Okay, I'm getting nervous. Only 3 days to go until Author Versus AI kicks off!

Check out my recent post about my status update on my other website. I'll be posting regularly during milestone moments of my journey, especially on the first day of writing each week (which will be Mondays, except for THIS first week of writing, which starts on a Tuesday) and the last day of the week to share my wordcount.

Fast and steady will win this race. I'm hoping to average about 10,000 words a day. That will keep me on track to finish all of these books within a week and also give me some wriggle room when other things come up too. You know, life stuff, posting these updates, and, of course, wasting time on social media. As we all seem to do.

I also promised an update on my recent writing acceptances, since it's been months since I've done so, and I'm really pleased these lovely magazines have said yes to housing my recent poetry. Here they are:

I'm thrilled to announce my poem "On the Wing" will be nesting in Grain Magazine
My fantasy poem "Cataclysm" will be magically published in Dreams & Nightmares
"Morning Ritual" found shelter under The Wild Umbrella
My science fiction poem "NFS" is being beamed up by Star*Line
And "In another line of time" will be published by the illustrious Canadian Literature

I'm overwhelmed that my poems have found such wonderful homes! Thanks to all these awesome editors for enjoying my writing.

ALSO, if you'd like to see me in person BEFORE I start my big project, I'll be at The White Water Blinks, which takes place at The Aviary  at  9314 111 Ave NW. The event is this Monday, April 22nd at 7 p.m., and it's part of the Edmonton Poetry Festival. You can stop by to hear me and other poets read VERY short poems (30 seconds or less). The fun part of the event is that if any of the poets go over their time limit, they will be played over by the Blinks Band, who will drown out each overly verbose speaker. I've been practicing my poem, and I hope that I get all my words in...

Look out for my next update in a couple of days when A.V.A. begins... dun dun dun...

I'm about to jump in the car and take a trip five and a half hours south of Edmonton to Lethbridge. Why, you might ask? To attend the Wordbridge Writers' Conference this weekend and speak at a few panels as well! My friend Robert Runté is one of the keynote speakers, so I'll be there cheering him on too.

I'll be leaving quite early on Saturday to (hopefully) make it to the first panels starting at 9 a.m. (although you never know how it goes with a road trip).

My panels will be on Sunday, and they include:

11:10 a.m. - World-building with Jenna Greene, Adam Dreece, Halli Reid, and me.

12:30 p.m. - All About Conflict with Pamela Donison, Halli Reid, Monica Zwikstra, and me.

If you're at the conference, please say hi! Always glad to see writers and readers I know. 

Wow, it's been minute, hasn't it? My website has been a bit quiet, but there's been a lot going on recently. I'll post more info soon, but I'm just about a month away from starting Author Versus AI on April 23rd. Stay tuned for updates!

But if you want to come out to say hi in person, I'll be in Edmonton this weekend at Audrey's Bookstore (10702 Jasper Ave) for a fun afternoon of poetry on Sunday, March 24th from 2pm-3:30pm. I'm one of 4 featured poets, including Krystyna Fedosejevs, Marco Melfi & Chanel Klein.

​If you can make it, hope to see you there!

My interview with the Big Time Talker Podcast with Burke Allen is live today! Click HERE to hear about my award-winning book, as well as hear about my HUGE Author Versus AI project for next year!

How I ended up on the podcast goes back to a trip I took in November to Florida for winning the Readers' Favorite Award for my novel The New Empire.

​And did I mention the birds? Ducks, I get - there's plenty of water. But roosters? When out walking near the hotel, I came across whole communities of chickens and roosters. Odd.

And then there was the Miami Book Fair, which takes place at the same time. The Readers' Favorite Award had a booth, and I got to meet one of the speakers for the event, Eddie Price.

And, of course, the awards ceremony itself...

And I met some VERY lovely authors at the ceremony who were also receiving awards. Some of them were:

How does this all relate to going on a podcast? Well, Allen Burke was another speaker at the Readers' Favorite Awards, and quite inspiring. I reached out to him during the awards, and he thought that my new project for next year would be very interesting for his listeners. So... that's the long story about how I ended up on his podcast!

If you'd like to listen, here's my interview on the Big Time Talker Podcast with Burke Allen. Hope you enjoy it!

Speaking of awards, I just found out there are a couple of new ones where The New Empire is a finalist. They include The Eyelands Book Awards, which is a Greek prize. The winner gets to go to Athens to accept their award! Since my sister now lives in Greece and I've never been there, it would be a wonderful honor if I was able to go.

​And my novel was also a finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards! I'm super thrilled - it was for the multicultural category, and I'm proud to be in such great company.

On top of that, I just got back from Florida to accept an award win from Readers' Favorite Book Awards - my book took home silver in the cultural category. It was a lovely trip, and I'll be posting about it soon.

This Saturday at 7pm EST (tomorrow!), I'll be on What The Book Podcast with the wonderful Dzintra Sullivan, Sean R. Frazier, and Peyton Storm. I'll talk about my recent award-winning book The New Empire, as well as my 52-book project Author Versus AI that I'll be doing next year.

Check out the live podcast here: https://bookers.podbean.com/ - it's an interactive session, so you can jump in and ask questions! Looking forward to hearing from you then.

Who would be crazy enough to write 52 books in a year?

Well... I guess that would be ME. That's my plan for 2024. You can learn more on my Author Versus AI website HERE, including what led me to this idea.

In other news, I'm ridiculously happy that my book The New Empire just won silver in the Readers' Favorite Book Awards! And huge congrats to all the other fabulous winners.

As we move into summer, it's also award season! I'm thrilled to announce that my book The New Empire has gotten two more amazing recognitions. It was one of five finalists in the multicultural category of Next Generation Indie Book Awards. And it won SILVER in the adult fiction category of the Readers' Choice Book Awards!

I'm also thrilled that my friend Julie Cadman was a finalist for the Readers' Choice Book Awards with her great book UnMasked - and her book isn't even out yet! It comes out June 13, so be sure to check it out.

Hope everyone's having a great June so far, and I'll maybe have more exciting news soon. Until then, stay cool and enjoy your summer!

It's funny - I tend to go through cycles of posting/updating my website more regularly or just ignoring it completely. Considering I haven't posted since January and we're almost at May, you can probably guess which cycle my website is on right now.

BUT what that means is there are a lot of things going on behind the crickets that are chirping right now over here. I have a story coming out soon in Litro Magazine. I'm a writing coach for Pitch Week and we just finished our first week of workshopping this year. And I've been doing some fun writing, editing, and award projects, some of which you can see popping up over at the Fairfield Scribes.

On top of that, there's a lot of great news surrounding my recent book The New Empire. On the review front, it just got a lovely write-up at Review Tales by editor Jeyran Main, a 5-star review on Amy's Bookshelf Reviews, a wonderful review at The Ottawa Review of Books, and a glowing review at InD'tale Magazine.

And my book has also been getting lots of award recognition - it won silver in the Feathered Quill Book Awards, was a red ribbon winner at the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, and a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Awards (winners announced in the summer).

If you're tired about reading all about that, I'm definitely tired from DOING all of it, ha ha. Perhaps if I get the crickets organized to help me out, you'll hear more from me before too long. Otherwise, the crickets are welcome to chirp around my website and I will be off writing somewhere, hopefully about something really fun and exciting for you to read soon.

Happy spring, everyone!