Meet the Author

Hello, friends! I thought I'd kick off my first blog post by introducing myself and giving a bit of a writing update. Despite this being my first post, I've self-published three books at this time. Two juvenile chapter books and one poetry collection. All works of love, but in different ways. Let's talk about the kids books first!

The first book I published is Ellie the Elf Runs away. A Christmas story about an Elf in the North Pole who has always dreamed of working in the plushy room when she started her career in toymaking. When she doesn't get her dream position, she runs away from the North Pole and lands in Kansas. There, she meets a girl also going through a rough time and they become fast friends. This book I wrote for my daughter (now 13).

The second Christmas book I wrote was Ellie the Elf's Tropical Christmas. After moving to the island of Guam, kai is left wondering if Santa will be able to find their house or what Christmas will even look like this year. After sending a letter, Santa and Ellie visit and show him around the island. Will Christmas still be Christmas on a tropical island?

Lastly, I have released a poetry collection. This book is a collection of just a few of my thoughts, journal entries and poems I felt as my marriage was ending. There are also journaling pages included for the reading. I feel like journaling is such an underutilized practice for our mental wellbeing. If you are going through, or have been through, a breakup or divorce, this collection could be a great resource and read for you. Or maybe someone close to you could use it to start healing as well.

Gloam was a difficult time and it definitely shows in the writing. There was a lot of anger and sadness whirling inside of me at the time. It's still a difficult road, but my next poetry collection will likely offer some more light and hope as I continue healing.

Gloam [glohm] (Noun) - 1. The time of day immediately following sunset 2. The darkest part of twilight 3. A period of decline

Fitting title. Ironically enough, my husband and I were watching a show and heard the word gloam. I was so intrigued I looked it up and then six months later, that's exactly where my life felt like it was. A period of decline.

Luckily, things are (slowly) improving. This is the perfect time to pivot into what I'm currently working on! I'm a creature who gets bored with a single project at a time, and so I've got three projects right now. A secret project that will likely be under a pen name, an adult historical fiction novel and of course another poetry collection.

I'm already (mostly) set on the name of my next poetry collection. I cannot express how proud I am of it already and can't wait to share it with you and anyone else who might need this. It's been very therapeutic in my healing.

The biggest project to date is my World War 2 historical fiction novel. I've been working on this book off and on for three years. The draft is complete, I'm going through and editing and checking for discrepancies in what tense I'm using. For some unknown reason, I like to hop between different tenses while writing.

The story follows two teens from Kansas, Conrad and Thea. Conrad leaves his family farm and enlists in the Marines to help fight in the war. While he is away fighting in brutal, life-changing battles, Thea is back home. But home is not the safe place she thought it was. A different type of war rages at home. The book unfolds through alternating perspectives, taking the reader from the war in the Pacific to the small Kansas town.

What I love most about this story, is that it is loosely based off of my great grandfather's time in World War 2. He fought on Tinian, Saipan and Iwo Jima. Conrad is a character I generated to go through the same battles as him. Not a memoir, since it isn't my story to tell, but a fictionalized story through the same battles.

Not long ago, my husband got stationed on Guam. Since it was so close to Saipan, I got to travel there. I walked the same beach my grandfather stormed up in the fight against the Japanese. It was a beautiful experience and part of why this book means so much to me.

That's it for my first post! I hope you continue to follow along for book updates, writing process and loads of other things! Including snippets of my books :)