​Originally from small-town Southeast Texas, Natalie Giarratano earned her MFA & Ph.D. in creative writing from Western Michigan University. She is the author of Big Thicket Blues (Sundress Publications, February 2017) and Leaving Clean, winner of the 2013 Liam Rector First Book Prize in Poetry (Briery Creek Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Sakura Review, Beltway Poetry, Tupelo Quarterly, Tinderbox, Best New Poets, and TYPO, among others. A multi-genre editor, she lives near the foothills of Northern Colorado with her partner, their daughter, and old-man pup.

​Big Thicket Blues is a collection of poems that try to hear new song from a broken record: being a voice and not just a body, being complicit in bigotry but evolving, being a picker of wounds, being godless and American, being uncomfortable being.
 
Consider yourself warned: this intricately carved, seamlessly patchworked foray into a boiling machinery of heritage, sin and deliverance may haunt itself into your dreams. Big Thicket Blues is so crammed with music, so lucid and tangled, so lifted into sky past bramble and past the tinnitus of our ordinary pains that it delivers us into a brilliance all its own. Make sure you know how to listen to what could kill or cure you before you bring down the needle on Giarratano’s indelible groove—and remember: don’t trust anyone who cannot allow music /to suck them deep, the way I’ve always wanted some god to /suck me into that kind of epic darkness....  
Website: http://www.nataliegiarratano.com/

​I’ve always been a Johnny-come-lately in most things. Writing was not any different. I started writing when I was still in elementary and have never stopped. I started with poetry and evolved into short stories and then novellas.
When I was twenty-three I moved from my native country to the United States. I had been writing in English for a few years, experimenting with fantasy short stories all through college, dipping my toes in a foreign language that somehow had always felt natural to me.
Other than my husband I didn’t know anyone in this new country and was alone a lot. So, I did what I had always done when I was lonely and/or stressed—I turned to reading and writing. By the time my first son was born I had written a full-length fantasy/paranormal/historical romance. Yes, you read it right. The novel—set in Scotland—was one third historical fiction, one third fantasy with paranormal elements, and a third romance. I had no clue about the publishing world, but I asked questions, researched, found The Writer’s Market in my local library, and got busy with the business of being rejected by every agent and publisher in the country.
Being a navy wife meant moving a lot. We moved across the ocean again, this time to Scotland where I wrote my second full-length novel. This time a contemporary romance set in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I had lived as a teenager. Once again I braced myself for the barrage of rejections that soon followed my submissions.
I didn’t give up. Writing that is. I had sort of given up on being published and assumed that the fact I was writing in a foreign language would never allow me to be the writer I knew I had in me. But I kept on writing. After we moved back to the States, I wrote another novel. This time a paranormal romance set in Scotland. Can you see a pattern?
Then life got crazy with kids turning into obnoxious teenagers that required all my attention and sanity, the decision to go back to college for a second degree. Then a third, closely followed by a teaching career. I was still writing but the novels were slow coming. I wrote a few but never finished them.
A little over two years ago, after a very rough patch in my life, I realized I had moved away from the three things I loved the most—reading, writing, and dancing—and decided to refocus. I joined a couple book clubs, a Zumba class, and began writing again. One of my reading clubs led me to a small local writing online group. At the time we wrote flash fiction to prompts posted weekly by our site admin. I had never been read by anyone other than my teachers and all the publishers and agents who had rejected my novels. Even though a nervous-wreck every time my fellow writers read one of my stories, I found that it was also extremely rewarding and helpful. When they loved it, it made me soar. And when they criticized my writing, it helped me grow.
Enter National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I was a writing fool that month but by the last day of November I had a complete, spanking new romance. I’m not going to lie. It needed a lot of work but I was excited to have a viable manuscript in my hands. Now what was I going to do with it?
After many edits and revisions, the biggest hurdle was to be brave enough to send it out. My past experiences were not happy or positive ones and my doubts as a second language learner still crippled me. So when I got wind of this Twitter event called Pitmad, I threw caution to the wind and thought, “Why not? Nothing to lose.” Soon after I had a publishing contract.
Moral of the story? Don’t ever let your fears cripple you to the point of inaction. Challenge yourself and let the chips fall where they may. What’s the worst that can happen?
I’m far and foremost a romance writer, but I love trying new sub-genres from fantasy to suspense. One of my favorite sub-genres—both in writing and reading—is romantic comedy/chick lit. A few years ago I accidently stumbled upon an author I had never heard of. I fell in love with the simplistic, happy cover and decided to read it. Sophie Kinsella quickly became one of my favorite authors, one I would love to meet—even though I’m pretty certain I would freeze and say nothing.
I can only hope that my writing and my stories bring my readers the same amount of joy and pleasure, Kinsella’s stories bring me.

Every writer’s journey is different. I feel like an old hand now. I’ve been writing for ten years seriously (I always wrote but ten years ago I took a year-long course and  haven’t stopped since) and I’ve been published for five.
As a result, it feels like I’ve had a lot of advice and a lot of time to sift through it all to determine what does and doesn’t work for me. That’s not to say that I can’t learn new things but I already know for example that I’m a plotser – I start writing and partially plot, that I prefer writing the first draft to any other part of the process, that getting up at 5am doesn’t increase my productivity and that handwriting journal pages is a waste of time because I can’t read my own writing.
Trial and error have taught me these things and I think everyone should try new techniques every so often to see if there are any new ideas out there for them, or even just to be sure they have the best methods in process for them.
I’m an indie author and to be honest most of the authors I know in real life are traditionally published. I’ve been really lucky to be part of a wonderful real life writing group for over ten years. This writing group, which evolved out of that writing course I mentioned earlier,  was great for me because they have kept me accountable, read my stories, helped bounce ideas around and cheered me on when I wanted to give up.
What I noticed however, as time went on, was that at some point, despite all of us being on the same journey, our paths diverged. A couple of authors in the group had one book published and essentially stopped writing, a couple of other people went on to do Masters and Doctoral degrees in creative writing which changed their focus, another of my friends is traditionally published and writes one novel a year.
For me as an indie author who predominantly sells ebook, in order to gain any traction, I need to write and publish several books a year.  I need volume and to get that I’ve learned I need to be accountable.
In doing some online research about productivity I discovered that successful writers have a routine and that they know which times of day they are most productive. That was big for me. Now that I know when I write best I try and leave that time free to write. Everyone is different I’ve met writers who are morning people and writers who are night owls – you need to know what works for you.
Another thing I worked out is that if I write a thousand words a day at the end of the year I will have 365,000 words. Not exactly  revolutionary thinking I now but for me it was a bit of a lightbulb moment. Even if I only write 300,000 (so I get 65 days off) that is still five books.
Having determined that would be a good idea for me to do that I made two other decisions; one was that I needed support to succeed (a community of people cheering me on) and secondly I probably wasn’t alone in wanting support for my writing goals. I also knew that writers use Facebook effectively to build community and share ideas so I decided to set up the #1000wordsaday Facebook group at the start of 2016.
We now have just shy of 300 members made up from writers from all over the world – lots from Australia like me, but from all over. It’s a community of people supporting each others journey and it includes all the active members of my real life writing group as well.
So, I suggest that if like me you need support you might like to find a real life writers group or join an online one like mine.

When single-mother Sarah pulls up in front of the house her aunt left her she has three goals; help her kids be happy and healthy, find a job and stay away from men. The last year has been a hellish roller-coaster and now she needs to create a stable life where everyone, including her, has their two-feet firmly planted on the ground. What she didn’t count on was a sexy neighbour who made keeping her focus and her balance way too hard.
Todd has two rules, never date locals and even more importantly never date women with kids. Growing up with his own mother and a revolving door of ineffectual step-fathers Todd has vowed never to put anyone in that position. He’s perfectly happy living his life with his Peter-pan syndrome undisturbed – until Sarah and her two adorable children move in across the street and turn everything upside down.
Todd isn’t the kind of guy who can stand back when someone needs help and Sarah clearly needs a lot. When Sarah gets injured Todd has no choice to step in and be a good neighbour who lends a hand, because he’s definitely not helping her because he likes her, after all that would be crazy.
Opportunity, proximity and attraction mean two neighbors determined to remain single have quite a struggle on their hands.
If you like tree houses, indoor camp outs and shameless flirting you’ll love Any Way You Build It.
Any Way You Plan It is Book 6 in The Upper Crust Series
Book 1 – Any Way You Slice It
Book 2 – Any Way You Dream It
Book 3 – Any Way You Fight It.
Book 4 – Any Way You Plan It
Book 5 – Any Way You Want It

