How to find Sensitivity Readers

The publishing industry is changing. For most, this is a really welcome change. Especially in kidlit, where there are harmful books that perpetrate stereotypes that contribute to racism and exclusion, it's important to depict marginalized characters with accuracy. Kids are going to be the readers, and kids will be the ones affected in case you…

I HAVE A BOOK DEAL!

Hey, everyone! It's so amazing to be able to announce something as cool as having a book deal. And now that it's official, you can check it out here. The original news landed in publisher's weekly, and THE LAST 8 is coming in 2019 to your shelves. Thanks so much for all the support I…

Knowing Your Genre, Part 4: Horror

Hello everyone, and this week on the blog we continue with my series of blog posts on literary genres. You can find the other posts by clicking here. Today, we're going to talk about Horror. Horror is one of my favorite genres, but it's also very misunderstood and misinterpreted. Horror is more than gore like…

Knowing Your Genre, Part 3: Magical Realism

Magical Realism is one of the hardest genres to define in fiction. It's both speculative and literary, and it involves elements that no one can quite pinpoint. When asked about magical realism, agents and editors will give an answer that resembles something along the lines of "it's a book where something magical becomes ordinary". The…

Knowing Your Genre, Part 2: Science Fiction

Hi everyone, and welcome to the second blog post on the series on Genres I'm doing. Last week I talked about fantasy subgenres, and this week my sole focus is science fiction. For those who are still kinda confused, there's a difference between Fantasy and Science-Fiction. People often lump them together, as if it's one…

Knowing Your Genre, Part One: Fantasy

Hello everyone! With PitchWars almost in the corner and everyone getting ready for submission, it's time we all have everything set -- there's always time for last minute revisions and changing your queries, but don't stress it out. After posting my wishlist, there was a particular question that I got asked a couple of times:…

Pitch Wars Mentor Wishlist

Did I ever think I would be writing this title? No. Is it very cool that I'm writing it? Hella yes! I'm so excited to be a mentor for Pitch Wars 2017. If you look down my blog, you can probably see my mentee bio for Pitch Wars 2016 and 2015. I entered but didn't…

Your Experience is Not Universal: and that’s okay

There's been a constant discussion on twitter about writing and who gets to write what. As for contemporary, there's always been that unspoken rule about #ownvoices -- someone writing from their own experience will have better knowledge of the subject, and thus will know what they are talking about, and it'll be written with better…

#PitchWars: Getting Ready

It's a little more than a month for PitchWars submission window to open. That sounds like a lot of time, or only a little time, depending on where you stand. Here are some tips of what you should be doing now. Polish your novel. You have one week or two at most to do any…

Small Update

Pride Month is here! I really wish I could do a big blog post on favorite characters, or even writing LGBT characters, or anything like that, but fact is: I'm moving! Yay! And that's taking a LOT of my time. I've mostly been putting stuff into bags, packing my books, crying over how desorganized it…