My Literary Community
First and foremost - gratitude.
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to Kathryn Okashima who deserves more thanks than a website can hold. You should thank her too. Not kidding. I'd post her email address if I didn't think she'd kill me.
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To Max Talley & Angela Borda & Marina Aris & Richard Peabody -- four editors who not only published me, but grabbed my hand and made me jump where I was reluctant to go. THANK YOU.
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to Emily Speer Ryan, Loretta Shapiro, Fiona Soltes, Christina Chiu, Arlaina Tibensky, Tim Carroll, and Emily Pulley, who have among them read nearly every word I have written and many that they have subsequently counseled me to delete. Which I did. And also to the ever-fluctuating members of my amazing writing group, Who Wants Cake, (links to their websites below) because they picked up smacking me around where my oldest friends left off. I adore them, and they're aways right.
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to my writing teachers - especially the long-ago eighth grade English teacher in Texas who clandestinely gave me Upton Sinclair's The Jungle because it was good and had Lithuanians in it. I had to ask my parents for permission, but she added, "I think you are ready." Also credit goes to Josephine Trueschler for wringing essays out of a girl who did NOT want to write about anything real. Any craft in fiction writing that I possess is because of Michael Cunningham and Helen Schulman at Columbia. They pushed until it almost hurt, and I got so much better--but their tough words were always behind closed doors where I could take them. My music professor gets all the credit for initially scaring me into focus. Ernie Ragogini, you were right for giving me the only C on my entire transcript, I wasn't working hard enough.
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to my husband, who is an all around good guy. He also has a karate dojo. And works hard. And is a good dad. All that.
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to my 2 kids, because they get me and like me anyway (most of the time).
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to you, for caring enough to bother reading all these crazy links. You rock. I wish you prosperity, good health, and may the next person you see agree to whatever nonsense you ask them to do without even questioning it.
Has your writing career derailed? I can help.
If you are a writer who is looking for one-on-one coaching, I do that. (I know you're serious because you spent all this time finding me in the fine print). I charge $150 for a one-hour one-on-one zoom consultation. Just pay through pay-pal and in the notes tell me a little about why you believe you need a coaching session and I will contact you to set up the one-on-one.
Here are some good reasons you need or want a coach:
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you have lost your writing mojo
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you are unable to start a project even though you "kind of" know what you want to write
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you have absolutely no idea how to begin to do something
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you have been working on the same project for years
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you are lost and alone and have no one else to call because no one cares about writing (don't worry, we've all been there)
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you are in a situation where you are not at all sure if you ought to give up entirely
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you had a little recent success and now you are baffled by what to do next.
I will NOT be reading your manuscript or editing it during this session. We will meet, we will figure out what's going on, and I will get you back on creative track. https://paypal.me/authorcoach
Next, some useful links to me, some useful links for you.
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Before sending a manuscript, I always check this manuscript formatting site. One can never be too careful.
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If you are a writer who has kids, join this literary community for parents who are writers. It's a great networking site and I don't just say that because I founded it.
More about me? Well, I have been seen between the covers of these fine literary journals. Submit to them! (does that sound dirty?)
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Ilanot Review
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Santa Barbara Literary Journal
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Bellevue Literary Review
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Ellipsis Zine
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Santa Barbara Literary Journal
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Oklahoma Review
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Sojourn: a Journal of the Arts
I also dabble in excellent spec fiction (these have published me):
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Tales from the Canyons of the Damned
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Campaign for Real Fear (and an article in the Guardian about it)

These are colleagues who influence my work, usually by reading it and telling me to cut something or another, but in some instances, just by their very existence: