At any author panel, in any interview with an author, someone inevitably asks the question. The framing always differs, the depth of responses might change, but at the core the question doesn’t vary. Plotter or panster? The plotters always speak in shades of insanity. There are authors with entire walls covered in color-coded sticky notes.… Read More Growed-up
I went to see Atomic Blonde a couple weeks ago. It was glorious, of course. I grew up watching spy flicks. My brother and I spent every Thanksgiving glued to Spike TV’s James Bond marathon. Around us relatives would flow in and out of the house, women (never men) filled the kitchen with laughter and… Read More Dress Code for Spies
Congratulations Glenda and Kerry, ebook winners and connoisseurs of crime (except that last part, probably). Check your email. If you don’t have something from a hoodlum named Ashley, then something has gone wrong and you should hit me up. Thanks, everyone, for participating. When I was writing The Price of Cash, I struggled a bit… Read More Be an Outlaw. Win a Book.
I kinda hate Pride. Yeah, there’s the whole corporate takeover of what was once a rallying cry for validity and freedom and respect. And, sure, cis white people are pretty terrible at sharing space with the people of color and trans folk on whose backs our liberation was built. Those issues are pretty big deals.… Read More Corporate Takeovers and Recruiting Children
Last week, one of my students excitedly proclaimed that they had chosen a new name with their mom’s help. I spent the next few hours saying the name to myself. Out loud. Repeatedly. It still feels unfamiliar. I’m still coaching myself. But they doesn’t know that. And there’s no reason they ever should. This isn’t… Read More Verb Conjugation and the Act of Listening
I was born on October 16th, 1986 at 6:16 in the morning. As a result, my favorite number as a kid was 6 (still is? Do adults have favorite numbers?). I loved it, I’d talk about it, tell people in a sing-song voice that my favorite number was “six…six…six.” And my dad would call me… Read More Hellion
I’m not butch. Androgynous, maybe. Not femme, but not butch either. I’ve never been a fan of the binary. It’s generational, I think. I remember sitting in Queer Studies courses and dismissing butch/femme dynamics. We all did. Sure there was the issue of imitating heteronormativity, but it was more than that. It seemed like some… Read More Butch as in not you
