News

I’m currently working on a new project that I’m super excited about, and I’m hoping to have more news to share soon. In the meantime, the best place to find and connect with me online is Instagram.
12
Dec

Question Friday: Chrismtas Cookie Edition

0
I’m finally in the holiday spirit, guys! We’re getting our tree tonight!   I’m inspired this week by my friend Rosaline’s epic Cookie Day. Every year, she and her mom bake hundreds upon hundreds of cookies for their friends and colleagues. Tomorrow is their Cookie Day, and since I happen to be hanging out with Rosaline tomorrow night (we’re going to see The Bloody, Strange and Wicked Origins of St. Nicholas [featuring a ten-minute play by my talented husband]), guess who will be the happy recipient of some delicious chocolate Rolo cookies?   Anyway. I digress.   Sugar cookies: with sprinkles OR without? with icing OR without?   Sugar cookies: thin and crispy, OR huge and chewy?   Cookies with fruit (oatmeal-raisin, white-chocolate cranberry) OR without?   Cookies with nuts OR ew, no, without?   Gingerbread men cookies OR gingerbread? Cookie bars OR straight-up drop cookies?   Bonus: What’s your...
Read More
10
Dec

Books = Gifts

0
So, there’s been lots of gloomy-doomy news about the publishing industry. I work for a small university press, and I can confirm that while our yearly sales are still up a little from 2007, November sales were down. And returns were way, way up.  As someone who loves books and hopes to get published someday, the thought of people not buying books makes me sad.   I’ve decided to become a bookpusher. A word-dealer. An elf of edification.   My dad? One Western and one crime novel. My mom? A holiday romance. My sisters? Um, can’t say in case they read this, but they’re both getting a book in addition to the other requests they’ve made. I’m giving books to…let’s count…at least 5 friends. 3 different people are getting copies of The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks. I would give everyone I know Hunger Games, too, but I was so excited after I...
Read More
08
Dec

Triumph

0
Oh, this is one of the best feelings EVER. I’m all curled up in my ginormous writing chair with my ginormous mug of tangerine tea and my gingerbread candle on the shelf behind me. The wind is howling outside and seeping under the door. The apartment is quiet except for the click-click-click of the radiator and the tap-tap-tap of my fingers. I just revised Chapter Nine. Chapter Nine has been a thorn in my side. It was slowing the pace. Parts of it had become wholly unnecessary. It needed to be almost entirely rewritten: delete one conversation, radically rewrite middle, add an argument, restructure ending. I knew what needed to be done, but I couldn’t seem to manage it to my satisfaction. And it felt pivotal enough that I didn’t want to go forward without fixing it. That’s where I stopped and said, hey, self, what do we think about telling this story in first-person present-tense?   I really...
Read More
05
Dec

Question Friday: Christmas Tree Edition

0
Christmas tree: Yay OR nay? Do you have it up yet?   Real OR artificial?   Angel OR star on top?   Tinsel OR garland OR just lights?   Careful color scheme OR hodgepodge of ornaments?   Bonus: What are some of your favorite holiday decorations? Do you go for villages, candles, outdoor lights, etc?   We’re not decorating until next Saturday (the 13th), but I can’t wait!!  
04
Dec

Audience

0
I just got home a little while ago from seeing a play. It was an okay play. Very well-acted, very funny, at my favorite theatre in town. We went out to dinner first and I had fantastic salmon ochazuke (Japanese rice and tea soup). But I didn’t love this play. I had a hard time explaining why to my husband. As a playwright, he tends to be more critical than I. I look for the shiny bits, things that work and could be expanded or expounded on. He thinks how he’d do it differently (or better). But this time ’round, he really dug it. He liked how Brechtian it was, noted that the term gets thrown around a lot, but in this case, it genuinely applied. The action was episodic, frequently interrupted by the narrator/museum docent, and the audience wasn’t meant to get too invested in the characters or their...
Read More
1 … 120 121 122 123 124 … 131

FIND ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA

g

BOOKS AND ANTHOLOGIES

Great or Nothing cover
Toil & Trouble cover
Last Summer cover

POSTS FOR WRITERS

› On Balance & Writing & Breaks & Anxiety & Hobbies
› On Anxiety
› A Learning Year: Managing Expectations