About

The photo at the top was taken on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the town of Volcano, inside an artists’ cooperative. The grounds are full of sculptures.

My original blog can be found at theaccidentalnovelist.blogspot.com, which has numerous writing exercises for those looking.

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I started out as a poet, spent many years as a spokenword artist, and began screenwriting in my late 20′s. I wrote while I earned my paycheck as a waitress, English teacher, arts administrator, event manager/producer, TV show writer/director, artist-in-the-schools, and studio teacher.

One year I wrote a screenplay that piqued the interest of an agent. It was my 6th feature script, a fantasy adventure for kids. Around that time, a screenwriter friend of mine adapted one of her original screenplays into a novel. The novel was published, which got the screenplay optioned. I thought this sounded pretty good. I asked if she would consider adapting my screenplay into a novel. She told me to take a year off and write it myself.

But I’m not a novelist, I said.

Neither was I, she responded.

I took a year off and birthed Brigitta of the White Forest. But it didn’t stop there… I discovered something about myself that I never thought possible. I could write a novel. And I liked writing novels.

Oops.

My focus is on middle grade and young adult speculative fiction. Faerie Tales from the While Forest is my first series. The second book, The Ruins of Noe, is due out in spring 2012.

This blog contains discussions of middle grade fiction, speculative fiction, tips and writing exercises for emerging writers, and other randomness about the writing life I pick up along the way.

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