News — own voices

In honor of the release of her latest novel, We Three: One and One and One Makes Three, we chatted with Lara Zielinsky about the book, writing, and life in general.

Is there a character in your work you feel especially connected to? Why?

My girlfriend Lisa (yes the same one I co-dedicated the story to) asked me this same question when I sent her the submission draft of We Three for her opinion before I submitted to publishers. Because of the situation, a married...

It's one of the oldest and most common pieces of writerly wisdom: Write what you know.

At a glance, it seems easy to pooh-pooh. After all, science fiction writers have (presumably) never met an alien from the planet Zork, and to my knowledge, no one has personal experience becoming a werewolf. In real-world terms, everyone writes things outside their own lives, even if it's only the main character's age or career or home town.

On the other hand, there's something to that when it comes to certain things, particularly the emotions that ride...

I'm going to get a little personal here as I wrap up our Pride-themed month. I hope many of you were able to attend festivities (or will be able to; in my city, Pride is next month).

When I began writing seriously in 2013, I had no intention of publishing. I just wrote a novel to see if I could, thanks to National Novel Writing Month. I ended up with 50k words of what would be my first published book. It wasn't meant to be LGBTQIA+-themed, either. Let me tell you, I was...

It's June, and that means it's Pride Month! To celebrate, here are some awesome books you may want to check out! Many of these are also #OwnVoices, written by people who identify the same or similarly to the main character.

Lesbian

Adieu, Warm Sunshine by C.E. Case

I love this book. It's smart, inttriguing, and features a dancer as one of the protagonists. What could be better?

Underdogs by Geonn Cannon

If you like a little mystery, a little...

There's been a lot of discussion in author and reader groups about the need for sensitivity reading during the editing process. Good beta readers can help with this process. In my experience, editing will polish the rough edges and fill in the language cracks. But a thorough read-through by knowledgeable betas can help you over the speed bumps.

One of the things I look for both as an editor and as a beta reader are negative tropes. If you're unfamiliar with the term, a trope...