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Reading and Writing and Dad, and Freed by Flame and Storm’s Pub Day
Today is the release of my second book, Freed by Flame and Storm. This should be a celebratory blog post, but it isn’t quite. This is the book’s dedication: My father passed away two weeks ago today. You can see how Freed’s release is bittersweet. * It wasn’t until I was in college that I…
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One Year Bookiversary
Hi friends!I originally had a whole other newsletter drafted for today, mostly about life-related, instead of book-related stuff. But then my BFF emailed me “Happy book anniversary!” and I remembered, oh yeah. Today marks a full year since Bound by Blood and Sand hit the shelves. This year has been…rough. It’s been dominated by a never-ending political…
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Science Fiction Fairy Tale: A Wrinkle in Time
My August/September YA classics read was Madeline L’engle’s A Wrinkle in Time — but technically, it was a reread. When I was a kid, probably only eight or nine years old, my mother read Wrinkle to me out loud, which left only two lasting impressions for me: the line “There is such a thing as…
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Kirkus Loves Freed by Flame and Storm!
The first review for Freed by Flame and Storm is in… and it’s great! And while not exactly spoilery, it does drop some pretty heavy hints about what’s to come… A former slave must choose between vengeance, mercy, and justice in the conclusion of the epic fantasy duology that began with Bound by Blood and…
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Blitzball Is Hell: A (Very) Few Thoughts On A Separate Peace
Hey, before we dig in! I was on a podcast! Superhero Ethics invited me to drop by and talk about storytelling and the hero’s journey, especially with regards to Star Wars and what the changes from A New Hope to Rogue One signify. Recording was super fun and I think it was a great conversation,…
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Of Author Neuroses and Upcoming Books
Hello, friends! There are about ten of you on this list so I feel pretty safe in referring to you all as friends. And actually, “friends” is what I want to keep this newsletter promotion update list thingy focused on. Because here’s the thing: I write books, and I need to market them, but… I’m…
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The Scourge of Apathy and The Catcher In The Rye
So. The Catcher in the Rye. I have to admit, this was one of the books I most dreaded reading for this project, because it’s also one of the very few I’ve read before. And the truth was, I didn’t like it very much. And it’s really hard to talk about why without feeling like…
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Six Months Out Giveaway
BOOK TWO: IT’S TIME. Um. In six months. Still: six months goes by so quickly! I can’t believe we’re already in June of this completely ludicrous year. So if the next six months go as quickly as the previous six did, well, it’s basically time for Freed by Flame and Storm, right? Or maybe I’m…
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The Free World of Francie Nelson’s Brooklyn
I knew even less about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I started reading it than I had about Little Women. But it was, in a lot of a ways, a perfect answer to Little Women, right down to the moment, early on, where Francie mentions that she read and enjoyed Little Women. Liberty vs.…
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Little Women, Female Ambition, and Castles in the Air
Hey everyone, have you read your Pilgrim’s Progress lately? Because it’s time to talk about what I got out of reading Little Women, in this first real installment of the YA Classics Catch Up. But first, one housekeeping note — as I experimented with formats, I found I had a pretty fun time capturing some…
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