Tag: fiction

  • Keeping It Simple for NaNoWriMo

    One of my writers’ groups had a recent discussion about how easy it is to make a novel too complicated. This is a challenge I encounter a lot.  I love worldbuilding and complex ideas. When I attended Julie Cohen’s writing retreat in France, she called me out for it: “Keep it simple, stupid!” I need…

  • Happy One-Year Anniversary to Chasing Harmony!

    My first novel, Chasing Harmony, has been out for a year now! It’s now available in ebook format as well as in paperback, which I’m excited about because it means more people can read it. It took 10 years for this strange, literary, bisexual YA coming-of-age story to find a publisher, and I’m grateful it…

  • Book Review: Agony’s Lodestone by Laura Keating

    Laura Keating, a fellow student from the University of New Brunswick’s Renaissance College program, is both a lovely person and a stellar writer. I read some of her work during our student days, and both of us have since been doing our best in the literary trenches. She’s carved out a niche and a name…

  • Book review: A Consuming Fire by Laura E. Weymouth

    “I don’t want to be an offering, she thought with a new and sharp urgency. I never have, nor a prayer, either. I will be a knife in the dark or nothing, no matter the cost.” –A Consuming Fire, Laura E. Weymouth What would you do if a god killed your sister? For Anya Astraea,…

  • NaNoWriMo Was a Wild Time

    I started NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November as an incentive to finish my fantasy novel, the one I’d been working on for a year and a half. At 55,000 words in, it was rolling along toward a conclusion, but it hadn’t gotten there yet. When I applied last year for a grant I…

  • An Author Interview and a Writing Retreat in France

    I’m delighted to have an author interview on Autostraddle this month! Darcy read my YA novel, Chasing Harmony, and asked thoughtful questions about it. I got to talk about music, the messiness of growing up queer, where I got my ideas, and what songs might be on Anna’s playlist right now if she were a…

  • Chasing Harmony Playlist, Trailer, and Publication

    Chasing Harmony, my YA novel about a musical prodigy, is now out in paperback! Here I am with my box of author copies. My publisher, Read Furiously, did a wonderful job putting the book together, including little music-related details in the design. They are also donating a portion of proceeds to literacy organizations. It was…

  • My Novel Chasing Harmony Is Out July 19!

    In 2009, I started writing a novel while traveling across Canada. I was thinking about art and failure and how life seldom meets our expectations. I finished the manuscript while studying Creative Writing at Concordia University in Montreal, went through several drafts, and over a decade later, I’m delighted that the book found a home.…

  • The Story in Your Head vs. the Story on the Page

    Before you sit down at your computer or with your notebook to start writing, a story swirls around in your head. It’s the story you want to write, the story you need to write. And the story in your head is fabulous.  The story in your head is as twisty and passionate as the latest…

  • Should I Write a Short Story or a Novel?

    If you write both long and short fiction, you’ve probably experienced differences between these two lengths of storytelling. As I’ve worked on two books, each focused on fiction of a different length, I’ve been thinking about the contracts between these forms and how to choose the best length for a given project.  I had a…