Shortlisted for the Funny Pearls Contest! “Alphabet of Ants”

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“Create a Magic Story!” With Magnetic Poetry from NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and Harry Potter 🙂

It’s my great privilege to announce that my short story, “Alphabet of Ants,” was shortlisted this January for the Funny Pearls 2020 Short Story Competition. Funny Pearls is a delightful lit mag dedicated to women’s humor, and it’s an honor to be a part of the magic.

The story is about what happens when intergalactic insects haunt your bathroom. You can listen to me read it below, or check it out at Funny Pearls: https://funnypearls.com/2021/01/alphabet-of-ants/

I’m whispering a little bit because it’s early and my husband is still sleeping, haha 🙂 Enjoy the listen!

Big thanks goes out to my writing teacher, mentor, and friend, Rachel Howard, for editing the piece. A shout out also goes out to my critique buddies on Scribophile. Go writing community!

Funny Pearls is a wonderful market to submit to. The editor, Mette, is a pleasure to work with and an incredible editor. This has been one of my favorite magazines, and I’m so honored to have gotten in. You can check out the short story competition on Duotrope.

Aw, ants are kind of cute close up!

More Literary Good News!

Also this month, I have a piece of artwork that was accepted by the NonBinary Review, a project of Zoetic Press. The work will appear in their next issue with an apocalypse theme. This was a tough market to get into, with only about an 8% acceptance rate, so I was very pleased that my work will be appearing in the next issue. I’ll let you know when it’s live!

I also had the delight of helping host the Sierra Writer’s Conference last week, as well as live Tweeting the event. Once the event recordings of the workshops are up, I’ll post about that too so you can check it out!

Talk about alien insects! 🙂

That’s all for me! Please let me know in the comments how you liked “Alphabet of Ants” and what you have been up to in your writing life!

THIS WEEKEND: Sierra Writer’s VIRTUAL Conference with James McBride and Dr. Bettina Love! February 5th & 6th, Just $30 or Less—Join me!

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From last year’s conference: Introducing my hero NaNoWriMo Director Grant Faulkner in 2020!

This year, I am honored and delighted to help MC the Sierra Writer’s Virtual Conference. I have attended every year, and each time, I get so much out of it between the inspiring speakers and skills-boosting workshops. THIS WEEKEND, the keynote speakers are not to be missed: you can catch both James McBride and Dr. Bettina Love for just $30 or less!

Getting my signed copy of Driving in Cars with Homeless Men: Stories
by the insanely talented Katie Wisel in 2020! Photo credit: Tom Durkin

Featured Speakers: James McBride and Dr. Bettina Love

This year, the conference features two nationally renown authors you won’t want to miss:

James McBride is an award-winning author, musician, and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, published in 1996, has sold millions of copies and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Considered an American classic, it is read in schools and universities across the United States.

From McBride’s website, http://www.jamesmcbride.com/bio/

Dr. Bettina L. Love is an award-winning author and the Athletic Association Endowed Professor at the University of Georgia. She is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers. Her writing, research, teaching, and activism meet at the intersection of race, education, abolition, and Black joy….

She is the author of the books We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. Her work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the English Journal, Urban Education, The Urban Review, and the Journal of LGBT Youth. 

From Love’s website, https://bettinalove.com/about/

Workshops to Hone Your Writing

  1. Devi S. Laskar, author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues and winner of the 2020 Crook’s Corner Book Prize| Amassing the Tide. A workshop on establishing a voice and a sustainable writing practice
  2. Kim Culbertson, one of my favorite YA authors of all time and a super inspiring speaker and craft teacher| The World You Build for Them
  3. Catharine Bramkamp, vivacious author and outstanding promoter of books | Authentic Promotion
  4. Sands Hall, author of Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology and one of my favorite teachers of all time!| Empowering Your Characters: Including When That Character Is Yourself
  5. …And many more!

Every year, Kim Culbertson’s talk inspires me to live an authentic writer’s life. I’ve also had the pleasure of taking multiple workshops and intensives with the outstanding Sands Hall, who always brings my skill up to a new level after her classes. I highly recommend catching all the workshops you can!

I’m Leading the Flash Fiction Critique Workshop!

There is also a great selection of critique groups you can join to receive feedback on your work. From poetry to fiction, take your work to the next level.

I’ll be leading the flash fiction critique group. Here’s the down low:

Join us for the art of the super-compressed story, the short short, nanofiction, or microfiction. We’ll have a good time building our craft by critiquing each other’s work in a safe space. All genres welcome. Please bring a flash fiction piece, your virtual red pen, and a sense of adventure!

