I never used to think of myself as a gardener. There’s a patience and a faithfulness that it calls for. And I didn’t possess a lot of patience for most of my life. Until my firstborn came along and then…I just had to learn it. Gardening requires a good deal of foresight and hopefulness. You weed and prune and look forward to that gorgeous season where…
I can't state enough how much I love in-person conferences and the huge dose of energy infusions that I get from attending them. My most recent adventure was the Nebulas Conference in Anaheim, CA. Now that I'm easing into the process of volunteering for conference programming, it's a good feeling to get to take part in discussions that both help me and the other people on…
Some of you know that my family (my husband and my two kiddos and me + my brother and his wife + my sister and her husband + my parents = 10 of us!) traveled together to Costa Rica at the beginning of 2023. It was a beautiful adventure. We got to swim on gorgeous beaches, watch incredible jungle life (monkeys! iguanas! parrots!), hike, zipline, explore,…
I’ve wanted/dreamed/struggled for years to find a literary agent. I remember sitting in a quiet corner of the Northgate branch of the Seattle Public Library, hunched over a table with The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit (Elizabeth Lyon) lying open beside me as I tried to painstakingly write out a query letter. Every sentence was agony. It was like learning a new language in which I…
I had the opportunity to join several other authors online to speak candidly about our varied roads to publication and the surprises and lessons we've learned thus far. This is a lovely bunch of people and we had a great time together! The first ten minutes of the video were accidentally lost during the recording process and, lo-and-behold, as the salvaged recording starts I'm finishing up…
Hello all! In case you missed my announcements on social media, here is a link to my newest story, "Common Speech," which was released earlier this month on the beautiful and evocative Escape Pod podcast. The narrator, Ibba Armancas, gave a phenomenal and heartfelt performance. I'm so impressed by and grateful for the emotional nuance she delivered to the storytelling! The image on this post is…
Hi friends! It's been a while since I've checked in, and I want to explain part of that. The beginning of school was a *really* rough start for me and the kids this year. It's my fourth year of homeschooling, so I'd like to think that I have at least some of it figured out by now. My daughter entered kindergarten this year, which meant I…
With nominations for the Nebula Awards just around the corner, it's time to post my list of works published in 2022 that are eligible in the Short Story categories of the Nebulas and Hugos, etc. Links to read the stories online will be posted below when available. A huge thank you to my critique group, to my enthusiastic readers, and to the editors who've shown passion…
It began as a compulsion. I needed more regular infusions of writing nerds in my life and I was really wising up to that fact. Also, I'd discovered that one major preventative for depression symptoms (more about my mental health journey can be found here) is to keep planning good things in my future so that I can look forward to them. At the tail end…
They say the mirror doesn’t lie. I’m here to tell you that it does. It takes time to realize it, it takes time to even be able to tell, which means many people never see it on their own. So, I will show you. Unless you don’t want to know. In which case, you should turn back now… You were warned. Most people think of mirrors…