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Monique-McDonell/e/B0086R9S2U/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Website: http://www.moniquemcdonellauthor.com/index.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoniqueMcDonell
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoniqueMcDonellAuthor
Blog: http://www.moniquemcdonellauthor.com/blog
​Goodreads: ​https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6154665.Monique_McDonell

​
The Best Books You’ve Never Read

Before I was a writer, I was a reader. Somewhere in between, I also became a librarian. As such, I tend to view the process of book production with a blended vantage point. It’s difficult for me to address writing topics without talking about the fine art of reading— and every writer should be a reader too. It is from this triple-perspective that I have observed a curious phenomenon that will flip your brain inside out. Ready?

Some of my favorite books over the last decade were not published by Big Five publishers! Of course, I’ve also enjoyed many titles from each of the Big Five. But what I was surprised to discover is that some of the gems I’ve found in indie publishing had a more lasting impression on me than many of the mainstream titles I’ve read.  How can that be given all the taboos of independent and small press publishing? If these books are so good, why weren’t they picked up by one of the big guys? Here are my own findings:

                The Taboos:
                The digital age of do-it-yourself publishing opened the floodgates of amateur writers who have little use for the likes of “editing” or “rewrites” and who just want to pull up their name on Amazon. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being a hobbyist, and why not wrack up a few sales if you can? It does create a tricky process for readers to find the good stuff, though. It’s a lot like looking for a needle in a stack of other needles that are poorly constructed and riddled with grammatical errors. But then you find something that makes all those bandaged fingers worth it.

                The Good Stuff:
                The good ones are difficult to tell apart from mainstream titles. Attributes include quality covers, good structural development, smooth composition without grammatical errors, and proper formatting. Each of those attributes was probably the work of a different person, because good books aren’t the result of just one person’s effort. There are various editors and artists all along the process. In short, the good stuff is good stuff because it’s good! …stuff.

                And what? The Author Just Doesn’t Like Money or Something?
                I’ve discovered a number of independent and small press authors who turned down big house contracts for numerous reasons including artistic differences or loss of creative control. It really depends on the author’s goals. Big houses will offer wider distribution and probably increased sales. But if that means the project has to submit to another person’s vision, the author may feel it’s not worth it. There is also the author’s timetable to consider. Even authors who’ve had multiple titles on the best-seller lists will tell how difficult it was to get their first book published. Most had to shop their manuscripts for years and weather rejections upon rejections before they finally got a nibble. That kind of endurance race isn’t for everybody. And, frankly, some titles do better independently. Why?

                Sales
                It’s the nature of industry. Large producers move more and more toward producing content with the lowest common denominator. They’re looking for stories with a wide audience that will probably cover multiple demographics. This is because publishing is a business, and a business is reliant on income, and income is generated by sales. That doesn’t mean they don’t publish some really good stuff. But it does mean that they’re not as interested in niche markets and quirky subcultures. If that’s the best audience for a particular book, then it might not be the worst thing to go with a more independent model. While there may not be as many sales, the author sees a higher percentage of the profits, and it may not take as many sales to make the author happy as it would to appease Random House or HarperCollins. If your story doesn’t have mass appeal, then maybe you don’t need mass production.

                So, Why Were Those Stories So Good?
                Because they didn’t have mass appeal. They weren’t intended for the lowest common denominator. They struck a very specific chord in my heart. And they also had the power to surprise me. The downside of being an avid reader is that you become harder and harder to please. You become too familiar with the established trends, and you need something a little more experimental. We’ve seen this phenomenon with music. The first decade of the new millennium was thick with industry-produced music that didn’t have the iconic identity of the previous decades. Now indie music is the mark of trendsetters, and even big labels frequently try to emulate a home-spun sound. People are looking for something different. 

