My 2017 writing year has already been a whirl of fabulous  writing events and appearances.

January was a super busy month. Lots of travel and teaching/presenting. As you know, I taught a half-day workshop at the ASU Virginia G Piper Center for Creative Writing.

I also spent some time last month in my role as SCBWI Arizona Regional Advisor working with the Arizona Region event planning team and helped to facilitate a sold-out Picture Book workshop in Tucson presented by two fabulous author illustrators, Tanja Bauerle and Michael Hale.

Thanks to phenomenal Conference Director Erin Quinn, the third weekend of the month took me to San Diego for the fabulous 33rd Annual SDSU Writers Conference. The weather was unusually cloudy and rainy while I was there, but it went almost unnoticed because I was so engaged with the incredible conference faculty and participants.

I was thoroughly moved by Sherrilyn Kenyon’s profound writing journey (Love her Chronicles of Nick series.), encouraged by J.A. Jance’s experience (And she sings!), amazed by Jonathan Maberry’s incredible mentorship with some of SpecFic writing’s greatest stars (So jelly!), and entertained by R.L. Stine’s humorous side (Yes, he’s not just a creepy horror guy.).

I met and spoke with so many passionate writers and swapped tales with some seriously interesting (read: ex law enforcers from a couple of alphabet agencies) people. (Thank goodness for the statute of limitations. LOL).

I presented two Picture Book workshops and two Middle-Grade (MG) workshops. I also had the privilege of participating in a Middle-Grade/Young Adult panel with Jonathan Maberry and R.L. Stine. What a blast that was!

Other good stuff in January included turning in the final revision of my new YA Urban Fantasy, Collars & Curses and finishing the first draft of the collaborative project I am writing with J.A. Giunta, currently titled Supernal Dawn.

And then there was the cover reveal of the Brick Cave SciFi Anthology, FUTUREWORDS, which includes my short story, Sacrilege. Can’t wait for this to be out! You can pre-order your copy by clicking on the cover photo:

Onward and forward with my 2017 writing year!