In June of 2012, I signed my first-ever book contract. I didn’t sign another until March 2021. In between, I learned my own hard limits as a newbie author as well as the boundaries of the publishing industry and some of its uniquely antiquated systems. I scaled the steep learning curve of self-publishing in the mid-2010s, picked up a few …
Today is my final day as National President of Sisters in Crime. Don’t worry—this post isn’t going to be just a list of what I achieved. All the juiciest tidbits are behind-the-scenes stories which I can’t share anyway. *evil-girl-smirk.GIF* What I will say is the national board accomplished A LOT while I was president. We all had our unique circumstances …
Two years ago, I started planning a trip for myself to celebrate turning 50 years old in 2021. Alas, with the way things are now, that trip is not to be—at least not this year. Instead, I decided I would celebrate all August long. (FTR, I’m a Virgo, in case you hadn’t guessed at the “two years ago, I started …
The year I started querying agents with my first novel, I also started a volunteer “career” as a board member: president of the board for the neighbourhood preschool where my youngest was starting. So, really, it had absolutely nothing to do with a career as an author. Except that having my child in preschool gave me a small number of …
It turns out May 2020 is a big month for me. Delight, grief, new writing experiments, and now, a chance to look back at my debut novel. On this day in 2013, May 27th, DIE ON YOUR FEET was released into the wild. I published that book with a then-newish, cheerfully optimistic, and somewhat small imprint of a huge multinational …
Mum and I stood in the aisle of the too-bright warehouse supermarket, you know the one, back then it was painted in ripe-banana yellow with no-nonsense black lettering on all its signage. It was eight o’clock or something close on a Monday evening. We were both exhausted by long hours at the hospital, sitting with my dad, whom I hadn’t …