                For Example?
                To get you started, here’s a few independent and small press offerings I’ve enjoyed:

How to Break an Evil Curse by Laura Morrison Humorous Fantasy. If you’re interested in some light-hearted, quirky adventure that’s just fun to read, you won’t go wrong with this one. Witty narrative and loveable characters stylistically remind me of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, and her plucky heroine wouldn’t be out of place in the likes of the more recent Disney movies. It was originally released as a serial, but now you can read it in its entirety. You’ll have to get an account with the site that hosts her, but it’s free so stop complaining! And you might even find some other serials to addict you while you’re there.

Coffee Cup Tales by Richard Keller Quirky Short Stories. I bought this one at a conference. I was probably drawn to it because I used to be a barista. I wound up carrying it in my computer bag, and I’d pull it out whenever I had to wait somewhere. It was a fantastic time-killer, and you always look more intelligent when people scheduled to meet up with you discover you reading a book. (The effect doesn’t carry over to smart phones.) The stories are clever and diverse; you never know what to expect from the next one.

Pursuit of a King by Candace Christine Little Middle Grade Allegorical Fantasy. If you’ve been missing Narnia lately, this may be a good book for you. It’s wildly imaginative, well told and full of surprises. Like the works of C. S. Lewis, this book contains Christian symbolism and allegory that has been woven into an enchanting otherworld with exotic dangers and delights. The plot takes several twists and turns, and doesn’t end up quite where I expected it to.

Wallflower Blooming by Amy Rivers Political Thriller. Okay, it’s not really a political thriller. But the introverted protagonist might feel like that’s what she’s gotten herself into. I met the author at a conference, and she’d just gotten a piece accepted into a volume of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. This book is similar in that it’s a feel-good book with a happy ending. Sorry for the spoilers. But sometimes, what you’re in the mood for is a happy ending, and this book is a great place to start because it’s the first of a trilogy. That means three happy endings for those of you doing the math. But I’ve also had opportunity to read some of the author’s darker writings, and I can’t wait to see those titles in full jagged bloom as well.

These are four vastly different titles whose only commonality is that I happened to enjoy them, and I didn’t discover them through mainstream channels. Maybe some of these aren’t quite for you, but something else might be. That’s what niche markets are all about. I still love my favorite bestselling authors, and I’m not putting out some obnoxious call to boycott the big presses. All I’m saying is, leave some room on your book lists for the indie titles.

​You’ll be glad you did. 

David Sharp is a noisy librarian. He has written three plays which have been produced six time altogether. He is a regular contributor to The Writing Bug, and he has written a novel for which he is seeking representation as well as numerous short works.
​

I love having a family that wants to do things together. For Spring Break this year, my "keep it simple" mother suggested that we take the kids to Disneyworld. HAHA! There's nothing even remotely simple about Disneyworld. Just thinking about it gave me nightmares for months. That being said, my immediate reaction was "YES!" and we booked the condo a year ago. 

In the weeks leading up to the trip, reality set in and I realized I was going to have to do some serious planning. Two kids, my mother, father, sister and me....we were going to need some direction. The nice thing about staying in a condo is that we cooked most of our meals, taking away the stress of eating out every night. We learned many things during this trip. We learned about how to use (and not to use) Disney's FastPass program. We learned that Universal Studios Express Passes are worth every damned penny. We learned that bean burritos are, indeed, the best picnic lunch. And, most of all, we learned that we still love being with one another. 

We only nearly killed each other twice. Pretty good for a seven day vacation. My mom and I rode way more rides than we ever thought we could (though we expressly avoided rides with the word "hurl" in the title). It was the vacation of a lifetime! And one that I can now safely check off my list of things I'm only ever doing once. 

Spring Break. Check. Now, on to summer vacation! 

(PS I'm working on my "how to survive Spring Break with your parents and your kids" as we speak!) 

