Queer writer of speculative and YA fiction
As a bit of a follow-up to my last post, my friend 'Nathan makes an excellent point: The best gift you can give a writer this holiday is word of mouth. That can be writing a review, like 'Nathan recommends here (and that is such a good thing to do!). Or maybe you want to …
Continue reading "Thowback Thursday(ish) – No Wrapping Required"
I’ve been thinking a lot about fear lately. Actually, fear is frequently top of mind for me most days. Does that mean I'm a coward? Maybe, I don't know. What does this have to do with writing, though? Surprisingly, a lot. Fear is the thing that keeps me from doing a lot of things. Hitting …
I went running again yesterday morning. There are a number of trails that criss-cross not far from where I'm staying; I think I've explored most of the ones that are in easy reach, and I was running along one that I'd already traveled so I wasn't expecting to see anything out of the ordinary like …
I decided to spend the second half of summer in the Pacific Northwest to escape the heat and humidity in the Midwest. (My long-suffering but more-patient-than-I-am partner knows that I wilt in the summer; I joke that ice queens don't like the heat.) This has turned out to be a bit of a miscalculation on …
Continue reading "What I'm working on (besides not melting) and submission call roundup"
I was out running this past weekend in Olympia, and along one of the trails I happened across this staircase in the middle of the woods. I thought, how odd. Why would there be a set of concrete stairs in the middle of the forest? Being of a somewhat dark mood at the time, my thoughts went …
Continue reading "Writing prompt: If you go down to the woods…."
You know, some really cool things have happened for me this year so far: I had a story published by Little Fiction, another piece by Aftertastes, I taught a short fiction and a social media class at the community college, and I had a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. And now I'm back in …
Continue reading "How to deal with failure (or at least feeling like a failure)"
My friend and colleague Sierra Skye Gemma recently had a fantastic piece published in The Globe and Mail. (For those who are south of 49, that's like the equivalent of The New York Times in Canada.) Titled "My Sexual Education," it's both a tough read as well as an affirming and positive one. (And the …
I'm gonna get a little soapbox-y here. So all that froth you see is not me foaming at the mouth. Read on without fear of contacting rabies.... I was reading something on social media (I forget where, but it was probably while I was supposed to be doing something else, like oh, I don't know, …
(Or "I Solemnly Swear That I Am up to No Good") Whoa! Time flies when you're having fun. It it's it time's fun when you're having flies? Either way, time flies regardless, ago you might as well have fun. Anyway, speaking of fun! Careful readers (all three of you; good morning! Can you tell I …
Continue reading "A Trip to Tubby & Coo's Mid-City Book Shop in New Orleans"
I got another rejection notice yesterday. It was for a story I wrote during grad school, in my fiction workshop with Linda Svendsen, about a couple in the St. Louis suburbs dealing with a wayward armadillo. (I think I've written about that story here before, but anyway.) There was an article in the Missouri Botanical …