Posts by Christina Consolino
An Interview with Melissa Wiesner
2021 Debuts author Melissa Wiesner and I would not agree on the best time to write: “she’s a night-owl who began writing novels about five years ago when her early-to-bed family retired for the evening” while I’m an early-to-rise writer who started five years before she did. But we both agree on what to write…
Read MoreAn Interview with AJ Super
When I read 2021 Debuts author AJ Super’s bio—the part where she mentions living with her “two fuzz-brained kittiots”—I knew we’d get along just fine. And while I haven’t met her in person and write a genre very different from that which she is drawn to, I’m now convinced we’d be fast friends. Anyone who…
Read MoreAn Interview with Khristeena Lute
The more my writing world expands, the more authors I find with ties to Ohio. 2021 Debut author Khristeena Lute is no exception. She grew up in Southeastern Ohio before making her way to Arizona and Kentucky, eventually landing in New York. In ways, her writing mimics those moves: she wrote academic chapters about Grace…
Read MoreMother’s Day
Back in summer 2015, the year Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I blogged just about every day. Sometimes, I go back to those posts to see where we were then, both for general life events and in the diagnosis process. I’m struck by the clinical nature of some of my posts and the raw emotion…
Read MoreAn Interview with Katherine Forrister
Katherine Forrister, another 2021 Debuts author, just released Lodestone, a novel Cari Dubiel describes as “an impressive fantasy that leaves the reader both satisfied and wanting more.” Others who have endorsed the book mention the incredible setting, the complex characters, and the magic. What more could a debut novelist ask for? While Katherine might make…
Read MoreDays Like This
Days like this— after a surgical procedure routine for the surgeon but not for you when your belly is swollen and sore and you’re moving slowly slower than you have in years— are good days to speak to your mom. What other person will let you vent the exact way you need to? What other…
Read MoreA Grapefruit-Sized Pause
My life is busy. That four-word sentence doesn’t even cut the surface of that busyness, but as I always say, I am quite fortunate: my busyness is not bad, just tiring (I don’t get nearly enough sleep in my quest to get everything on my to-do list accomplished). But you know how it goes. The…
Read MorePodcast Love
Several years ago now (I actually can’t remember when!), I met freelance journalist Carrie Vittitoe when a friend and I headed south to Kentucky to attend a writers conference. She was speaking about her experiences, and since then, we’ve kept up with each other on social media. Fast forward to 2019, and she and Amy…
Read MoreShameless Promotion II
If I don’t promote myself, who will? That’s the introductory line of my last post on promotion, and a lesson I’m still learning. Eventually I’ll have learned enough about promotion, marketing, branding, and everything else that I’ll be able to teach a course. Maybe someday . . . But today, I have a fun surprise…
Read MoreDid Someone Say Free?
Book marketing is exhausting, and posting about the book over and over makes me grumpy, but my book (Rewrite the Stars, in case you’ve been ignoring me for a while) is FREE for a few days, so I’m writing about it here. And apparently I don’t care much how my sentences come together, because that…
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