It was beautiful Milwaukee fall day. I was sitting in one of my coffee shop writing offices (Fiddleheads Coffee on Oakland Ave. in Shorewood, WI), fidgeting because I didn’t feel like writing. Checking my email for the (mumble) time, I saw it. An email from Black Rose Writing. “Oh, no.” Yes, I said it out …
I have to say, although I’ve received a number of rejections from publishers for Spirit Sight, it hasn’t been as dispiriting (see what I did, there?) as I expected it would be. One reviewer said he read it and showed it to his senior editor, but they ultimately decided it wasn’t right for them. The …
“You’re writing about little girls,” she said with a speculative tone, but then with a shrug, she added, “but you do it really well.” That was my writing coach, Kathie Giorgio. We were discussing a scene from Spirit Sight. And it’s true. On both accounts, in my opinion. The story revolves around Minna (13) and …
When I started writing, I wasn’t really thinking about a novel. I wasn’t even thinking about short stories. I had no plan, only vague ideas about a fantastical world and a few interesting characters. I wrote random scenes with only loose, thematic connections. Whatever I woke up with each morning, I put down on paper …
A natural place to start the blog is the curious question of why I started writing in the first place. What possessed me (and I use that word advisedly) to start writing as I enter the third act of my life? It turns out, I’m not unusual in that regard. A lot of people start …
I’ve been told one of the requirements for being a successful author is to have platform. Apparently, that involves a website, social media presence and a blog, among other, more mysterious, things. Some publishers actually want to see the number of connections you have on social media or the number of people on your mailing …
Abria’s Gift is sort of the origin story for the world of Spirit Song. I’m especially fond of it because it was one of the first stories I wrote and went through many iterations as my learned.
My first published short story tells the story of a boy who becomes a hero
