Well, hello there. It’s been a while!

Where have I been? I’m so glad you ask.

Under a rock is the answer. A very particular, very heavy rock.

I spent this last year teaching.

Yes, last fall I accepted a job with a one-on-one private school. I taught English and Life Skills to students with a variety of learning needs, from ADHD and dyslexia to autism and severe anxiety.

It was very rewarding. I met some incredible kids and inspiring teachers. Education is amazing, because you literally get to see your work growing up in front of your eyes. Someday I’ll probably end up writing about the experience.

It was also hard. Extremely hard. Even if I don’t mention the hours (ahem, unpaid overtime), that doesn’t even begin to touch on the stress and the chaos, the student meltdowns, the last-minute sub requests, the weekly Contagious Diseases Roulette, the discipline, the lengthy and critical parent emails, the active shooter drills.

If you can read this, go thank whoever taught you to read. No, really. Stop what you’re doing. Okay.

For myself, I decided to step away from the position at the end of the school year. While my teaching experience left me with immense respect for everyone who works to help young people grow up okay in a world that isn’t, I also realized that being a full-time classroom teacher isn’t for me. A worthwhile experience in itself. And the reason I have been mostly MIA from the writing/publishing world for a year.

Which was one of the hardest things about this job. Writing gives me life, and it was so tough to have nearly no time to work toward my passion. However, in spite of the chaos, I did still manage to accomplish a few things on the writing front this year. I wasn’t very good about communicating them, though, so here’s a brief recap in case you missed anything!

1. I released audio versions of The Illuminator’s Gift and The Illuminator’s Test
2. I gave a TEDx talk called “Do Something Worth Writing”
3. I had a poem published in an online literary magazine
4. I wrote a handful of new poems
5. I’m just happy I stayed alive for a year, let alone published anything!

Now that I’m starting to recover from a year’s worth of lost sleep, the creative juices are flowing once more. I have a few new projects coming down the pipe, at least two of which I hope to release before the end of the year! Keep your eyes peeled for:

1. An audiobook of The Illuminator Rising, read by my awesome British narrator, Wendy Wolfson!
2. A completely new book! It’s still very much under construction, but I will say that it is a book of poems.

Yes, poems!

I focused on fiction writing during my English studies and have never primarily thought of myself as a poet. Yet I’ve been writing poetry since I was 12 and have read, studied, and taught poetry in various contexts. I’ve even written about poetry, shared a few poems, and interviewed a poet on this blog. More importantly, poetry is the clearest way I know to give voice to the truth as I see it. And to make music with words, because words are beautiful and interesting and filled with all the meaning in the world. It will be very different in genre and tone from my previous books, yet I can already see that they will share a number of themes, such as loss, hope, and redemption.

More details to come! For now, I am happy to be climbing out from under my particular rock.