THE PAGE BEHIND

"At night, the darkest bits of sky fell over Wandhaven like droplets of ink. The black bits formed and crisped into letters and punctuation marks on their way down and landed in huge storage bins at the Grammar Warehouse, where they waited in a tangled pile until they were raked out and sorted. Annora always wondered how the typography staff knew whether a b was actually a b or really a d. What happened if they got it wrong? She liked to imagine that somewhere there was a lucky bog that ended up being written as a dog."

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Award-Winning: Golden Pen finalist at 2024 Letters and Lines, SCBWI Rocky Mountain Chapter annual conference

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Work in progress! This middle grade fantasy manuscript gained me entry to the 2024 Michelle Begley Mentorship program of the SCBWI Rocky Mountain Chapter. Claudia Mills, middle grade author extraordinaire, is my mentor! My goal is to complete this novel in 2024 and begin revisions. If everything goes well, I will begin my quest for an agent in 2025. For fans of THE BOOKWANDERERS and in the tradition of THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH.

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THE BIRDSPEAKER AND THE WHALE

"She untied the leather cord and unfurled the map on her lap. Like always, her heart gave a thump. She’d drawn and redrawn this map dozens of times, trying to get it right. How much paper had she made to get to this point? How many pieces of charcoal stolen from cold fires to carve into pencils? It was smudged and rough, true. Whorls of charcoal dust showed where her fingertips had rested on the edges of the map. Her writing was hard to read. Her spelling mostly guesses. The drawings of trees and rock formations basic and made without the benefit of a teacher. It was the most beautiful thing in the whole world."

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Award-Winning: Golden Pen runner-up at 2022 Letters and Lines, SCBWI Rocky Mountain Chapter annual conference

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Next work in progress. On a world of islands where life-giving magic is disappearing and people are growing hungry, 12-year-old Mish discovers a rare ability and becomes the unexpected guardian of the whale deity of Om. Filled with the love of nature, immense birds, and deep blue oceans, this is a story of adventure and learning how even small pebbles can make big ripples. This literary eco-fantasy is perfect for fans of Wilderlore and Nevermoor.​

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Other Writing

 

Faye's Cake Shop, Award-Winning Short Story (Honorable Mention), Pikes Peak Library District 2022 All Pikes Peak Writes contest

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The Capemaker of Comeuppance Alley, Award-Winning Short Story (Third Place), Pikes Peak Library District 2021 All Pikes Peak Writes contest

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Kinda Homesteading: View my blog, now on hiatus, and read about my love of gardening, beekeeping, and DIY projects.