Melanie Hooyenga

Getting to Know Cody Wagner

Getting to Know Cody Wagner

Cody is the award-winning author of LGBTQ+ trilogy, The Gay Teen’s Guide to Defeating a Siren. The series has garnered much acclaim, and is a Readers’ Favorite Book Award Winner, LA Book Festival Award Winner, and New England Book Festival Winner. Book 1 was awarded The National Indie Excellence Award, 1st Place for LGBTQ for Children & Young Adults. Cody believes in his series, which tackles coming out, bullying, math, and sirens with superpowers. The usual stuff. He’s handing out cookie dough to anyone who grabs a copy (okay, maybe not). Cody is currently working on a YA contemporary novel that should be completed this summer (woot!).

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After ‘The End’

After ‘The End’

One thing writers love more than actually writing is giving advice about writing (and then not following that advice) and the MOST IMPORTANT THING I’ve always heard is that after you finish a first draft, you must put it away.

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Getting to Know Jen Lowry

Getting to Know Jen Lowry

Jen Lowry is North Carolina born and raised, still holding on to that country slang that is unique to the small town of Maxton she loves so much in Robeson County. She an avid enthusiast of all things horror, UFC, and binge-watches old episodes of The Mentalist. She finds herself comfier in a pair of pajamas and would make all public appearances in them if she could get away with it. When she isn’t literacy coaching or teaching English at the high school, author coaching, or homeschooling her son, she can be found napping or reading more than one book at a time.

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Getting to Know Lisa Brown Roberts

Getting to Know Lisa Brown Roberts

Lisa Brown Roberts’ attempts to write serious literary fiction to impress peers and professors failed spectacularly, nearly destroyed her sense of humor, but eventually led to writing romantic comedies. Lisa lights her Jane Austen candle every day in gratitude for this miracle. 

Her novels The Bookworm Crush, The Replacement Crush, and more, feature adorkable teens navigating family, friendship, and first love, and have earned praise from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and the School Library Journal. Lisa loves hearing from readers who stay up all night reading her books, and blame her for their book hangovers. 

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Setting & Managing Goals

Setting & Managing Goals

The first step in setting goals is to figure out what you want to accomplish. You probably already have ideas knocking around in your head, so WRITE THEM DOWN. It doesn’t matter if these goals feel too lofty or aspirational or impossible. If it’s what you want, make it a goal. Want to learn to knit? Get it on paper. Got hankering to play the guitar? You know what to do. Need to lose the quaran-fifteen? Set down the Cheezits and add it to the list.

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Getting to Know Christina Herrera

Getting to Know Christina Herrera

Christina Herrera has always loved romance. Even as a child she would make up romantic plots with her older sisters as part of her bedtime stories. As she grew up, she remained fascinated by storytelling. When she was nineteen years old, she authored her first book. Ever since then she knew what she wanted to do in life: read, edit, and write down all of her romantic stories.

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My Word of the Year for 2021

My Word of the Year for 2021

I’ve heard it said that people with high-functioning anxiety—like myself—did really well the first few months of the pandemic and shelter-at-home orders, but by the end of the summer, it all caught up to me (which I discussed a bit in my last post.) While a lot of it can be blamed on the constant, low-level stress that’s been a part of all of our lives, quite a bit of it is because of bad habits I’ve allowed myself to fall into. I know we’re supposed to be cutting ourselves some slack during all this, but we don’t know how much longer our lives will be in this altered state and I feel like my options are to either keep floundering or adjust to this new normal.

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Looking Back at Being in the Moment

Looking Back at Being in the Moment

In January 2020, I declared this to be The Year of Being in the Moment. Today that feels almost prophetic, but at the time it was nothing more than a reminder to myself to focus on what’s truly important. My friends and family, my health, the little things that bring me joy. I started the year by training for and then performing in my community’s Dancing With the Local Stars, then in early March we vacationed in Key West with our best friends. We traveled home (BY PLANE!! ON MARCH 12!!) as the country slowly came to grips with what we were facing.

Like the rest of the world, our world suddenly shrank to within the walls of our house.

We were very much living in the moment.

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Getting to Know Kelly Devos

Getting to Know Kelly Devos

Kelly deVos’s work has been featured in the New York Times as well as on Vulture, Salon, Bustle and SheKnows. Her debut novel, Fat Girl on a Plane, was named one of the “50 Best Summer Reads of All Time” by Reader’s Digest magazine. Her second book, Day Zero, is available now from Inkyard Press/HarperCollins.

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Getting to Know Stephanie Scott

Getting to Know Stephanie Scott

Stephanie Scott writes young adult and romance about characters who put their passions first. Her debut ALTERATIONS about a fashion-obsessed loner who reinvents herself was a Romance Writers of America RITA® award finalist. FALLING INTO PLACE is sweet second chance romance part of a multi-author series. She also has a short story in the YA anthology WELCOME HOME from Flux Books and a holiday romance in TIS THE SEASON FOR LOVE, a limited release box set out on Oct 14. She enjoys dance fitness, everything cats, and has a slight obsession with Instagram. A Midwest girl at heart, she resides outside of Chicago with her tech-of-all-trades husband and fuzzy furbabies.

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