My short story Requiem in Frost is not exactly autobiographical. I’m not a Norwegian girl, and I’ve never lived in a house haunted by the ghost of an extreme metal musician. But there is an important facet that is taken fairly directly from my own life. 

This post is spoiler free. Here only for the pronunciation? I gotcha. Scroll down to Part 2 and Fortune be with you. But if you want to get a clear sense where my pronunciations come from and why I have some names pronounced two different ways, then read on …

Gracias (thank you) to everyone who made their voice heard on IG, FB, and via email about which cover to use for “Leaving the #9.” The vote counts for Versions B and C were very close.

Come for the amazing audio dramatization of chapter 7 of The Deadbringer, “A Chance Encounter,” and stay for the delightfully dark music and the original Podcast drama, Darkvein Manor.

As always, it’s the people who make Silicon Valley Comic Con a memorable convention. 💙 To my long-time Ellderet readers: THANK YOU for continuing with me on this journey. I’m blessed and humbled that you want to read more of my work. The questions that you bring to the table about the world of the Ellderet give me strength, and from one of these questions, the first of many posts exploring the world will be born.

The “Ass”istant gives his “ass” of approval. Hahahaha . . . no? Yeah, no.

Trapped by roses, strangled by fairy lights 🔪🥀

Deep breath. Relax. Remember that no one likes all caps. So, in lieu of all caps, just imagine me and The Assistant running up and down the hallway with glee.The Ellderet Series has made it to RedStarReviews top 10 fantasy list! Not going to lie, it was always a dream of mine to see TES on a top ten-fifty-hundred-thousand fantasy list, but that’s all it ever seemed to me it could be: a dream.

Until now.

Eutau best hide Belle and Leto.

Ever since releasing The Deadbringer in 2016, I have been thinking about its sequel and what it means, both for me and for the world of the Ellderet. As that sequel, The Faceless God, took shape following the release of the prequel novella To Nurture & Kill in 2017, it grew and changed, and went places I hadn’t expected. While I originally expected to publish this year, after a lot of thought, I’ve decided to push the release of The Faceless God to 2020.

As technology takes over more of our lives, what will it mean to be human, and will we fear what we’ve created? What horrors will our technological hubris bring us in the future?

Join us as we walk the line between progressive convenience and the nightmares these advancements can breed. From faulty medical nanos and AI gone berserk to ghost-attracting audio-tech and one very ambitious Mow-Bot, we bring you tech horror that will keep you up at night. Will you reach the Kill Switch in time?

Happy New Year 2019, everyone! “Que salga lo viejo y entra lo nuevo,” or “Out with old, in with the new.” I welcomed 2018 with those words, and with a pot of water tossed out the front door. I met many wonderful authors and artists in 2018 and hope to showcase their works in a future blog post dedicated to them. For now, here’s my #writerslife 2018 year in review told through pictures. If you want to get the full story behind the pictures, click on the image and hover over them. For mobile: tap the small white dot on the bottom right of your screen to enable the text.

Welcome back! Today, I want to share a podcast interview I did with the wonderful folks over at Unreliable Narrators, a few of whom I had the opportunity to meet at Fogcon 8. They asked some great questions that touched upon the premise behind The Ellderet Series, my literary influences, the pluses and minuses of being an indie author, the very important role my culture plays in my works, and if I have ever been stereotyped because I am a woman. Spoiler: yes.

At Worldcon 76, I was fortunate to be a speaker on a panel addressing imposter syndrome. The panel was excellently moderated and touched on a number of points that people with imposter syndrome can use to move forward. Some of the techniques discussed to help "make it to the end credits" included using writing as a cathartic release, viewing your insecurities as monsters that you can conquer, #buildaladder by adding rungs - no matter how small - to help you climb out of your darkness, learn to say "thank you" and to accept praise, or to reward yourself with something positive, like "cake".

