If You Give a Kid a Library Card…

Libraries sparked my early love affair with books. My second grade teacher at E. J. Marshall Elementary School held reading contests to keep bookworms like me busy over the summer. A favorite childhood memory is Mom taking me to the Chino Library. I’d arrive with...

Finding Your “Place” in Writing

Could you spot a writer in the wild? How do we write? The traditional montage includes someone typing merrily away on a keyboard, behind a closed door, with nothing to interrupt the transmission. Like clockwork, or an assembly line, the finished prose goes from mind...

Drafting readers for your draft

With some time before my first traditionally published book, 100 Things to do in Riverside Before You Die, is due to my publisher Reedy Press, I sent a draft off to three readers. And waited.  The wait gave me time to consider why I asked these three to read for me in...