Queer writer of speculative and YA fiction
Happy New Year! I don’t like making resolutions, but I do like setting goals. (I love making lists, and a list of goals is better than a list of resolutions to me. I have better luck saying “I’m going to do X” instead of “I’m NOT going to do Y.”) One of my goals for …
I had worked on the sequel to The Unwanted for a long time when I set it aside. Before I decided to give it a rest, I printed it out and made a bunch of edits. After I entered those in the file, I printed it out again to reread. (Most of my creative writing …
Continue reading "When your story says you’re doing it wrong, trust it"
So, I ran a 15K race this past Sunday. I almost didn't. My ankle has been bothering me for a while (that's a story for another time, though, and it would be a boring one anyway). For the past few months the most that I've run at one go has been 10K, and that's been …
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 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"
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)"
As you all may recall, I had an essay in the anthology A Family by Any Other Name, published by TouchWood Editions (it was my first Canadian publication!). The anthology, edited by Bruce Gillespie, has won a silver medal in the LGBT non-fiction category in the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards. And—and!—the other award winners …
Continue reading "A Silver IPPY Medal for A Family by Any Other Name!"
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, …