It's been Quite A Week over here in Wales. It started with a beautiful, sunny UK Mother's Day last Sunday, which was wonderful, but then both of my kids caught a stomach bug over the last few days, so...yeah. I'll leave the gruesome details from this latter half of the week to your imagination ( Read more... )

Thanks so much for the lovely feedback I've gotten for "Flying Magic" on Facebook, email and elsewhere! It really, really means a lot to me ( Read more... )

Many years ago, Patrick and I put together a website called "December Lights" and published one story a day all through the month of December. Each story was donated by a different fabulous author, and each had just one thing in common: every story had a happy ending.

We need lights in the darkness in December - even in years that aren't like this ( Read more... )

Hurrah! My (creepy) magical tea story "A Cup of Comfort" has been published at Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazine, and it's free to read online or to listen to as an audio podcast.


( Read more... )

Hooray! Editor (and writer!) Heather Shaw has just launched a fabulous new magazine, Persistent Visions, and the very first short story they're publishing is my funny werewolves-in-Pittsburgh story, "Pack Dynamics"! This is a Meet the Parents story gone wrong...with werewolves! It's set in a neighborhood where I used to live (Squirrel Hill, ( Read more... )

In honor of the holiday, here's my own Halloween short story: "Clasp Hands" (published in Daily Science Fiction in 2014).

Here's a quick excerpt from the opening:

The smallest witch hung over the banister, her whole body forming an arc of yearning, as the first of her mother's friends arrived for their annual feast ( Read more... )

I spent the last week finishing up another round of revisions for my new MG novel, which I got through just in time - because my editorial letter for Masks and Shadows has arrived! This book is becoming so real. I've spent today re-immersing myself in the characters and the story, and oh...it feels kind of scary to admit just how much I love this ( Read more... )

Hurrah! I finished my romantic YA gothic fantasy novelette at last! "House of Secrets" (a veeery tentative working title) is about 12,000 words, and I wrote the last line last night, which felt deeply satisfying. This is my birthday week - I'll turn 38 in a few days - and it's nice to have finished something new just beforehand ( Read more... )

Whew! I finished the first-pass revision of my dragons-and-chocolate MG novel last Friday and sent it off to a handful of brave volunteers for critique. I spent about four hours thinking that ooh, maybe I'd just take the rest of my older son's school holidays off...and then realized, no. I really can't stop myself from writing! So I started a new ( ( Read more... )

Thanks so much to everyone who signal-boosted and/or sent me feedback on my new short story, "Marking Time"! It's really meant a lot to me to get so much wonderful support for it, especially since this was a story I was a little nervous about sharing. None of the details are based on my real life or that of anyone else I know, but it still feels ( Read more... )