She’s been published widely in anthologies and literary journals and has won international Writer’s Digest awards. Her creative nonfiction and personal essays have appeared in HuffPost, Chicken Soup for the Soul, in multiple publications on Medium.com, and on her Substack.
On 5 May ’26 the first in her middle grade fantasy series, Griffin Speaker, will be released by Disney-Hyperion Books.
Do you have a writing routine? Where and when do you write?
When I’m drafting a novel, I really have to push myself forward, so I start in the morning right after coffee, a brief meditation, and some quick exercise to get my blood flowing. I write until mid-morning or noon, sometimes later if I’m really in the flow — but then I have to leave some in the tank for the next session. I have a writing office, but full confession: if nobody else is in the house, I like to write on the couch in front of the fireplace. And that, honestly, is where I write most of my personal essays.
Do you have any patterns or rituals associated with your writing time?
They keep varying depending on what phase of writing I’m in: rough drafting gets a lit candle on my desk and a scan of a few inspirational quotes I have hanging in my office (like, DRAFT, DON’T CRAFT) to keep me powering through. Revising is more of just getting my @$$ in the chair and devoting the amount of time I’ve promised myself to get through the number of pages or chapters I’ve promised myself.
I have a whiteboard in my office with my monthly writing goals, and a daily To Do list that I try to keep realistic — but sometimes it’s like working for a maniac boss.
What do you do when you hit a wall with your writing?
I do all the things you’re not supposed to do: indulge in imposter syndrome, berate myself, etc. . . then I go for a walk. Luckily we live right by the Greenbelt, and listening to the river and the birdsong usually restores my perspective. It’s really important for me to get away from a draft from time to time and let it marinate.
Do you plan your book in advance (plotting and outlining) or are you a “discovery writer” (AKA “writing into the dark”)? Or are you somewhere in between?
With personal essays, I write without any outline but since it’s short form, I have a pretty clear idea of where I want to go with the piece.
With novels, I start with a plot map, a lot of pre-writing (character sketches, backstories, etc.). Then I often plunge in on the first draft and see where it goes. Often I will reverse-engineer an outline from that draft. The process can repeat several times before I feel like I’ve got something that’s ready for human consumption.
What’s the last book you read that made you go “wow!”?
I read a LOT in my own genre — and there are so many wonderful books in the middle grade fantasy space. I’ll be in conversation at an author event in San Franciso (Books Inc Laurel Village) with Kiyash Monsef, an Iranian-American author, so I’ve just finished his book Once There Was and am currently in the midst of its follow-up, The Bird of a Thousand Stories —and I’m completely enchanted.
I read across all genres too, and my husband and I have an evening ritual in which I read aloud to him from a book we’ve selected while he cooks dinner (I win!). We just finished a compilation of column pieces by Herb Caen (who wrote for decades for the San Franciso Chronicle) in the ’60s and ’70s, and wow, could that guy evoke a time and place. Anne Patchett’s Tom Lake blew us away.
What book or author do you find yourself recommending and why?
An author of literary fiction who I don’t think gets enough attention is Michelle Huneven — her work is so engaging, so approachable, and has such a wonderful sense of time and place (as you can see, I admire that ability in a writer) along with wonderful characters she manages to convey deeply with just a few, as it were, brush strokes. Her latest novel is Bug Hollow and it’s terrific.
What’s on your To Be Read pile?
Oh, my. My nightstand is kind of out of control! I keep meaning to maintain a reading journal, but I’m such an impulsive reader and I go through books at such a volume that it keeps not happening! Right now I have R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis waiting for me to dive in.
What advice do you have for readers?
Don’t restrict yourself to a particular genre! It’s great to have a favorite lane, but it’s amazing what you can discover when you read outside of your usual zone. My never-humble opinion is that good work shows up in all genres (and for all ages!) — for instance, I used to think I didn’t like mysteries until I read Tony Hillerman.
But also: your time as a reader, and as a mortal human being, is precious. If a book just isn’t working for you once you’ve given it a decent try (the first 100 pages, maybe?), then no matter what the critics or your book club peeps say about it, you’re under no obligation to finish it.
Last thing: the cool thing about being a reader nowadays is that it’s so easy to be interactive: post reviews, send a (nice, please) note to the author via their website, etc. At the same time, think twice before you post something really negative — reading tastes are highly subjective, and we authors can really be hurt by unkind reviews.
What author, past or present, would you wish to have a long conversation with? Why?
Ursula LeGuin — she wrote in multiple genres but especially the ones that I gravitate towards, like sci-fi, fantasy, and generally speculative fiction. But as the daughter of a renowned anthropologist, her work also has a grounding in science. She conveys a lot of wisdom, even in her most imagination-bending work, and she has a wry sense of humanity.
I’d also love to have coffee with Margaret Atwood, but I suspect I’d be too intimidated to bring much to the conversation!
Do you have early memories of reading or writing you’d like to share?
The first story I ever had published was in my home town newspaper, The San Mateo Times, when I was eight years old. It was about a black horse with wings who lived in the desert, named Black Death. I was kind of a dark kid.
What books and/or authors have most influenced you as an author?
In writing Griffin Speaker and the other books in the series, I keep drawing on how much the classics in fantasy shaped me when I was a young bookworm back in middle school: everything by Tolkien, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, Mary Renault’s superb historical/speculative fiction like The Bull From the Sea. I loved anything that could propel me into another world full of wonder and danger and, often, magic — I still do.
What do you most enjoy about being a writer? What do least enjoy about being a writer?
Wasn’t it Dorothy Parker who said she loved “having written?” Writing, for me, is really challenging and sometimes arduous — but when I look over pages I’ve written after putting then aside for a while, and finding them to be work I quite like, that’s pretty reinforcing. Much better is when readers tell me that something I’ve written has moved them, spoken to them, or even helped them in some way.
What I enjoy least? Even though I’ve certainly amassed what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as the 10,000 hours necessary to achieve some kind of mastery at any discipline — I still feel like a rank beginner every time I begin a new project. And let’s face it, the publishing industry is pretty intimidating and also baffling — even, I suspect, to its top professionals.
What would you tell a new writer?
It’s SO cool that you finished your first draft, of anything. You should totally celebrate that. But avoid the temptation to show it to anyone else right away. You need some time away from it before you go back and take another look, because it WILL need revising, and it’s not ready for critique yet. Think of your first draft as a tiny green seedling — it may have lots of promise, but don’t subject it to the harsh elements until it’s stronger.
Know that no piece of writing is wasted, whether or not it ever sees the light of day. It’s like building any other kind of strength or skill. In writing, persistence is 99.5% of success — which, by the way, you must define by your own terms.
