From the Booking Desk:
It has been an interesting year in so many ways. My wish for each of you is that no matter what you accomplished (or didn’t) this year, I hope you took a moment to celebrate yourself and know that your family and friends love you. The world is a better place because you are in it! It may sound trite, but we all need to be reminded of this–and if you ever have doubts, reach out to me and I’ll be there for you.
As for my crime fiction journey, it continues AND continues to evolve. Because of my own creative writing, I didn’t even come close to some of my goals this year–and that is more than ok.
I did read 120 books, of which I wrote reviews for 65 of them. I know that I missed some amazing books and I know that some of the books I did read deserved reviews, but I did the best I could (and I keep reminding myself that is enough.)
I also did 10 cover reveals for books I was incredibly excited and honored to introduce to the crime fiction community. We’ve already seen reviews for some of them and no doubt others will make the list in 2024.
Due to popular demand, I briefly resurrected the Composite Sketch feature where I profiled 11 members of our crime fiction family. I plan to continue to posts a few sketches each year, as time permits.
You may have heard that I also launched a YouTube show called We Are What We Read. Over the course of 8 episodes so far, I featured 62 guests, each talking about an influential book in their lives.
Last but certainly not least, I published my first short story–“Ticket to Ride” in the Happiness is a Warm Gun anthology: Crime Fiction Inspired by the songs of The Beatles. This story was written in collaboration with my dear friend Dru Ann Love. We are both so thrilled with the responses to our little story and are grateful for every person who took a few minutes to give our writing a chance.
I also managed to finish another solo short story which will be out in the Spring. And I have two more stories in the works which I hope to finish in the next few months. Then perhaps, it is time to try my hand at a novel–we shall see!
2024 is on the horizon and I hope that it brings everything you want and more. And since we all know it will also bring some challenges, I hope that we all weather them and come out stronger on the other side. Remember, we are all in this together. I am grateful to have each of you in my life, whether we have met or are still finding our way to our first encounter. I have lost some people along the way–both through death and other means–so just know that you will never be forgotten.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
