out with two wobbly heads and a single spine while weighing in at a hefty 190k words). It…

September 30, 2024

+ the query that led me to my agent Today, I’m bringing you a pastiche of wisdom-learned-the-hard-way, resources-I-wish-I-knew-about-earlier, and the query that got the attention of a Big5 editor and that landed me with my agent (I swear, someday I’ll write a HIGMA post about that wild tale). #1 Pitch Your Friends First. Y’all, my…

June 22, 2024

Did you know that losses are twice as potent as their equivalent gains? This psychological concept underpins the idea of “loss aversion,” a cognitive bias that often tests a writer’s will to continue on through the query gauntlet. For some, the cumulative pain of rejections can outweigh the potential gain of snagging that offer, which…