After reading a couple of speculative fiction novels that incorporate non-European mythology (Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson and Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James), and really wonderful conversations with my editor, I've renewed my commitment to incorporating Filipino folk tales and mythology in The Quiet is…
Discovering NK Jemisin changed my entire focus as a writer. The Broken Earth Trilogy (not pictured, I know) was like nothing else I'd read in my life. The world she created, and the way she wrote it, encouraged me to write what actually made me happy: stories featuring tweaked reality,…
The COVID-19 pandemic has really thrown us for a loop, eh? Everyone I know is struggling in some way, whether it's balancing childcare and work, keeping healthy, or finding ways to keep busy. I've definitely been struggling too, but I've also been noticing some interesting ways quarantine has changed my…
I recently asked people on Instagram to recommend “pretty and fartistic” movies to me, and I got several good suggestions. I picked the first two, The Terrorizers and La Notte, at random, and was pleasantly surprised to find that books and writers featured heavily in them. These movies were also very pretty, and I took a lot of screenshots for the blog. This might surprise you, but my screenshots skewed heavily towards the writing and books. And I have to say, even though of course I hate it when writing isn’t going well, it’s so satisfying to see writers in movies who are having a bit of a shitty time. At least, until I start relating to them!
I’ll show the books-and-writing ones first, and the other ones at the end – enjoy!
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I'm thrilled to announce that my novel THE QUIET IS LOUD will be published by Invisible Publishing in Fall 2021! I've been an Invisible Publishing fangirl for years, and I'm beyond excited to work with their team. I know my book will be in the best hands and I can't…
It's almost NaNoWriMo time, and if you're a writer you may be considering trying it out this year. And if you're not, maybe you should, because it's pretty cool! I've finished National Novel Writing Month twice, and I thought I would share some tips and things that helped me have…
When I think about some of the memorable parts of my years writing online, I'm usually most nostalgic for the earliest years: 1997-2001-ish. But recently, I fell into a different sort of nostalgia spiral. I forget how it even started, but I found myself missing the way blogging was just…
So, ha, in all the excitement and all the announcing it all over social media, I somehow managed to overlook my own blog. I'm thrilled to announce that I've signed with literary agent Kelvin Kong of K2 Literary! Even though it's been a few days, it's still sort of sinking…
One February morning last year, I shuffled along a snowy Toronto sidewalk, internally freaking out. I was on my way to the very first meeting of my new writing group. My friend Teri had set it up, and while I trusted her, I didn't know what to expect. Would we all…
In 2016, I wrote the following blog post for my history blog, The Small Histories. I was thinking about it again recently and wanted to share it here as well – book lovers will appreciate it! Also, I had to actually laugh out loud when I read “I’m not a worldbuilding sort of writer” – Oh if only the me of 2016 knew that worldbuilding would be ALL she’d do just two years later!