Read more and register for your critique group at https://sierrawritersconference.org/critique-sessions/

Join Us for the Conference!

The nice thing about going virtual is that you can join from anywhere. Like my mother-in-law, who will be tuning in from snowy Boston! How cool is that?

You can find more info about the conference here: https://sierrawritersconference.org/home-2/

And you can buy your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sierra-writers-conference-2021-tickets-129057292837

Prices:

  • $10 for Friday, February 5th registration
  • $20 for Saturday, February 6th registration
  • $30 for both Friday, February 5th & Saturday, February 6th
  • $30 for Critique workshop Friday, February 5th registration
  • Attendees will be sent the conference URL via email on Thursday, February 4th.

Remember, critique sessions are an extra $30 on Friday, and space is limited! So sign up right away if you are interested. You’ll see the extra option to purchase a critique spot on your registration.

Me buying books at last year’s conference. And yes, those are Rey Star Wars earrings! Photo credit: Tom Durkin

I hope to see you there at the conference, writing friends! Let us know in the comments if you plan on attending.

Want more? Check out my blog on last year’s conference!

My Top 10 YA Fantasy Books of All Time

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Ready to enrich your reading list? I recently presented at the Writer’s Resources Meetup on my top 10 YA fantasy books of all time. Read on for some books that might surprise you!

Top Ten YA Fantasy Books of All Time! Video from the January Writer’s Resources Meetup

List of Top 10 YA Fantasy Books Not to Miss:

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley is one of my all time favorite books!
The Hero and the Crown (Damar, #2)The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was my favorite book when I was 12, and it remains my favorite book of all time! I must have re-read it at least 10 or 20 times throughout my life, and it’s awesome every time 🙂

View all my reviews
  1. The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley. Newberry Winner: My #1 fav book of all time! I reread this book almost every year.
  2. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle: Classic.
  3. The Earthsea series (especially #2, The Tombs of Atuan), Ursula Le Guin: Masterful storytelling at its best.
  4. The Hobbit + Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien: Old school classic.
  5. Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling: Modern Classic
  6. The Abhorsen Series by Garth Nix, starting with Sabriel: One of the most original YA fantasy series. I’m surprised more folks haven’t read it. On par with Harry Potter in my opinion.
  7. The Valdemar Series by Mercedes Lackey (start with By the Sword): One of my favorites as a kid. Not all the books in the series hold up to the test of time, but By the Sword is one of the best!
  8. The Wheel of Time Series, Robert Jordan: Not strictly YA but loved by many a teen and adult. Weighing in with 14 books well over a thousand pages each, the series is a commitment but well worth it.
  9. Strange the Dreamer, Laini Taylor: a contemporary soon to be classic. One of the best of the latest YA fantasy novels I’ve stumbled across.
  10. City of Brass, S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #1): Not strictly YA but it could be considered in the category. A historical fantasy with rich world building, political intrigue, and character development that can’t be beat!
The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1)The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished all the sweet sweet 20 hours of the audiobook production of City of Brass, and I literally can’t stop freaking out. This book is right up there with my favorites like Strange the Dreamer. Fantastic character development, exquisite world building, and insane plot twists to the max! This is probably my favorite book of the year. Can’t wait to read the next one!

View all my reviews
Sabriel by Garth Nix is one of my favorite YA Fantasy books of all time!

With all the chaos of the world, it was delightful to take a break and share my favorite books of all time with friends. Are any of these titles on your bookshelves? What YA Fantasy books would you put on your list? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Also, stay tuned! I have some good publishing news coming your way soon 🙂

New Mom-Approved (but NSFW!) Poem Published!

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A screenshot of my poem from "Current," which you can read on page 15 here: https://edition.pagesuite.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=2e3a30b9-2196-436d-9fee-7b9318125d3b

New wacky poem up at Current, a project of The Union, which is my local newspaper. I thought for sure this would get rejected—after all, so many F bombs! But while this piece of literary goodness might not be safe for work, my mom loves it.

In fact, I wrote this one about four years ago and have been trying to get it published for ages. But it turns out most literary journals don’t appreciate curse words like my mom does, haha!

This acceptance comes at a wonderful time for me, actually. I’ve been sending out short stories and my poetry chapbooks like a mad woman, but so far, I just have a big old pile of rejections 😩 To top it off, with the stress of everything, I haven’t been writing every day (though I have been getting in a little here and there).  I hope this marks a turn for the awesome for my writing.