The Mexicanx Initiative was a scholarship fund started by artist John Picacio to bring more Mexicanx representation in science fiction and fantasy to Worldcon 76. The scholarship was awarded to 50 people of Mexican ancestry and, let me tell you, those 50 people made a HUGE impact. The Mexicanx Initiative made Worldcon 76 a powerful experience for me because I got to see myself represented on those panels, in those stories, in the language, the idioms, the anger at the injustices of deportation, criminalization, forced separation and herding of children from their parents, and so much more.

Nerve-wracking. Empowering. These are the words I would use to describe my experience moderating my first Worldcon panel, What Turns People Onto Horror. So, why these words? Let's start with the "nerve-wracking" bit, which mostly stems from social anxiety and imposter syndrome. I was a speaker on just such a panel, Imposter Syndrome: You DO Deserve To Be Here (which I'll write about in a forthcoming post). Knowing that my insecurities were not going to vanish just because I wanted them to, I set out to make sure I didn't let them get the better of me.

Tomorrow, July 14 from noon-3pm at the San Mateo Public Library marks the third time I will be doing a professional reading as an author. Admission is FREE and there will be a slew of amazing local authors reading and vending as well. I plan to read from my dark fantasy novella To Nurture & Kill, though I am still trying to decide which bit to read. I always do the first chapter, but I kinda really want to read from a later section in the book, one where Kira is old enough to verbally interact with Eutau. After all, the novella at its core is about the relationship between these two characters.

This Saturday, 5/26, at 10am-4pm I will be a part of this year's Imagination Fair at BayCon 2018. BayCon is the Bay Area’s longest fan-run science fiction & fantasy convention. This will be my first time presenting at Imagination Fair, and it will also be the first time I have ever done anything like this since, well, middle school. Think of it as science fair meets literature and fandom. 

Spoiler Free Run Down…THE CITY & THE CITY was amazing. It's mystery meets urban fantasy. The story is told in the first person by Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. He is investigating a murder that will take him from his home city of Besźel to its neighboring city, Ul Qoma. Imagine a city on a glass map that was stomped on. Now, follow the nonsense cracks to draw up invisible, at times overlapping, borders to create two cities--Besźel and Ul Qoma--and two very distinct cultures. Sound convoluted? Well, it is. But it works!

I'm going to be an extra in a horror film: The Last Showing, by my friend and fellow HWA member, Anthony DeRouen! I first met Anthony during the 2017 Bay Area Book Festival in Downtown Berkeley at the Horror Writers Association booth. Anthony happened to be at the booth that day, and what I remember most about that initial meeting was his enthusiasm for the horror genre and his upcoming films.

The above quote was taken from my What Am I Going to Blog (And Vlog) About post. When I wrote those words, I had this video in mind as it was initially supposed to be the first video I posted on my Youtube channel. Fear of being so open about how I felt convinced me that it was best to hold off on this video. And frankly, I'm glad I did because at that point I don't think I was mentally prepared to publicly post something so personal.

Caveat: I'm still a student and have much more to learn from my peers and teachers, so please do not take what is written in this post as the be-all-end-all. I encourage you to do your own research :) Piyali (hello)! The Mexica New Year is right around the corner, and I am pleased to say that despite having a convention the weekend of, I will be able to attend some of this year's celebrations. I'm so excited as this will be my first time attending!!

Long ago--five years ago to be exact--I decided to make a book trailer. I had just upgraded from an old Nokia flip phone to a beast of a phone called the BlackBerry 10 ("Back in my day, grumble, grumble."). Coincidentally, I had just seen a few tweets from Neil Gaiman about his collaborative project with BlackBerry called Keep Moving Projects. Upon discovering you could film and edit on a phone, I couldn't help but try my hand at it.

First of all, welcome! So what, dear reader, is this blogging and vlogging (via YouTube) business about? Short answer: my writer's life. And when I say "writer's life," I mean what makes me me. Because to me, a writer's life is about life: the good, the bad, and the ugly. My goal is to share my writer's life with my readers and to help me work through my insecurities, in particular my social anxiety, which has gotten in the way of Life.