I took a chance with this book and submitted it to a small publisher. I expected the typical rejection, but was thrilled when they offered me a contract. Fast forward to nearly a year later and a month before their anticipated release date, they decided to shut down. I realized, I could do this myself. I had a network of other indie authors that had been giving me advice. They were happy to step up and get me to the well publicized release date. One of my friends had a micro-publishing company and offered me the chance to work with them.
What I liked was that I had more control over the entire process. I could see the impact of my work rather than waiting for others to share it with me. I could directly connect with my readers, instead of my publisher controlling that connection. Plus, if I was going to do most of the work to promote the book then I wanted to learn all aspects of the process.

I have lived with stories in my head all my life. I started writing as a way to get them out of my head. For me, writing has been the process of taking the story out of my head and crafting it into something other people want to read. Some are really easy for me to do, but others have taken years to polish just right. I love getting feedback from my fellow writers and sharing elements with them. They always give me new ideas to consider and some had a huge impact on the direction of the story.

This is all about my fans. For me, there are two reasons I write the story. One is to get it out of my head and, two, is to share it with people. There is a rush of excitement when people get the story and love things just as much as I do. It's like finding my people.

Next is a modernization of Pride and Prejudice set in a university's Greek system. I have 4 planned Austen modernizations, which also include Northanger Abby and Emma. Plus, I have this large, low fantasy universe that I have been working on for nearly 15 years. I am a few years away from it, but I can't wait to share that with readers.

These days, writing and promoting the book feel like a second full time job. My other job is as a librarian at the local university. I also love knitting and playing with my dog Cedric Doggory (yep, named for Cedric Diggory). We go to the dog park almost daily and I have written a lot of short fiction about things that happen at the dog park.

I love discovering all my books through my local public library. I have a large collection of print books, but I often buy or check out the ebook copy first. If I love it, then I buy the book. Overdrive, the app for libraries, is my obsession!

I have been writing fiction since I was in Middle School, but I really only remember the poetry and essays from that phase in my life. The first story that I remember writing was a short story about a girl who discovers a letter to the Beatles among her mother's childhood stuff. I eventually re-wrote it a few years ago and my writing group published it in an anthology of our writing.

I know all the sources tell you to write everyday, but I save my writing for 3 months of the year: April, July, and November. These are the months with National Novel Writing Month events. I have been doing it for over 12 years. Modern Persuasion was the product of the July 2014 event. I write a complete first draft in November and spend the other two events editing, re-writing, and producing smaller projects. In between those months I focus on publishing and promoting the next project.

I got lucky with this book, the work was started by my publisher. We had done one round of designs and I had given some feedback. When they shut down, I considered what I wanted to say with the cover. I didn't want to assign a face to my main characters, but I wanted to convey both intimacy and distance. I fleshed out some ideas with friends and worked with other authors who had designed their covers. Next time I plan on working with a cover designer who will think from a different perspective.

I read almost anything and everything, I have always been a big reader. One thing I started doing, to read things outside of my favorites, was to look to books like Book Lust for ideas on lesser know, but great books to read. I have discovered some amazing books that way.

I have a Kindle that I take when I know I am going to be outside, like on the beach. Most of the time I read on my iPad through the Kindle app. As a librarian, I get a lot of books right from publishers. Most of them have books already formatted for Kindle, so it makes it a lot easier to read through that device and app.