​Victoria Cooke grew up in the city of Manchester before crossing the Pennines in pursuit of her career in education. She now lives in Huddersfield with her husband and two young daughters and when she’s not at home writing by the fire with a cup of coffee in hand, she loves working out in the gym and travelling. Victoria was first published at the tender age of eight by her classroom teacher in year three who saw potential in a six page story about an invisible man. Since then she’s always had a passion for reading and writing, undertaking several writers’ courses before completing her first novel in 2016.

​Victoria Cooke
I was always called ‘imaginative’ as a child. I wasn’t really sure what that meant at the time, but I grew to understand that having an imagination, brightened life up a little. From a young age my mother took me to the library and my love of books grew. It wasn’t until I hit my late twenties that I actually thought writing a novel was something I’d like to do, at the time I was reading lots of books because I owned a very quiet boutique and it was a way to pass the time. I particularly enjoyed romantic comedy books, since it’s a genre that’s light and easy to read. I read a lot of Lindsey Kelk and Sophie Kinsella books and soon found myself daydreaming about my own story ideas.
I actually started writing back then and completed about half of a novel before my laptop was stolen and of course, I hadn’t backed it up. I left the idea of writing behind for a while since I couldn’t face trying to replicate what I’d lost. In actual fact, looking back, I was probably quite naïve about my ability. It wasn't until I approached the end of my maternity leave after my second child that I returned to the idea of writing. This time I read lots of blogs about writing, signed up to writing courses and practiced. I was in a much better position to begin my debut novel.
There were many occasions whereby I doubted my ability, I had sleepless nights, worrying about the fact I’d probably just written a load of rubbish and wasted my time. My driving force was the fact that I’d told family and friends that I’d started writing a novel. I was driven to finish it because I didn’t want people to see me give up again.
I did invest in a manuscript critique, I wasn’t ready to let friends or family read my work because I had no idea how it fared on the scale of decent to dreadful. I knew a good critique would point out strengths and weaknesses in my work, giving me an opportunity to improve the manuscript. I approached Katherine Trail at KT Editing services who provided my with a ten page summary of my work, she pointed out what I did well and what to work on. I learned a lot from this process and am thankful to Katherine for her diplomatic assessment, the way she articulated her thoughts and the fact she always pointed me towards a solution for any problems she found.
My plan was always to approach a publisher, there aren’t many publishers that will accept unsolicited manuscripts, but my thoughts were to try the few that did, and then approach agents if it came t nothing. HQDigital came highly recommended by other authors I’d come to know through online book groups. HQ are particularly well known for their gorgeous cover designs, they’re also a digital imprint of Harper Collins so a quite a bit player in the book market. I was thrilled to discover I could send a synopsis, cover letter and three chapters of my manuscript via email without an agent. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything back for a while, and to be honest, I wasn’t hopeful of a deal. I was more hoping that the rejection email that I was expecting may provide me with a glimpse of why my story wasn’t right. Needless to say, I was shocked when only a few days later the full manuscript was requested. That gave me hope, even if it was rejected at that point I knew the chapters I’d sent had caught their eye and as such there was something there to improve.
It was another two days before I got the call to offer me a one book deal. I was ecstatic, shocked and relieved.
My book ‘The Secret to Falling in Love’ was published worldwide in ebook format on the 9th of February 2017.

Status Update: I’m going offline for a while… Wish me luck! xx
 
Lifestyle journalist and thirty-something singleton Melissa hashtags, insta's and snapchats her supposedly fabulous life on every social media platform there is.
That is until she wakes up on her birthday, another year older and still alone, wondering if for all her internet dates, love really can be found online? The challenge: go technology free for a whole month!
Forced to confront the reality of her life without its perfect filters, Melissa knows she needs to make some changes. But when she bumps into not one, but two gorgeous men, without the use of an app, she believes there could be hope for love offline!
If only there was a way to choose the right guy for her…

Twitter: twitter.com/VictoriaCooke10
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/VictoriaCookeAuthor/
Instagram: instagram.com/victoriacookewriter