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My Literary Community

First and foremost - gratitude.​​

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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. 

  • 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.

  • to my 2 kids, because they get me and like me anyway (most of the time). 

  • 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.

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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:

  • you have lost your writing mojo

  • you are unable to start a project even though you "kind of" know what you want to write

  • you have absolutely no idea how to begin to do something

  • you have been working on the same project for years

  • 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)

  • you are in a situation where you are not at all sure if you ought to give up entirely

  • 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

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Next, some useful links to me, some useful links for you.

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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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I also dabble in excellent spec fiction (these have published me):

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