So, at long last, my ode to my bargain-shopping, swears-like-a-sailor mama is up for the world to enjoy. Check out the full magazine for free at Current 2020. I’m on page 15.

Thanks for reading, and let us know how your creative adventures are going in the comments below ❀ 

Publishing Workshop + Hanging with Grant Faulkner @ the Sierra Writers Conference <3

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Introducing my hero Grant Faulkner at the writing conference!

 

Why come to a writing conference? To light a fire under your desk chair, meet amazing people—and most of all, give back to the writing community. I was invited to teach a workshop on publishing this past weekend at the Sierra Writer’s Conference, and I got back so much more than I gave.

 

 

For me, a major highlight was introducing keynote speaker Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of NaNoWriMo—while wearing my 2019 winner’s t-shirt and an incandescent Viking hat. Huzzah!

I’ve been obsessed with NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, since 2012, and have been a volunteer for years. I’ve written over 145,000 words over the course of many crazy Novembers!

Without NaNoWriMo, I would not be the writer I am today. Connecting with Grant and thanking him for everything he’s done for me and the NaNoWriMo community was amazing.

 

 

 

 

It was also totally rad to get my yearly pep talk at Kim Culbertson’s workshop on scene work, and I couldn’t believe it when Kim attended my workshop afterward! I’ve been going to Kim’s classes for years because she’s so inspiring, and she wrote one of my favorite books of all time, “The Possibility of Now.” I don’t even have words to say it all cool was, which is saying something 🙂

 

My workshop on publishing short stories and poems was totally packed, and those who participated said they got a lot out of it. I was TOTALLY NERVOUS, but it was a great crowd, and once I got into it, we had a lot of fun. I was so happy to give back to a community that has given me so much. I hope everyone who took my class gets published, and soon!

I overcame some editing blocks I was having during Sands Hall’s workshop on scene, and then became a fashion designer for aliens during a humor workshop with Kimberly Bateman.

 

Fashion show of humor! Best Workshop EVER!

For an after-party, I went to a mind-blowing reading with Pam Houston and her student, Kate Wisel, both of whom knocked my socks off.

 

NEW BOOKS by Pam Houston and Kate Wisel

 

 

 

Incredible, inspiring, amazing weekend. If you’ve never gone to a writing conference, I can’t recommend it enough. It will give you the spark of inspiration you need to defeat your inner critic. I never thought I would be here, helping other writers to realize their dreams. I couldn’t have done it without all the other writers who have and continue to inspire me to kick butt and write my novel ❀ ❀ ❀

Did you go to the conference? Let us know how you liked it in the comments below—and if you’d like to do a social share, let us know your platforms and handles, and we’ll all follow you back! #writingcommunity #4ever

 

A Serious Poem and a Wacky Short Story Published—Read by the Author

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I’m in this year’s issue of Current on page 21!

Hey friends, I’ve got some great news this month!

Nature Poem Published in Ecological Literary Magazine

My poem, “Rain on Dry Leaves,” was just published by Canary Lit Magazine. What’s really special about this event is that my poem appears right next to Gene Burson’s poem, “Geese.” Gene is my poetry mentor and guru, so it means a lot to be next to him in this issue:-)

You can listen to me read my poem here:

 

 

Flash Fictions About Aliens and Prom

Also this month, my ridiculous piece of flash fiction, “Prom,” was published in Current, which is the literary magazine that comes out once a year from my local newspaper, the Union.

You can listen to me reading this ridiculous story here:

 

 

NaNoWriMo 2019 is Coming!

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month!

And in other news, I have been preparing for NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month! As you may know, I am a municipal liaison for NaNoWriMo for the California:: Elsewhere region. I also organize live the events in my area, Nevada City!

I’ve been working hard with the other liaisons to organize the group, and prepare for the November extravaganza of writing a novel in one month.

This November, I will continue to edit my YA fantasy novel. Instead of counting words, I will be counting hours. So I’ll be trying to aim for 50 hours instead of 50,000 words. My goal: to edit at least 20 hours!

Of course, I’ll be working on my novel in October as well and hoping to finish chapter four. I’m also working on a poetry chapbook and a few short stories. So I’ll be sure to keep you posted about how things go!

How is your writing going? Do you plan on writing 50,000 words this November for NaNoWriMo? Let us know in the comments below!