SOMETHING MISSING Items
Ten years of publishing… TODAY!
I am celebrating my tenth anniversary in publishing today! On July 14, 2009, I published my first novel, Something Missing, with Broadway Books, a division of Doubleday, thus making a seemingly impossible dream come true. I can still remember walking into the now-defunct Borders Books and seeing my book on the shelf for the first…
Read MoreAre my books a window into my soul?
Elysha met a person who read my first novel, Something Missing, and refuses to read any more of my books because after reading the first, she is worried that I’m a nefarious person. I wrote a novel about a burglar who breaks into home and only steals items that wouldn’t be noticed missing (and ultimately…
Read MoreOn this Thanksgiving, I choose to be thankful to Taryn.
I’ve made it an almost annual tradition to spend a portion of my Thanksgiving writing about the people, places, things, and institutions for which I am thankful. Last year, I chose to thank no one for a very specific reason. In 2015, I expressed my gratitude for possibility. In 2014, I listed 18 reasons for…
Read MoreI am not talented.
I don’t believe in talent. I believe in hard work. In speaking to a writer recently about her struggles to get published, I said, “Maybe you should write another book. Not everyone publishes the first thing they write.” “You did,” she snapped. While it’s true that I managed to publish the first novel I wrote, Something…
Read MorePulling back the curtain on the translation process
I’ve been fortunate enough to have my novels translated and published in more than 25 countries around the world. Just this week I heard from readers in Mexico, France, Brazil, and Australia, including two students who are reading Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend in school and one woman who strongly believes that Something Missing must be…
Read MoreGreat first sentences (and an analysis of the first sentences of my own novels)
I have no definitive favorite first line of a novel, though I am partial to the first line of Slaughterhouse Five: “All this happened, more or less.” Also, Fahrenheit 451: “It was a pleasure to burn.” Of all my books, I like the first sentence of Chicken Shack, my unpublished novel that will hopefully see…
Read MoreBook Club Adventures on Planes and Trains and Automobiles (sort of)
Since I published my first novel in 2009, I have attended well over 100 book club meetings both in person and over Skype with people from all over the world who have read my books. While I love speaking in book stores and libraries whenever given the opportunity, it’s always a special honor to be…
Read MoreToday I feel like a real author – which doesn’t happen often – and not for any reason that you might imagine.
I’m not sure if other authors feel this way, but most days, I don’t feel like a real author. Its ridiculous but true. I’ve published three novels – two with Doubleday and one with St. Martin’s Press – and I have a fourth publishing in September. My last book was translated into more than 25…
Read MoreI have 15 jobs. So you probably require my services in one way or another.
As the New Year approaches and the endless possibilities of the coming year loom on the horizon, I always like to take a moment and reset my current occupational status, in the event that you or someone you know will require my services in 2015. While occupations like teacher and writer seem like fairly obvious…
Read More“Where do you get your ideas?” is an understandable but impossible-to-answer question for authors. But “Nuns at Scout camp” will be one of my answers someday.
I’m often asked where I get my ideas for books, which is an understandable but impossible question to answer. There is no well of ideas. There is no secret formula. There is no one answer to that question, as much as fledgling writers seem to want there to be. Simply put, I hear something. I…
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