Sometimes, when I tell people that I write, it gets uncomfortable. Not for me, really, but for them. Because people have a habit of asking me what I write and, almost always, if I’ve been published. That’s where things get…
The Potential for Awesome — and for Thumb Cramps
Sometimes, I look at my students on their phones and I can’t even say anything. Because I get it. That need to know what’s happening, when it’s happening. The inability to wait, because waiting means not knowing and not knowing…
Pitch Wars 2016
Greetings, Pitch Warriors! Welcome to my little nook of the web. Feel free to take a look around, but you’ll probably to notice one teensy thing: my post frequency majorly dropped about a year ago. And for good reason. I’ve…
2015 in Stories and Adventures
As I prepare to drink a vat of coffee so that I’m actually able to stay up past midnight, I’m (not surprisingly) reflecting on 2015. And I know I’ll never have another year like it. I don’t mean that in…
Dreams, Nightmares, and Telling Stories
This has been one of the best and busiest falls ever. Seriously. I haven’t had so much on my plate and been so in love with the very fact that my plate is as full as a university student’s at…
Pitch Wars: Ashley D. MacKenzie
Welcome, mentors, blog stalkers, and internet robots alike! I’m Ashley. Hi! *waves* I suppose I should start off by saying that I’m not afraid of hard work. I mean, I teach high school French. To kids who are forced to…
#8TerribleTitles
So, as you may have gathered, I write. I write a bunch of different things. Sometimes, it’s assignment sheets for my students. Others, example essays that we can dissect together. I even write actual essays for my own coursework –…
For me, Surrey has always been the place to be.
Today was the start of an amazing three days. It was my first day volunteering at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. A conference that I get to hang around at for the whole weekend, volunteering my time, soaking in the…
Weekends are back.
I’m not opposed to spontaneity. I like going on vacation without a firm itinerary, and I’m all for dropping a lesson plan to embrace emergent curriculum. But as I sit here at five o’clock on a Tuesday morning, I’m contented:…
Cloaks, wands, and kickass characters.
I spent this morning hunched in front of my laptop, making revision notes on my young adult novel. It wasn’t a bad morning, really. I had coffee. It wasn’t bone melting hot yet. I was productive. But it wasn’t last…