5 Fashion Models with Secret Assassin Skills

August 25, 2016.Reading time 4 minutes.

A killer smile can only get a girl so far. These five fashionistas are not only amazingly gorgeous but possess very unique and potentially lethal skills. Let’s just should I ever need to put together an Ocean’s 11 style celebrity/assassination team (which I kind of hope I don’t because I don’t deal well with those kind of […]

The Tokyo Cover Girls: Making of a Book

May 18, 2016.Reading time 2 minutes.

I may not yet be done with this book birthing process (yikes marketing!) but I thought it would fun to look back on how I created the actual hard copy now that I have that part under my belt and in case anyone else is about to undertake the same thing. My first step? Shooting […]

The Tokyo Cover Girls in Real Life

May 17, 2016.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Da da da da! After many many years (why put a number on it?) my indie published book is now a real thing. The Tokyo Cover Girls is a young adult novel about three teens modeling in Tokyo who are trapped in a competition where the only escape is to uncover the truth behind a […]

Cover pages and other ways to lose friends . . .

August 23, 2015.Reading time 2 minutes.

The good news: my first round of cover proofs are in! The bad news: I am way pickier than I realized. On of my friends put together these mages for my novel cover earlier this week and while they are totally gorgeous they are totally not what I have been imagining in my […]

Got feedback? Let me resent you for it

May 4, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

I am not good at feedback. Whenever someone in my writing group says anything that is the least bit critical about my work I hate their guts for about 3 – 30 seconds, depending on how much cheese I have consumed. Once I actually process said critique, I am always Incredibly Grateful for the insight they have gifted […]

Literary agent webinars: dream makers or advantage takers?

March 9, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

I received several notices about webinars offering ‘exclusive’ access to literary agents in my email this week. I’m not sure whether to be excited—or irritated. When I was fourteen my mother made me an appointment to see a modeling agent. The agent’s name was Dyan and after taking my photo and measurements she apparently decided that […]

Things that inspire me to write #59: Cindy Crawford

November 30, 2012.Reading time 2 minutes.

Yes, I will admit it: I used stare at Cindy Crawford’s sand caked bottom regularly–of course, all in the name of getting fit. At fourteen, and pursuing my own modeling career, I was an avid disciple of her Shape Your Body workout. Cindy had thighs, and muscles, and faint but real abdominal muscles. While I took that all that for granted back […]

Things that inspire me to write #84: Kate Moss

November 4, 2012.Reading time less than 1 minute.

In a recent Vanity Fair interview Kate Moss recently confessed to all the emotional turmoil and anxiety she suffered during her early modeling career. For someone who has for so long been presented as the epitome of physical perfection, it took a lot courage to admit that in truth, she felt far from that. So […]

What matters most: a writer’s rejection

March 25, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

After five years of Penguin wishes and Harper Collins dreams, I have finally come to the conclusion that my memoir manuscript about working as a model in Japan may never be published. According to the most recent rejection, this one from Scholastic, there just isn’t much of demand for life stories in the young adult […]

In Search of the Ultimate Author Bio

July 2, 2011.Reading time 2 minutes.

Recently, agent (and yes, writing that phrase still makes me feel all special and bubbly inside) asked me to put together bio. And I must say, so far the task has proved even more challenging than writing the 58 000 manuscript it is supposed to be promoting. What makes a great author bio? What makes […]