Frequently asked...

The Dark Divine is a modern young adult exploration of The Prodigal Son with a paranormal romance twist. To find out more click here.

I like to say that The Dark Divine was born out of a perfect storm of ideas, thoughts, and memories that had been brewing over a few weeks time.

It all came together while I was riding in the car on a dark January night. It was shortly after I'd read the book Speak, watched the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time, listened to the song Such Great Heights by the Postal Service over and over again, and was asked to teach a lesson about the concept of grace at my church. I was thinking about all of these things, along with a random memory from the 9th grade, when we stopped at a red light. While sitting there in the car thinking, I looked up at a billboard in the dark and suddenly this conversation between a brother and a sister popped into my head. The brother was warning his sister to stay away from their former best friend. “He's dangerous. He isn't the person he used to be. You have to promise to stay away from him.” And that was when it all started. . .

Let's just say that one of the scenes in the first chapter of The Dark Divine is partially autobiographical. Ask me at a signing sometime, and I might tell you the story.

Yes. I am currently working on the sequel now. I will keep the site updated once I have a release date from my publisher.

My agent is the fabulous Ted Malawer of Upstart Crow Literary.

As for how you can get an agent—first make sure you have a great book. As the saying goes: “great books aren’t written, they’re revised.” If you’ve already written your book, I highly recommend you run it through a critique group, and take it to a writing conference to get a critique from a published author, professional agent, or an editor. (As a side note, this is also a great place to meet agents and editors and get an “in” for submissions).

Once you feel like your manuscript is the best you can make it, a great resource for finding an agent is agentquery.com.  This site has a search feature where you can put in the specifications for what you are looking for in an agent and it will return a list of all the agents that best fit your criteria with their background info, submission guidelines, and contact info. (Disclaimer: It is up to you to do your full research to make sure the agents you submit to are legit and a good fit for you and your manuscript.) The site also gives you some pointers on how to write a query letter.

Good luck!

Um….get an agent :D  See “How can I get an agent?”

Join a critique group if you haven’t already.  Read.  Read.  Read some more.  Then write.  Write.  And write some more—everyday if you can.  Most importantly, if writing is something you truly love, don’t let anything anyone says to you deter you from your goal.  You may not be ready to be published right now, but if you keep putting in the time and the hard work that it takes, eventually you will reach your goals.  Seriously, if I can do it… you know the rest. For more writing tips, click here.

Unfortunately, I am part of a closed writing group.  It is important that you keep your group relatively small.  If it gets too big, you lose the opportunity to help each other in a detailed way.