Celebrating One Year Book Anniversary!

It’s hard to believe that it was one year ago today that my YA novel, It Should Have Been You, was released by Page Street! What a journey this has been. I’ve done readings at Flying Out Loud and as part of a SWAN (“Support Women Artists Now”) celebration, signed books at Barnes and Noble,…

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Empathy: Essential for Writing… and Life

My professional writing skills students had to pretend to be a swim club manager who was writing a “bad news” letter to a long time member. The recently widowed member was distraught over the loss (probably theft) of her diamond engagement ring while she was swimming. She wanted the club to reimburse her, even though…

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Why Do You Write Such Dark Stuff?

It’s not that my YA characters aren’t sometimes funny or snarky. But I have to admit that my books, like those of many contemporary YA novelists, tend toward the dark side. It isn’t only the murders

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Fiction Writers Get to Play Pretend

Even as a kid, I loved reading the newspaper, especially the advice columns. The problems people wrote about fascinated me—cheating husbands, in-laws from hell, warring siblings. Long before there was reality television, there was Ann Landers. Half the fun was in reading her salty responses to the letters she received. Not surprisingly, “advice columnist” landed…

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