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First Grade

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“Don’t cry,” my mother tells me. I am in first grade, with a pretty knapsack and a lunch she packed me, and first grade always made me cry. “But I want to stay with you.” It was, to my five-year-old self, the most dramatic thing that I had to spend the whole day away from her, and I didn’t understand it. “You’ll be home soon.” -- “Don’t cry,” my mother tells me. It’s a habit that, as a twenty-something year old woman, I pretend I had grown out of. I’m sitting on her couch writing poetry – a piece from San Francisco that would one day become a friend’s housewarming present – and airplanes always made me cry. “I’ll just miss you, that’s all.” “You’ll be home in a few months.” None of us could have predicted a fucking pandemic that had probably already started, or known the next time I’d come back would be almost two years later. -- “I told you not to cry,” but I know she is also crying. She has stage four colorectal cancer, and we both wrote a piece with the exact sam...
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Free-Fall?

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I’ll have you know, for the record, I’m normally super chill about flying. Turbulence can be exciting. The plane catching fire right before takeoff makes a good story, and the TSA agent thinking I was travelling with bomb fragments in my clothes was slightly entertaining (albeit very rude). So we’re about to take off. And suddenly the pilot says the plane was just recalled from service. (Actually, at this point, I still thought he was joking. Until about two hundred people get returned to the airport.) Fine. Didn’t like these seats anyway. That didn’t amount to much more than a long delay, coffee with a friend, and a fair amount of gratitude that they caught that tremor while we were still, you know, on the ground. Take two. I don’t know if any of you have ever flown into La Guardia, so I’ll tell you that the runway basically merges with this nice body of water known as the Atlantic Ocean . (And if any of you have friends planning this trip, it would be most consid...
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Winter Warriors

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So it was one of those weeks where the dishwasher breaks down and then the heat in your house breaks down, and then your car breaks down and then the hot water breaks down all at the same time. I’d heard tell of these brave, formidable warriors of the past who would stand for hours under a freezing waterfall in the midst of winter to build up their endurance and stamina (read Takahashi Matsuoka). So I was fairly convinced that I, with my own years of combat training, could at least manage the same feat for about twenty minutes indoors, no? Well, I did manage to realize that even with no heat, one is still capable of boiling water in the microwave. Oh, the conveniences of the modern era! But if there is no heat and no hot water and I go running in the rain, this does technically count as having showered, right? We’ll say so. Now exiting the topic of things you didn't need to know about, here’s the latest in writing world. I’ve nearly finished reading Mary Queen of Scotl...
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CrowDancer

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The countdown begins! Who's excited?? I’ll give you the whole story. I had spent three weeks upon a thrice-damned ship. Don’t ask me why I did it; for now we’ll say only that it was necessary. Don’t ask me why I chose a ship when I’m afraid of drowning. I rode a fisher vessel to the nearest village with a port. Hid out a whole day, knowing how damn close I was to being captured. I bought passage on seven ships under seven different names—and then I slipped away on one of the few vessels that I hadn’t paid for. You could say that I’m wanted. I go by Aryin now. I am a necromancer. I am of the most skilled of those within my trade, and I am fleeing for my life within my enemy country, to escape a decree from mine that will kill me if I am found alive. ​Though secretly sometimes, though none must ever know it, I am still Navyra of Yoshai.
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Cover Reveal!!

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Hello World! Here is the cover for my debut, Lady Shadow, coming November 2014! Here is a little secret. Assassins do exist. They’re right here, in the kingdoms.  And the one they’re looking for? The mercenary who betrayed them? She lives. Betrayal is a death sentence—and Umbra makes a living at it. When she was nine years old, Umbra was trained to be a mercenary. They are silent shadows with faces of men: ruthless combat masters, and Umbra was the best among them. Trained to swear fealty to assassins no one else believes in, sworn to die by her own hand before she dares betray them, Umbra becomes the spearhead of the assassins’ revolution: a hidden war to claim the kingdoms. But what if she was wrong? What if she misjudged them? So she changes sides, falling overnight from the deadliest assassin to the woman at the top of their most-wanted list. To the woman who, singlehandedly, is preventing the assassins from attaining the position she once ...
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The World Is Trying To Tell Me Something

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You know when it just feels like One Of Those Days? The first thing I did this morning was try to figure out why my alarm was going off at 7:30 on a Saturday (it was Tuesday.)  I spent the next few minutes trying to go back to sleep. Until something in my head woke up enough to realize I was late, the buzzing was supposed to be there, and Tuesdays shouldn’t try to disguise themselves as weekends.  It was thirty degrees (in Houston , of all places!)  Lovely, except my only coat was in the wash.  (So yes, that was me running around in the bright pink marshmallow this morning.  I borrowed it from a sister who probably thinks she’s too old for wearing neon.) I did make the bus.  I realized as the doors swung open in the freezing rain (and that cloud of whatever the neighbor was smoking) that I’d left my wallet in my other bag.  No money on me.  Zippo.  Nothing to pay the fare. Yes, the world is definitely hinting at something...
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Neighborhood Ninjas

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You know that really annoying mental clock in the back of your mind that insists on mapping your life down to the minute?  No?  Huh.  Maybe that’s just one of my obnoxious habits. I’m always racing time.  I tell myself it’s just to get the most out of my day, but it probably has more to do with my fear of wasting it.  (And maybe my annoying attempts to control…everything?)  You know, while we’re being honest.  So here I am, ten and a half minutes before work.  I’m actually on time and dressed and in the car with both my shoes on.  And about to run into a mile of construction. Mental memo: The mental clock is really ticked.  I know there used to be a street here.  And who put up that annoying roadblock? Do you think I’ll fit between the bulldozers and that makeshift outhouse? I should really just park here and walk. I don’t know what it is that makes me keep driving.  (Probably not wanting to ...
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Beach Bars

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Here’s a secret.  The most inspiring connections can be found in mundane places.  Here’s another secret: people hate me at most airports in the country. Fort Lauderdale , Florida .  Me, on barely any sleep, which means I say whatever pops into my head.  I’m honestly very entertaining when I travel.  So picture a groggy girl in a very flashy airport, schlepping past beach bars, other bars, someplace called the “Caribbean Spirit Sun Wing,” and yes, a few more bars.  All very dazzling and it moves way too fast, as though my own body is on a different time zone.  My only real objective here is to make it through security in time to see my friends off.  So here's a mental memo: never wear custom made t-shirts through an airport.  I know it sounds strange, but apparently they contain traces of ingredients used in the making of explosives. Apparently that gives TSA fits. I’m only vague aware of alarm bells.  (Hm?  Pretty...
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