I’ve been a part of the Twitter writing community for several years now. It is near and dear to my heart and largely responsible for my first novel MADE SAFE finding a home with Pandamoon Publishing. Even as a long time member of the community, …
Read MoreZadie Smith at Unbound Book Festival
Unbound Book Festival in Columbia, Missouri just ended over the weekend. I became aware of the four-year-old event last year when Salmon Rushdie headlined (I had a FREE ticket, they are all free) but could not attend. But when Zadie Smith was announced as the …
Read MoreTwo Months of Dreams Fulfilled
We are fast approaching two months since my debut novel MADE SAFE launched into the world, fulfilling my childhood dream of being a published author. In that time there have been a few other firsts: My novel has shown up on library shelves in my area. …
Read MoreA Writer’s Retreat, Pneumonia, Surgery and the Edit Letter
The last few weeks have been insanely good and bad. I participated in my first ever writer’s retreat put on by Des Moines Writer’s Workshop which I am a part of. It was a great experience AND I got my edit letter from my …
Read MoreWrite On: Military and Armed Forces Discussion with Jeff Messick
Go check out the latest Write On over on Sarah K. Stephen’s website. She talks with Jeff Messick a nine-year veteran of the USAF about his experience serving the United States of America as a member of the Air Force. It’s a great interview with …
Read MoreWrite On: Hemmed In! I talk Ernest Hemingway with Sarah K. Stephens
This is the second post in my collaboration with Sarah K. Stephens that we are calling Write On. It is a deep dive into some topics that interest us. Here is one of the questions I answered on Hemingway. 5. For all of our readers …
Read MoreKevin Smith Got Me Writing – Part 2
The meat. The goods. Why did Kevin Smith get my writing? In Part 1 of this post I tried to explain how a creative person was crushed by the system that he’d been a part of for twenty years. He made all the movies and …
Read MoreKevin Smith Got Me Writing – Part 1
I am representative of GenrerationX. We aren’t the darling of the media anymore like the Millenials are or a dominant group like the Boomers but we have our own unique ‘damn the man’ attitude that has produced some excellent art over the last twenty years. …
Read MoreInterview with Des Moines Writer’s Workshop founder Beth Burgmeyer
Beth Burgmeyer writes upmarket and women’s fiction. She loves to write about real life, about characters who are struggling with serious, life changing issues. Beth has several completed manuscripts and is starting the process of querying literary agents. Several of her manuscripts have finaled and placed in …
Read MoreGetting Ready to Send out Short Story Twenty Steps
I’ve been working on a short story for a few months now called Twenty Steps. I am going to send it out to a few contests. It’s a fairly dark story(go figure) about a girl and an unknown assailant. I’ve been working on deepening it …
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