As an organic writer, I firmly believe in letting the characters dictate the narrative within the plot structure. To that end, I created the first three main characters.  Jack Amon Jack, much like his real-life counterpart, was a former bully in high school, a drug user, and a problem drinker. Turning his life around, he moves out of the fictional Wellington, Massachusetts, and gets a job in construction in the equally fictional Farmington, MA. When he hears about his old friends dying from wild animal attacks, he remembers the curse Michael Matheson put on all of them. A curse the ..read more

For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here.  Realizing I could resubmit Blade of the Vagabond to the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest, I set out to put the 8,000-word version through a final polish. I uploaded the manuscript into ProWritingAid and began making my prose lean and mean. With an even cleaner manuscript, I went through the process outlined on the Writers of the Future website and submitted it through their web-portal.  Writers of the Future Volume 35 There was nothing else to do but wait and keep working on my current project. After facing rejection a few ..read more

I received another Honorable Mention certificate from the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest, 3rd Quarter 2023. It’s always encouraging to get one of these certificates in the mail. Only approximately 10% of the entrants receive these from this very prestigious contest. Congrats to all the winners! Also, I was able to edit this story from a rejection with comments into an Honorable Mention on the next go-around ..read more

I forgot to post about receiving an Honorable Mention certificate from the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest, 2nd Quarter 2023. It’s always encouraging to get one of these certificates in the mail. Only approximately 10% of the entrants receive these from this very prestigious contest. Congrats to all the winners ..read more

  Having decided my next story would be a dystopian short that drew inspiration from Cyberpunk and Steampunk, I envisioned a biosphere orbiting Venus, a once utopian society that had succumbed to decadence and decay.  A fad on the space station/biosphere Audallis had the citizens dressing and speaking as if they lived in the Roaring Twenties and early 1930s.  Yet, with a muscle-bound heroin, I chose to draw from the subgenre of feminist SF.  Recently, I had an industry insider incredulous at the fact that I had a story included in a feminist publication, and not just includ ..read more

Each year I create a list of goals for every area of my life. Throughout the year I work my goals, track my progress, and commit to posting my top accomplishments. I hope to inspire others to do the same. Writing Short Stories My story, “The Midnight Club,” appeared in The Horror Zine’s Book of Werewolf Stories published by HorrorBound Press. I shared pages with Ramsey Campbell, Nancy Kilpatrik, JG Fraherty and other great writers. Received hard copies of the anthology. Received audio book on Audible. Magic Moment: Review from Heather Miller: …The Horror Zine’s Book of Werewolf Stories brin ..read more

The year 2011 was a great one for me. I finished my coursework and graduated magna cum laude from UMASS Lowell with a Liberal Arts Degree with concentrations in English and psychology. I also decided to ramp up my writing and submitting efforts and ended up landing another fiction sale with a story I had written but had never planned to publish.    The story that would become The Language of Ice was originally inspired by an article in the April 1998 issue of Discover Magazine; Entitled: New Women of the Ice Age. The article purported to recast prehistoric women as more active t ..read more

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I started a new novel called Black Magic Bullets (working title) for NaNoWriMo. I thought it would be fun to participate this year and dove right in,—-albeit a little late.  I wasn’t expecting to write 50,000 words in a month, and I knew I couldn’t do it while sharing my first draft with the world. I’d have to write slowly enough that the prose was readable and made logical sense.  As such, I only got down a little over 13,000 words. Still, not bad for a busy month while trying to finish up the 3rd draft of another novel.  Stephen King ..read more

In 2012 and 2013 the floodgates opened with numerous story sales and publications. I even published my first novella, an ebook. Then I lost momentum. Everything from that time is a scramble in my brain. I had a death in the family that threw me for a loop, multiple projects, and high hopes. It began with the sale of a short story originally envisioned and started in 1996, then finished and rewritten in the year 2000. I never imagined how long it’d take to sell that story. Yes, 12 years to sell it and 13 years to see it in publication, if we only count from the year of the rewrite.  I’m so ..read more

I need to make a retraction. I didn’t wait until 2011 to market my story The Language of Ice as previously stated. Looking back at my Fiction Submission Log, I discovered that I actually began sending the story out in 2009, not long after writing it, and racked up five rejections before finally selling it and receiving my acceptance letter on February 11, 2011.  Anyway, I don’t have notes on how I found the publication. Maybe I stumbled upon it on Duotrope or Ralan.com. Either way, I noticed an open call from a new anthologist who had been a member of the Science Fiction Writer’s of Ameri ..read more