I had the privilege of reading early an absolutely adorable children’s chapter book. I even got my own, real copy. Neener neener. I’m reviewing Wishweaver, written and illustrated by J.H. Winter, as both an author and an elementary educator. In both arenas, Whimsy’s journey–and it literally is a journey–is one that will delight young readers…
A few weeks ago, I entered my 100-word story in the second round of of NYC Midnight‘s flash fiction contest. I was assigned a genre, action, and word, and had 24 hours to craft my story. Sadly, I didn’t make the top ten this round, so I’m out of the game. I suspect that’s partly…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
Last weekend, I published this post about why we stop reading books. Many of you submitted insightful comments, and as I read through them I realized something: many of our “reading pet peeves” can be boiled down to the author doing one of two things. Not bad, huh? Just avoid…
Originally posted on Eclectic Alli:
Today’s guest post comes from Allison Maruska (another fairly regular visitor over the years on this blog (particularly during some of my fiction projects!) Allison is an author of mystery, suspense, and YA novels. On her blog, she publishes short stories, bonus material to accompany her books, posts about writing…
As a follower of this blog, you get first shot at reading all my new material, including books months before their official release. All you have to do is volunteer to be a beta reader! And you guys, I’m so dang excited to share this book with you. Beta readers, like beta testers of new…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
I recently read this post on A Writer’s Path about writing pet peeves. In it, the author describes three practices that are irritating, namely cliches, Mary Sues, and sloppy grammar/spelling. Scroll to the comments and you’ll see a handful of others provided by other readers/writers (including yours truly). After I…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
Last week, I participated in J. A. Allen‘s Sunday Scribble Challenge, wherein we write a brief entry in response to a prompt. This was last week’s prompt: Two sentences isn’t much space, unless you write a bunch of clauses with commas, and those aren’t my style. So I had to…
Check out Colleen’s awesome review of the Project Renovatio trilogy!
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
I saw this pic on Twitter, shared by @TheUnNovelist. This could be the best part about writing – you get to walk around in someone else’s skin for a while (and I don’t mean that in a creepy Silence of the Lambs kind of way). Want to see life through the…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
About a week after Thanksgiving, I posted this on Facebook. It led to a variety of comments. There was one odd man out. Yes, Dan, I called you odd. That’s what you get for liking that song. This post has a different point than “Christmas music sucks” (though that’s a valid…
Allison Maruska 