Update from the Fire Island Writer's Workshop!

Hi all--

Hope everyone is staying cool in this brutal heat (at least those of you on the eastern seabord)! I've been hanging in Fire Island (aka re-reading Harry Potter while submerging my feet in the freezing ocean), and now we're kicking off a week-long YA writer's retreat! So far, the star players are moi, Courtney Sheinmel, author of the recently released All The Things You Are, as well as Positively and Sincerely; Leila Sales, author of Mostly Good Girls and the forthcoming PAST PERFECT, and Lexa Hillyer, my partner in the literary development company Paper Lantern Lit and poet extraordinaire.

One of the best things about being a writer is the opportunity to come into contact and befriend so many other like-minded and talented writers. So far, the conversation has ranged from: the distinction between telling and showing, and how to understand and evoke that in text; what makes a good guacamole; how to avoid a riptide; and generating characters with agency as opposed to dependency (i.e. I did this versus this happened to me!).

Stay tuned for a retreat-themed writing challenge later in the week!