For me, it’s always been about storytelling.

The Beginning

Even before I knew how to write, I dictated stories to any willing parent or teacher I could find. As I got older, I filled notebooks with stories and characters. I spent the winter break when I was ten-years-old writing my first “novel”—a 101-page story that my fifth grade teacher had bound for me. In high school, I entered every writing contest I could find.

The Middle

In college, I quadrupled the page-limit requirement for my senior thesis and finished a novel. I finished another one during my MFA program, then spent the next seven years revising, only for it to ultimately die in the query trenches. I started two more novels, only to ditch them after 30,000 words. I became a mother and found my way back to fiction through writing short, short stories—flash and micro flash. You can read some of them on my publications page.

I had my second son and found myself completely unable to write for fifteen months. And then one day, I did again. I spent a year writing a contemporary romance novel and having more fun with storytelling than I ever had before. I revised and revised and queried and revised some more—and six months after finishing that first draft, I signed with my agent.

All of this is to say—I don’t know how to not chase this dream. I’ve been doing it my whole life.

What’s Next

I’m in the middle of drafting another contemporary romance novel and hoping to find a publishing home for my debut novel. Most importantly, I’m two years into the most consistently, fulfilling writing routine I’ve ever had. Right now, it’s late nights and stolen weekends and Sundays in coffee shops, but it feels more mine than it ever has. And that’s not something I’m ever going to take for granted.

Q&A

  • I work full-time and have two kids, so the answer to this question is not the one you're going to want to hear: I give up a lot of sleep. And I also have a very supportive partner and a village of help that allows for Sunday mornings in coffee shops and writing weekends away a few times a year. But the day to day answer is that I often sleep very little and ignore other things like cleaning and laundry in favor of writing time.

  • One of my writing friends and I sometimes joke that they're going to take away our MFAs because we started writing romance. I spent a lot of years writing what would more be categorized as literary fiction, and I still very much love the genre. But I became a romance reader during the pandemic and in my early days of motherhood, and it was a balm. I love the idea of writing something with a happily ever after that could be that escape for someone else.

  • I once met Judy Blume and told her that her books made me a reader, and then that made me a writer. And then I promptly walked out the door and burst into tears.

    I will read everything Ann Patchett writes forever and ever. I interviewed her once and, again, promptly burst into tears as soon as I hung up the phone.

    My romance auto-buys: Christina Lauren, Emily Henry, Jessica Joyce, Carley Fortune, Sarah Adler

    My favorite book: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because a really good looking guy once wooed me with an annotated copy. Also it's brilliant.

  • I wish I could say it was consistent. I map out concepts loosely, but then spend more time on characterization and seeing where those insights take a story. I can't always write every day, but I do try to "touch" what I'm working on at least once a day—whether that's writing a couple hundred words, typing something up in my Notes App, or just daydreaming.

    I actually do have a process for revision now though, and it's built entirely from Matt Bell's Refuse to Be Done, which is the most brilliant writing book I've ever read.

  • I actually like to think this is something I do a decent job with, and I think the secret is to get rejected a lot. Then you kind of go numb to it, and it becomes just another thing you do. But, more helpfully, I also try to think about rejection along the lines of what I can and cannot control. "I can't control if publishers will want to buy my book, but I can control how good the book I write is," etc.