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How Brene Brown’s research influenced my novel
Over the last few years, I’ve become enamored with Brené Brown’s research, specifically with regard to empathy, vulnerability, and shame. On campus, I’ve executed workshops about Brown’s wonderful book, Dare to Lead. If you haven’t read this book, I strongly urge you hop to it. It’s a wonderful dissection about daring leadership, and what factors play into what kind of leaders we admire and what kind of leader we, ourselves, want to be. In the course of preparing to teach others about Brown’s findings, many of her assessments were illuminating, and as I began to figure out what my next novel was going to tackle, I landed on all three…
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The Process of Getting to a Book Cover
My newest novel, The Letters in the Books, is just weeks away from launching. I’m super excited about this one, as it was two full years in the making. Writing is a labor of love for me, and I just want to tell a compelling, yet sweet story that’s perfect for a beach read. This book was heavily influenced by Brené Brown’s research on empathy and shame. I have read her books and watched her TedTalks a million times. Her work on empathy and vulnerability in particular are interesting and worthy of your time. I tried my best to roll her findings into Meg, the empath and bookstore owner at…
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After Two Years, We Almost Have Lift Off
What is the process you go through to publish a novel? I'm sharing mine. Warning: there are a lot of steps.
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Friday Fodder: My Obsession with Letters & Journals
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, first, THANK YOU. Second, you may have read previous posts about writing letters and letter writing, because I’m obsessed with the notion of letter writing. And, you’ve probably also read many posts here about keeping a journal, most recently the one I wrote about keeping a journal during a pandemic. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Are you going to print out a text feed or email chain and save it in your memory box? The likelihood of that is slim to none. The lost art of letter writing is truly a loss of records. When someone takes…
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Lots of News & Updates to Share :-)
Hello, my friends. I hope you are all well. I know it’s been a while, and I apologize for that. I also apologize that my podcasts have stalled. They will be back, but the semester has gotten the better of me. Three more weeks, and we can close the books on the Spring 2022 semester! I know the students are happy. Because I’ve been absent for so long, I have a lot of cool news to share with you today! First, I was honored to receive the Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award at the Eastern Communication Association Annual Convention! It was such an honor to represent Stevenson University, and I was…
